She’ll Only Come Out At Night

Today in paradise I peer
through glass, looking out
my front door. My muse falls
into flowers praising morning.
I’m wary, casting careful
eyes on the woods, just there,
where black bears lumber
and bobcats spry and shy
leap into trees. Respect
is due. Butterflies and blossoms
and my meditative ways may
soothe the overwhelm of travel.
Far away from my comfort zone,
I’ve landed
barefoot in a new day
feeling the earth’s generous
embrace–a walker strides by
checking her pace, ears plugged
against the sweet and subtle
birdsong–it’s early still.
Some days I rhyme myself
to balance but last night
breath protested my constricted
places, as intimate lovers
will, dedicating the long hours
of darkness to struggles of will
finally waking bleary-eyed and
silent, alert for any signposts
leading to love’s healing light.

Inspired by looking out my front door at dew-kissed blossoms, Muse, Spry and Glass. Happy 02202020!

Soundcloud recording here.

Get Well Soon

I don’t mind raising a ruckus
about injustice, people called
luckless when in fact they’re
strangled at birth, the future earth
a tangled rumor they have heard
but never felt,
trafficked by greedy manipulators
of belief. It’s tragic. The rich
construct an idyll for arrival
if only you work hard for just
another cycle, betray your brother,
deafen your heart to your soul’s
calling, you’ll be falling
on your feet tout de suite.
I share this improbable bloom
this glorious hibiscus just for you.
Celebrate your delicate beauty
available here today, the way
through the hustle of
unintegrated past that masquerades
as future, beckons, preens
triggering a chance to be seen.
We’re swimming in collective trauma
eyes open in the midst of drama,
reaching out to those swept away.
I cannot save you. I am revealed.
Hiding enslaves you so I’m
calling out the crimes, being
with my flaws, intent to heal.

Inspired by: Rumor, Traffic, Cycle and Ruckus.

Soundcloud recording here.

From The Air

Once again I go mobile as my
social nature beckons past
the pain I always knew outcast
the only girl in a boy tribe–
I became a scribe–the earth
sign among the air brothers,
left-handed awkward. My mother’s
despair, I didn’t seem to care.
Round peg rattling around the boxes
which never held securely.
Always toppling out immaturely
at inopportune moments until
today, uphill, I recognize
the convoluted path of my
endurance from the skies.
Pure chance, the window seat
shows the flows I meet
dancing winding reaching touching
water meanders through the clutching
squareness of farm-field plots.
Sniffing a copse,
backtracking for a kiss and on a slow
curve following the movement of life,
round and brimming undermining strife
on my linear track. Looking down,
I see I’ll not take up the slack.
Canyons are carved by running streams
and so I’ll continue riding this jet stream
alive, awake, contained at last
my open heart can hold the past.

Inspired by: Endurance, Social, Go and Track.

Featured image from Steve Hillebrand.

Soundcloud recording here.

Exponential Leap

The moving walkway is coming to an end.  Please watch your step.~Recorded airport announcement

Your evanescent dreams disappear
as if the iteration of you

dancing into this space fears
to be seen, not enough, untrue,

just wrong. As if you need
an alteration to fit the story

modify your heartbeat
because the rap of history

spit relentless by affluent
victors with strong prospects

collected from your half-ruined
hopes, distracted you expect

linear like stepping onto
the moving walkway, carried

in a fog as we’re all drawn to
the tales we live and breathe.

Today right now opens night
songs and sheer poetry

this field of pulsing light
resting, held in dark mystery

we finally celebrate.
Take care. The world’s in flux.

Don’t take the bait,
the lure of hate; it’s love

that powers the new plan
together we connect

and span the living bridge
the time and space open our range

hearts full of bars
we sing in perfect pitch

earth-rooted, heads in stars
a song praising our change.

Inspired by: History, Evanescent, Affluent and Prospect.

Soundcloud recording here.

Check Your Baggage

When I am down and I forget
the way we were when first we met
hold my eyes, reach out, my love
just recognize we are kind of
the same, inside the skin and bark
and fur and feathers. This whole
game of hide and seek when we pretend
we only go so far and then we end
palpable here as we avoid each other
all the struggling excluded brothers
here converge, awaiting flight
we bite our lips, we are polite
lacking special courage that it takes
to bridge the gap for human sakes
though crises loom, we’re in our heads
sneering at our different threads.
I’m sitting in the terminal
poised boomerang’s return
to my roots. My potential’s germinal,
nearing spring, and so I yearn
with this young heart to serve
the sour and the cynical
a dollop of joy and verve
bless the inimical.

Inspired by:  Terminal, Boomerang, Sour and Young.

Soundcloud recording here.

In Thrall

I step out of my waiting
into our debate: every move
you make embraced.
You’re from the tribe that likes
to speak of turning the other
cheek, pampered, smooth and oh,
so white, isolated from the freaks
in their unspeakable plights
that arise when clean water
can’t be touched without gold.
You’re sold on this platform
competing for energy you willingly
provide to run the ugliest
game in town, in the world
so round. Your chains
disdain and scorn for those
you’ve climbed upon.
Standing isolated in your mind
the ones you’ve left behind
beseech you: turn
in the spiral of life
that burns us all.
Listen. In your heart
we call.

Inspired by: Pampered, Debate, Waiting,Isolated and the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt Cheek.

Soundcloud recording here.

Holding A Mirror

“Healing is ultimately restoring the web of life and it’s restoring relation. It’s restoring our capacity to resonate with each other.”~Thomas Huebl

Lately I have sworn a mission
to unearth deadly superstitions
my self-created artifice
a heavy-handed fist.
A child in danger finds euphoria
in mystical incantations, a story of
what would be most desirable
in a world of known trouble.
I wake woven into the lines
I’ve spun, fairy-tale fashion,
how childhood’s begun, sing-song
battles of evil and good.
On the snow-covered sidewalk I pace
wary while a man with a masked face
in a trance seems to dance
in high-tech second skin, so thin,
running easily past the treachery
I perceive: the wind a brutal hiss
for me, while he’s in bliss.
He’s free in ways I’ve not conceived
another creative way I self-deceive
clear in the mirror he’s unknowingly
holding gently and showing me.
As simply as appearing in the cold air
we heal each other.  Life’s a love affair.

Inspired by: Euphoric, Most-Desirable, Superstition and Artifice.

Soundcloud recording here.