Star Status

Demi Star dims.
Her phase is waning.
She’s never really been
The mass potential
The Mother Star was,
Or a Gassy Giant like Him.
What will become of the Shining One,
Dwarfing in Red’s lesser glow?
Disappointment’s gravity determines her status—
Querulous, sullen, Black Hole.

-jenn long

Sometimes Our Shadow Outweighs Us

Sometimes our shadow outweighs us.

It can pull us down into its lair,

Where the grotesque shapes confound us

In two-dimensional style.

Strange proportions taunt us

To look just a little too long,

And marvel that things could be different,

And wonder which illusion is wrong.

 

-jenn long

Mooring

When I die,
Don't bury me
Under corded sand
Of some barren prairie.
Tear out the stale pages
Of Shakespeare and Poe,
And cover me over with them.
Then rip out the heart
Of Emily's best.
Fold them, origami,
... Into a vest,
And a pearl,
And an Earl,
And a print-stained rose,
And let me moor, too, in Eden.

-jenn long

Rack 'Em

I racked the balls of my own theology

While straddling a fence of the insurmountable,

Right in the face of evidence contrary

And the substance of things unseen.

Except for the aid of micron-electroscopes,

My naked eye strained to comprehend,

But in the light of such blinding pain

And questions of future reproduction,

Matters shifted visibly and my better priorities

Rose to the top with the cream.

 

-jenn long

Language Barrier

Oh, he was a cunning linguist.
He spoke in a torrid whisper.
I tried to return his advances,
But was just a cunning listhper.
Maybe my accent fell upon
The em-PHAS-is of wrong syl-AB-les,
Or maybe the breath marks confused me
Until I wasn't able
To comprehend any language.
Not a single phrase he uttered
Til he pulled me over and stared at my mouth
And watched me while I stuttered.
But when we were together,
There was never a misunderstanding,
Our bodies talked without a word,
Masters of understatement.

-jenn long

An Even Bettter Punchline

The most intimate thing we'd ever done
Was laugh in bed together.
He'd tell a joke,
And then we'd make up
An even better punch line.
Then, like swallowtail butterflies
In thrombosis- deep migration,
Our chuckles would flutter up
And pop on the chandelier.
The laugh lines moved us to a place
Where the horrors of life couldn't touch us.
Our cheeks might hurt,
But every other pain would always disappear.

-jenn long

Manchurian Candidate

I was pretty sure

There was a chip inserted

Here and there just under my skin.

I seemed to go AWOL

And Manchurian Candidate

Without my Soul’s approval.

But an X-ray revealed the basic truth:

Simple neuromuscular junctions

Carried out the willful missions

Of my own diabolical brain.

 

-jenn long

Lonely Clown

A lonely clown sits

On the rock-wall partition.

He’s waiting to make someone laugh.

But without his makeup

And oversized shoes,

There’s not much chance for that.

But let him revolve again

And circle back,

And even his big red nose

And painted teardrop will be gone.

Then the unborn, un-killable part of himself will manifest,

And he will love again.

 

-jenn long

Barefoot Claims

All of my claims are barefoot claims.
I wield no power of the gifted.

I speak not with the tongue of the learn-ed.
I see myself not as others see me,
But only as I am.
And without one plea,
I bend my knee
To the forces of love
That dissect me,
And expose my every weakened wound,
And every half-brained plan.

And then I move
Along shattered lines
Of other frail flesh
Of other frail kinds,
Of humans, barefoot,
Such as I,
Who long for beauty,
Who hope for truth,
Who die in swoons
Of passion's vermouth
To live in the ether's eye.

But come Great Whirlwind,
Set me free!
Set me free then!
What about me
Prevents the great liberation
From settling deep in my soul?
Might I but peek
As I lift the tresses,
And examine the light,
As the light undresses
My heart, and all of its faulty intentions,
Then, I might truly see,

And be whole.

-jenn long

Doing the Best I Can

Outlandish,
The notions of mortal man,
Who does what he wants,
And the best that he can,
At any given time.
 
He is not given to anything else,
Unless he would contemplate
The Inner Self,
And the virtual reality
Element of the sublime.
 
This world is a stage?
Can you re-write your part?
Can you locate
The field of dreams in your heart?
Can you see the scope of the plan?
 
I have nothing to lose or to gain.
I am free from pleasure as well as pain,
Content, whether I am abased,
Or whether I abound,
 
Free from competition,
Free from hate,
Free to love,
And to cooperate,
For I’m doing the best that I can.
 
-jenn long

Lilliputian Nursery

In the Lilliputian nursery,
They put me in a makeshift playpen.
My giant frock enveloped them.
They fluffed their way about.
One sturdy worker busied himself
Til he found my secret ruffle.
He put his shoulder against it,
Forcing it up and finally out.
The others bootless steps were like kisses,
While he tugged tirelessly at my seams.
I lay helpless, tied face-down,
Bloomers toward the sky and lost
In all my enormous dreams.

-jenn long

Back in the Saddle

I rise and anoint my head with gladness.
I sing the songs of yesteryear,
When my address was far from Yearning,
And my visions sweet and clear.
I resort back to diet coke,
And find myself in school again,
Reliving the knowledge
And the whir,
Of state dependent learning.

