Saturday, March 30, 2019

Ahhhh, Oklahoma!
I don't feel at home here,
Even if they do have a statue of my cousin, George Gist,
High atop the Capitol dome.
They urge us to pray for the leaders here,
And George, or Sequoia, as you may know him,
As brilliant as he was with letters,
Did not see how the Cherokee alphabet
Would mostly be used to promote the gospel, 
And the gospel would be used to christianize and castrate the Cherokee.

My great great great great grandfather Doublehead saw.
He was one of the tribal elders, 
And when the Moravians offered to build Christian schools
On Cherokee lands in 1798,
He asked them if they were going to teach or preach.
And when they said "both,"
"Then go home!" Chief Doublehead told them.

But who am I?
I am not an inventor of alphabets.
I'm not a chief, or even a very good matriarch.
I seem homeless to you, without a country.
But I am the virgin land itself.
I am the virgin people,
Restored to full hope and full vitality,
And when you, or anyone else, of any race or religion or belief,
Come to me with your moral superior high ground,
And your manifest destiny under your arm,
Before you can infect me with your cultural diseases,
And submit me to your polite society and political correctness,
I will go full blood warrior!
I will dip my arrows in botulism
And shoot them through your trite ideologies.

Oh, and I will pray for the leaders.
I will pray that they cry out in a forsaken language
As they stand amidst the rubble of their shattered isms.

-jenn






The transaction processed to the real estate closing 
At the title company's office.
The Southern belle had gotten a good deal on the house.
She'd made an offer.
The sellers made a counter offer,
Which came out even better for her.
An inspection found termites.
The seller was going to have to pay.
Suddenly, in an addendum to the purchase agreement,
They offered to let her purchase the refrigerator and the washer dryer for $500.00,
With a personal check payable at closing.

After all the papers were signed,
Southern Belle got out her checkbook.
The sellers' realtor was there,
Her realtor and the mortgage lender.
She looked up and asked them,
"What should I write on the reference line of the check?
Refrigerator? Washer/dryer?
Sexual Favors? Because this sure 
Feels like a screwing of some kind."

-jenn


Friday, March 29, 2019

Wild plum thickets grow
Along the ditch beside the dirt road,
And little girls know
By the time they're two,
How to shinny through the grove
Without the thorns scratching 
Up their clothes, or their bare arms
And legs.

But it begs the question,
The hot sand sparkling on her tan feet,
Will she ever be more at home in a hut somewhere 
With endless chores, like her mom,
Than she is out here, 
With a warm plum on her tongue,
The canopy of heaven up over her bed,
A crown of thorns and summer green plum leaves on her head,
With her butt right square on the ground?

Somehow an older, more mature,
But never wiser version of herself
Inside her, tells her, no,
No, she won't.


-jenn

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

I'm not really good with time,
But effort I am acquainted with.
I find the things I try so hard at
Are not the things that I should "do,"
Because what I've begun to see
Is, the things that are really me
Are things I do
So naturally.

So I'm going to continue 
Falling backwards off of logs,
Feeding hogs,
And running a swather over hay,
Oh, and writing poetry,
Long as the lottery money and the per cap holds out.


-jenn
It doesn't matter, this or that,
The husk of ritual.
But on that day that petals bloomed open,
And there were butterflies and wind,
Who knew if pollen would be accepted?
Only until a bud grew where the blossom had been,
Did I see the fruit of love.

And who, whoooo but owls know deep
The trees and woods,
And only those who sleep in the day
Can say, can speak, the ancient mysteries
Of birds and bees and delicious Fruits of Love,
And twin baby-goats, born today,
On the rocky outcrop.


-jenn

Monday, March 25, 2019

Love came once,
Softly cooing,
Gentle as a newborn child.
Teaching the teachers,
Turning the tables over
For the poor in spirit,
It survived the wilderness called humanity
As long as it could.

But love will return
And come to
Love you.
Will you be ready for love?
Will you let it come again?
Will you let love love you?


-jenn
Troubles like Starlings,
They see one swoop,
Find a crumb to feed on,
Before you know it,
Another one comes,
And another and another.

I've sat in a dingy lot
And shared my lunch
With Trouble,
But today I shared my crumbs
With the Starlings
Til all of us were full.
Finally I giggled,
Watching their comic strut and fluff.

But when I eat with Trouble,
Trouble never gets enough,
And we never have giggles for dessert.
We don't laugh until it hurts,
We just hurt.

I'm gonna forget about my troubles,
Sit on a bench,
Forget everything,
Feed my troubles to the Starlings
And giggle,

Feed my lunch to the Starlings.

