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Quill nom'd stuff, if that makes it good - what inspires, words cast to a world wide wind. |
Whatâs NEW New 2021 Quill Nomination for this blog (best poetry collection): ![]() ![]()
"The Tender Core (Sedona)" ![]() ![]()
No specific aim going forward ▼ What I used to say: 'Maybe, I just don't get it. Watch me fumble with my version of reality, expose ignorance as truth. You don't have to get me, either. But, wish someone would explain me to myself.' Now I say: ![]() ![]() ![]() "A War Of Youth {Psychology)" ![]() ![]() ![]() "Time-Wrinked (Relationship)" ![]() Blog Won 2020 Quill for best poetry collection: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Who am I, you ask? My mirror knows that question, repeated daily. Just trying to create a little buzz, not boost my ego. #amwriting #poetry #blog #freeverse #contest #free #award #bestpoetry |
Prose and Dead Men Tiger-striped flannel and matching ball cap, if slid askew, would remind you of the old man sitting on the tailgate of his blue Ford, sheltered amid flocked customers and other vegetable growers. Cracking wise in the corner parking lot of the local farmerâs market, his hat true, angled in the locked position. A habit I suppose from serving in military. Big John missed death as a sentry in Guam by just one hour, relieved of post before another throat slit, some nameless brother in arms. A story you were not privy until a man. I scribble these musings in secret journals -- hollow words spun from a corner booth for hours at micâed readings where no one peruses the printed commitments amid pregnant pauses. My endless voice scratchings echo an arena choked, with tears in my eyes not for him but some liberal heart bleeding, pleading actualize the purpose of my prose. "Prose And Dead Men" ![]() |
When he scooped you from the earth, carried you to the speeding car that brought you down to the gulch where dutiful bees stung the small flesh, he realized war again â nothing like he ever fought but was prepared for. meanwhile, I obsessively plucked petals from white daisies, blissful, unaware how brutal life could be until rubber complained to the hot blacktop â when I heard his true love in wails echo above stubborn birch, pine and hardwood that every aware animal could witness. at seven, I believed he loved a small, bloody boy more, whimpering in clover with the yellow and black, and fractured leg to set. glowing white angels would bathe and tend contusions and abrasions, cheer a freckled chin. in my designated corner, a toy for distraction did not deter wonder â if I hurt myself, would he love me more? "A War Of Youth {Psychology)" ![]() |
On a dust plain, you see heat rise, distort dry fauna fading green. Bones ache, but your blooms distract, help me heal in precious, amber light. In porch shade we rock, glide side by side in silence all these years. A moment arrives so perfect, I kiss you, passionately, again, feel the cicadas unrest and tremor. We could strip to salt flesh I long to devour. You stand to refill our lemonade. My hand brushes the tender underside of your boot cut denim. Not long is dinner, sunset in Sedona. We will afford the loss of sunrise. Cayenne canyon of soaring rock fences us willingly within. No taste for dinner but soft cotton. Aroma of sandalwood encircles cooling limbs entwined. I feel beating beneath breathing and hold the tender core like a baby. Thankful, all these years absorbing color of sunrises and the view across a shared room. You could be a memory, constant in dreams, my soulâs red canyon. "The Tender Core (Sedona)" ![]() |
Ordinary as oatmeal, a collared dog that must walk, sunshine that arrives when you first get up, we still burn behind the mask. Free as that morning dove that builds a nest in our gutter, leaves, gentle, obey the wind falling, falling, falling down to this ground as we lay -- our lips embrace forever. Brittle twigs commingled lay broken, once green, swayed in our soaring tree. A warm canopy shelters: two children, three cats and her hamsters, content clucking, chittering like raindrops in our heart. Small hands tenderly wrap ours, typically calling, calling, calling 'come', knowing innocence, true beauty -- how we heal them in the night, unjust pain from fright, growing sickness inside, where we lay safe to dream. We are typical love, share stories together so others know how ordinary, as oatmeal.
