snowry

Polka Dot Powder Peppers Drab Steel Sky

Star Fingerprints Dissipate Wet on Windshield

Flakes Float on Falling Harmonies; Midnight Tapers Flicker

Joyful Tolling Echoes Across White Night Blanket

Child’s Breath, Cold Smushy Nose Block Wonderland Scene

Moist Ashen Mounds Litter City Streets with Ugliness

Frosty Also Resurrected on Easter

Cool Confetti’s Final Frolic in Frigid Spring Sky

I wrote an ode

to snow

of heady headlines;

sorry

you hate winter.

molding (n)

molded
to
unmoldable clay
unflakable chalk
unmeltable butter,
pale
as sunless skin
grooved as grandmother's hands
flourishing like trumpets
impassive and majestically blind,
like Justice
on high

Telepathos

an elegant cacophony of horns:

static sound, dynamic—crescendo!

rhythmic, primal, classical . . .

overtop

a clinking cup

scuffing of a chair leg

graphite-on-paper: rough kisses

her arms reach on the

granite top

slightly too miniature for comfort

a gulf

between torso and table;

a channel

between her and

his head, ducked in concentration

eyes lifting: glass gaze of consternation

as he fidgets, figures, frames

O, Read her thoughts

upon the stream

of horns, beats, voices

across the granite, the space, your shoulder

ruffling the page

snapping off the pencil lead

an alarming ghost

arresting progress

—captured

just once before

. . . the horns, the beats . . .

the door—shut

the cup, gone cold

Locked Out

Locked out
Again
Pounding

On the table

Peering through the dark

Display

Do they know it’s me
Out here

In here

In the cold

Rummaging

Through my brain

For the keys,
Lost

Are those silly
Passwords

I can hear the rolling tumblers

words, numbers,
words, words, numbers

Combinations, clicking

Under my thoughts

Couldn’t give the neighbor
A spare

Anyone know a

Digital

Locksmith?

The magic words

Must be

working
If they’re

secret

Even to me

All Ye Who Enter Here

Hell superimposed.

Downtown reflection meets Dante-inspired Art Prize piece "The Inferno (From Ashes)"

April Showers

monstrous rain drops
of right angles,
sharp to touch
revolving, falling
through light and air
shimmering,
plummeting slowly
quickly
one smooth plane
—smashed! and shattered
to razor-sided chunks
dangerous and hard
fragile and transparent
cracked, crunchy, tinkling
beautifully
but broken

crashing and cracking
swept and ground
refired
refined
reformed
reframed
refracting light
oh, glass of souls
souls of glass
broken
becoming
beautiful

senses

sprawling on the fainting couch
staring at the walls -
at spider legs of cracks
and flapping strips too tall
to reach, they flutter -
a window must be open
the flushed face
feels fresh breath
a leg dangles off the plum upholstery
like a tentacle in death
another blouse button's come undone
another thought's been left

hearing nothing except everything
that's throbbing in the veins,
the silence of the darkness looming,
what's whirring through the brains

the heart was sick
the heart was free
the heart was lost to one at sea

it heard the cracks and dark and wind

it felt the light come beaming in

it still was sick
it still was free
it was found by the one who sees

“The expression ‘to write something down’ suggests a descent of thought to the fingers whose movements immediately falsify it.” – William Gass

Scissors

I need to find the scissors!
They always disappear
Empty is the kitchen drawer
(where they were shut
out of sight, out of mind
until I wanted to sever
or clip,
to permanently rend
in a second’s snip)

Someone is resistant!
To cutting and cleaving,
Slicing asunder
Or slashing to slits;
To splice is more polite
To reassemble, build, combine

But I must find those scissors.
To chop and piece (I need)
To strips and bits the old—
Confetti to throw up, to float and fly
(I need)
To fall into the future

good penny

You keep turning up
In my dreams
Where we star together in
Scenes from a sentimental movie—
I’m the quirky heroine
You’re my indie hero
And we’re famously in love . . .
But it’s not you,
Just a shiny doppelganger
Not tarnished by bitterness
Or intimacy-dulled at the edges;
Crisp, new, and bright
Heads up
For good luck,
Just a good penny
That keeps turning up

Live at the --

Strangers’ bodies bumping
Elbows in the spine
Mobs of unknown people
Restless feet in lines

Rows of human wheat
Transplanted in strange soil
Swaying together through the heat
Distinct as water and oil

To step on one another’s toes
And splash a stranger with their beer
To talk in someone else’s ear
And share their sweat and who knows what else
And push and grumble and stare
Trying not to acknowledge the ones with whom they’re sharing air
Feeling dirty, sweaty, and abused

Until the gods appear!
To strum a chord, and beat the drums,
And play to appease the hoard
Who sings and worships to and fro
Still bumping into those they do not know

Clutter

Shards of paper
Shreds of glass
Seeing through a window
Clouded by the past

Weightiness of pages
Crusty residue of thoughts
Expanse of brave, clear future
Encroached by emptiness


Trying to distill the uncatchable,
The irretrievable,
Trying to ignore the ever-present;
Paradoxes of crowded loneliness
And frantic apathy,
"Heavy lightness
And serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms";
Too tired to be young
Too careless to be old


Wet cloth, rubbish bin, and broom
Cleaning up and clearing out
But making no more room

Finding Ophelia

Certainly not kin
But more than kind?
Did she give it all away
And lose her mind?

