Thursday, July 30, 2015

I have no will to live today.
My bloom has blown.
And if the wind would come
And take me off,
And I could fly softly
Into some other world,
Even with it's unknown slings,
I'd go as quickly as the day goes black,
As simply as I go to sleep
Before my head can hit the pillow.

And as for you,
I'd miss you as I do today,
And all the days I realize
That you are here and I am there,
And time, itself, with it's strong hands,
Will always be between us.

-jenn

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

The can sat smirking,
Clean as a whistle.
At the cup that overflowed.

-jenn


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Oui Bears (or...a New Mother Nature Takin' Ovah!)

The Oui Bears lived
In the woods of France
And love to swim, climb trees, and dance,
And Mother Nature came and said,
"Tis time you bears were off to bed."
And the Oui Bears said, "Oui! Oui!"

And Mother came
In spring again,
Woke the Bears
With her soft hand
And said, "Time for breakfast!
Spring has sprung!
Come fill your bellies, lives, and lungs
With the fresh and bitter greens!"
And the Oui Bears said, "Oui! Oui!"

And Mother Nature
Will come for you
And ask you out,
"Dinner for two?"

And you better damn well say, "yes,"
Or she'll feed you to her Yes Bears!

-jenn

I want to live out west
In those desert places
Where it still gets dark at night.
I can breathe and sleep,
Dream deep of other worlds and places
That exist in the microcosms of my blood,
In my cells and the microscopic working organelles
That grind them into gear.

The city lights drown them,
Fade them away,
Before I can lay my grasp on them,
Before I can realize that they are part of myself.

-jenn
I'm like a cat
Watching my master
Take up the trees
And strum them.
The flowering bushes
Vibrate untouched
At the sound of his low E.
And I can't always
Make sense of the music,
And so I close my eyes
And remember
The deep look of his face,
And wait
For him to pet me.

-jenn
My eyes graze the morning news
Of your latest peradventures.
While I drink my orange juice,
My heart gropes in the dark,
"Where is he?"

The mail runs and my fingers tear
The envelope to pieces.
I frisk the pages for your words,
The ones I'm starving for.

I eat them, washing them down with coffee,
And autonomically my parasympathetic nervous system
Takes the rich supplemental bits,
Pools them in my breasts
And genitals,

And my heart is reaching blindly.
It can't see that you're not here.
"He's near. He's near!" it cries.
"Where is he?"

-jenn

Monday, July 27, 2015

Bows on Hicks

Your 'I Love You's'
Are bows on hicks
Particles in my hillbilly world
You may not realize
Just how they turn energy
Into matter
Or how they whisper
In return
'I Love Use, tooooo.'

But if we're honest
We know it's not the bow
That tied this knot of knowing
And maybe it's not
The Boson-Higgs
Behind it all,

But maybe love really does make the world go around after all.

-jenn

Sunday, July 26, 2015

The queen attends
Content and approves
Of the offerings the artisans bring.
Well most of them.
Her army keeps the boundaries watch
So that she can listen
To the greater wisdom
Of the air.

But the queen is thinking
About how she thought
Her panties were white,
Until she saw them up next
To your white skin,
And how surprised she was
At the relativity
Of time in the face of
The constant speed of life,
And .....
....fun.
And ivory is the new virginal.

-jenn



Saturday, July 25, 2015

I watch them play chess
But one of the pawns is glued to the chessboard
It's become part of the landscape
They maneuver around it
Like the elephant in the room
I wonder how it would change things
If the glue wore off
And the pawn got up on its own two feet
And waltzed right out of the game

Maybe they wouldn't call it chess anymore
Or bored

-jenn

Friday, July 24, 2015

He traded me for a milkshake,
Swallowed with his mouth open so I could see
Ice cream melting on his tongue,
Creamy white rolling over his taste buds
Like a cud.

He had traded me thus
Many times
And now, finally today,
He saw me through a different lens,
And wished, as he slurped,
But was unable to do anything else.

-jenn

Did she think I was a bum,
About to hit her up for money?
Or maybe she worried I would try
And steal her boyfriend away,
(Though I'm thirty years her senior.)

Well, he was lookin at me and smilin.

But I watched fear shock her face into some cubist form
Of her former innocence.
Three hairs turned white on her young head,
And one year of her life she traded
For the luxury and habit of needless worry,
For I would have taken them only
Under my down as baby chicks
And protected both of them there.

How often has Love wanted to take us,
And we, unwilling, won't be led.

-jenn

The sun sprays onto the faded wooden privacy fence,
Somehow splashes fractal prism'd rainbows
Shattered by the wall.

And while we're hidden,
I stick my nose in middle of your business
And breathe,
Close my eyes,
And buzz on your freaky berry buds.