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Isn't enough to sit, and just listen? What I learn, voiceless, I long to belong to something that does not wish to reciprocate. I long to remember the purpose of this aching container in a maze of avenues I once knew. It's all new, or are the maps spun so a boy cannot find home? Isn't enough to watch a parade pass me by, ignore yearning to participate, sound a horn for loving spectators, when it's just a spectacle I'm viewing. Lost in a crowd of strangers, the strangest of all acts like a fool, wanting. When the street hides in black, snow gently falling, I wander out to find youth. Memory of where I've been suddenly becomes true. And because you haven't learned the secret of a pale moon hovering my cold avenue, ears connected to a heart hear again without the din of you. 5.14.22 as is, for now |
I witnessed you at your round table; your eyes and slight curvature called smile addressed me (without word) as if to say I know everything. But, what I now realize: Satan acting like Jesus, protected by an ever changing cast of apostles until you are ash. In future time, Iâll witness that empty table to possess and order service for one. No glass will raise. Just a simple supper and feint recollection of indifference. Quill Nominated Best Poetry Collection two consecutive years, 2020 and 2021. |
My noise: just disturbance to you, distraction from whatâs more important, needs attention. But, wait! They donât love you like I love you. My noise, youâve been canceling, lives for you. Wait⌠White noise, you press the snooze on me, sleep, as muffled walls absorb my story. 5.12.22 If itâs the last words youâll hear, hope then, loudestâŚif not, best. |
Hand Wash Only With delicate cycle selected, trusted to a fine fabric, I fell into a wash with you. Turbulent times have been sometimes torn, always mended, but never the same as before. I slipped in this bath with you. Soft cells sluffed away, sent to a hungry drain eager for more of our skin. Turbulent it could seem, memory washing from life. With delicate cycle selected, let a fine fabric spin, again. 5.12.22 5.14.22 last two lines add |
Amid loveâs lonely and austere offices â reserved for you, giddiness of a child restrained. yet, a heart would chase: red tendril tresses flowing behind your form, lay gently down your ruffled blouse, pleated summer skirt in a wild weed, yellow sanctuary. Vibrant blue vistas gaze upon me, unhesitant pursue a boy, lonely and austere listening to release of those tender notes from coiled lips' charm. Youth lost years ago revived, longs lay beneath the red tendril tresses, a canopy for our shadowed love. Restrain my giddiness -- hollow -- yet pursue reservedly an echo. Vibrant essence, a tempting harmony, lingers like channels to caverns, inside castles of everlasting youth. Release those coiled lips with charm, framed by your hovering form. A boy lays longingly in our wild weed. 5.12.22 many revisions in private until public on: 5.14.22 Who is Freya? Read the rest of this blog. I also borrowed one line from a famous poem, also previously mentioned in blog, I think? |
what should I write next? do you dare my muse compare, respond to the core of you standing over, shadowing someone who has yet to stand up, compare to the size of you? I played your game; you ignore mine. that's fine. don't have time to learn rules forced upon me, not convenient to some like you, who abuses any structural thing. what should I do next? Should I dare mess with this muse and likes of you, someone who doesn't respond, indifferent, never reacting to a game of my words that could send you down? I'll have a few things to say before you open that mouth. I'm prepared. Be afraid, or find someone else to fuck with, unless there's no one else? I guess, no more games. 5.11.22 5.14.22 last edit yes, all these words written in haste one day that you collect, pretend not notice, to throw back in my face, when I smile, because I know I got to you. I could love you like no other, yet wonder, who's more afraid. |
