I would like to be content with my own company
but often dissatisfied with me
to sit with myself, silent
is an act I think I’d repent

I’m not confident in my opinion
in my comfort zone being a minion
of my own worth, I’m not singing
my self-esteem issues loudly ringing

My poetry makes me feel free
but I’m safe in relative anonymity
wish I could speak to my soul
whisper sweet-nothings, make it feel whole

Zero and one
it's off or on
from such simplistic seed
sprouted that which we all need

All from a building block of sand
imbued with purposed imperfections
came this virtual world so grand
allowing our world wide connections

Off and on
now off....................

The Smoke of Evening Fires

Lord, how many times have I climbed this hill?
the road seems stonier, steeper. How can that be?
I’ll rest here a while,
watch the low sun trail shadows
over the rich bottom lands
and the white church beyond the bridge.
The shouts and laughter of children
from the river, rise soft on the evening air.

I read your smile
there is nothing lovelier
to me than
that gap between
nose and chin

It lights you up
the handsome version
with good teeth
that you've always been

I noticed your smile
before I noticed
your shoulders
head
hair
guile

Other women do too
when you jet off
on corporate jaunts
I fret the smile won't
be for me alone

But you return
all smiles
all manly
all delicious
like crisp apple plump

When comes the spring, the flowers blush
with every color artists brush,
they call the bees and flies with wing,
the flowers blush when comes the spring.

The pollens pass with peaceful breeze,
then fly away and land in ease,
to start a life in numbers-mass
with peaceful breeze, the pollens pass.

The cycle goes once and again.
More flowers bloom to blaze the plain.
The incense's rich, it feeds the nose
once and again the cycle goes.

obsolescence, left eye pressure
another night sprawled on the worn desk top
the pleasure of freedom and two fisted appeal
seeping away these last 40 years
in days past a woman would wake me
afraid, needing a stiff spine and a steady gun hand
I would've drawn my hands through my thick hair
and sleepily, squint-eyed assessed her, drank
a 12 hour old coffee and bourbon and eased
her fear with steel and gun-metal eyes
with the flip of cosmic switch
no femme fatales left and a bald pate

seeking bluebirds,
those feathery nose tickling
variety of myth,
I board,
in pith and khaki,
a junk van
packed light for flight.
running on hot
rattles of hope
scratched aviators
and a new plastic identity

mirror cracks,
kaleidoscoping
the back-side of motion,
scatter the rain pretty
mud flaps, caked with
the debris of a muddled past
ragged and worn,
fall by the wayside

a hard-nosed cynic
is disappearing

there
ahead
somewhere

In deepest winter yet I walk
among my friends now all stripped bare
as time continues its slow stalk,
that lone hunter we all share,
but he's forgotten on this day.

For I've come here to escape time
as chill winds toss scant clouds about
and outlines puddles with thin rime
in low spots all along my route,
a logging road of frozen clay.

Until I find a favorite spot
a low bluff over middling stream
a place I think by most forgot
a perfect place to sit and dream
to listen to the pine trees sway.

I didn’t mean to hurt you
I swear upon my heart
When he asked if he could walk me home
I knew I wasn’t being smart
He put his arm around me
He started playing with my hair
I told him I had a boyfriend
He told me he didn’t care
You can’t turn back the clock
You can’t go back in time
He was older and so was I
The chance for love had passed us by
There are times I wish I could turn back
Things are so different now
And I want to be the girl I was
But I don’t remember how

I try not to go down memory lane.
The packages there,
I don't want to open them.
It's not like Xmas, when the joy
is seeing joy and it's multiplication.

What hurts is not me.
Behind regrets and hatred
is that silence where no 'other'
is remembered; no 'other'
niggles me with pain.

I lie still and try to be calm,
to rest as if floating
and when the buzz saw outside
intrudes, it's only the builder
next door, making something new.