Once Upon A Prairie
Hair thin, wheat bleached
Standing tall under the Nebraska sun
Ramrod tall she was all bone
And sinew strong
Made for holding toddlers in
Check and pinning clothes
On lines between gnarled trees
Hoeing gardens and hauling water
From the creek a mile away
The sun is so thirsty in Nebraska
She scowled at the haze
Rising each day to scorch
Hopes for dewy mornings into submission
One day she cooked breakfast for the children, her man
Washed dishes and pulled her sheaf of hair
From under a brimmed hat
Walked outside and dove into the long grasses
Wave after delicious wave in the wind
She swam

———————————–

Remaining Wild
Deep inside the prairie grasses
There lives my heart
Roaming free
Wild beneath the wings of hot breezes
Basking beside the shores of winding creeks
Pressed against the mossy banks beside the willows
High above the furrowed fields beating in the breast of the eagle
Even in despair even then, you will find me there
When the days are white with heat and shimmer and dance with a life of their own
When day after day the same old dusty ballets are performed
When the cedar trees are wailing under the burning of the searing gusts
When the dying corn bends toward wilting knees praying for the rain

Even then, even then

My wild prairie heart will remain

————————————–

GONE ALREADY
Somewhat hesitant in the loving

And too damn eager to slam out

Walk jauntily into the blue sky of anonymity

Beyond the incessant lullabies of pounding feet

No pattering that but

Hard crashing of clogs barreling down narrow wooden hallways

Screams of orgasmic delight next door

Smells of the fetid meat market too long lingering and shifting shadows of you

Perched on a couch checkered with ejaculatory emissions and pizza

Smoking

Your gray eyes already traveling I 80 in escape

———————————————
Big and Empty
somehow I got
this far
midnight crescent moon lit walks beside the point
until yesterday I thought I was
doing okay
doing without
but now I feel like
like an echo’s
echo
merely a shadow beneath the blinding sun
bleached out
drained and left out
for the wind to blow
me like a man made
plastic Walmart bag
dancing alone across the
big and empty
fields outside my home

———————————–
MAGIC MOON DUST PERHAPS
Frequently I am startled to find myself awake
Fumbling in the darkness
To escape the ghosts
Tripping merrily in my room
I rise up from the bed
My pink nightgowns soft hem dusting
The Seventeen creaking stairs
As I make my way down them
This scene is so familiar
The soft moon glow
Gleaming white and cool
Outlining the curtains
Illuminating my children
Twisted in their innocent dreams
Hair awry and the sweetness of their lashes
Against their apple red baby cheeks
The incessant drone of the attic fan
Reminds me of the crickets
And then I think
It was sucking up great big gulps
Through the open windows
As if starving for a breath of freshness
Then spilling it out to settle wherever
And I wondered if that was the problem
All that fine lightness in the house
And me breathing it in
Filling up my lungs with the moon rays powdery talc
Magical dust that was trying to transport me
Into the evening sky
I could almost feel my feet lift off
For the tiniest moment… in flight

=================================
CARRIED AWAY ON SPIRALS OF SMOKE
Lifting push pins
releasing snapshots from the old wall
curling memories flutter
like butterflies in a breeze
and they fall
they fall
to the floor
like so many leaves
on a crisp Autumn day
feet shuffling through
and then raking into a pile
they burn
they burn so well
a tiny spark growing to a fiery blaze
sending out a pungent smell
finding a way to escape
that scent carries me along
on those spirals of smoke…
to a place I once belonged

============================
Remembrance
Well, the dreams don’t help any
Fully colored
Livid
Sharp as a brand new scar
On flesh
Keloids
You
Don’t know
How jagged
You
Left me

