Wednesday, November 30, 2016

When the sun goes down
Behind the round mountain
It gets so dark and still
I can barely contain myself
I don't think I will

I can hear deer rustle
Through the forest
I hear the nightbird trill
I can barely contain myself
I don't think I will

Come sit out on the porch with me
We'll watch the night grow deep
Put your hand down on my knee
And smile and say let's go to sleep
And we'll go, and lie in bed and kiss
Drink from Love til we 've had our fill
I will not contain myself
No, I don't think I will

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

I dream. I dream. I dream of you.
It's true.
I do.

If you want to know the lies,
Then go and live in lovers' eyes
While they're awake,
When they can't realize what's at stake
For the sake of their sacred destinies.
But if you want to know the truth,
Go and see what lovers do at night
In their dreams.

The thoughts of day are swayed
By the consciences of others.
What would old so and so say,
Or my mother?
And often we don't choose what is good
For us, but what we feel we should.

But in our dreams, in the cover
Of sleep,
We laugh only at funny things,
We truly weep at things that are truly sad,
And we love only our true loves,
No matter what intense training we've had
"To know better."
When our confusion unfetters
At night
And we dream, we dream it right.
We see the monsters for who
They are,
And we see who shows up
To star
In our fantasies.

I dream. I dream. I dream of you.
It's true.
I do.

- jenn

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Mary Doublehead McNulty

I can go
Days without any water
I can go days without any food
But I can also die
So easily
Like my mother did when I was two

I can easily be adopted
Walk the trail alone
Til I find somewhere
With someone with extra
Someone kind
Someone warm
To lie down with
And make it through
The cold crying winter

But I didn't cry that hour
That day
So it's not The Trail of Tears to me
It's just a way
A way of life
A way of my DNA

Maybe I'm lucky that I never remembered
The big wooden house
Chinked with clay
Where mama cooked beef
And vegetables from the big barn
Where our dried food
And horses stayed
And the wagon
Her grandfather built
When we, the human beings, lived in peace

Before the lawyers and anti-humans
Wrote many words and debated them
Although they were all on the same side
They colluded to make it look justified
The decision to send the soldiers to enforce
The belief that because Europe had "discovered" America,
(Even though we had lived there generations before)
The men took our land
They took our houses
The soldiers walked through and took our best things
With only a nod of a judge to approve
We were deemed tenants
And evicted and marched
A long way a way

But maybe I'm lucky
For I understand
How temporal is
All that you can see
And how you will also take nothing with you
When you begin your march
Toward the Pleiades

And so maybe I will leave easily too
From this establishment
For I can eat one slice of white bread
And have dysentery for seven generations
And die easily
Like my mother did
When I was two

-jenn



In the future
(As in the past)
When they want to put you away for life
They will find a hair you've shed
Or your saliva from a cup you've thrown away
And clone you in the lab
But they will abort your fetus
Just after you've grown long enough to take your blood
From a pseudo-placenta
Take it back to the scene of the crime
Spatter it perfectly themselves to fit their story

And so in the future
(As in the past)
People will become superstitious
About leaving their hair and nail clippings behind

-jenn

Saturday, November 26, 2016

The things that I desired were wrong
And as I chased them
I went off-track
And exhausted myself to achieve them
When I succeeded
There was bitter success
And a great feeling of lack

But the things the universe has brought to me are good
I received them as a result of inaction
True gifts, unmerited and undeserved
They came to me
Drawn to me because of who I am
Not what I do
And they are beautiful
And I cherish them

I will trust the universe
To bring me good gifts
You feed me from its loving hand
It created me from nothing
It will make me what I am destined to become

-jenn

Friday, November 25, 2016

The beat of the song is strong at first
Like a heart that's hustled about before plopping in bed,
And you can hear it in your head.
Then, as one breathes
And the heart beat slows,
The percussion gets low,
And disappears into the shutters' creaking.

Rock me in your arms tonight
To the rhythm of that great song.
Hum along to the borrowed melody,
But please, sing the stolen lyrics
That Orpheus sang, quietly as you ascend,
And never, never look back.

-jenn

She's driving and singing,
Or talking to herself.
The window is up
So I can't tell.
She's older, but checking herself in the mirror,
Hoping to meet someone else.

A long scar runs
From her wrist to her elbow
And belies the miracle
Of her survival
And her current hope.

But sing, Milady,
(Or speak to yourself),
Meet your lover,
If you must,
Whatever you need to do,
Whatever you want
To get you along,
To help you process
You're current worth,
And your divinity within.

-jenn
I've come from Jennbury
Where daisies grow,
Planted by people who didn't know me,
And dandelions sprout
From children wishing
Their little hearts out
And blowing the seeds
Of their dreams in the air.
Mystically, dreams and seedlings
Grow there, where other things have died.
New things arise,
And quietly say
All the things words failed to describe
And express.

