Monday, February 17, 2014

Sometimes I want to live like this,
Without all the wrappers,
Without tin foil,
Walking through the forest with no pack on my back,
Grazing on the edible things,
Putting back a little dried on the stems,
To conserve through winter's darkened spell
And the months where food would be scarce.
Or maybe I could just hibernate,
And you could love me while I sleep,
And I could sleep, even through the pregnancy.
I'd wake bewildered at my swollen tel,
And enlivened, bring forth--
A new kind of heirloom seed.

-jenn long

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Nameless

Nameless
You are nameless
Eternal as the winds
And where they blow
Is nowhere
From the middle to the end
And their timeless secret
Nameless as they go

But you're large in me and bigger
Than anything I've known
And skies alone can't hold you
They don't try
And the places in my heart have stretched
Beyond all history
Beyond myself
 Beyond the words
Beyond whatever mystery requires

Spill out into my cosmos
With your essence and your stuff
Create in me a life
Uniquely mine
And yet completely you yourself
And somehow still beyond us
To the stills and whispers
Lost in Nameless Time

-jenn long

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Cinnamon Conundrum

You possess the technos of Ancient Sumerian,
The simplistic efficiency of Paleolithic Hebrew,
The complexity of compound—Neo-Germanic style,
But with a lithe Italian flow.
The quickness in your eyes says, “Swiss,”
But the mysterious twinkle there whispers, “Wales,”
While the echoes spiral out large
As the Carnac Stones.
The Song is Fiddle, tuned down D,
Like the Scottish drone that brings tears to my eyes—
Bonaparte's Retreat...played low
Like bagpipes from a distant hill.
To hear it again... and again…
Is Enigma and Beauty and Love.
And these are the sounds of your one hand clapping.
I shudder to think what thunder
The two would bring,
My Thrill, My Joy, My Heart, My Peace,
My Cinnamon Cardamom Conundrum.


-jenn long

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

What Do You Want?

"What do you want?"
The universe asks,
And I see faint leopard spots appear.
They spiral out into infinity,
Expanding on past the suns.
"I don't want anything," I say,
As I watch the dots continue out
In an endless wave of monotone chant,
Smooth as a whisperless run.
"Want something, then," comes the universal demand.
"Want something." "Want something," echoes, echoes,
And I notice the spots come from me,
"I don't want anything," I insist,
And I don't.
I don't want anything, but you.


-jenn long 

Thursday, February 6, 2014

My Name is Muds

This world has made me try and fit in
A draconian bed of its liking.
It's pulled me apart and spread me thin
In places where I was small,
And lopped me off and called me fat
In ways that I was big and tall.
Shame on you!
Shame on you, World,
For doing that
To an innocent child of the fishes
And the waters
And the muds.


-jenn long

Hair Today

My Gramma braided my hair for me once.
I felt like a Dresden princess.
I never saw anything like it
Before or after since.
It's must have been some special knots
Borne from the Old Country.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes
As my fine hair slipped
And flew away defying gravity,
But I could tell from what hairs that stayed
What a goddess I could've been that day.
I guess even then my locks were more New World Order
Than some would have liked them to be.


-jenn long

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Titanic

I rearrange chairs on this sinking ship daily,
And as she surely blows,
An unmatched sock clings to my frock,
And milk comes out my nose.

And I don't know about Paul,
Or Ringo,
Or any of them other 'pistles,
Or 'postles as the case may be,
And whether they had thistles to eat,
But, for me, dying daily comes easy.


-jenn long

All for One

I wanna say I'm nothin like her—
Cold and old and done.
But while I'm terrified of you
She’s not afraid of the One
You've revealed to her.

I wanna think you're different—
That somehow you comprehend
The prods, the pokes, and get my jokes,
But what if I'm her,
And you're him?


Jenn long

Eternal Flame

I sleep beside the eternal flame.
The sound of his pilot purrs
From the flow of natural gas
And the oxygen.
I stare into his colors.
They take me by my mind,
And deep into his cosmos
Where I see the sights
And signs that my imagination
Could never conjure,
Helplessly limited by me, as it is.
And so I lie astounded,
And watch the miraculous
Busily at work
On my behalf.
And does it wait for me?

-jenn long