-jenn

Sunday, March 24, 2019

When the people are assembled
Waiting on the prophet,
They will not recognize 
A young pregnant native girl
Too round to ride the donkey.
They would not make a way for me.

Grandfather walked beside me.
He shook his head,
For they had no respect.
I had to step out in the muddy turn row
By the green corn and sank up to my thighs 
In the irrigated field,
But I kept walking toward the amphitheater.
The staff in my hand was from
The tribe of Aaron,
To demonstrate to the populous,
That all we, all we tribes, are lost tribes.

I stood on the hillside
And looked a long way down
To where the pulpit was,
But I lost faith
In the people
Who would not let me through.

I had a message of hope and love
And a missing piece of knowledge 
That the generations needed
To be able to understand.

But I also had a baby kicking in my belly,
And I had thick brown mud caked up over my thighs.

I only got to braid my way through
The fringes of the population,
With onlookers gawking at my muddy legs and extended abdomen,
Before I saw that I would never
Penetrate their margins or their minds.

The mob had pushed me like a river, flood stage,
And washed me up on a bluff above them.
I scraped the mud off my legs
And made a decision.
We will start a new tribe
And follow a new way 
With only what we have at hand:
My grandfather, Aaron's staff,
A colt that had never been ridden,
And the unborn child in my womb.

Oh, and myself,
I was just starting to learn
That I should never underestimate my self.


-jenn

Saturday, March 23, 2019

My family and I were filing in to the row 
Where our tickets said that we should sit.
We had purchased them late,
And so were interspersed with others
Who were already seated.
My lot came to sit next to the dad
Of one of my classmates.

When I sat down on the wooden bleacher,
A short support snapped on one side,
Sliding me right up next to him,
And his arm came down right around me, automatically.
I felt both of us stiffen momentarily.
I felt him start to move his arm.
"Leave it there," I whispered.
"Just one more minute. Please."

We both exhaled,
And both thoroughly enjoyed
An awkward, and probably very inappropriate feeling,
A minute of excitement and the strange bliss
Of being in the right place at the very right time.

-jenn


She's wearin that Odell Beckham, Jr. jersey
To impress her man.
And it's not her color,
And it clashes with her eyes,
And he doesn't care anyway,
As long as it looks good on the floor.
But it makes me wonder,
Who am I wearing these Old Navy skinny jeans for?


-jenn

Inspired by Lao Tsu #40

Returning is the motion of the Tao.
(And so I return to you.)
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
(And so I yield to you.)
The ten thousand things are born of being.
(I love being with you.)
Being is born of not being.
(I drift away in sleep as death,
 And dream and wake to live again
And to return.)


-jenn

Friday, March 22, 2019

I cry and the sun shines through my tears.
Casting rainbows through my fickle ways,
The sun knows it is not because
I fell and skinned my knee
That I so thoroughly weep.

But if the sun assumes I cry for me,
It does not sun see
My tears aligned 
To the cosmos.
For if I cry for anyone,
I cry for you, Sun.


-jenn

So here's how it is for you,
Those of you who think my life is all poetry and bonbons all day!
I made the mistake of asking my older son
How this sweater looked,
And he told me it looked like it had started out to be a short sweater,
And two toddlers had tugged on it so much and stretched it out too long.
And I said, "That is exactly what happened!
You tugged one side,
And your baby brother tugged the other four years later!"

Then as we got in the car,
The younger one quietly asked,
"Mom, HOW long HAVE YOU HAD that sweater?"


-jenn
would ask you how you are
But I know you’ll say
Always the same
So I’ll just say
I’m missing you
For always the same for me
Is that day after kissing you feeling
I want a little bit more
....of you today

-jenn

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Oh Well!
Thou deep and altruistic hole!
Thou cavernous depth
To water far below!
Thou hast been dug so long ago,
And yet thy fount has not run dry.
I come to thee with thirst,
And thou, thou dost repay
My faithfulness to thee
With waters sweet,
As long as there's a bucket,
And if not, then ......
...... Oh, Well.


-jenn

I used to get home from church on Wednesday evenings,
And see someone going for a peaceful walk.
The long rays of golden light would shine on them.
The long shadows would fall silently,
And the mere possibility of such delight and splendor
Pulled so hard at me,
Until I quit going to church on Wednesday nights,
And I was the preacher.


-jenn
Bobby Willis came to call.
I'd just gotten off a tractor
And was covered in dust
From head to toe.
I'd been running a swather
And smelled like diesel 
And Red Man chewing tobacco.
I'd talked to him a time or two before on the phone,
Back when I thought I might make a living as a writer.
I thought he was a publisher of sorts,
And had sought out his advice.