My skin

Will never be the same
=================================

SHE DIED QUIXOTIC
She wanted only the brightness of chandeliers to welcome her home
not the thick dark molasses shadows that greeted and held her fast
caught up in sticky claws reminding

no one is here for you
you are alone

struggling seemed too difficult
better to lie still under a thick blanket of longing and loss
morose with the weight of doom swathing a black path across her dying heart
give in and let flames consume her shriveled soul
she would never know the mystique of her demise would be nothing more than a sad glance in the morning paper
‘Ahh perhaps she had a terminal illness’ some would say, explaining her early departure from the kink they liked to call life, as they read the obits, and tossed down black coffee, kissed the wives sped down highways to upper class offices, had affairs with the deciduous secretary of choice on long lunches, came home late to supper with 15 minutes to bond with the 2.5 kids they had planted deep in the belly of the high school homecoming sweetheart who exonerated her husband at her monthly woman’s club meetings with all the members approval because:
He provides so well and actually who needs all that sex anyhow…really it just frees one up!

she would never know her dreams were just on the edge of the neon horizon waiting to burst forth in a painful birth

this was a poem based on 10 words given my Mark Stolk
quixotic,swath,uppish,morose,chandelier,deciduous,mystique,
exonerate,kink,molasses
Thanks Mark for the brain exercise…I don’t feel so flabby now!!

=========================================
Tears In Glass
I remember well that cold flat gray

The outstretched arms of our silvery leaved elms

Heavy with a mist

Unseasonably clinging to roof tops

We sang out Olly Olly Over in voices

Thin yet, with childish glee

We on the teetering edge of outgrowing such games

Pretending enjoyment for now and sometimes concealment of such

I remember too well that day

Age has not dimmed my memory of mothers startled gasp

The fear sinking my eyes down to the tips of my curling toes

She reached out her hand to steady and perhaps soften the news of your death

Her hand smelling of the onion she was cutting for the soup that day

I could not cry

I could not cry

My grief was too deep for public viewing

Inside and alone I spoke your name to the mirror

Tracing an imaginary path in the glass across my cheek

==============================
Mend Me No More
whenever did the end come
and why didn’t I know
and where was I
and where do I go
from here
does the broken part of me
that was
does it ever…
does it ever…just become
whole again
or is it replaced
with cracks and bridges
and tape
and wishful thinking
and…pain
I want no more of this
leave me
shattered and torn
in pieces
scattered across the floor
I want no more of this
I want no more of this I say
just go
mend me no more

===============================
I Am So Unaware
entering soft blackness
eyes open
gasping inside for air
the light of a rosy dawn
kisses my cheek
I am so unaware
greeting the neighbors
without a blink
shadows have filled me
and left me cold
the blood of my body
slows
I work without knowing how
everyone around me is so unaware
a corpse walks in their midsts
tentacles of ebony
shoot through my skin, my veins, my bones
securing themselves to my soul
then even prying open that
crawling into and spinning
a silent choking web
throughout
I am so unaware
and do not seek to leave this cocoon
that will become my final downy bed
but put down my head and slog
turning from gossamer silk
to impermeable stone

=====================================
Nerve Root Exposed
a scar
a nick
a dent
time chipping away
the seed. . . long ago spent
now flat
hollow insides
dry
flaking
chaff in the wind
~
a flight?
an escape?
a death?
a choice to be made
~
eating enamal
nerves exposed
pain and
more
pain
now for then…and then
for now
========================

Airplanes, Fountains and Blowflies

I noticed a black speck of something
at his gumline near his left incisor
Don’t you floss? I wonder as he leers
answer to this silent query
no surprise when the smell of his breath
hits my face
…an airplane made of beer cans circles over my head
CAPTAIN ARE YOU IN THERE?
circling always circling in fetid air
an unwilling witness to all that happens here
Free to fly but tied to ever circling plane in fetid air
Irony so painfully clear
Greasy hair pokes my eye
concentrate!… Will it to go blind
Neon lights glow on and
off and on
spotlighting a hanging fountain
dripping foul water
Drops of oil glisten on threads
strung around its parameter
watch them climb the strings then . . . drip . . . drip
caged in by times oily grip
Neon light flashes off then on
then off
Blowfly lands on the corner of mouth
washing his face relentlessly
obsessive even in this ritual cleansing
before leaving for greener pastures - Mondays sandwich
I think…or Thursdays leftovers…
A doll stares unwavering
eyeless sockets her only anomoly
waiting patiently for pink dresses, ribbons and a tea party
ever faithful, blind to lifes travesties
Over head circling and circling an airplane
flies but never soars
fountain drips foul waters
neon sign flashes - shining on a hopeful face
and a blowfly washes…washes…washes