Remember the camp creek, spying for frogs on weedy banks? You were freckled, and I was not. Buttercups captured our wonder, applying those soft, yellow heads to skin -- happy makeup to show mother. Under shaded apple, black and yellow -- graceful, dutiful. Pollinated pink buds bounced, freely inhaled, while chasing ourselves in spaces behind that blocked-up trailer. Serenaded by insistent, deep-hued violets, torn by small hands from their beds, amid sparse, bright green blades, brief bouquets we collected with grins, handed a silent woman on her patchwork in shade. Our commotion, her daily devotion, she remarked of our luck. With thirst, fed them in just the right mug, dipped in well water. Small, slithering grass snakes grasped on edge of tall, thick fern, you did not near. Bright white trillium would appear, thrived early that summer, she instructed us leave, let stray in forests like me, naturally. But, that mower gassed, smudged oil on red paint, roared to life. He let you take the handle. Running ahead, dared dandelions speechless, I spared any yellow friend you could not send down. Age-puffed, the wisp spores flowed like wild bubbles blown wayward from stick. Like me, soaring up lonely hills and trees, before gentle falling. Wildflowers meandered forgotten rust rails, more color than could be collected alone, dead and alive. Simple serendipity captured, their cost afforded smiles from her. Before maturation, I loved you, and you stopped loving me. Nature inspired the young dreamer, hope, nostalgically spares summers when she thrived, loved equally, but adored one childâs wild love. 5.11.22 37 lines free verse Left out: Innocence near power lines hidden, revealed strawberry under red-tinted leaves. Last edit: 5.16.22 |
I tease with words, not the components actual that compel the clock of me to tick. If I tell you I'm just a bunch of springs and gears clicking off time, the years, how long until you walk up to another for the time? I tempt with a tongue that knows embellishment from the lies, can keep track of the truth, where it wanders in a room we share. You can lay your ear to the skin of my clicking, know we're wasting time here, beautifully. You could reap every thought, uttering conceptual that compels me to ignore the clicking. If I tell you that I love you, it's as honest as truth, if a timepiece like me could ever be serviced, unattuned, lying in your shop, bleeding time. 5.11.22 fictional as anything else and still yearning to be real. Words are information and I feel like I've spilled a billion of them without being discovered as true self. Good thing they're scattered and mostly lost to time, because I still need revision. Even when I die. I 'dis' the honest in myself to guard the truth, not wanting to tell a lie, be forthcoming without capture by something lying in wait to steal my soul... who's gone too far with this now? |
I cannot crave you skin, the container, while light inside is disturbed, as our moon glows perfectly. You envision me hungrily, on platter, while a light inside fades cool. A color-draped sun perfectly sets. 5.11.22 how you know you've lost the feeling, cannot feed on love anymore, while remembering life is still beautiful. |
Just trying to feel something, anything, while I listen to you warble your anthem, this song that has haunted me for what feels life long, lingering. I peered in many windows, prying, searching anything sounding familiar like your voice, inflecting feelings haunting me, and scares with emptiness I miss, yearn to feel. Disconnected by a life I'm in, but cannot reach, there's you, visionary, echoing and inflecting words barely recalled. Inserted into a world I've never learned navigate, there is one beacon. No light, nothing to touch like a stone, a hunger for ears I cannot sate warbles about airwaves my wonder seeks with fuzzy head, scanning blinding skies lost on the ground. I cannot even clutch this pain inside myself, when you open your mouth. If I could finally ask, should you be found, would you answer a foolish boy, my disembodied captor? 5.11.22 there's no true comfort in words, only actions of a woman who tempts me to hope, believe, aim to try to figure out what this disconnectedness is all about. your voice has wings for you and if I could clutch you before you fly would I know be happy that I possess you they way you own me knowing love like this can reciprocate |
I know gaslighting, fire blazed before eyes numbed in my youth. Their aim could subvert me from truth, proves ignorant purveyors employed, brother against brother. Dystopia delivered through our open doors, hidden beneath the rug. 5.6.22 Something I went after, not finished. |
How do you move an empty wheelbarrow, no luster left and empty, stored to stand on deflated, lone wheel centered on winter ground. Vinyl on wood handles gripped firm, fading. Swirls of orange stains eat a purposeless tray, hollow from another season of neglect. Iâm shaken by feelings of my own worth, rusts a salt soul fading from gripped youth. Idle hands could rough in a new season. No soil or budding love in garden to move, remembering his mud-filled pushcart, purposed to mix a gravy of gray cement, sliding a supply in spaces of a ravaged walk. It never held for long. He used too much rock. The grass grows up and around a friend that my hands have yearned utilize. 5.4.22 5.16.22 edit Man bonds with idle implement, momentarily |
