Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Mornin-gale

The Mornin-gale sings at day break,
Delicate canticles for his Hummin'bird,
Hymns of praise and wonder
For the expressions of her flutter.
And the laughter in his notes
Ever fizzes nectar sweet,
So she buzzes
At his dulcet,
And she worships at his feet.

May it always be this glorious!
May the honey never moon!
Might the rosy glasses linger
Through the sunny chirp at noon.


-jenn long

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Everyday Corruption

He said he couldn’t tell me everyday.
He didn’t want to corrupt me.
But he didn’t know the depth of my desperation—
How badly I needed those words.
And so I begged in subtle ways,
And then I just begged out loud,
“Tell me; Tell me!”
 
And when he smiled,
I realized
That I had never seen as much
As a window raised
There, in my obscurity.
And in that one off-chance,
And cascaded by the incredible sounds
Of lightbulbs breaking,
I suggested modestly
And with a lump in my heart,
That maybe
I was so rotten already,
That what would come
By the hearing and hearing
Would be full restoration.
 
-jenn long

Bottle Nosed Philoophies

A bottle nosed dolphin with one bubble eye
Swims the seas and scans the skies
Looking for something different,

Something real,
Something new.

One day he spied a toy ship,
A rubber-duckie, and his lucky tin-snips
That he'd lost
When he was two.

So he asked them where they had been all this time,
And they answered him in a mariner's rhyme,
And an ancient one at that.


They said,
"We've been off to Starbucks Coffee,
Where we learned about the Internet
And acidophilus,
And what our philosophies are.

And we've learned, too
How to characterize you
By what yours are.

 
If you prefer motive over action,
We can say with satisfaction,
That you’re an Idealist.
But if action itself is the measure
By which you decide to stock your treasure,
Then a Realist
You surely are.
 
If you value the virtue of humility,
Renunciation is the greatest ability you ever saw.
But if you believe the strength of Will Power
Trumps universal law, then Schopenhauer
And Nietzsche define your game
(Both forced into brilliance
By learning to spell their own last names.)
 
If you believe in the salvation of certain types or classes
You have been infused by the sacerdotal castes.
If you believe God exists apart from nature,
Deist or Theist is the nomenclature
That properly describes your station,
But if you believe that God is absorbed in creation
And rules it from within,
You are a believer in Pantheism.
 
Personalists believe in perfection as perfect individualism.
Impersonalists see completion as complete absorption
Into a greater, all-wise principle, and if you find central
The efficacy of hierarchy and ritual,
You are a Ceremonialist, and value systematic priestcraft,
Whereas if your attitude toward religion is one of extreme simplicity,
And you regard all outward religious shows as vain ones,
But you devote yourself to a mystic presence or inner communion,
Then you are an Anti-institutionalist.
 
If in your quest for knowledge, you are satisfied
With the material world and its atomic sense inside,
Then you are a Materialist.
If you demand knowledge of the superphysical
Causes behind the form, then Transcendentalist
Is the word to describe you best,
But if in Transcendentalism you long to know the mystery
Through the rationale of knowing, then you are an Occultist.
And if your insight is inspiration or feeling you’re a Mystic,
If your conversion is influenced by reflex, then clearly, you’re a Psychic.”
 
Then the bottle nosed dolphin
Heard a sound
Of a hand in the bathtub, and going down
It pulled the drain.
 
And then he saw something new,
As he was pulled, too,
Down and out of the tubbie.
He didn’t have time to say, “Good-bye,”
To the tin-snips, the ship, or the rubber-duckie-guy
Who all were too big to go.
 
So he didn’t say
That “Mystic, Anti-institutionalist”
Seemed to have a good feel,
And didn’t bother to add that he wasn’t real,
Anyway.
 
-jenn long
 
 

Monday, February 25, 2013

Just Right

Sometimes you can love a man
Like you had given birth to him,
And nothing he does will ever bother you.
You will want to see him win,
And even wink at other women,
And share your peanuts
With fingers the dog has licked,
Because you know that he knows
The uttermost absurdity’s true—
That there’s something Goldylocksian,
And something about “happily,”
And” ever” after it.
 
