Saturday, June 25, 2016

I once met a man
Who could crush a beer can
With only the front of his forehead
And he'd found a way
To derive his pay
From writing songs about such things
And while others endeavored
To highlight their labors and ways
There was no how dee doo
In his blatant how to
He merely grunted out his success story
To us at the seminar

At the meet and greet
I noticed his feet
Were bare and apelike
And as he took the pen
I trembled within to see that
His thumbs were just almost opposable

And then I knew what was wrong
With all the songs coming out of Nashville right now.

-jenn


The interview

She smiles dutifully
And answers prim
The questions premeditated
And posed by him.
Her brown skin is pale,
Her black hair pulled
Neatly back, and
Her bangs don't move
When she nods her head
And acquiesces
And blinks her eyes
In painful yesses.
But when goes to the other room,
Her shoulders slump,
Her eyes look sad,
And I can't tell
Whether she really wants the job
Or not.

I want to tell her
That she can do better,
But I don't for fear
That she'll misunderstand,
Think I'm criticizing her interview skills,
That she could be doing better at that today,
When my heart's cry
Is just to say
That my wish for her
Is a better place to employ herself
Than here at McDonald's
With this creep that's sizing her up.
Maybe I wish someone would have told me that
Thirty years ago.

-jenn

The sunlight stretched a hammock out
Between the trees for me,
And smiled, and bade me welcome,
Invited me to rest where the strings of light danced
And played with the shadows of the leaves.
I lay there staring up into the canopy of the forest
Until I felt alone.
I looked around and realized
The sun and the shadows were gone.

I rose up in the twilight
And wondered if I should go,
When a lovely silhouette  turned toward me,
And smiled and told me, "No,
It's only about now going to get very good."

Night birds charmed me with their songs.
I began to sway.
The evening star came out for a chorus.
The silhouette danced with me
Until the moon appeared.

And then the moon and I made love
All night while new shadows fluttered
Gently across our silver skin
Until we sighed and shuddered.

And into this mystical night I sailed
Off into a drink-me sleep,
For I had melted into a tonic,
Such as sailors keep for emergencies,
Only for life or death situations.

And now someone has collected me
From the petals of the morning dew,
And corked me up inside this bottle,
And I am waiting for you
To realize how you require me,
How life or death it is
For you to uncork me,
And swallow all my contents.

-jenn


Saturday, June 11, 2016

It's just a bunch of nano bits,
Electromagnetic gigo chips
All bursting up like butterflies
That hatch at once together.
They flutter violently in the leaves
Of palpitating aspen trees
And rise and fall against the tether
Until the swell breaks the tie
And scatters up against the sky
So blue with clouds that dream.
As they sachet across the way
And over another mountain,
Some new horizon waits for all of them.

And, in my soul, a million cells
Regenerate and pop and swell
And float me like those butterflies
Into some new born day.
I gallop, now, into the morn
And laugh at all the clothes I've worn
And dream of this thing so unexplained
And say,
"It's just life."

-jenn

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Sometimes in the middle of the night,
When my cat can't see exactly where
My arm is coming from to pet him,
He suddenly decides that it must be
Some alien robotic arm
Sent to abduct him in the night
Or shear off all his whiskers.

He levels his ears and clasps me in
His big paws with their razor nails
And kicks the living shit out of my hand and arm.

Now, I know there's a lesson here,
Though maybe not one that poetry
Can render, especially writing this
From the middle of the night
With a cat hanging off my arm.

But I've seen people do this, too,
To each other, and maybe it, too,
Has something to do with curiosity,
Or just not knowing where the other person's coming from,
Or where they're going.
But I think if we could maybe trust
That it's ok to listen,
That they don't have to change our minds,
Or we theirs, it would be good.

Then again, maybe they are alien robots
Sent to steal our wills from us,
Or shear our whiskers in the night,
And if that's the case,
We should kick the living shit out of them.

-jenn