Sunday, November 30, 2014

So part of my costume in the show
Involves a towel wrapped around me and pinned,
Before a dumpy housecoat goes over.
And I have this urge at the finale
To scrape off all the makeup,
Untie that housecoat,
Unpin the clumpy towel,
Strip out of it, and let it fall
Like a shadow on the stage,
And then stand naked in front of the audience,
And let them see me for who I am.

And I can see why strippers and prostitutes
Will enter the kingdom of heaven
Long before anyone who fails to understand
The power of removing all the trappings,
And costumes,
And standing bare and naked,
Even if it's just before oneself.

-jenn

Friday, November 28, 2014


The past is what was solid.
The future's dissolute,
But everything is backward in illusion.
We feel we're walking into time,
Although we're spinning out of it,
And need to look behind
To see ahead.
It's not the sum
We're looking for,
It's the difference,
As the three fates unbraid--
A cosmic unzip.

-jenn
I caught a whiff of you
A second ago.
The sweet and spicy cologne
You wear for me.
I turned to see
But you weren't there.
My heart sank a little,
But I knew you couldn't be.

But I stopped and lingered in the air,
Allowed my feet a rest from grounded thoughts.
My mind began to spin
With arms stretched out,
And my mouth watered,
Just a little bit.

And I must say,
I'm missing you today.

-jenn

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Sometimes I try to be myself
But myself is just so ehhhhh
And nobody likes it when I'm myself
Maybe not even me
Because, that's when all the trouble begins
When I say what's really on my mind
Or I scratch that itch right there in public
Or giggle at the most inopportune times

And so I must roll my eyes
Wheel on my heel
And make a hasty exit
Stage left

Au reboot
(My autocorrect doesn't speak French)

-jenn
We are close
And fitted together,
Designed to shift
And breathe
In case of earthquake
Or other tragedy.

But we are strong,
Mesolithic,
Magnetized by nature,
Pulled together
To build something
That will endure--
Without mortar.

-jenn

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

I eased into death
With my eyes closed
And my jaws set,
Like I did once
In the passenger seat
Making a wide left
Onto a busy street,
Resigned that it was too late,
And too good,
To avoid fate.

And what I found when I stepped through,
Was that there was nothing to step into.
I swallowed hard
And breathed a different kind of air.

And the turn was made,
And the traffic flowed,
And the rush
Of anode passing
Cathode
Wrote my name
In the night
Like a sparkler.

And beauty
Blushed into the night,
And failed,
And hushed
At the sight
Of Love
All bare and obvious,
And set on loving me
Back to Life.

-jenn

Sunday, November 23, 2014

When Almighty sings his heart to you,
Stop and listen.
See the calculus unfold before your eyes
As exquisite patterns detail
Divine arrangement,
And pressure waves begin
To make it so.

Swoon under the influence of the power.
Fall in Love
Again and again.
Abandon yourself to the infinite
Unspeakable goodness.
Let the music move you.

Surrender to this cosmic fact:
You don't know anything
Except the Love
Between your heartbeats,
And the Love
In between mine.

-jenn

Saturday, November 22, 2014

I want to stand on the street corner with a sign
And take a mental tally of the folks who pass me by.
How many of them are willing to look me in the eye?
And what kind of person is most willing
To see beyond my age?
My dress?
My lonely shyness?
My rage?
My peace?
My thoughtlessness?
My deepest thinking?

Beyond myself
To the greater part of me,
Which is all of this and more?
Beyond my sign?
Beyond the mattress store
That's been closing for a year now?

-jenn

Friday, November 21, 2014

Sometimes I think I gotta grow up into myself
And sometimes I think the best thing I've ever done
Is pretending to be me

Sometimes I think the best preparation for the future
Is dreaming
Lavish
Unquenchable
Unstoppable
Undoable dreams

-jenn
I don't want to have to teach someone how to love me
I just want them to know
I feel like if I have to teach someone
Then we're not really equals

And I want someone
To be able to stand toe to toe with me
And surprise me
With wit
And recognize the irony
If the situation
And whisk me off my feet sometimes
And carry me off
On the strong shoulders of imagination

I want someone to know where to touch me
And to dare
To dare explore the frontiers
Of my body and soul
Where no one
Has ever gone before

-jenn
So I paid a little extra
And insisted that she keep the change,
Because that Five and that One
Had been together a long time in my wallet,
And I'm not one to split up a partnership,
Even if it seemed unequally yoked.
Intangibles may be what pulls water to its own level,
Or maybe it's science after all,
But EHarmony had put that pair together,
And I didn't want any credit
For puttin it asunder.

-jenn

He thinks people are really gonna come from miles around
Just to go to the Little Caesar's
Where he makes pizza
Because he sings while he slops the sauce,
"Blam da da blam da dam da dam dammmmm!"
And makes loud remarks about sodium and so forth.

