I have been spinning
my poor-me’s into gold
for all the days
I can recall.
And using that gold
to buy everything
that I can hold.
But there is more to spin
each night
Rumplestiltskin.

I am standing in the rain
wondering when
you’re going to show up?
Cold, and soaked,
with all this gold
in my pocket.
And I am only going to wait
another hour
or two
then you can go
and get your gold
from some other soul.

To all you fools
who didn’t buy,
my outrage is screaming
from the tallest tower,
naked and bullied
and ashamed.

There
I’ve told you,
now you know my name.

~

From Poems from the Chatterbox

photo credit FreeImages.com/Ear_Candy

Hands bound, spread eagle
America murmurs a safe word,
Liberty
but the rape
(consent now withdrawn)
commences.

America struggles
gagged
her eyes pleading
as lawlessness spreads
and permissions fall
slapping her faster
than vanishing web pages
With each angry thrust
she sputters a safe word,
Equality
but another jab tears through her
sending millions of huddled masses fleeing
Oil gushing
Carbon belching.

America whimpers a safe word,
Justice
but this plunder is just getting started
He twists her over
like she is nobody
rams his hateful missile
into her exit
his puny but deplorable hands
on her neck
he squeezes
as her children run sorrowfully
down her cheek, bleeding
Mercy
she gasps, pleading.

Clout
She is out
Stars and stripes swirl into darkness
Safe word, Hope
Safe word, Pardon
Safe word a lie.

I’m haunted by words I said yesterday
they won’t let me go.
Promises, vows, intentions,
blowing the curtains on a windless night,
but they’re just the soul
of a dead decision.

I’m afraid
nothing is so simple.
To fall in love
was dead easy
but not simple.
The ghost is numbing, dumbing, humming.

And I am boarding up the old house.
The weeds will grow
and the ghost will stay
but I will go
because my heart has learned new words
that I am dying
to say.

---

 

From Poems from the Chatterbox

I am going to take fear out back and shoot him.
Stand him up against the shed
and blow his fucken head off.
I want to see his brains scatter
gritty and grey
like a cremated body.
I am so sick of fear
want a divorce
from this decrepit old man.
Sick of listening to him
waking with him
feeding him
tucking him in at night.
Courage is not the absence of fear
but moving on
dragging fear along behind.
So maybe courage is the creak
of the rocker on the porch
which continues even as the wind blows
or when I sit to contemplate
what’s what?
If I keep one toe to the floor boards
there is courage
creaking as I rock.
The mound of earth
by the shed
which worries the dog
none of my business anymore.

 

---

From Poems from the Chatterbox

 

The long cold silent winter
stretches out like a thin blanket
on a loveless bed.
I trust that
there is life there –
a barely beating heart
in hidden leaves and sunken acorns
frigid bulbs.
It’s the silence that deafens me.
No birds
no dogs
no screen doors slamming.
No ribald teenage calls
at two in the morning
from the bus stop across the way.
No songs
ringing out on six strings
sung with laughter
and too much red wine.

The sun colours the sky as it rises.
The bleakness blushes
and I am reminded
that this too shall pass.
The patience taught by winter
cold but not frozen
nor forgotten.

 

---

 

From Poems from the Chatterbox

My lips shall not speak a resolution this year.
Instead they will whisper a prayer
kiss a hand
press it to my cheek.
Bereft and longing
but I cannot resolve a path –
Will not resolve a path.

I pick my way through the orchard
stepping over ancient fallen branches
and rotting fruit corpses.
The sun
sinking into the horizon
blinds me, though there is a tree in the distance
a silhouette
black and invisible
and I am pulled forward
even as it disappears.
I say to Adam,
get out of my way,
you’re blocking my view.

I am mesmerized by that tree.

I hear my beating heart
a serpent hissing
a bird in laughter.
Trust that God does not mock us.

Turn over the hand
kiss the palm
let it happen
without resolution.

 

---

 

from Poems from the Chatterbox

 

 

 

 

 

I am trapped
can’t escape
banished to the cellar steps
examining my shoes
through my tears.

Living in this house
moving room to room
unnoticed
singing behind the curtains
floating in the bath.

I am a baby zombie
invisible
bumping into walls
while everyone
goes about their day.

How can I know
what I missed
if I never knew
it was missing?
My heart knows.

I am broken.
Need a doll doctor
to sew me up,
clean these eyes
bend back my leg

And walk out
the door
and keep on walking
til this house
is far behind.

But I am trapped
by the fear
that there is nowhere
but here.

Chew my arm off instead.

 

---

from Poems from the Chatterbox

 

 

 

 

 

I peel a clementine
and contemplate the world.
My world.
Soft little peel
spongy, barely clinging to the fruit
gives way easily
like a thin chemise.
He handed me this orange
so perfect and round
absolutely quenching
sweet and bursting in my mouth.

The sky storms
winter falls
the sun obscured
by a million miles of frozen tears.
I know what I want
what my heart wants.
The lingering bitterness of citrus on my fingers.
Hungering
for more of this magnificence
this sun in the palm of my hand.

