Sunday, September 24, 2017

Abundance Principle

You know how it is when you open a brand new tube of toothpaste,
And you put a big blob of it on your toothbrush,
Just like the beautiful people on the toothpaste commercials do?

You brush your teeth with a cheesy grin,
Cheating the dentist out of his millions,
And all is well until you get a big dent in the middle of your toothpaste tube.

Because then you see that you're down to half empty.
You dab a mere dot,
Which the hygienists assure us is plenty,
But we feel it's not
Unless it's fluoridated.

But the smile is now wan as you stare at yourself in the mirror,
And you notice your hair needs a doin'
If you're going to keep up with the Joneses.

Then, first thing you know,
You're down, a quart low,
Squeezing the tube with a roller.
Barely enough to dot an I,
And you'll have to scrub hard to cross all your T's
While you gottem.

And we won't talk about bottoms here,
But the same principal is abundantly clear
When it comes to toilet paper.

-jenn


I'm caught in the middle
Somewhere way between
Fall boots and football,
Somewhere between the crowd turning me on,
And the crowd turning on me.

There is a fine line in life
That many say one should not cross,
But I say,
One must bring one's big hand
And one's little hand
All the way up to the stroke of midnight and beyond
When attempting to live the dream,
In order to assess what is real,
And what will turn back into pumpkins and rats.

-jenn

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Mother Earth is a big mama possum
With us on her back,
And we ain't gettin' nowhere really
Unless she takes us.
We can fight and jostle as she goes,
Tryin' ta get some better position,
But the only revolution that matters
Is her around the sun.

But when we die,
Some say we fly to where our treasure is.
Mama Possum shakes us free
To go where we want to go.
We may find ourselves on the forest floor,
Or fighting a war we can't win,
Or seeking knowledge in the akashic college of old.
But whatever we do and wherever we go,
Why do I feel like we will know
That our questions of who had it right here on earth
And who had it wrong
Will be like a baby possum asking it's mama
What kind of cheese the moon is made of.

-jenn
All the grizzlies look the same.
The polar bears do, too.
All the giraffes--so similar,
The zebra, the okapi, here at the zoo,
The deer mice, the house mice,
The meerkats, the wallaby, the kangaroo,
The markings, the coats,
Are so like the others of their species.

But look at the stream of human beings
Tramping along the boardwalk
To view the animals,
Hair color, eye color,
Size and shape---
A neon sign of diversity
In the animal kingdom.

Well, us, and the goats.

-jenn
We need Hawks and we need Doves,
Here, in the animal kingdom.
The law of the jungle is the secret way
That keeps us in balance and in health,
In rivulets that we can't see.

But the Great Spirit displays its complex grandeur
Through every one and every thing that lives,
Through the quick glances we might catch of all the individual ones.
We can, if we try, put together,
The cosmic composite,
So that we can fathom the entirety,
Though we might never truly know it.

But this is the animal kingdom.
What of we humans and our complicated societies?
I'm not sure, but I feel it is the same.

And so, My Brother, My Sister, just maybe,
The one you hate,
The one you call 'enemy,'
Is a part and parcel of yourself.

But if you find that too hard to swallow,
Maybe you could at least admit
That your enemy is also somehow a child of the Great Spirit.

-jenn

Monday, September 18, 2017

I've learned to leave when the cool kids leave,
And not to show up
At places they don't go.

Now I'm not cool,
But there's a reason they are,
And we could all learn from that.

-jenn
I remember a church potluck dinner.
I was standing in line
Right behind a woman who had already been through once.
She turned to show me her plate
And pointed to something that hadn't quite satisfied her delicate palate.
"Don't get any of this," she said,
And pointed with her fork to a broccoli slaw.
"It's bitter!" she said as she
Clinched her jaw in an unhappy grimace.

"I made that," I said,
And her eyes got big,
Her jaw unclenched and hung agape.
"I'm just kidding," I said,
"But I could've made it."

It's one thing to warn others of some deadly thing
That waits to bring a mortal fate,
But to criticize food at a church social,
Well, now that's just bad taste.