-jenn


All my roads lead to you.
My rivers flow
To you, every glow,
Each wink, each nudge
Each tendril of love grows round.

The sun never sets on my love for you.
The rain can never wash the indelible  cartouche
That has been deeply, perfectly cut
With your great name upon my heart and soul.

The graffiti of Pompeii,
The fragments of Sappho on velum,
The height and grandeur of Herodotus,
Raucous jokes and heartfelt vows,
The sum and total of every idle word,
Each jot and tittle
Of law and wives' tales and limericks,
No stone has been left unturned in finding you,
The Trilithon of my faith and hope,
The future waiting for your designs,
The me, here, knowing, that all in all
Is here and right this very moment in time,
Dripping with nothingness and everything else
For us and us alone.

-jenn

Melt with me in the warm moonlight tonight,
And pour yourself out of the mold
The world has formed for you.
Let's trickle downhill like tiptoe princesses
Wondering when midnight will come
Until we find an easy place to pool.

We can ripple and splash in wild abandon,
Not worried about when the end will come.
We won't notice the sunrise
Or the cold shoulder
That ultimately comes to freeze us.
But even in suspended animation,
We will at least be ourselves,
And at last be caught forever
In effortless pose
For memento.

-jenn
When I conquer the mountain,
I'll conquer myself,
The dreams and memories,
Hopes and fears,
The past, the future,
Known and unknown,
The stars and planets,
The gas at Auschwitz,
The bullets in Syria,
The knives of Moscow,
The parents of Rome,
The plagues of Athens,
The children of Gaza,
The cold of Ipswitch,
The heat of Sahara.
All that will be done
When I conquer the mountain.
And I will stand and survey the mountain,
And overstand,
And understand.
Then maybe I'll dive off of the mountain,
And not worry about coming down,
Or going home.

-jenn

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

When leaves fall hard and clatter along the curb
And yet, the sky is blue,
And sun shines golden
Even through the dark evergreen,
My thoughts turn to you
And how your sunny smile
Warms even the coldest
Regions of my heart,
How cupid's dart strikes me
In the dark forest of my imagination
And drives my love to summer's meadow,
So gleeful with nightingales and bees combs
And every sweet intoxicating thing.
And tho I long for spring today,
The seasons rock with peaceful sway
Against my shores and I can see
Happiness buoyed just beyond the rocks
Of gallantry and leeward time.

-jenn


Sunday, November 20, 2016

They'll tell you you're too fat to dance.
But what do they know
About the history of body language?
That nodding the head 'yes' comes from
Letting someone fuck you?
And that shaking the head 'no'
Was from someone fucking you sideways anyway against your will?
That the sound of a kiss
Is pussy lips parting?
And what of a shrug,
Or a goodbye hug,
Or anything else for that matter?
So I say the fatter the better,
And you can dance if you want,
And should, anyway,
Because it might be the only body language
That is both beyond understanding,
And beyond communicating 'you'
Perfectly in your own time and skin.

-jenn

I'm not going to look at myself for the Winter,
And I'm not going to look at you.
I'll close my eyes and hear
The sounds your body makes.
I'll listen as one whose palm
Is inscribed by a trembling finger
And then pushed under the flow
To feel the double entendre
And know the name called 'water.'

And when you cry, I will smell the wetness of your tears,
And I will taste them for myself
To be sure whether they are of sorrow or joy.

And when Spring comes,
With its equal light,
I'll open my eyes
And rewrite this poem,
Replacing the you's with me's,
Changing the your's to my's.

And then I'll close my eyes again
And do all these things that I've done for you
For myself
Until Summer comes
With it's harvest of sweet cherries and wheat,
And then I will open my eyes
And eat,
And be satisfied.

-jenn

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Some people lose it a little at a time.
Me, I plan to go crazy all at once,
And when I do I'm going to pretend that I'm Elizabeth Hurley.
I'll start to speak with a British accent
And get rid of all my clothes
Except for the bikinis and evening gowns,
And when I get bored with that
(Which may take awhile),
I'll move on to mumus and kaftan dresses
And pretend not to remember
That I've had dessert.
And if anyone bothers to chide me,
I'll feign that I've forgotten how to speak,
And answer every question or challenge
Only with a meeeeeow.

-jenn

This genius woman with her nose in the air
Pushes her cart smugly down the aisles at Walmart,
Briskly advising her young ward
About the benefits of proper nutrition.

She purses her lips as she surveys
The ingredient list of every brand
Of canned fruit cocktail,
And sneers disdainfully at me as I walk past.

I hated to tell her that her pants were unzipped,
But someone had to.

Hehehee

-jenn

Sunday, November 13, 2016

You've run me out of my heart twice
And once from my own soul.
But last time, while I was away,
I had a baby out of wedlock
And raised him by myself
Out in the wilds of the universe
Where hominids roam untamed.

