I've been herewe

 Hi

Grief is so weird. It never ends, ya know? And it changes bit stays the same. 

I'd like to share some things I've written.

FOR JUST A MOMENT...IT'S WORTH IT

When you hear it

Can you see?

When you Fear it

Can you feel? 

The wind 

She sings And screams 

Dances and drums

While the moon

Fades from 

Silver

To red

To orange and magic

Inside corset colors

Of lace and frustration 

Nothing gets 

Deleted when healing

Is on the line 

Listen 

It's harder than you think 

Ask

Because that too takes

Lakes of strength 

We are woven 

Together

A tapestry

Of human and ape

Chimp, chalice,, tortoise, maple, mica 

Erosion both breaks and builds 

Time is the gift

Our children struggle with

The barrier that bars us from seeing

Easily

Our hope in fruition 

And time 

Is the 

Thing 

That lets the roots

Grow too. 

Let Time 

Rumble

In your bones 

When you hear it

Can you see?

When you Fear it

Can you feel? 

When you wonder

Can you wait? 

Can you? 

INVISIBLE

I never
Is a game
Many of us have played
Hoping for a glimpse
Into the sexy
Parts
The hidden parts

And then
There is the pain place
Of
I'll never have

A room tinted green
Shameful and invisible
What did you do?
A question that bends
In on itself
Because so often

It's nothing

I didn't do it
Right

They cannot
See

FALLING

I never
Is a game
Many of us have played
Hoping for a glimpse
Into the sexy
Parts
The hidden parts

And then
There is the pain place
Of
I'll never have

A room tinted green
Shameful and invisible
What did you do?
A question that bends
In on itself
Because so often

It's nothing

I didn't do it
Right

They cannot
See
Me

Trust is hard
Hope is hard.
And even when you make
The hard choices...

You can still be
Invisble

FALLING

Do you know
How quiet the deep is?
We make believe so much,
Tip toe through the sore spots
With our screams swallowed
And strangling us

We are the ones
Left Behind
And we wonder
How do you turn the sound down
When there is none?

We walk
Like you do
With our secrets stuffed
Deep down
Chained to an Emptiness
So heavy
Our limbs bend in broken ways

But quietly
A quiet so deep it silences
So much around us

Like snow, it blankets our world
Swallowing foot steps
Tears
Hopes

Do you know
How quiet the deep is?

They say it's better to have loved
And lost
Than never to have loved at all but
What about the walking
After?

For years. Without.
Holding so much of it
In

Whispering
Always whispering
So loud
The tears tremble themselves dry
Before even
Falling

QUESTIONS 

When I was young
It was wondering
Why they fought
So
Much

Then it was
Where is he? Why doesn't
He wasn't to talk to me?

Then it was wondering
Where I'd go
Who I'd be
Who would
Stand
Beside me

Time turned
And I walked
In the woods
In college corridors
Wait staff hallways beneath
Restaurant buildings

So many
Lovers
Cigarettes
Tears
Lessons
Poems
Books

When you are widowed
Too young (what age is old enough? )
Your questions
Bend

It's about how
To get through
Not just day to day
But despair to hope (because there are kids)
Hurting to healing
Hating it all
To

Embracing
The pain
Because that blood
That rage
That
Fear

He has a name
The name is
Having Loved And Lost

And there's verses
And books
And songs
Lives
Written about
Him. Her. Them

Here's a secret:
The answer looks like nothing
You've ever
Seen

No matter what you've
Read
Written
Done

It's bloody footprint
After stupid mistake
After gorgeous victory

And it doesn't end
Till you do

Because their father
Is gone
Your best friend
Is gone
Your love and hope and future
Is gone

At least
How it was all almost
Written.

So.
The next one is about
How do you find the will
To not just breathe
Again

But how do you
Find a way
To live

Again

Me

Trust is hard
Hope is hard.
And even when you make
The hard choices...

You can still be
Invisble

Alone In A Hospital...please

 Alone

Is an interesting feeling
It can be
So
Empowering

When you learn to ski
Alone
Laughing at your attempts
To fall, done only
So you can practice getting up.

Dinner and a movie
Alone
And drinks with
A book and notebook

And then, again,  Alone
Is quite
Large

When you walk the corridors of
A sleeping hospital
Leaving the father of your children
Slowly dying in a narrow bed with white sheets
And blankets warmed by
A machine
Your breasts full and aching
Dripping milk
For the babe who will grow up
Without him

Without anyone
But you

Because of
Nothing

Because nothing makes sense and nothing
Is planned

And after an eight year eternity
There isn't one voice
One heart

Other than yours

To care when your sunshine
Goes under the knife

And no.  It's not cancer. Not this time.
Probably.