-jenn
I don't like this raspberry pie,
And I'm not going to try another bite.
I tasted one like this at church before,
And I didn't like it then.
I was told that it was good,
And that I should like it.

But I don't,
And I won't eat it anymore.

-jenn
I hope you like your bacon crisp
And all your pancakes flat.
And put too much syrup on them!
And after all of that,
Could we just go back to bed
And sleep and dream
And live in lala-land
Until such time as reality
Lines up with you and me?

-jenn
I'm out early walking in the wind.
It sounds like waves rolling out
And rolling in over the tops of the trees.
It's quiet here after the storm.
The animals are safe and warm in their burrows and nests.
Nothing is moving about.

I open my heart to the mottled sky.
I accept the duality of all nature,
My goodness and evil
And that of my family and friends.
I stand quietly on this airish hill
Where my hair blows free,
And I freely give my love again.
Yet I survey the dale
Where I live and take back my love, as well.

And now I know. I see.
The wind has blown the stale old lonesome out of me,
But just as soon as it comes again,
It will blow a fresh new lonesome in.

-jenn

Friday, September 15, 2017

By the time I rise,
The Morning Star is high.
She's painted a fresco,
Something she remembers.
She's dabbed the clouds with color
And the skies with things that made an impression
On her at some time in her youth.

She takes time to represent it fairly,
An accurate history.
The faces are the actual ones.
She remembers them so clearly,
And she saw it all from the beginning.
She's not confused
By who hit whom in the latter years of the war.
She knows who started it.

All other biographies might begin their story in the middle,
But not the frescoes of the Morning Star.
Blood still cries out from the rocks to her.
The heavens still resound
With the echoes of the injustices,
And the fairnesses,
That have ever been found to occur upon this earth.

But know that at this point in human history,
When you pick a side,
It may be based only on whom you think you saw throw the first punch.
And then again, you might be right,
But you might be very wrong.

But look to the frescoes.
Meditate on the ancientness of the Morning Star.
Make the world better wherever you are
By choosing to be uniquely you,
And loving those whom only you can love.

And when it's time for your countenance
To appear in the morning skies,
The Morning Star will smile as she paints you.
She will be sure to depict your good side.

-jenn

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Two flies buzzed about while I bathed.
One got swatted,
The other, unscathed,
Continue to fly between ceiling and floor,
But was it steam from the bath,
Or something more forlorn
That made the remaining fly
So heavy and morose?
Its spiral only seemed to go downward.

I don't think flies get married,
But perhaps these two were quantumly entangled.
Some connections are Cosmic and Real like that,
Even if they are "unofficial," or "officially" labeled "bad."

But whatever matrimony the excepted nomenclature of the day
Might try to enforce as "normal" or "good,"
People and flies will feel what they will for whom they will,
Right in the face of peer pressure or
The hegemony of political correctness.

-jenn
Behold the broken hearts!
Leaves
That felt that they were unwanted
By the Trees,
Used--like so much chlorophyll.
Innocence, imminence,
Photosynthesis!
Wam, bam, thank you ma'am!

The trees say, "No!
What you don't know
Is that I had to let you go
For just this season,
But you always return
By the vernal equinox,
And I didn't know the reason, either.
Til now, I thought you didn't want me."

-jenn

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

I have a winter garden
Where my kale and cabbage grows,
Turnip greens and mustard
And even when it snows,
My dandelions flutter
And shine bright yellow suns
At carrot tops and vining hops
And blush chrysanthemums.

And if you come and walk between
The clusters of love and rows
Of herbs and mints
And smell the pungent tingle
That tempts your nosy nose,
Then I will walk with you,
And we will find magic in the unseen.
We'll be fed goodness and graciousness.
Our love will sprout, and stay
Forever Evergreen.

-jenn

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

I'm stranded on a desert island,
Or maybe that's "dessert."
All I found to eat is coconut.
I struggle to blast them open.
The milk is not that sweet,
But I've discovered the heartiness
And flavor of the meat is satisfying
Like nothing else I've consumed.
It makes me wish that I'd been marooned
A long, long time ago,
Or maybe that's "macarooned."