But if they made a movie about this,
He would be the comic hero,
And they would get someone great,
Like Bill Murray, to play his part.
And we who mock and roll our eyes
Would be the small minded antagonists,
Played by nobodies
Or unpaid extras.

- jenn
I'm writing poems for myself tonight
Because there is no internet connection
And these are some of the best works
The world will never see
Because they are so raw, you know?
So honest and forthcoming
Who could bear them in the light of day?

The poems one pens in broad daylight
Are much like polite conversation
The Thought is present that keeps them narrow and straight
That what would old so and so think of that now?
So I better not let my mind stray

But here in the dark
I can let myself go
And thrust and moan
In wild abandon
For there is none to hear
My deep groans of anguish
Or ecstasy
For miles and miles

Oh! You ask? What of the neighbors?
Ehhhhhh
They don't speak Poetry.

-jenn
St. Peter
I don't want any of them to meet me at the gate
Cause if they do
I'm going to turn right around and go straight to hell
I don't want eternity with those sons of bitches
A lifetime has been way plenty enough for me
So please tell me again
How there is something better
And what it is exactly
That I have to do
To be free
From all of it

-jenn

Honey, I'm eatin in bed tonight
Like mama cass, cuz
This world is starving me--
Starving me down!
My soil is worn down!
The good stuff eroded--
Washed up,
To some fertile river bed
Downstream somewhere!

And I'm up here
In thin air,
And thin dirt!
With my roots exposed!
And showin!
Showin!!

Showin my ass
To the world again
And nothin,
Naw nothin
In between!!!!

-jenn
"For sale," the sign said.
Arrogant ones, in the name of progress,
Came and kicked us off the land
Which we had cultivated for 1000 years.
Then they turned around
And sold it as property and made a handy profit.
And thoughtless ones came with their trash and litter
And scarred the place that we held sacred.

Our wrappers grow on the food source naturally,
Like corn silk, corn shucks, pea pods, and feathers,
And everything that comes from the great spirit of life is good,
And we use it for food and to live.

But they turned the navel of the world
Into a ghetto Washateria,
Plastic wrappers and polyethylene blowing up and sticking in the fence
That they put up to keep us trashy Indians out.

Thoughtless arrogance.

-jenn
I dreamed I was riding a horse at the fair,
And we went into a chute
Where there were boards
On either side.
I put my feet down
To waddle along still astraddle
Because I was going to 'help' my horse,
Whose name I did not know.
And the horse turned it's head back
And looked at me
As if to say, "Puh-leeeeeeze!"

And so I think
My horse
Don't need no help.
An I'm gonn ride him
Like he wants to be rid.

-jenn

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

I'm not afraid today
To let Love come and find me,
To let it have it's perfect way with me.
And if in the course
Of human events
There be some imperfections,
Let them come, too,
And carry me away.

And when the wax
Melts off my eyes
And leaves me to see things clear,
May all the bindings drop
To reveal my heart,
Though polyamorous,
Is pure.
And may you
Be near.
Very near.

-jenn

Thursday, November 13, 2014

When we lie together
Naked,
Skin on skin.
Our cells don't seem to recognize
That there are alien markers,
For when we try to separate
There seems to be a tearing
At the places where we pull apart.

What we find
At a level deep
Beyond the hypodermis,
Much beyond the subcutaneous,
But down in our DNA,
Is that our cells
Don't see each other
As 'us' or 'not us' any longer,
But only 'welcome,'
And 'one,' and 'the same.'

-jenn
I've adapted to the sun's radioactivity
By eating bananas and cinnamon pills.
Iodine tablets might've been better
But there were none at hand.
And I am the matriarch
Of neosolarphagists
Who couldn't bear the claustrophobic dank
Of the caves.

And someday the evolvations of us
Will war against the evolvations of them,
For our common beginnings
And trials and survivals
Will all have been forgotten.

-jenn
I guess I'm kind of a Boonie person.
My soul thrives in the wasteland.
I know there are things to be scared of everywhere,
But I figure
If someone grabs me and pulls me up into the bushes,
And has their way with me and leaves me for dead,
At least I'll have some privacy.

No one would find me for months
And, by then, the coyotes would've eaten me,
And no one would have to hassle with what to do with my remains.
And that is a far better thing to do
Than to hassle people with the legislative aspects of funeralization.

-jenn
Love broke me
Like a colt,
But in such a sweet and gentle way.
It only broke my brokenness,
And now I'm useful to the world.

And everyday,
Love's sweet words and touch
Brushes me out,
Mane and tail,
And brings out some better part of me,
Until I shine so bright,
That lights don't hurt my eyes now,
Anymore.

What'd you do to me?
Do it again?