Pray for wisdom.
Fill me up.

---

From Poems from the Chatterbox

 

 

 

 

 

I say yes
to this gift
on my knees
fumbling for words
yes
yes
yes

You want me this way,
this madly?
Then I am yours.
And I say yes
to this gift

I didn’t see to read
I couldn’t find the lock
I wouldn’t turn the key
I didn’t hear
what I could not say
it was there in my mouth,
yes.

The light pours in
the early morning
I feel a whisper
and it wakes me
my first thought is of him
your prayer on my lips
lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.

I say yes
to this gift
this prickling quenching numbing
and humbling
gift.
I am blessed.

I say yes.

---

From Poems from the Chatterbox

Gnarled old thing
with twisted limbs
and thick grey bark.

I lean on the fence
watching
as birds fly in
disappear into the leaves
reappear
flustered,
flutter off drunkenly.

The fruit glows
dark and shining
like eyes across a room.
I wonder
for I’ve ate apples
sweet and new
but I’ve picked apples
wormy and dry.

Such a divine old tree.
Somehow so familiar.

This fence is falling down.

---

From Poems from the Chatterbox

The winter is coming
the colour falls from the trees.
Soon the boughs will be barren
outside the window.
The light goes faster,
the day is gone before I know it,
and the candles want lighting.

I carve a pumpkin,
numbing my hands
in frozen pulp.
Stabbing eye holes
and a maniacal grin.
I light the jack-o-lantern
and watch it giggle
at the darkness, flickering
and cooking
its own brain.

A scarecrow
comes to life.
He stands before me,
plaid shirt, cocked head.
Makes me follow him into friendship
with his sad stupid eyes,
fools me down
a long, long path.

While he’s sleeping.
I find the matches.
Light his shoulder,
watch it smoulder.
Watch him blacken,
curl up and, fry,
Goodbye.

Hello winter.

---

From Poems from the Chatterbox

How can it be?
I strain to see
and pluck and pull –
futility –
and feel the prickly
little wire
poke through again
each week, each hour,
growing
like a menopausal weed
upon my witch’s chin.

And then
the old man, afraid and spent,
fingers frail as chicken bones,
pulled down the shades,
lost his stones,
bid goodbye,
death by poverty,
alack, alone.

And as I stroke
my soft new chin
in pleasant contemplation
I feel no more
the stubborn prick
of days of sin.
My inner whore delighted
to be free and faithful
gorges on gingerbread,
little boys,
and wild boar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am hopeful.
It comes in waves.
Hopeful
you will discover
you love me.
My despair
keeps crashing
battering at the break wall
says you won’t.

But I am as hopeful
as the large sky
and blue lake
that filled my eyes
today
and the tiny green beach stone
I pocketed
on this
St. Patrick’s Day.

I’m fishing
in a fathomless pond
reeling in six today
no seven
piscine quicksilver so easily
forgotten
dragged from depths below
I remember.
The water tranquil
mere ripples across the deep
dark green
a verdant vast pool
of whispers and secrets.
I pull them gasping
for life
breathe into them
they don’t die
dancing in the pail
spider web tails.
I write their weight
and tip it
escape
to be caught again.

At the fish & chip shop
I watch the greasy cook
smoking in the kitchen
something sizzles
the pimply limp girl says,
that’ll be fourteen ninety-five
and I believe her.

From Poems from the Chatterbox

If I were to lose my nouns now
as many women do
what would become of my poetry?
It would blow into nothingness
a silent storm waving beyond air-tight windows.
But I am blessed.
As the hormones rearrange my brain
and life, my nouns stick to me
like magnetic poetry on the refrigerator.
I am still able to summon a fleet of words,
flutter them down onto papers
like fighter jets to air-craft carriers.
I am not bereft
of nouns
just melancholy and moony,
wishing for certain aspects of the past to return,
not many,
just some.
I am still forging on with my flotilla of nouns
feathering and peppering the words in my arsenal.
I am still bleeding, breathing, scribbling
in the heat of this aging, flashing,
summer in winter.
I am hot with the change,
sleeping long and longing for a safe hearth
a peaceful heart
comforted in the scrawny arms of my cats
candles aglow.
I’ve begun building a house out of gingerbread.

I did not love you well enough
or deep enough.
I held back,
disdained.

And now regret
rains on me
for there are no further years
to fill with opportunities
for sunny affection
or daisy days.

I cared.
I took care.
I tended
but I did not love.

Today
I crack open and leak
from these wicked eyes
because I hate myself
for my lukewarm neutrality.
Why did I withhold?

I know the answer,
but wish not to reveal it,
for it sounds like blame,
but I was taught it.

Grief
is irresistible.
There are no fences.
It slips into my blood
like a snake into a river.
I am flooded with a gnawing gloom
a distracted inertia
a sore this and aching that.

It compounds.
Piling up
like flotsam on the shore
tamped down
like heat baked sand.

I sway
between the remorse
and the grief
of losing you.
Losing you now
to time
I can’t recover.
And to love
squandered
unredeemed.