==============================
Cancer Is So Artsy
what kind of poetry
do cancer cells mouth to the gathering crowds?
what kind of dance?
what type of painting?
maybe a Picasso wannabe
what sound?
wind chimes, one melodic bar striking another and then another
dominos
following a haphazard
pattern less
random musical score

the sounds of harmonicly challenged notes

=============================

Refresh Button
button your lip
tightly
for you don’t need to
speak to the Lord
she’ all alone in her upside down house
basking in the startled gaze of the angels I believe
there is nothing on earth so vivid as the sight of that party
except for the patch of sunlight that perches across your hair
you seem unwise to the ways of this world you might be scolded
unaware of the beauty of letting those words fall into your ears

downy thoughts unhinge open fly from your eyes don’t they just wish
you could put life into them and let go

there seems to be a controversy about the way some people use their space

================================
SURROUNDED BY DEBRIS
I see you
you see me
we meet, greet on the street
and a fine sift of red haze
settles over our backs
our face
getting into my eyes
I rub it away
gritting my stained teeth and leave
backward glancing I weep
for me
no other way to say it
I see you from inside
you see me from a distance
but undercover i think
can No one else feel
glass shards spun into cotton candy
biting back
a dust cloud follows me
turning my vision into mud
tugging at my walking legs
quicksand
running to escape
I fall (just like the movies)
and i am surrounded by swirling debris
I decide to lay there and take it
as it comes
barely flinching as I am clubbed

==============================
An Infant Cried But Once
living for many months
fourteen
in the sewers stench and filth
hiding
many were saved by an anguished mother
killing
her newborn child one night
stilling
that constant hungry cry then
placing
the tiny lifeless body
gently
atop the group of stiffening corpses
silently
she screamed while standing alone
watching
the floating raft of dead drift by
cradling
her babe in the arms of death
rocking
in an icy bed her son
sailing
black waters underground
quieter
beneath the ghetto streets
quieter
now the crying babe has gone

never will a babies
wailing
sound the same again
to me

Inspired by an article about people living in a sewer to escape Hitler soldiers…for 12-14 months. A woman had her baby there…and you saw how it ended…

=========================================
Longing For Warmth; Bread.
the dank odor of a cellar greets me
as I open the door
lonely for warm bread
I open some crackers and put them on the edge of the window
maybe the sun will come out today
maybe the whole damn place will smell of home baked fresh
maybe a Thanksgiving dinner will appear on a long table
surrounded by laughing people who toast one another
and a child will ask for a leg
and everyone will laugh
and give him the prize
and his eyes will open pure wide
maybe Christmas lights will glitter like diamonds
and everyone will be dressed in warm burgundy clothes
their hands wrapped around a glass of cider
someone will be playing the piano
we gather and sing carols
arms around shoulders in friendly brotherly love
maybe the doorbell will ring to the giggles of children
dressed in outlandish garb
begging for treats with bags open wide
and I’ll pretend to be scared
and hand out candy apples and popcorn balls
and no one will refuse
because everyone knows I make the best treats
and they will thank me
and I’ll sit by the fireplace because it’s a little chill
and my dog will lay by my feet
and I’ll read a book of poetry
waiting for the bell to ring again

maybe I’ll just sit on a cardboard box by the window
watching a package of crackers
waiting for the sun

=============================