The Poetry Marathon

EVERY TIME I’VE LEFT

every time I’ve left

I was right to do so

maybe not right in my words

my thoughts or my deeds

maybe torn up, shredded

on expectations and disappointment

maybe savage and ferocious

lashing out in my pain

but I know something now that I didn’t know then

I needed every wrong turn, every misguided step

to find the places where my joy was real

and when I was finally there, in a place where I was happy

I knew I was always going to make the next right move

even when everything else around me was wrong

because that’s all I’d ever done

just like every time I’ve ever left

so that someday, I could arrive

FOMO II

somewhere there is a party

friends are drinking and laughing

somewhere people are together

and I’m not there

maybe it’s better this way

I wouldn’t want to ruin the fun

or put any undue pressure

on an evening with anyone

but I wonder and I worry

if I’ll be there at the right time

to laugh and smoke and intertwine

to socialize and really unwind

I hope they remember me

while they’re celebrating together

I hate being alone, and feeling forgotten

languid and abruptly devouring me whole

THE MOUTH, PHOTOSYNTHESIZING 

bubbling up and branching out

through all appreciative air

effervescent sparkling spirits

rooted together under the ground

just like our breath branches out to the sky

what we share is immortal

ageless light for all beings

we’re shifting and sifting out the gems

we rattle our insides with delight

we’re the rhythm of the roots

BIG SHARP POINTY TEETH

maybe we aren’t bunnies after all

we cry, we bite, we stomp the ground

we could be dangerous if pressed

we have fluff but we have fangs too

and no it’s not a quest for the holy grail

although some will think it should be

especially if some call him tim

there’s blood and bones but we look so innocent

pat warned us how love was a battlefield

we knew it was a dangerous game

but we believed in the stories we tell

through our bodies and our eyes

we’re not just hungry and horny

though one could be forgiven for thinking so

there’s a rage to all the niceties

bundled in the center of our cuddle puddle

so maybe just consider that a warning

kindness comes worthwhile for its own sake

but if that motivation won’t make do

fear can stand in with a smile and suffice

BEFORE THE PINES WERE GONE

lost under the heavy snow-covered branches

we saw the fort was mostly built already

a slanting roof and long walls

only a door was still needed

we built whatever was necessary with mittens on

we covered the open door in a picnic blanket

(each season calls forth a new meaning)

until it was twilight, we were frozen wild

then with red cheeks and noses

we toddled in out of the icy dark, shaking off snow

and always we were met by the same reliable mug

of warm, comforting hot cocoa

BEYOND THE FROGGY REEDS

-for Peyton and Hale and the Big Big Tadpoles

we picked up little seed puffs and they looked like salt potatoes

we listening to ska and reggae music drifting in and out of the trees

up and down the rocky paths, mountainous but not a mountain

maybe long ago we would have been singing to keep our breath

but it’s the 21st century and we’re still smoking cigarettes

our nature is just as organic as all we encounter

but the birds are hushed and bothered by our racket

we’re unapologetic and we don’t litter our butts

sometimes all you can do is your least-worst

we wander in and out of the dappled green light

sometimes crunching past quieter than we mean to be

we’re hungry and we want more of everything

more light, more music, more view of the valley from the bench

there’s an enormity to the mountain that only the music can touch

we picked up little seed puffs and they looked like salt potatoes

our nature is just as organic as all we encounter

PORTRAIT OF A GREMLIN CHILD GROWN UP

~for Peyton, and the mullberries

the adult in me is a color vampire

draining the rich greenness out of the woods

what I touch I consume

what I consume is left listless

straining into something like classy

the way a gold sharpie can lend an air of wealth

without the breath to taste any aura of illusion

this wasn’t always the way

once there was wildness

berry-stained exuberance & gremlin delight

the way memes, like poetry, capture a heart

without daring to think next of how to tame it

the adult in me is hungry & ugly & bruised

& more than anything ashamed of all this being

so do I wish myself back into color?

are you wishing with me, climbing up into the brambles?

do I turn pages hoping for another splash,

berries again this time instead of wine?

choosing grass stains over sex sweat or maybe

only so simple as choosing not to choose

my sorrow above my joy

our sorrows and our joys share us all in time

scratched arms and full bellies go together

choosing to love like I don’t know my own hurts

reaching to see the colors I can give instead of take

THE SHIH TZU GURU

Dear Nadine,

Do you remember what I taught you?

We played together in the summer sun

I was your neighbor as much as my owners

You were happiest to see me when you came home

Do you remember what I taught you?

We ran, we barked, we rolled in the grass

I knew tricks and I liked treats

We had that in common (and I bet we still do)

Do you remember what I taught you?

We got soaked in the sprinklers to cool off

We weren’t afraid of bugs or dirt or being sweaty

We were too consumed by life and play.

Please don’t ever forget what I taught you,

That friends come in all shapes and sizes,

That Joy comes first, that Now is forever,

and that Unconditional Love can be as easy as Play

Your friend, Kimmy

ANOTHER SEA OF CLOUDS (REFRACTED)

we’re peering into the windows of tomorrow

shadowed by sunflowers and tangled in vines

we’re walking on and over our own heartbeats

buried deep under the shimmering city pavement

we toss a blanket down with our submarine sandwiches

cream soda and cheddar cheese, laughter and memories

someday when I write like a writer these scenes will live forever

one hardback after another piling in a pyramid of aliveness

a monument to the moments that made me

knitting pages of conversation together under a shady oak

we can call it the space between the way I hold a wine glass

and what it actually takes to be a cougar in this world

we’ll call that window a mirror if it can nail our image down

when your satchel holds half my purse and all of tomorrow’s stories

MILLENNIUM NOSTALGIA: CIRCA 2122

once there was a time unmediated

where black mirrors were an accident

but the digital decay has heaped up all around

covered by domes or just proximity

with no difference between skin and an interface

that world of rawness, rocks and twigs

unreachable now as clean water

once there was a time when music was made,

art, literature, goods, all by human beings

with hearts and hopes and wickedness

but those were hands who made their own worlds

now our hands receive without any part in making

our minds call forth what we wish and we

having never heard of a monkey’s paw,

(or even a real monkey) receive with insatiable delight

all our desires fulfilled- fruit that never goes bad

girls who never grow old. perverse plastic perfection

and outside the bubble, the consumed, the rot

which we haven’t found a way to repurpose yet but

just give us another 20 years of glamor and greed

and surely by then we’ll have gotten around

to grinding away any proof that Earth Herself

was ever more than another ancient legend.