Cars And Trucks (2017) revised I am not gay in your world, but gay enough. I am not black, either. Yet, black Wherever I roam without you. I am not an immigrant but a stranger In an even stranger land, Watching their cries like infants â Helpless little babies I refused be, Since I grew up, took my medicine. Gut full of the stuff soothes what rumbles within. If I am not right Or left, I am wrong and alone, Watching beer-guzzling hunters haul Bloody trophies on trucks like freedom -- Mud on oversized tires, bedazzled grilles, With tow hooks, pulling tiny, two-wheel drive cars From ditches in dark blizzards. The babies drive off with meager thanks And expressions of shame. I go home to the goth girl, Attracted to friends who daily reject her â Shaves her head, pumps that brain With Korean anime, K-Pop and rants repression: From schoolwork to plight of LBGTQ. Thirteen-year-old, newly professed, Bisexual transsexual, with lips and face preparing even more metal piercing Than tender kisses of lost innocence. Her His brother -- tall, brilliant, Master of piano, brass instruments, Tops state ranks in testing: Math, English and Science. In dark, befouls basement couch, head strapped, controller aimed At a glowing, green Xbox. Too tired to remember hand in Missed assignments, our cause to track⌠Two parents who'll be damned these babies Donât make the grade, land on feet to struggle With something akin to virtual reality: Our foggy existence, find time to ponder -- Politics? What's this about 2017? Are you trying to get me to feel Something, Mr. President? Fabric of an already torn, nuclear family tugged. A tapestry too thin. Must we scrap it, Create another? And just how Are we supposed to do that when Babies bury shiny cars in ditches? Will the muddy trucks come? My sensible SUV can't save us. 5.4.22 revised poem 50 lines, free verse
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By the camp creek, spying for frogs, On weedy banks buttercups captured. Child wonder applied soft, yellow heads To skin, happy makeup to show mother. Under the shaded apple tree, viewing Black and yellow, so gracefully dutiful, Pink buds burgeoning pollinated. Below, Serenaded by persistent violets deeply hued. The most vibrant colors contained, collected In small bouquets, handed a scrub woman Who remarked while she helped find Just the right mug, dipped in well water. Where small slithering grass snakes chased Into thick of fern, bright white trillium thrived In late spring. She instructed me to leave be, let stray in our forest meadows naturally. His mower sparked to life, gas and oil Smudged the red paint, when I roared. To and fro, sent sparing every friend, Dandelions clotted a dry, dusty field. Yellow specter seldom seen age puffed Wisp spores, sent like wild, summer bubbles Blown off a stick from that old front porch. Wayward, wildflowers in alleys, behind shed, Roaming hill and dale, floated away down Railroad tracks, where lonely I flowed, too. Collecting every bit of color, dead or alive, A busy woman was allowed time to smile. Serendipity captured by innocence along Brush-cut power lines, connecting rugged Properties, revealed blooming strawberry, Patches hidden beneath red and green leaves, In those early days before full maturation. Nature inspired a young dreamer with hope, Nostalgically spared summers of memory When a woman adored a childâs wild love. 4.30.22 36 lines, free verse Prompt: What do (you) choose to see? The weeds or the flowers? |
Sheâs âfallen victim to flickering lightsâ In our small room and âIâm sorryâ But, âit doesnât matter nowâ. Then why confess these feelings, Darling? My morning Starling, When black drapes do not douse Insistence of a morning byway? Iâve fallen victim now to my regret â Early search in lobby of bland coffee That I must take issue with, Dump in three creamers to mix With four packets of Splenda, Cloaking a bitter, caffeinated flavor That does favor morning regimen. Does not soothe regret, night spent On a lump mattress unbending To a tender manâs low end. No hot tub available yet To soak the nightâs restless bones, Now tensing on the edge Of our shared bed. And the point Of telling me your disturbance, Rolled back over to sleep three hours beyond A weary head that gets no rest In a flea trap or away from A lifetime of expressed disgust Of my insistent presence by your bedside With so much as A chew, leg twitch or mutter. Nowhere else to go, not home. I freeze, tense, reside in pain So you can regain your beauty rest. |