-jenn

Monday, September 11, 2017

The curtain is alive
When the wind is in it.
It fills and billows
And spills it's lovely
Fragrant wine.
It giggles and stares
And shrugs its shoulders
Without a second care in the world.

Its first is something no one knows,
Until the wind forgets to blow.
The cup runneth over not.
Joy is gone.
The spirit has wandered far away.
No life dancing round in the curtain today.

But somewhere
Someone is settling in,
A loving smile,
Tweaking a chin,
Nuzzling the whiskers,
Laughing,
As ten winds blow
The curtains all aglow.

-jenn

Friday, September 8, 2017

There is a source,
And it is more powerful
Than all the location
You can put together.
There is a source.
The great force of physics we might call Love,
We might call Tao, or The Way.

I used to be able to talk about it,
Without having any form of understanding.
Now, I understand it quite well,
But I can't say,
And I won't.

-jenn

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Oh how I love an open window,
An open door, an open life.
I lie in my bed at night and close only my eyes.
My mind goes out, into the dark
Following the song of a lonesome cricket.
I scurry along with my nose to the trail
And my tail to a pining moon.

The stars snap their fingers and sway to the song,
The song that the lonesome cricket sings,
And the moon bobs along through the midnight sky
Like a big pale balloon that's been lost by a child.
And I am just mully-grubbin' my way to the creek
Through an airy gate someone left ajar--
Chasing my dreams out and over, across the Milky Way.

And I hope when I cross that starry river,
And shake the shimmering dust from my pelt
And shiver, and look to see
That someone has left a door open for me
Yet again.

-jenn

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

A storm brewed off the coast of France
And brought someone else's winds to me.
I liked these winds.
They blew cool and high and free
And made even the limbs and leaves in the tops of the trees dance.

I wanted to go and stay
Where these breezes blow,
To live and always be
Among the high cool snows
And freedom of the northern seas,
But a voice inside of me said,
"All the winds are within you."

And so I've stayed.
I made a forest grove my home,
Where not too many winds have ever blown,
But sometimes a good friend will pass through here
And bring me cheer,
And let me know I'm not alone.
And when I feel my spirit stir,
The refreshing air swirls up and even down.
The tops of the trees tremble,
And even the ground cover blows.
Then I hear the voice again and know,
"All the winds are within you."

-jenn
Certain flowers don't bloom,
But the bees still buzz.
They hover and hope
To be first when it does.

But certain flowers wait to bloom.
They smile and wave and stand the wind,
The sun, the moon, until just the right bee comes along.
And then they grin
And petals fall to make for them
A bed of roses--
Just right for the right bee,
And a night of blossoming.

-jenn

All I ever see of me is my shadow,
And depending on how my shadow has been informed,
It passes on to me its information,
Albeit limited, and somewhat distorted.

The only time I ever see my spirit,
I close my eyes and look down deep inside.
I dream when I'm awake and when I'm sleeping,
But these are just hints to the wide and spacious places that are "me."

My shadow only ever tells me gossip.
My dreams provide oases that mirage.
My heart tells me that kettle drums
At some distant Celtic Mayfair long ago
May be all that's keeping me alive.

And if I can hear the song that they are singing,
And if I can understand the ancient brogue,
My shadow will wander off to go out dancing
And leave me with my dreams to be alone.

I can enjoy the perfect rhythm of the drummer.
I can know that somewhere hearts beat gay.
And I can be as happy here as they are there
In their happy mansions of eternal day.

Somehow.

-jenn

Sunday, September 3, 2017

It's a woman's prerogative
To change her mind,
Because she can want to
And not want to
All at the same time.
Because there is some strange call
To come and swim upstream,
To be caught in a moment of hormones
And the gleam of another salmon's walleye.
And yet because there is some higher logic,
Some greater sense that one cannot
Make a dollar out of fifteen cents,
Or a silk purse from a sow's ear
Or a kangaroo,
Or chicken salad out of chicken poo,
Or enlightened progeny
From DNA that's stingy or unkind.
And so, yes,
It is a woman's prerogative
To change....her.....mind.

-jenn