-jenn long

Diastolic Conscience


The heart is not deceptive.
That my friend is the soul.
The heart is simply a mechanical pump,
Not a diabolical systole.
But, a diastolic conscience
That beats a troubled mind
Will guilt you into a faulty illusion
And murmur at all the wrong times.


So, if you listen to your heart,
That my friend is delusion,
For you can get caught up
In the psychic lub-dup,
And miss the great pageantry of being.


-jenn long

Unspoken

There were things we never talked about— Like how the foundations of eternity were motionless,
Or how the digital nature of bytes and gigabytes
Combined to create the fleeting images of life’s veil.
We never spoke of seeing other people,
But we never uttered the word matrimony, either,
After that day we stood together,
Stunned at the ends of the earth,
And awestruck by the fiery tail
Of the ruptured comet.
 
-jenn long
 

Madly

He was miffed
‘Cause she didn’t call,
But she was tired
And afraid she’d trip up,
Fall into his arms,
Or, maybe, slip up,
And say something stupid
Like, “I love you,”
And then he’d be really mad.
 
-jenn long

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Come Apart

Something ‘bout the pine
Of the lonely whine
Of a highway headed west,
Draws my soul
On a lonesome roll
Out toward the wilderness
Where dry bones scatter,
And alternative matter
Conjoins in a desperate plea,
And windless sails
Of the desolate trails
Call out in temptation to  me,
“Come apart.
Come apart,
And you'll see.”

Away out there,
The skies are fair
And detached from
Thought or conversion.
The savant releases,
Reforms, and retracts
From affection, as well as, aversion.
And beyond the hedge
Breathes a living edge,
But only the brave will peer
Beyond the darkness
Which fools call light,
And take up the mantle of seer.
“Come apart.
Come apart,
And you'll see.”

I resolve only to loosen
The grip of my meager control,
To relinquish results
Of universal reactions,
And open the door for my soul
To go free,
And come apart in timeless fashion,
And merge in the coming turn
Of the all consuming wonder that is love,
And its catabolic burn.


“Come apart.
Come apart,
And you'll see.”

 

-jenn long

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Dark Side


You're sweet when you're full.
You gently pull my tides
Toward your ebbing lull.
But you can turn, too,
And I'm left wondering who
It is that waxes so cold and dark
And pushes me firmly aside.

But let me close my eyes tonight,
And bask in the lie of shadows and moonlight,
And dream of love’s infancy,
When ignorance taught me how to dress,
And bliss distracted ‘til I couldn't care less
About words like “constancy”
Or, “Help?”

 -jenn long

One Electron

Sometimes at night,
I dream that I'm right beside you,
That only a visceral membrane
Keeps us apart,
And even though
We only share one electron,
Our pulse beats sweetly
In rhythm,
As just one heart.

-jenn long

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Snow Is WInter's Butterfly

Snow is winter’s butterfly!
You catch it in your hand,
And before you can blink
It’s vanished,
And fluttered into your skin.
 
But just as eyeshadows Lepidoptera
Elevate your eyes,
Falling flakes will lift your head,
And make u search the skies

For the low slung hero,
Who corianders so,

Atoning on the just and the unjust alike,
With the unblemished, unbridalled snow.
 
-jenn long

Worth Discovering

I always dreamed of being discovered—
Of being found out and recognized,
But I’ve never known what my talent is,
Or really what it is I’m good for.
I remember spending hours shooting free shots,
But the WNBA didn’t seem to want me.
I’ve run miles on end, but never done
A single marathon.
I’ve read at least a million books,
But that’s certainly not noteworthy.
I’ve competed and co-opped and won, lost, and drawn,
Been a winner, a leave-er, and left.
I’ve always dreamed of being discovered,
But, I finally discovered mySelf.

-jenn long

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Uncut!

“The universe will surely die in a hole!
The universe doesn’t deserve to live,
I do!” pronounced the 13 year old poet,
As he struggled to tolerate common denominators
And the diaspora of latent grammar.
But then his thinking cat appeared,
And all was right with the world again—
Just in time, to learn about the Aegis,
The Trident, Greek Fire, and Thor’s mighty hammer.
 