-jenn

Sunday, November 9, 2014

I know what I am by what I do,
And since I'm roaring down the highway,
Resting my long arms up on
Two fiery horns that serve as handles,
I figure must be a demon motorcycle.

I feel the surge of immortal power
Roar between my legs.
It scares me,
Because it's untapped
And untamable.

Then I remember that I'm dreaming.
I pull out hard
Onto the freeway,
Flames--painted ones,
Real and imagined
Scorch and burn as my wake.

Then I think that it's much better
To identify myself
By my dreams,
And not by what I really am,
Or what I really do.

-jenn

Saturday, November 8, 2014

So he wanted to marry a guera,
A white girl,
So maybe his children
Would have a chance,
So they could grow up
Knowing engles,
And be accepted at school.
Maybe they would use her last name,
Cuz maybe she would be ashamed
To take the surname, "Cachoka Cachoka."
Hell, maybe he would take her last name.
They could call him  "Vinnie--"
Vinnie Adams or Vinnie Green
Or Vinnie White.
Hell, he didn't care.

-jenn

Friday, November 7, 2014

I put fancid rats upon my face
And gouge a tue-quip bout my eanner ir
And thanger strings than that
Have been own to knowcur.

So take my heaty mand
And malk mith we
Into a losmic cand
And polve the suzzles
That mabsolve the aind
And wake the brind...

jove,
lenn
So, I'll never go to a chiropractor
Because I had a dream
That a chiropractor diagnosed me
With a fatal cancer, that, in fact,
Was my demise.

So you might mock me
And say I'd rather die
Than go to a chiropractor,
And think me stubborn,
Or superstitious.

But truth be told,
I just want to die with dignity
A kind of death that life deserves,
Without all the bells and whistles,
Such as hair all falling out,
Or needles and probes
Needling and probing.

Because the truth is
We're all going to die.
And our polite society,
With all it's traditions,
Religion, and cultures,
Soap operas game shows,
Football and politics,
Distract us from this ultimatum,
And divide us into small minded
Shallow waders
Who don't look deep
Out past the harbor
To see
That we are all brothers and sisters
Who have been orphaned, after all,
And we journey together
In the very same paddle boat.

-jenn

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

"I hate you," he says and stares two holes in my eyes shaped just like his.
And I smirk and shake my head because I know
That I'm the only one he ever goes out of his way to sit by
At McDonald's
Or anywhere else we happen to go.

"I hate you soooo much," he says
As he plops on my lap in the early morning,
And I have to laugh and shake my head again,
And think to myself,
"He's lucky I speak 14."

-Jenn


I wish I were the kind of friend
Who'd come and scrub your dishes off,
Those stubborn places that you can't get clean.
But to tell the truth I don't even notice
Little things like that,
Or dust or clutter of any type at all.

I'm more the type to come and sit
And sip on tea
And nibble cake
And listen
And nod my head a lot
And never offer good advice at all.

-jenn
He tells himself she's not to old for him .
Why! When he's thirty, she'll be 52!
And all of that is over the hill, anyhow.
So they can just sit, by then,
On the front porch steps and shell peas
And watch the world go by.

But right now he's got whiskers on his face,
And his heart burns to love her if he can.
If she could wait for him
Til after school,
He would do his best
To make her young again.

-jenn

That night you snubbed me,
I saw you dressed in black
On the far side of the auditorium.
And I had enjoyed the show
All by myself.
I went out to my car
Into the night,
Starlight and other people's headlights
Lit the way,
And you called me,
But didn't dare to say hello,
Only played a song
On the reddio.
But I was already listening
In my car.

And you sounded drunk
And hoarse from all that rehearsing,
But you were sweet,
And so I listened a bit.
But you didn't ask me what I'd been up to,
And I'd had quite an afternoon.
I took a shower in the yard
In just my panties.
I found I didn't have a drop of any shampoo.
And a pickup load
Of tall dark strangers
Came along to see the oil wells,
And they had an entire bottle.

And their shampoo was orange and bright
And took all the grease right out of my hair.
Then they had driven on their way,
Leaving me here,
As everyone does,
But a few had turned to look back
To see the orange suds
Dripping.

-jenn

Sunday, November 2, 2014

My memories of the things you say and do,
Like little foxes returning stolen goods,
Come to me with joy and great intrigue,
Surprise me and delight my heart and mind.
The ribbon I lost at the 1980 fair,
The locket that I thought was gone for good,
The earring that fell off out in the woods,
The bracelet that beguiled me and was charmed,
When you smile and shine your catlike eyes,
And ask to take my socks off of my feet,
And whisper secrets in my other ear,
Or ask me if I've had enough to eat,
These things more than satisfy my need,
And shine like diamonds worn by Pleiades .

-jenn

Saturday, November 1, 2014

He held his breath
Until I moved away
It only took two years
And forty-seven days
And now he's back to normal
So they say

.....ehhhhh

-jenn