Alone shows you just
How loud
Emptiness
Can
Scream

I don't like it here
And that's
Irrelevant

Alone
Is an interesting feeling
I'm ready for something
More boring

If So

 IF SO

I.

Could you

Believe that what I want

From you is actually

For you? 

I hope you

Let go

So you can hold on

Better to what is living 

Because if you hold on too

Tight in awkward places

It stops 

Being safe 

Can you see 

What you gave me 

Is something I also hope I gave

To you? 

Space

Time

A pause where beauty lived

Passion and, accidentally, hope...

Meant not just some thing but

Everything 

Can you engage your brain, but not alone

Sewn

tightly to your soul

Your bone... so tight it

Makes the light come through 

Even if you couldn't believe before

Can you

Now? 

Because then

It's worth it 

II. 

WORTH IT 

A bit better 

What is it

That you want... 

To be?

As you walk Barefoot, on fire

Through the woods dripping

With river water? 

Who even

Are you? 

I'm

Not sure, yet,

48 years in

But

I like when bugs 

Land on me

When children 

Smile at me

When old white guys

Let me hold the door for them 

(Without rolling their eyes)

I like sexy, scary, twisted stories

Spicy chips

And falling asleep

Fast 

Can you see

That what I want from you

Is what you've given me? 

Passion 

Hope

Yes, some pain. This one really is

What is, and also

Connection. Sight. When we were

Invisible 

I want the kind of vision

That doesn't spit 

On you

But spit polishes the mirror

So you can SEE 

y o u r 

I n c r e d I b l e

Worth 

Not just for me but

Because then, it

Was.

Grastoff Green Song

 A LESSON OF LINES

A.K.A ART

For John, the father of my friend Irene

A bard sings songs

Of far away lands

Of magic and of justice

And a green fog falls 

Softly 

from a velvet sky

A tiny light

White-blue blurry

Silently illuminates

A spotlight on

A memory moment

This One curls onto the couch

Cuddles into the corner sighing

Softly down to slow

Realizing their water 

Is just

Out of reach and a silent look

To That One, already settled when spurs

A small sweet movement

Without a blink, That One gets up

To deliver the tumbler of hydration

And the memory moment fades

The white-blue blurry light highlights a

Blossom of growth billowing through

A delicate deer skull 

Embracing a dancing, entwining

Spiked vine of maroon red roses

His troubadour song spins the green fog

Faster

And there is a return to

Here

Now

His deep voice sews words in

Your heart

And what you hear

Is one

Small phrase:

The small things

Words that ring a crown

Of lavender and daisies

Tied together as they twine

Through white gold rings

Chainmail too soft

For the battle field

And sparkling with magic 

Green purple white yellow

The stars are brought down

From everyone’s heavens

To dance around your dreams

When you slow, bow, breathe

And look around

The end, the beginning, the small steps in between

The twelve strings shudder as his song

Comes to an end

And the notes fill the void

From finger tips 

To hearts and lips

That sound is proof 

That we are one with

the purple pink teal sky blanket of Aurora’s light

The spider web wilting 

on the corner of the porch

The crows floating above 

circling bare branches

The river swirling and tumbling

over smooth stone

Woven and held together by

Lines we cannot hear and notes

we’ve never been able to see.

A Witness

 I think I learned things….

I learned a way to be patient

That didn’t require leaning on the phone

It is a breath...a step...a focused

Choice

As is

Letting someone in

I think I learned

That things which bring me

Only Me

Joy, also have a deep value

It is not my job to comfort            only

The pain of 

Others 

I learned you need to want

To try

Like an addict needs to want

To heal

Like a racist needs to want

To see

My soundtrack is missing

These long lonely months

I have so few tunes bubbling

Aong the stream of my consciousness

Touch

Is rare

Belly laughs

Nonexistent

Other flesh sensations 

    A bit         beyond buried 

I learned you need to hear

I learned you need to be able to hurt

I learned you need 

To

Be 

      Brave

If even barely baby steps

Are 

Gargantuan

From your vantage point

I think I learned things…

And wonder what about that

Matters

If no one will listen

And then

I wonder

What if you were the voice 

Of the Mother

Who birthed the beginning of

Us 

All 

Unable to share

Unable to prevent

Able only

Beautifully, bleeding along beside us,

To witness

To listen

To both cry and laugh

Alongside us

The River’s incessant, gorgeous

Chatter

The silver smooth voice of birds in

Song

The rustling, gentle rattley 

Whisper

            Of the wheat 

The ice that 

Clinks as it strikes frozen 

Wood 

The sheep that

Bleat a chaotic

     Beat into the night song

If nothing else

To have that,

With someone safe

Watching.