-jenn long

The Morning Came Early


The morning came early.
The evening had turned,
And dipped me in chocolate,
And spun me cool,
Caressed me silky,

Kissed me with whiskey,
Breathed in sync,
Then lay me in a bed of sweetest wysteria.
But just as the first bare rays of light
Shimmered in sensitive pre-cognition,
The morning came early,
Dissolved by the last burst of night.

 

-jenn long

Word Detox

Crash! Shake! Fall on the wagon!
Cold turkey detox by forced withdrawal
From all the echoes of primal profanity.
 
Silence stuns, and packs the vacuum,
Pushes airishly through.
 
Redeemed from the curse,
But not forgotten,
The contaminated mingle of
Malediction and no-no’s,
Untangled infancy complicated,
Exploitation of natural trust.
And 40 years in the desert, tempted,
The blinding blaze of direct light,
The funk of detraction and medicinal sweat,
Starvation, deprivation to kill the damning—
And finally it comes to this.
It will take 1000 affirmations
Spoken aloud over each imprecation
To eradicate them
And absolve my memory?
 
-jenn long

Monday, February 18, 2013

Cause and Effect


He voided some seeds right there on the trail

That they’d worked so diligently to clear,

And all of the kernels germinated,

For they were quite well dunged.

The sprouts took root, and altered the course

Of the burgeoning, bustling by-way.

Sojourners there, forever more, respectfully made their detour

Around the hallowed dumping grounds

Where the badger had left his scat.

 

-jenn long

Dead Men's Poems

There’s something about a dead man’s poems
That makes you feel his death,
Or, the many times he died along the way.
And if you don’t try to feel it much,
It slips up on you in the night,
And suffocates the frivolity of your dreams.
Then you can smell the stories plot,
And taste the salt of sweat and blood,
And wonder that you couldn’t sympathize
While he stumbled the land of the living—
While he cried in the solemn light of day.
 
-jenn long

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Don't Forget To Breathe


There are lots of ways to die

In today’s polite society.

The easiest is to simply hold your breath

And wait for love to call your name,

And wait for truth to set you free,

And wait for doves and unicorns

To come and return your respiration,

Stolen so quietly by polite society,

Or withheld by your very Self.

 

-jenn long

Thursday, February 14, 2013


Oh, he was in love with her, alright.

Course, she wasn’t the type

He could take home to Mama and them.

But, maybe that should ‘a been his third clue—

The first being his very limited opportunity

To speak his own mind,

And the second,

The freakish ways his would-be-controllers had

Of screwing up even his wet dreams.

 

-jenn long

Bad Back


He had a bad back.

His whole family had that bad back.

The doctor finally put him on a special diet.

All he could eat was food and stuff.

But a can of Vienna sausages

And some mayonnaise on a saltine cracker, or two,

Would give him all the energy he needed

To pull casing on that Grigg’s lease,

And to hand over his entire paycheck

To his old lady.

 

-jenn long

Isla Bavarian Mujer

I shaved my legs ,
And went out for a dip
In the luxurious hotel pool.
I finally emerged,
Out of breath,
And seeking the sun for a while.
It had been a long cold winter in Dallas,
But it was warm in Las Vegas.
I stretched out
On the hard concrete,
Hands up behind my head.
He swam over about then,
And asked if I was from France.
Before I could answer,
He told me a little
About his private island
And how he wanted me
To come there with him
To reside forever more.
He then said he had a thing for chicks
Who didn’t shave their armpits.
 
Did I mention it had been a long cold winter in Dallas?
 
I sat up quickly and pulled my arms in tight,
And excused myself.
 
They say that each time we make a choice,
Some other form of us breaks away
And lives out the other possibility
In a parallel universe.
If this is true,
And it has to be,
For I heard Morgan Freeman say it on
“Through the Wormhole,”
Then somewhere down by Isla Mujeres,
I live with my bohemian Bavarian lover,
Instead of in this trailer in Eufaula
Writing my silly poems….
 
-jenn long

Last Rose of Summer


Maybe he was the last rose of summer.

Maybe the withered petals should have been a clue.

Maybe the lull of the heated aroma

Made me forget everything that I knew

And wonder if there could be something

Different, wiser, at last?

Something to prove the maxim,

“The best are saved for last.”

