Tuesday, October 29, 2019

I asked a witch if she'd bought her candy yet,
And this is what the witch said:
"I'm waiting til after Halloween 
To buy my candy
Because it will be half-price by then,
And I'm not handing any out,
Because it's very bad for the children.
But it's very good for me,
Because I'm not a children,
And I have a very big sweet tooth!"
Then she cackled her head off and flew
Right out of Walmart and over the waning moon,
Singing, "Hee heeheeeee hee heeee!"


-jenn

Monday, October 28, 2019

Some people remember everything,
And sometimes it is hard to change
When lovers have celebrated 
Their birthdays together 
For 22 years.

But I can't remember anything 
But chord progressions and recipes.
And the thing I can never forget
Is phone numbers
And the formula for converting 
Celsius to Fahrenheit.

But I don't ever remember sharing a cake with you,
Or doing anything fun.
I remember how I wanted to go 
Somewhere with you
But you said, "No."

So, I don't remember anything 
But chord progressions and recipes,
And the thing I can never forget
Is phone numbers,
And the formula for converting 
Celsius into Fahrenheit.


-jenn

I try to nap within the nap.
I dream I put a mattress on top of a mat
And the cushion from off the chaise lounge 
On top of some pillows on top of the couch.
I try to dream the dream within a dream.
I try to discern the focus inside my head.
Sleepily, I close my eyes,
I hear Howard Cosell's voice, ESPN music,
And then, I remember where I put the seeds
For the Geranium bed.

The ground is ready.
The rains have come.
The soft brown mud is calling
For me to come and scatter 
Zinnia and Marygold seed into the loam, 
To augment the Geraniums' bed.

The Geraniums want a softer bed this year,
More peat mixed in,
And fertilizer,
More perlite for soil perosity,
And they want to listen to the radio, too,
Like I do,
While they sleep,
And hear the voice of Howard Cosell 
And the ESPN theme songs.

The geraniums want to dream 
The dream within the dream
While they spin their lives into webs
Of recreating their DNA,
And I want to go to bed
And sleep and dream of the seed I came from,
And remember myself
Along the way,
And distract myself with Howard Cosell
And ESPN music,
And forget about all the seeds I've spilled,
And not worry with care
If they may or may not 
Dare to make flowers.


-jenn

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Someone a long time ago
Purposed the purposeless
And took all the fun out of life.
Someone took the holy pyramid 
And made it into a scheme.
Someone printed some currency,
And someone called it mammon,
And someone devised a formula
For living life by a theme.

And I undo.
Slowly my heart unwinds.
Surely I let go.
Time unravels.
Words 
Lose meaning.
I've thrown everything I own
Down the wishing well,
And only now I see
That I don't even have a wish.


-jenn 

There was a time when that certain someone 
Who told the world the emperor had no clothes on
Was seen as a visionary, a sage, a hero,
But nowadays, if you don't go along 
With the opinions of the mob,
They'll trample you right along with
The pearls that someone's thrown out
To the swine as they follow the lemmings
Over the cliff.

You might be a visionary,
A sage, a seer or a prophet,
But you'll be nothing left but a 
Greasy spot along the trail for speaking your mind,
And no one will even name a day for you,
Or include you on a list of saints or martyrs to forget,
Much less a pantheon,
But they might call you a devil,
And name you "Satan'sSpawn."


-jenn
If you can discern when a fire catches
From the matches to the candle wick,
Then you can understand a woman's eyes,
As they turn from from disguise
Into curiosity,
And from there, to a burning desire for love.

And if you don't glare when you glow,
It shows that you know
When to breathe and when to blow
On the flames.


-jenn

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Chevron, chevron,
One too many chevrons
Dot the map
Showing the cartographer 
Where the mountains are,
And if I followed up them north
All the way from Waterford 
The good folks at Kilkenny
Would never let me pass.
"You can't go walking on the grass!"
They'd shout to me from their castle.
"You'll wake the dead asleep here
In the crypts!"
And if I could but go around
Callan, Kells, or Thomastown,
I could meet you in Ballyfolyle by noon
And gladly spend the afternoon with you.
We could lie in Dunmore cave
And pretend our graves were royal, too,
Just as those buried in Kilkenny Castle do.
But alas, the folks at Kilkenny Castle,
Those alive, and those buried there,
Will never let me marry you,
You whose tartan plaids are blue and green,
And so I'll stay at Waterford
And milk the goats and tend the orchard
While the wind blows my scarf and unties my apron
And scatters my capons willynilly,
And I'll dream silly dreams, Silly,
Dream silly dreams of you.


-jenn

I had Redbirds 
Chirping at my door,
And so I bought some birdseed
And put some out to feed them.
They came and ate for a few days,
And then the squirrels descended,
And I don't have Redbirds anymore.

I had Redbirds 
So colorful and free.
They fluttered at my window
And sang their songs to me,
And I went and fed them,
And now the squirrels have come,
And they have run my Redbirds off
And made a mess of something 
That was mystical to me
And holy.

So if you come and sing to me
And if I'm in love with you,
Don't get your feelings hurt
If I don't feed you,
For maybe I have learned that you can't feed holy things,
You just have to let them come,
Let them sing,
And leave everything else alone,
Let everything else be,
So it can remain 
Holy.


-jenn
I had Redbirds 
Chirping at my door,
And so I bought some birdseed
And put some out to feed them.
They came and ate for a few days,
And then the squirrels descended,
And I don't have Redbirds anymore.

I had Redbirds 
So colorful and free.
They fluttered at my window
And sang their songs to me,
And I went and fed them,
And now the squirrels have come,
And they have run my Redbirds off
And made a mess of something 
That was mystical to me
And holy.