And in a kind of Woodall sense at first
I stopped to watch them,
And then in deep respect I came to revere
The poetic beauty of their ways
And the subtle harmonies they moved to
That ordered the natural laws
By which they lived.
And yet it was in deep set freedom
Their beings there resided,
And in their contentment, no confine was ever felt.

And so I came to worship this peace
That passes all understanding,
And as I meditate on it tonight,
I find I have no use or urge to return
To the pathetic trappings
Of my heart
Or my soul,
But I long to stay here
In this wilderness
With my spirit
And my ancestors.

-jenn


Here's my contribution to nothingness!
I lift my glass to the North Star.
And while one Celtic fiddle plays,
And it's notes disappear into the night sky
Along with all the idle words spoken
But every human being who has ever lived,
I'll disappear into the trees
Beside the grotto where the sybil muttered,
And hike my skirt
And pee on the mossy loam.

Then I'll wander farther away from the party,
Unseen, unmissed,
And sit on the rocks
Stained by undrunk wine,
Covered by tiny shards of chalices
Where others before me have broken their good crystal,
Where others before me have sat
And watched the Northern Cross turn in the sky.
Did they, too, ponder the meaning
Of existence and nothingness?

-jenn

Saturday, November 12, 2016

The Great Darlini, magician of the night,
Takes his top hat off and twirls it
Right down on some great mesa
In the desert where the stars shine out.
He taps it three times and never says a word,
But galaxies spin as if they have heard
His whisper, like the galloping of
A thousand wild horses.
Then he pulls a pine cone out of his hat
And twirls it by the stem in his fingertips,
And just like that, the solar system
As we know it, melts into the Milky Way,
And nothing is left of the watery sea.
It's tears are dried, and you and I
Have disappeared, too, and so has the night,
And the day.

-jenn
He took his eyes off me to look at the moon,
Which beguiled him with her pale perfection.
But the moon is a mask,
And behind it lies a dark sun
With a strange energy,
A hideous gravity.

And while it seems that I wane,
I turn in apogee,
And he sees my fullness.
The distance has a perverse draw,
And as he turns again, he sees
Me in my perigee.
The mask can't hide me.
I am the dark sun
Behind the moon.

-jenn

The gracious one is like the sea.
At my lowest point,
He welcomes me
And receives all that I am.
And as I gush into his arms,
I feel the solution.
The warmth of his love
Disarms me.
All the disillusion melts away.
The illusion, too,
Is gone, and I find
Nothing there at all
But my perfect completeness
At sea level,
And all the love he offers me.

-jenn

Friday, November 4, 2016

Change due.
No change comin.
Got to leave a tip.
Walk off hummin the blues.

But I'm happy
Because I'm hungry again,
And I'm so thirsty.
I'm empty again,
Yet close to burstin,
So full of love for you
And thrilled to be
Doin it over
And over again
With you.

-jenn
So I put the noodles on
And set the timer,
And went off to do other things.
Time was up
And like Robert Oppenheimer
I went to be a destroyer of worlds,
But my noodles weren't done.
The stove was barely on---
At 2.8 instead of 5.

I think I'm going to learn this lesson:
I'm on the range, and the salt
And the Wesson Oil has been added,
A dash of garlic and fatted calf
And the prodigal son.
And when my time is up and come,
I'm gonna be done.
I'm turnin myself up and on,
And when they find me dead,
At least they'll know
That once, I was alive.

-jenn

Sixteen pounds is an ounce these days
And not worth more than four.
And you can eat a bushel of corn
But your body will still want more
Because there aren't the same nutrients in here
That there were in just one heirloom ear.
The hybridized production year
Put the tractors in overdrive
And I guess the world has ended,
But no one stopped to see,
For seed time and harvest is over.
One last lonely bee
Ponders what world it may fly to
Where nature still pollinates,
And animals can still merely eat and poop
And the pits will actually proliferate
So that even humans and all their greed
And ingenuity can't screw that up.

-jenn

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

We are just balloons that want air.
We huff and puff
And blow ourselves up
And reinvent the stairs,
The wheel, and the mouse trap extraordinaire.

And while we gloat
And bloat over spurious crowns,
We often let our deals go down
Unattended.
We find ourselves suspended
In rooms that are not our own,
Where we have no choice
And no control over the remote,
And therefore, can't even change the channel,
Much less ourselves.

-jenn

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

There are places I can go.
The way is long, the pace is slow,
And I don't always appreciate
The tiring journey.
But when I take the bullet train
With you, we cover the terrain
Fast and in a hurry.
We get there and beyond.
I feel we're hovering somewhere
Long forgotten or rarely reached,
Some nirvana, some perfect peach
Of a heavenly destination.
And what about the way?
I wish it could've taken us one more day,
One more mile, or two,
With you.

-jenn