 

-jenn long

Contributing Factors


He said she was guilty,

And locked her away,

Deep in the vault of his heart.

He clasped his arms

Tightly around her and nuzzled

The nape of her neck

And her hair.

And as he delayed his business trip,

And waited around her kitchen door,

He thanked the domestic goddess

Under his breath,

For contributing to the delinquency

Of his eyeballs.

 

-jenn long

Hatted Brigade

Hatless he walked with the spirit
To show his respect for the Man.
In rhythmic meditation,
Enlightenment dawned on him,
And by his intercessions
Were many consumptives healed,
Because of his great passion for them,
And his willingness to take their place.
 
But now is the time to re-don the hats.
The hatless brigade institution
Has become trite
And irrelevant,
Because the love of many has grown cold.
 
It’s time to leave the hats on.
It’s time to abandon physical results—
Time to break down the damaged walls
And live
Under the magic spell of Love.
 
-jenn long

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Manners and Customs

I saw your girlfriend today.
No.
Not the attorney.
Her alter ego twin from a parallel universe.
She works produce here for the local grocer.
She is so nice,
And twice as brilliant.
But of course,
She couldn’t support you
In the manner you are accustomed.
Then again,
Neither could I. 

-jenn long

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Dance Like It Matters

My one chance to dance at a wedding—
To live up to the best of my part,
And me, with nothing to wear.
The skirt I had brought wasn’t fitting.
A clumsy, beige, wool-tweed
That made my hips look wide.
It was a bit big, yet it stifled my movement,
And I wanted to cry.
 
The bride came gracious and lending.
My good friend for many long years
Grinned voraciously, and handed
Me a small silk purse with a beaded shoulder strap.
The little red dress practically slinked out of it.
Barely anything there—
But the few threads were sequined and stunning,
And when I pulled it on,
A magical dreamlike quality covered me,
Like a cloud of gossamer gold.
I arabesqued in ahead of her,
Just as she had asked.
But she never followed.
Tragedy in mid-step had taken her
From a graven body
Into immortal life.

She died with no ring on her finger,
Like a bird without a cage.
And even with interesting offers,
And ties that bind being the rage,
Husbandry eluded the deft allurer—even in the end.
She bounded escarpments desperately—
By nimble steps of something like a whisper,
And some hidden hind feet on the winged escapee.
 
The dress hangs today in my closet.
I finger its webbed fringe lace
To remind me that this really happened,
And remember my sister’s face.
And sometimes I still dream about her,
And dance the aisle with her that night,
And see her bright smile, as she lingers awhile,
Then disappears in the mystical light.
 
There are things I’ve left out of this story—
Like the jealousy of the bridesmaids,
And how I let it affect me,
That I didn’t dance freely,
But cared about what they thought.
But I will tell you,
That if I had it to do over again,
I would dance like it matters,
Because it does, my friend,
It does.

-jenn long

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Color Guard

They told me to go
And water the flag pole,
‘Cause I was the greenest banana in the bunch.
But I wadn’t no slouch,
And I saw them watch
Me, as the waters trickled
Onto the ground,
Nourishing all the soil around.
And the joke was on them
When the flowers bloomed pink,
But especially when
That morning at guard,
That hard little Sarge
Ripped the rag up the line
Only to find
It was bleached out—
Not a stripe, not a spot,
Not a star, not a dot,
Just a white flag of surrender,
And about a month of KP.
 
-jenn long

Year of Jubilee

I need a year of Jubilee,
Or maybe two, or maybe three
Or it might take four,
Or even more,
To settle in and liberate me,
 
To uncover the big chunks
And move them out,
And hold my horses, and tickle my doubts,
And cool my jets, and loosen that lip
That tends to pout
Or pucker, instead of smile.
 
Then, Someone, please,
Take the screens and soft bristle brushes
And discover the basket of me in the bulrushes,
And let me nurse in the palace until
My personality and my style
Can fully emerge
Without hints of oughts,
Without landmines and scars
From the battles I’ve fought,
Or fear from future pains,
Or pavlov’s bell.
 
But give me a year
Of peace and freedom.
Release my debts, my shoulds,
And, Sweetums,
You’ll have an angel in your arms
And not some devil from hell.
 
