Category: poetry

Soft Shapes

Rollerskating on the moon has been my ambition since I died. It was a sunny day and no one heard the Aspen trees whispering, their taffeta leaves rustling in a language that predates man by millions of years. The lake watches me. The clouds, ever jealous of the soft shape I fill empty space with, watch jealously. In a paddle boat, ghosts of birthdays past and future argue with one another. 

The Language of the Damned

My visual language is a spicy hellion. Flowering trees mean, “release me from the nuthouse.” If the buds are pink, I’m being badly psychoanalyzed by a therapist who I’m sure is a walrus inside. Clouds mean luxury. My body is undefined and unquestioning. Yielding to pressure. Sumptuous and yet plain and smelling of petrichor. Images are ideas incarnate. Poetry is a snapshot of my mind’s eye as it roams the dying earth, sprinkling water on the tulips as I pass from field to field. I want to farm flowers, syllabi, and the blue of the blessed mother’s veil. What a business woman I would be – not dressed up and with too many places to go. Why not have a monsoon at my expense? Dance in the incandescent rain. The damned watch from below, their bodies shimmering in a heat too intense for comprehension.

The Nuthouse

Windows to concrete. Ghosts of sanity smoking together as though huddling against the world. Maneating sedatives prowl the corridors looking for victims. You will not shut off my personality. You will not condemn my name as unfit. The hunted can hunt. My 9 year old self watches, anxious and disappointed. I peer around the corner, braless and determined. I’m going to dance like a ballerina to any tune they play because I have to get out of here. My soft soul can’t survive it.

Limiting my Limitations

Frenching with ardent snowflakes was my youthful pastime. Once, in high school, I danced like no one was watching as the snow gently fell, but I was in a courtyard surrounded by windows, and everyone was watching. Early hypomania, before mania bloomed in my mind like a cantankerous blossom of energy. My ankle is derelict. I can’t walk far. But my mind is at the edge of the solar system, stepping out into a blistering future of stars.


Prairie Like Tinfoil

Jilted raindrops storm off from the clouds. The prairie wrinkles and crumples like tin foil – and it’s just as shiny. Angels play Uno under a lone tree, who helps one of them cheat. I walk toward them but will never reach them. The prairie has other plans, as does the dragonfly shimmering beside me. I’m pretty sure he’s just Death singing a lullaby only I can hear. My soaked slip sticks to me like the music of my husband’s deft fingers. Lingering in the cool air, half evaporated ghosts of truths long lost.

Sail Away Sail Away

Neon nefarious nepotism among the clouds creates chasms of lightning and love. Deep in the gorge, I make a boat out of a pallet and an umbrella. The umbrella is purple. So is my grieving spirit. The river will rush through the canyon into my veins. The rain nourishes the curving river as it cuts around red rocks. I hear it coming closer. I have my boat. I have my bruises. I have no reason why. The river lifts me up. I am 37 34 25 21 19 and then 9.

Only Jesus and I See It

The flavor of his chocolate pie is deafening. Today is marbled, a muse of comfort. Or maybe elegance. I’d like to say comfort and elegance can “coexist” like it says on those stupid bumper stickers, but for me they seldom can. Around the table, saints with no stigmata. But the barbs in my brain break free frequently, and deep in my husband’s psyche, a wound tears softly, as though my husband’s essence were perforated. His halo is turquoise and silver and shines like the sun. Only Jesus and I see it.