-jenn long

Stepping Stone

I know I'm a stepping stone for you.
But I don't even care.
There's something so inherently lovable
That systematically fells my resistance.
So just for today, my love will get you through,
And tomorrow,

Well,
I'll still be here.

-jenn long

Birdsong

Not a lot to eat around here,
For a little bird in the winter.
The seeds have blown
And the worms have all dug deep.
Yet this morning I heard
A lonely bird,
As he crooned himself to sleep.

“Whip-a-whoo,
Whip a whoo,
I love you.
Whip-a-whoo,
Whip-a-whoo,”
He sang.
“Whip-a-whoo,
Whip-a-whoo,
I'm here waiting for you,
‘Til spring thaws to summer again.”

One shining crow hops the meadow.
He seeks his sleek, black-eyed starling.
I roam the trails where love never fails,
Looking for you, my darling.

“Whip-a-whoo,
Whip a whoo,
I love you.
Whip-a-whoo,
Whip-a-whoo,”
I sing.
“Whip-a-whoo,
Whip-a-whoo,
I'm here waiting for you,
‘Til winter flows warm into spring.”

 

-jenn long

Amber Love

Let's suspend our love in amber
So the honeyed residue
Will never grow decrepit,
Never know the cold ennui
Of a thousand setting moons.

Yes, we'll always wonder
What might have been, my darling,
But the rosy glow of possibility
Outshines the glare of shunned  peaks’ imperfection,
And the hangover of ugly cellulite and cheap rejection's swoons.

-jenn long

A Pound of Turf

And now the reputation meets the line

The play is called

The snap

The mass confusion

Pounding blocks

And shoulder to shoulder blows

And a seam just parts

As you take the handoff and run

And I am the turf you tread in all your glory.

 

I feel your weight

Your power and your strength

All the nights of coaches’ hopeless words

Telling you, you would never make the big cut

Your resentment rips the painted numbers

The chalked outline of yardage to be gained

And all your love and all your hate together

Churn me into furrows in your field

And you pound me

Like a fist on disenchanted lies

That scurry away from us like baby crows

 

Oh baby

You are strong and you are true

Brilliant and bullish

Tender and charming

Everything I have ever wanted... and more

Things I never knew

I wanted

Things I never imagined...

You... are glorious

And bound for glory’s land

The Poetic Side of DNA

I like to write about
The poetic side of DNA,
And, yes, I think it has one.
I look for the metaphysical portion assigned
To the living and the dead.
The genetic code beams ancient mysteries,
And answers in graphic content—
2 meters of mechanical precision sprawl
From a tenth of a tiny pin head.

The vision rewinds

Exhuming a time, pre-deluge,
Pre-lapsarian fall,
When it was good,
Or good enough
But not mistake free, at all.
For the seeds of disease
And mortality
Were already at work
In those C T A G’s,
Long before there was
Any apple eatin’ going on.

-jenn long

Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers don't lie.
Or, do they?
Who’s pushing the pencil, here?
Embezzling me?
Wearing away my identity?
Taking my breath away?

With every fudge,
His fuzzy math nibbles me,
Quibbles over my sanity.
My earnings lose the war of attrition.
The scales have started to sway.

I've lost myself,
Who I thought I was.
A stranger emerges
From the dust.

I’m unsure of whether it's me he wanted,
Or if he'll be happy with her.
But either way
She's all that's left—
After the carnage,
The demise, the theft.
She’s penniless, too.
That's one thing that’s for sure...

-jenn long

Saving You For A Rainy Day

I'm saving you
For a rainy day—
Dropping sweet memories,
One by one
Into the slit of my big pink piggy
While smiling a wistful smile.
The copper clanks tinny,
But their repercussions
Precipitate heavy and valuable.
They enter my heart with a solid thud.
And don't worry.
It won't be long.
The clouds are gathering as we speak.
And right now, there's a forty percent chance of rain.

 

-jenn long

Here to Eternity

Don't ever start to listen
To that ringing in your ears.
Don't ever shut your eyes
Or cut them over toward the source.
Don't linger in the rhythm's madness,
Or you might begin to hear
Patterns and messages
In their quadratic codes.

But if you start to take apart
The thinly woven veneering,
Everything false will splinter,
And your maxims all will fade.
The wilderness truth will set you free,
But free for what?
To wander?
Desperately and deprived
For your next hit of reality?

But if you dare to translate
The moans and shivering quivers,
If you dare to come apart yourself,
Then enter the splitting seams
So that Love can burst your digits.
There will be streams in the desert
And blooms,

From here to eternity.

-jenn long

Queen of Heaven

I chased the Queen of Heaven east—
Into the morning, into the dawn.
I tried to catch the train of her robe
That shimmered like ribbons of steel.
They fluttered just above her ankles

And split to a striking knee.

She snatched the hem as I reached for it,
In billows and in gathers,
And hiked it over the hollow of her thigh.