-jenn long

Love Talked Me Down


I woke up
On the wrong side
Of the tree.
Irritated by little bits of bark
And biting wood ants,
I thought of jumping.
But Love talked me down,
And right into his arms,
Where wrapped in existential comfort,
We lay for hours under the lease
Of a non-binding spell,
And charmed by pillow talk,
And unspoken, unchained melodies,
We staid to enjoy
A prolonged honey moon.

-jenn long

Friday, February 8, 2013

The Merchant of Critics

So you think you can handle
The man candle.
You think you can huff and puff

Til you blow the house down.
But, can you sit petite and apple sweet
While the master draws you again?

And can you smile

At the critics style
As they discuss your former positioning,
And as they read blue

From old smile to new,
And just wink at their agnosticism?

Think back on this night,
How the flickering light
Waned down and waxed the releases,
How the tower shook,
How he painted that look,
Til you leaned the whole city of Pisa.


-jenn long

The Ipso Facto How So

Just when the light shines particle wrong,
All the world falls right somehow.
Then 2 plus 2 is ever five,
Unless, of course, it’s three.
And as the coronal plane is cut,
Reversed, re-sewn, all Idi Amin style,
I’d swear I see
Your face in me,
Mirrored in the rain dimpled Nile.

Then I feel the riptide tug,
Taking me down
For the third time now,
And when I cross my eyes just so,
I’d swear you have a moo-moo brow,
And I, a hard-hat chin strap.
And this is strange, but good, I know,
But convince me again, Sweet Lover,
How so?

-jenn long

Calvinistic Work Ethic

He was the kind
Who worked until dark,
No matter when that was.
He held his head high to reputation,
And considered his family crest.
But he never really thought about
The blood in his deeper veins
Hustling to carry itself back for more,
Or her waiting there so untamed.
A shot of bourbon for supper,
His heart is all but numb.
What's not keeps getting gruffer,

Waiting for darkness to come.

 

-jenn long

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Hazel and Hazel and Chub Chub


Hazel and Hazel and Chub Chub
Sail a sargasso sea,
With one lone oar between them,
And a wisp of a willow tea.
Time draws down to a gallop.
The still life catches the mane
Of the giant pale moon,
And the beggar swoon,
And the sharp contrast inflicts pain.
But what will become of the cytoplasm
Of the rich, embryonic boor,
Lapping up onto the piggybacked waves,
Sanded to sail no more?
And will they cry for their master?
Will they bleed into the sea?
Or will they fly with the
Naked night sky
And tremble to think they are free?

-jenn long

Rub My Soul


Rub my soul—
Right between the two meaty bits,
With lavender, ylang ylang,
And velvet lemon balm.
Add a few drops of marjoram oil,
And press hard
Til you've got her calmed down.
Show her your best
Bedside manners.
Don't let the right hand tell on the left,
And don't let the one side get jealous,
But spend equal time here and there.
And while it rains
Between cloud and earth,
And as long as there is seed time and harvest,
Bring it to me
With your tired and your poor,
And your rich and your energetic,
And restore my soul again.

-jenn long

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Graded Steps

It wasn't that my steps were small,
But that I walked against the grain.
As the world turned its way,
I faltered quite the other.
And if I didn't get too far,
It wasn't that I didn't try,
But with one hand covering my eyes,
And stumbling, with the brother hand
Stretched out to feel for bumps,
Progress was a non-defined non-sequitur.
I hazarded many a graded guess,
And somehow got completely off the path,
And happened, head first,  into a convenient tree.
But, after a conversation with him,
Who'd never taken a weary step, but up,
I turned around and went the other way.

So it isn't that my steps are large,
But now, I bound along with the Earth.
My greater leaps propelled by its sizable spin,
I hurtle galactic spaces.


-jenn long

Ask the Flowers

“I’m so glad we met,” I said.
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure, quite yet.
I’ve got to wait for spring to come,
So I can ask the flowers.”

“You gonna pluck the petals off
And ask, ‘She loves me?
She loves me not?’”

He closed his eyes and grinned and said,
“No.
I’m gonna say, ‘Am I glad, or ain’t I?’”
 
And that’s when I knew
That the man had been through
Lots of April Showers.

-jenn long