See the love kaleidoscope?
See it take me to worlds unknown?

I'm a stranger in a strange land here,
In this place where I'm wanted,
Cherished, and watered
Even by the dry sands,

-jenn

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Alimentary, Dr. Watson

I sat and watched you eat for ten minutes,
Studied you thoughtfully,
Watched you chew,
Noted your intolerances
And cravings,
Which parts you wanted,
Which you eschew.
And in this microcosm you call lunch,
I was able to ascertain
Your obsessions,
(With peanut butter and jelly)
Compulsions,
(For the perfect chicken strips)
And just what it is that turns your brown eyes blue---
(Not enough French fries.)

But I'm fighting the urge to sprinkle your cupcakes with vitamins....

-Love,
Mom
Potatoes would bake at this angle.
Squash would peel itself to jump into this casserole.
Onions would caramelize!

Maybe some would grow frigid
Waiting for the plot to thicken,
But I'm slaving away over these hot griddles,
Stirring the rue away,
And stirring in the love.

-jenn

My car went beep beep
Just as your car said beep beep beep.
Our eyes met
Across the crowded parking lot.
We exchanged hasty glances as our cars sighed into their rest.
My car reached for the remote control.
Yours, for a glass of wine.
Could it be?
Some cosmic connection?
Or did we merely press our key fobs at the same time?

-jenn
I hated to throw that towel away.
It was the only thing I had of my grandma's
Besides her love of chicken and dumplings
And her laugh till you cry mentality.

What was I supposed to do?
Frame it? Put it in the closet and forget about it?
I decided to use it,
And I have for almost 15 years.
70s brown, with two big burnt orange flowers on it,
It's faded now, and almost see-through.

Using that towel has kept her in the forefront of my mind,
And so many things I didn't understand,
I've thought about deeply through the years
While being a mom myself.
I've often wanted to throw in the towel.
I've looked instead through its threadbare holdings.

And so today, I've taken the towel
And folded it three corners.
I placing it on my rosewood dresser,
And I'm going to leave it there for a while.

-jenn

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Nothing in my life's the way I want it.
Sometimes I can wonder why,
But deep down, I know
That I built my foundation on pleasing you,
And there's no doing that.
And so today the shifting sand appears,
Great drifts of it in every room of my house.
But maybe if I blow the fuckin' house down
And run away with the wolf,
I'll be happy for a minute...
Just one fuckin' minute.

-jenn
I ain't afraid to say 'hallelujah.'
I ain't afraid to say 'fuck you.'
Somewhere in the middle
Is my theology.
It swirls in the vortex of my thoughts of you.

But I want to know what the gods believed.
I want to know what they believed in.
I don't want to be one or two steps removed.
And if that's too much to ask,
Then let me be like the squirrel
Who worships his tree
And his daily nut.

Deepest irreverence brings reverent epiphany.
Suddenly 'holy' really means something.
Your eyes stop at mine.
They're blazing!
They burn me.
Then you whisper,
"You're hot."
And now I believe.

-jenn
I want the crazy that's not contagious.
But it's really hard to get.
Some crazy comes after you,
As if its only cure for lonesome
Is to infect you,
Recombine its DNA inside and
Make you like it,
So that it will cause a twin,
Have someone to talk to,
An equal to wrestle with when boredom sets in.

But I've seen a beautiful nut job
Talking to herself,
Singing a new song of joy each morning.
She hears the percussive rhythms of the birds and the motorcars,
Is mindful of it and remembers it all day.
She shakes her ass to it,
Even in the grocery store.
Yes even, and especially, the hoity toity grocery store,
Where no one wants to catch her particular brand of crazy,
Except me.

I wonder if maybe it is contagious after all.

-jenn

Friday, July 17, 2015

There was Sherry and Linda and Betsy and Billy,
But something was wrong with Betsy.
She quit talking about age 5,
And they labeled her retarded.

And Sherry and Linda and Betsy and Billy
All went to the little school in town,
But something was wrong with Betsy.
She had to go to special classes
That they called title one.

Sherry and Linda and Billy grew up.
They went to the prom and got married
To people who treated them like worn-out shoes,
But something was wrong with Betsy.

She didn't take that shit from anybody.
She stare 'em back right in the eye.
She'd slap them if they got close enough
Or didn't stop their teasing.

But then, something was wrong with Betsy.
Or, was there?

-jenn

Some days ago, in sometime past,
That rash road rage act of yours would've offended me.
I might've felt disregarded,
But not today.
Because today I know
That I'm secretly Stevie Wonder's Cherie Amour.
I'm under Frank Sinatra's skin.
I'm Michael Jackson's PYT again,
And Ray Parker's other woman.
I've heard all my lucky songs today,
And I've heard the deep voice of The Singer say,
"This is MY daughter, with whom I am well pleased."