I caught sight of her blinding nakedness,
But she reigned supreme for twelve solid minutes.
Then completely nude,
She disappeared

Into the rising sun.

 

-jenn long

We Can't Handle The Truth

What would you prefer to hear—

That I’ve met somebody else,
Or that I don’t want you.
People say, “I want the truth.”
But we don’t.
And so we feed on lies
And crap fantastic obstacles for ourselves.
Half-truths equal full-sized confusion.
We fall and wonder,
“Where did all this life pollution
Come from?”

We created it,

Right out of the chaos that was
Just before we were.

-jenn long

Beyond Believing

There is a cosmic force beyond believing—

Forget about understanding it, or ever seeing

It with your optic nerve.

But beyond our vision,

Beyond our days,

A notion of verve,

A Life of Lives,

A True and Metaphysic

Entity of unmolested Time

Holds forth an open shew

Of Power, and Mystery Triumphant.

-jenn long

Oh Happy Day!

O Happy Day

To you,

Sweet muse,

Of glorious independence!

Raise your hands,

And strengthen the knees

For the weight of your transparence

Is heavy,

And solid,

And full of delights,

As you liberate

Those few who can bear

The hard sayings of Truth

And Truculence,

And move from the gullies

Of their own despair.

 

O Happy Day!

And forwarding addresses!

 

-jenn long

Conditioned To The Unconditional

I was thinking today
About tough love,
And how I'd like to lay some on you—
Line some hoops out for you to jump thru
To prove yourself to me,
Keep a record of all your wrongs,
Throw them in your face at night,
And jump on you to keep your ass in line.

But then I remembered my contract,
And none of that fits my job description.
The love goddess is called only to love,
Never to judge or to dismay,
And so I throw myself at you,
Heart and all, over the bar,
And rattle the cages of all that's good,
So the take shakes out your way.

And it's worth it when I see the miles
Roll back on your odometer.
You look 22 again
When "sweet" melts thru your coldness,
When "love" shaves the brusque
From off your face,
And reveals your inner smile.

-jenn long

Open Window

I raise the window
And put myself
Where the light shines
Into my eyes.
Sapphire floods the throne
Of my soul
Like the blue of a thousand skies.
And elbows down on the sill
 and face in hands,
My thoughts of you
Ejaculate
Into the fecund womb
Of a tomb
With no point of view.

But how the seeds of love and life glisten!
With authority they redefine,
Pulse, emit, and quicken,
And cause a new beginning in time.
Winter is over in my heart.
Lock and key lie sprung
Open to the liberating force called Life,
And it's heroes, yet to be sung.
And an unspoken prayer radiates,
Quivering hopefully,
Ever gaining in intense power,
As the curtain blows,
And the sash falls satin,
And silently onto the floor.

-jenn long

New Plate

The plate was too full,
Cluttered and bulging.
The sight of it sickened me.
I threw it up against the wall
And shattered its very existence.
None of it was what I wanted.
I had just taken a bit of all that was there.

The rains came
And washed the walls of indifference.
The sunshine faded the settled away.
And in the twinkling of a moonbeam,
The delights of my yearning heart appeared!
Out of illusion and detached nonsense,
Out of nothing but glorious energy,
Dreams came about thru a multitude of business!
The nonexistent possible
Came to be.

-jenn long

I Seek A True and A Living God

I seek a true and a living God.
I seek a true and a living God.
What if it's not the God of the Bible,
Or the God of the Qur’an?
What if it’s not Indra or Krishna,
Quetzalcoatl or Mithra or Thor?
I seek a true and a living God,
But I find the divine in you.

-jenn long

The Golden Fleece

I set out a fleece

And an allotted time.

I dared the universe

To lead me up,

Dared the Force of Love to find me,

Tempted the Fates to tell.

And sure enough,

The fleece is golden,

It’s mythic powers true,

And this morning,

It was wet.

 

-jenn long

Harmony Above the Din

You send your words,
And they ring true
Amid the din of noise.
Their warmth carries
The melody
While harmony upholds.
They take me gently
By the chin,
And turn my head
The other way.
My eyes open
To a sweet kiss
And treasures untold.

 

-jenn long

Sale's Pitch To The Baby

Ah, the sales pitch to the baby--
Benefits of why I moved his cheese.
His tears are diapered with petulant immaturity,
And all of them are soiled.

"But come, let us negotiate."
His eyes instantly start to mature.
"What is it that you want from me?
What do I want from you?"

There! The offer's been laid out.
He who speaks first now will lose.
But I am growing woody,
Like a robust, herbaceous tree.

Darn, the cheese is shaking
In the winds of vulnerability.
I'm trying not to make a sound,
But my leaves are beginning to chatter.

This will throw me in the losers' bracket,
Where I'll live perennially
Lactose intolerant,
If that's any consolation.

Wah. Wah. Wah!

The Stroke of Now

Let’s not wait til midnight!

Kiss me at the stroke of now!

Take my hand in yours and pull

Me closer to your soul.

Smile into my heart and laugh,

And peace will rumble strongly out,

And maybe we will have a little fun

Before the clock strikes “none.”

Anything wrong with that?

 

-jenn long