Clean white Styrofoam boxes
Folded into themselves
Lining the shelves,
Neat and sterile as hospital supplies,
Lonely as a castle lookout;
Souvenirs of nights away
Forgetting father’s pressure;
Brother’s absence and hypocrisy;
Her proverbial prison of gilded walls.
Protected yet prevented
From living.

He charmed the ear, the lips,
The mind, the blushing vanity—
A promising escape
From another soul not free.
Something special with this take-home box,
Closed for once with tenderness.
A way out?
A newfound prison?
A true love?

It matters not
For now none of them care
They’re crazy, gone, or dead.
They only wanted to pull the strings,
Puppet their madness
Till it seeped down and down
And into her heart, too.

Something is rotten
The flowers will mask it
Fresh fragrance
To cover the death,
The deception,
The fact she’s been abandoned.

The water, the flowers
The rotten, the un-kind
Life and death
Cage and kisses
Lost, lost, lost

Loving men, and used by them
Left trapped and naked under suits of woe
Perpetually mourning and already dead is
Not to be—
For her, they left no question

To thine ownself be true:
Woman thy name is not frailty
It is kindness in an un-kind world.

Existential Punctuation

I'm beginning to use the ellipsis
as Emily Dickinson wielded the dash . . .

If she was hesitant, abrupt—
emphatic
—strong-willed.

What am I? diffident, dallying . . .
dismissive
. . . dubious?

Punctuation says so very much.
It says so very much?
It says, “so very much!”
It says . . .
what we want—
it to say.

White Fang in the Washroom

Sometimes
When I brush my teeth
The toothpaste foam overflows
The basin of my mouth,
Just at the sides,
Dribbling down in frothy tears
Like drops of blood or fangs.
I flash a sinister smile in the mirror;
I am a peppermint, fluoride vampire.

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away

Dense gray monolith, weightless, cresting on cross currents
Phantom of tiny droplets; neural web of beads, infinitesimal
Millions or billions or millions of billions
Attracted to one another
Like static follicles, magnets, lovers’ lips.
It waits.
Existing on nature’ whims:
Before jerked away on an angry breeze
Or dispersed or evaporated or plummeted –
A change of pressure, wind, atmosphere, temperature
The mutable forces of weather hold the gentle monster’s fate.
The bottom
drops out . . .
layer
after
layer
Sheets upon the earth
One into many
Many into one
A flood forming, fluxing
Dispersed, harmless, and floating forlorn
Churning with the soil, roiling over asphalt, tickling grass, flushing gutters, pelting windows, wetting hair, flowing and growing
The monolith mixes
With life

Last Night We Walked Together

Last night we walked through London
Arm in arm and holding close
Like old beloved friends
And lovers
Two of a kind
Both of one mind

We sailed through crowded thoroughfares,
Noisy and chaotic,
Bustling with grit and characters surreal –
Our strange street fellows a romantic blur,
Snow dampened daguerreotypes . . .
Lace and velvet
Too much rouge
Dusty coat tails
A stained cravat
Worn leather boots . . .
A seedy Victorian crowd.

Through which we sighed and marveled unscathed.
Your left arm was in a sling.
You wore a thick black coat.
You let me ride upon your back
Wrapping my grey wool-clad legs ‘round your tight torso;
My arms ‘cross your shoulders
Nuzzling my face to your neck, your scarf
Red, like my smiling lips, as I whispered in your ear.

You made me laugh.

We walked
It snowed
They bustled and jostled
We didn’t stop but laughed and laughed
And smiled with our eyes

Of one mind
Brisk and breathless
Alone together
In a world of ageless bedlam

Last night we walked together
In my dream,
My dream of London

The Reading Club

Every winter the library has a reading club:
Read books because we live in Michigan and it's winter;
Win prizes

I always imagine housewives and little old ladies
Sitting at home in their tacky Christmas sweaters
Curled up with some hot tea and scorning the outdoors
For romance novels and the company of their cats

And then there's me. I always look forward to joining.

Even though it's really not that exciting.
I rarely actually want the prizes;
I never win the drawings;
And I don't like the Bingo categories
Telling me to try some nonfiction or a local author

So God only knows why I dutifully fill out my contact information
And rearrange sticky notes trying to make the things I already want to read
Fit into the appropriate categories
Just so I can turn in a slip that, Scout's honor, I read 4 books this month
And pretend like I actually want another tote bag
Or a library-logoed ice scraper
And that I will actually have time to fill the entire card
In my already insanely busy life
For the satisfaction of a gift card to Applebee's


And yet, there's something about filling out that sheet
And turning it in
And knowing,
if nothing else,
I joined something.
I finished a few things.
I left another coffee stain
on another cherished page
of a thankfully borrowed book.

Cracked Earth

Annoyed by not knowing
Cranky and growing
In impatience and impulsivity

. . . live in the moment . . . but look
before you leap . . . do not worry . . .
be not hasty . . . good things come to those who

Hang onto the hard-tried proverb,
Searching for signs
Like the old woman
Searches for her youthful lover
In a wrinkled old face

Is this the face that, in age,
Is all the more the man she loves?
Or one more feeble façade,
With common flaws mistook for fate,
faith,
fidelity

Plumb the depths of intuition
Weigh the pros and cons
Till plumbs and weights
Have splashed the well to dry –
Cracked clay, baking in the sun.

A black umbrella in an ancient, papery hand
Shadows the fissures, like wrinkles, that web
The once supple, now sandy, sole
Blocking out a sun gone dark

A feeble step away and
The hard yellow earth exposed
To one pregnant, blue drop from above