-jenn



Thursday, July 16, 2015

I know it's going to be OK.
But today all I can see
Is that stage of the cake
Where the eggs are blooped in on one side like three big lazy eyeballs,
And the teaspoon of vanilla isn't wanting to mix with the oil,
Or the milk.
The salt and sugar ain't that happy together.
The baking soda pouts, still clumped up in the shape of the spoon that dumped it,
And looks like a plain white boil on the butt of humanity.

But I'm just going to go ahead and keep on mixing it,
And one of these days, I'm going to have my cake,
And I'm damn well going to eat it, too.

-jenn

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

It's my luck
To be so sweet in bloom
The mandrake blossom
The finch the loon
Come to drink my nectar
Exotic and rare
It's my luck
To be stuck
Here in the rain
Neath this mango fan with you
The fruit heavy and ripe
And wants to be picked on this very day

But the rain will stop
And people will see
Me with all this mango juice on my mouth
And hands
Face and toes
But that's how it goes
It's my luck

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

I'm writing my love
On clouds in the sky,
Hopeless as cheat notes,
Chords of love songs
Written on the palm of my hand.
Blue ink is getting all over my guitar,
But I don't need to cheat.
I know this song
Like the back of my hand,
And the front of your face,
Your sweet mouth.
And I don't need to tell you
That I love you,
And the clouds don't need to rain,
Because this is West Texas,
And smoke doesn't always mean fire,
And cumulonimbus clouds don't always mean business here.
But you and I,
Always mean Love.

-Jenn

I didn't meet the Buddha on the way to the market.
I met a beetle dying on the sidewalk at McDonald's.
It was lying on its back,
Kicking its feet helplessly
And wallowing in the suds
Of the very detergent
That had been used to try and wash the grimy walkway.
I saw a little bird hop up and look at the bug,
But the bird could smell the surfactant that covered the beetle
And knew better than to eat it.
The bird hopped back away from the temptation and looked at it long and hard
With his beady eye
Before he flew.
I sat on the other side of the glass,
Drinking my tea like a shard of excommunicated Mongolian glass,
And decided that maybe I had met the Buddha, after all.
And so I stepped on the bug on my way back to my car
And put him out of his misery.
I'm on a roll.
Who wants to be next?

-jenn

It disappeared in the water.
Whatever it was,
The universal solvent solved it,
And the riddle was no more.
And it had been ugly,
And had caused me terror,
Even if just for a millisecond,
But now, even my suspicions were gone
As I looked deeply into the cup of life and saw
That even death had been swallowed up by it.

-jenn
Automatic doors don't open for me.
And the people in the store
Stare through me as if I don't exist.
I wait and wait at the deli counter,
But no one asks if they may assist me.
But then I feel the need to pee.
I make my way to the restroom.
I glance at the mirrors on my way to one of the stalls,
And sure enough, there's no reflection.

I stop and stand in front of them.
I will myself to be seen.
Slowly an image vaguely appears,
But it's hard to hold.
It fades quickly if I don't concentrate,
And it's just as well,
For I don't recognize the creature looking back at me
With its wings and flowing mane.

But I've gotten a good enough glimpse to wonder
If I might be able to fly.
I'm going to try,
But I'm sure,
That I'll have to work that, too.

-Jenn
Well I guess I have arrived
At the ripe old age
Where cashiers and waitresses
And other people that I don't know
And who don't know me
Think it's cute and flattering
To call me 'young lady.'
But I'm tellin ya right now,
Y'all better cut that shit out
Cause that is pissin me plum off.

Love always,
jenn

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

I share my dinner with a fly.
I wish I didn't know
That it regurgitates on everything it lights upon.
I wish I didn't know about a lot of things,
Like eyebrow worms
And itch mites
And insults
And that disregarded feeling one gets
From sharing her dinner with a fly.

-jenn
I remember one day that my grandmother braided my hair
In an old world style,
A Dutch braid, as she fashioned it.
She used a million bobby pins,
Because my hair was what she called 'flyaway hair.'
I felt her hands scrabble across my scalp
Picking up strands of my hair like a peanut combine
And laying them back down in harvested rows
Poof! I was transformed into a goddess,
A junior one, at least, for I certainly didn't know how to make this braid
And couldn't have done it by myself.

Now please don't get the picture that this was an every day occurrence.
It was not.
This was something very rare and very special,
And I wished the braid would last forever,
But in just one hour,
My flyaway hair proved
Too much for the old world braid,
And just how useless bobby pins are
In the hair of a post-postmodern six-year-old at play.

And I think my grandma saw that too,
And maybe that's why she never bothered
To braid my hair again,
But only brushed it for me now and then
And let me and it fly.

-jenn