He was touring with a famous troupe
And had them stop their big bus 
In the middle of nowhere, Texas,
And drive it all the way down the little trail that led
To our windblown yard, 
Littered with dog-chewed bones and soiled paper plates.
He wanted to see if he could pick me up
And take me back with him to Manhattan.

The musicians were crawling everywhere,
Like kids who'd never seen 
A harrow plow, a pinwheel rake,
A New Holland hay baler.
They were climbing on the rusted farm implements 
And jumping down into the sand.

My dad came out on the porch,
Still eating a ham sandwich,
To see what all the ruckus was,
With my cousin Debbie right behind him.
She recognized the band and wanted some autographs.
The bus driver pulled me aside
To show me a small metal safe keeping box
With letters that Bobby had written to me
That he had never sent,
And the times and places where he was
When he'd spoken to me on the phone,
And his notes regarding our conversations.
"He is really smitten with you," the bus driver whispered in my ear.

I hadn't even seen Bobby yet,
And had no idea what he looked like,
But I went in and packed a bag.
Maybe he'd caught me at a good time,
Or maybe it seemed his thoughts of love 
Would see us through.

Then he came around the end of the bus
With a big smile,
And I was happy for both of us,
For I could see a real tangible expression
Of his love and affection for me
Growing strong
Right there in his pants,
Between his lovely pockets
That overflowed with paper notes.
More love notes for me, I hoped.
But he was 62, I heard him answer Debbie,
And I was seventeen,
And my dad wouldn't allow it.

I've never been sure what Bobby Willis was,
Except that, for me, he was, as Rupert Holmes sings,
"One of the people you never get to love."

-jenn





Tuesday, March 19, 2019

I have Waylon's gimme cap.
It blew off his head in Levelland, Texas.
It's red and white, and has a pale, sky blue oval in the center
With the Co-op logo from Hockley County.
His name is written on the inside
With what looks like ball point pen ink.

I was walking down a dirt road
When his cousin's pickup passed me
And the hat flew out.
I saw where they turned in,
And so I walked up to the big warehouse
To see if I could give it back to him.
There was a whole bunch of men in there,
Drinking and smoking cigars.
There were two guys fighting 
In a big truck repair well.
They were cursing at each other,
Insulting one another,
Trying to aggravate the pitch of their brawl.

I felt very out of place
And got out of there as fast as I could.

I kept that hat.
I hold it sometimes,
And look at the sweat stains on it.
I hold it to my face.
It smells like a horse,
But I wear it sometimes 
While I play guitar.


-jenn

I offered help,
And he looked at me with one eye squinted,
As if to ask why I was being so contributive.
I stared into his face and wondered
What was the answer
To his eye-pothetical question?
Why WAS I being so helpful?

I'm sure there is a long laundry list
Of scientific psychological abnormalities 
That could be inferred by a professional here,
But, I had just seen him drop an unmentionable 
Out of his hamper on the way into the laundromat,
And I thought he might want it back.

(I've since bought a washer.)


-jenn
"Where's Jennifer," they'll say,
(But they won't ask).
"Because if there's one person that should be here..."
(It isn't her).
They have questions 
They can't answer.
Mysterious puzzles,
Missing pieces,
Lost time and weird coincidences,
And if I'm not available for questioning,
Alien abduction will be the only reasonable explanation 
With which they can conclude.


-jenn
I set the hourglass for an hour
And promptly went to sleep,
And when my sixty minutes of sand fell through,
My forty winks were still blinking.
Quietly, like jellyfish in the deep sea,
With pale neon shimmers, I dreamed,
And the hourglass, too polite to wake me,
Kindly let me be.

Modern technology is too intelligent to be polite,
Too smug to allow for a human factor.
Some call it progress.
Some call it smart.
But I wonder.


-jenn

Saturday, March 16, 2019

The rush is on! To finish our race!
But I don't want the end to come!
Mid-stride I feel the urge to go off-track.
I think of a kid I knew at Christmas 
Who opened his presents painstakingly slow,
Trying to make the holiday last forever.

I've walked away from the Christmas tree
With several packages left unopened.
I've abandoned my race
With three laps left,
And headed off into the woods.

But maybe in some predestined way,
I'm still racing to my fate,
As a river runs it's course
To the sea.
But at least I can say I will be found,
Brave and stoic as a still-life.
I'll let the end come rushing in for me.

-jenn