Counterfeit

Writing poems

To no
One
Emails to send into
Actual
Black holes
Serenaded by black bird corvid caws

Perfection
Memorized
Memorialized
Is all about persepective
Because we are all
Cracked

Perhaps for
You
Perfect
Is the isolated razor
Slice that
Severed your scarlet brown
Bogatyr soul
From
Your shriveled
Untested
Unwilling
Capable carcass

A foe who chooses over and
Over
To not only not enter
The arena
But not
Acknowledged the existence
Of garden growth and stone

Play, my dear
As your symbols sear to plastic
Binary equations
Holey socks, shirts, underpants and
Heart
Your numbered cubes and magic talking box
Are a kind of
Magic

Your gaze is more bored
Than fierce
Your cunning outweighs your strength
You boast without song
Although your ability
Hums brown and gray inside you

Have you noticed?
No one is actually
Keeping score

Photo credit: 

https://nicholaskotar.com/2018/05/11/russian-valkyries-woman-warrior-brides-of-the-bogatyrs/

The Moon, the Blood, The River, and Me

WTAF

I

I have felt no home and fight

To forge one

Every fire lit, is a song

To this desire

 

 Candles,

 Electric Stoves,

 Batteries buzzing

 Camp fire crackle smoke

Mess and mire

 

I am pulled to

Clean but

What?

 

II

What is it about?

Web weaving worlds within and? or?

Without

 

Cobwebs and dusty town streets

I can, have, will

Create a living construct

Not destroy

 

Snake like shadows sing songs into

Tubes of buzzing river water

Trembling out mystical sounding tunes

Making love

To a deep and silent

Setting sun

 

Reweaving tears to stick to muddy

Toes tasting

The eternal dance of hips

And heavy breasts

There is no thing to

Stop me

 

III
What is wrong?

My lips lie about

The ability of my limbs

About my own

Mirror Image-self

 

I do own scissors

So

I separate Their Story

From My Steps

 

Cut out something else

To stand upon

 

Snakes and owls

 

A tree of snakes wound around what?

Thick and strong and

Writhing

Wrongly while still

 

Supporting one

Small

Owl

Who sits, quite calmly

 

Death and deep deep

Mystery

Sublingual serenades

A fire in my bed

 

Breath

Of eternal life

Through the soft, sweet loss of

Love

 

Open

Your own hands-

Don’t you see?

Your own heart bleeding

There?

Begging for a change of

Belief?

Bending out the rigidity

To let life

In?

 

IV

More information

Is sometimes too loud

And

Less likely

To be heard

 

Just bend, barely till the flames lick and

Melt

You

Into what feels

Right

Hot wax wet

Winding and quiet

So quietly carving

 

Teach me how to hold

My drip

And tilt it to a pour?

 

V

I’ve tasted

Tried

Danced there, more than once

And still

A statue comes

Devours me

 

Where is she?

The Her that can murmur mumble

Scream and say

Precisely

How unclean and

Not neat

I actually am…I

Hear her

Now

 

I can calm my campfire heart

Pounding crackle snaps across

The dark,

Like tickled fireflies

Mirroring silent celestial

Rocks a million miles away

Old as dreams

 

I have lessons to learn

From unnamable

Made up universities

If only I could find

My notebooks

 

VI

I’d rather waltz

In the soft sandy moonlit

Memory

 

Tango recklessly

to toss my head back, too fast, too low

Laughing

 

Salsa along with swaying hips

Holding a hot babe’s ass in grasping

Panting hands

Barefoot still

 

We are and always were

One

 

The Moon, the Blood,

The River, and Me

 

Read

And bleed

Unzip flesh suits down

Filaments and

Bone

Red and rippling muscle

Vertebrae cairn creations

Dropped onto stone

 

And our eyes ignite coal fire flames

With hearthstone hearts

And flaming dragon fly dreams

 

I have felt no home and fight

To forge one

This journey is not an

Easy one

 

I’m hoping you have a light.