So if you come and sing to me
And if I'm in love with you,
Don't get your feelings hurt
If I don't feed you,
For maybe I have learned that you can't feed holy things,
You just have to let them come,
Let them sing,
And leave everything else alone,
Let everything else be,
So it can remain 
Holy.


-jenn

Sunday, October 20, 2019

In the beauty of something else,
A mysterious experience,
A kundalini awakening,
Realization of something old 
And something new,
A marriage of all times and places,
My lips buzz with desire for you.
I touch the seams of my reality.
I touch beads of a cosmic rosary
And say the words, "Let it be."
Something has awoken, too, in me.
The sounds create the dark and light.
Ancient religions give birth to something true,
And regions of light and dark
Contrast so starkly.
Love pulls me near to you.
Artistic visions appear before me,
And as I dream, I shed a tear 
For the exquisite cuts I see etched
Into the backdrop 
And the marvel of how inspired I feel.

Hold me while we feel these things together.
Kiss me while the the equinox displays
The shadow portraits moving on the temple,
Ancient lovers behaving 
In exactly the ways that we want to.


-jenn

Friday, October 18, 2019

I was walking behind this very sweet, classy,
Petite, octogenarian church woman,
Down a long hallway that leads
From the sanctuary to the fellowship hall,
When suddenly she passed a lot of gas.
Now I don't mean a little bit,
I'm talking a large amount of loud flatulence.

Well she never turned around to see
If there was anyone following behind her,
So I guess she thought that she
Was the last one out of the Holy Hall,
Or she didn't give a rat's rear end
(Which could've been true!)
Or maybe that was her own form of altar call,
Or maybe she didn't like the benediction
That the pastor gave,
And that was her own rendition?

But don't tell me you can't learn 
Something at church these days!
I look both ways before I cross the street,
And before I toot,
I turn around to see what kind of 
Snooty little poets might be walking behind me,
That might write something just as foul.


-jenn

One grimy corner in the middle of the street,
On a porch so surrounded 
By lovely trees,
I can't see the people talking,
But I always hear a man,
And he's either in his phone,
Or sometimes, I hear a woman's voice, too,
And they're griping about someone
And what said someone said to someone else,
And what someone texted someone,
Et cetera et cetera.

And I smell the cigarette smoke,
And I hear their drunken drama,
And I wish the trees could speak louder,
So that above the din,
I could simply hear the mysteries of photosynthesis.


-jenn

Thursday, October 17, 2019

In a game where everyone's trying to lose,
Winning isnt anything.
My sons and I peruse the Mayan History Section
And see the bas-relief of the Great stadium,
And read about how archeologists think
The winner of the game
Was the one chosen to be beheaded
And offered as human sacrifice. 
My sons instantly say
They would have tried to lose.

It makes me wonder
If this is why Mayan culture disappeared.
Maybe their best and brightest didn't want
To be offered to the gods.
Maybe the best and brightest tried to fail,
Threw the game, and then left town,
Or went underground,
Leaving the official society and the gene pool
With only those who couldn't read the writing on the wall,
Second-besters willing to try too hard,
And maybe then the gods became unhappy 
With the ceremonies and the hackneyed outcomes,
And refused to hear their prayers
Even after all that was said and done.

-jenn


Wednesday, October 16, 2019

In Ipswich, we eat from out of the sea
And drink cold brine for breakfast.
We put vinegar on everything,
And lay out laundry on the rocks to dry.

And if we're not Christianizable,
We have our history
To blame and to be thankful for.
The Romans came with their confusion.
The Vikings came before
With harsher and more blistering words 
Than Hell to scare us.
But we choose to be loved
And nurtured by the Goddesses,
For we have tasted love that is stronger than death.

And so we eat out of the sea
And drink cold brine for breakfast,
And put vinegar on everything.

-jenn


Mud Mother

Mud mother slithers
Full of fishes.
Mud mother rolls 
Down to the sea.
Beautiful river, 
Life,
Living through you,
Living through me.

Blood is coursing,
Bringing old muddy
Iron and oxygen,
Traces of things 
That can't be named,
Magnetizing
A field of knowing
Between us,
Pulling us down
Through a river of love.

Mud Mother,
The Melodious Motherer,
The Fortunate,
The friend of all who live,
I sing to her while she runs,
And while she runs,
I run with her.
I want to be
Wherever she is,
To see all that she sees,
To love
All that she loves,
To be to all,
All that she is to others,
Until I, too,
Have become like her,
A Mud Mother.

-jenn



Quatrain Song

When Nostradamus doesn't write his quatrains,
It's because a day just like today 
Awaits for all of us on the horizon,
A day of boredom and plain ennui.

A day of happy fish and mashed potatoes,
A day of gray and taking out the trash,
No solar flares and no other excitement,
No poetry no dancing.

Some days Nostradamus reads the tea leaves,
And all the tea leaves say is,
"Have some more!
There's really nothing here for us to work with.
We're looking to the dirt down on the floor to tell us something!"

I wish you'd come and spice up my potatoes.
The music in your soul makes my heart dance.
Let the tea leaves swirl and fall around us,
And put us in a quatrain kind of trance.

We'll have happy fish and mashed potatoes.
We'll have dancing eyes and beating hearts.
I'll watch your nostrils flare and my skin glisten,
While we listen as the quatrain music starts.


-jenn

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

It had been so long since we've heard from them.
They'd written us off,
But they finally called today
Just to say "hi,"
And to ask how we were doing.

So I said, "Fine!
Really grand!
We're all having sex changes
And can't wait to come for Christmas this year
To show our new selves off!"

But to myself I thought,
"Karma sure is a bitch!
Because this is probably what you git
For always telling your daughter 
She should've been a son,
And for telling her sons that you'd 
Been hoping for granddaughters.
Well, you'll finally have what you wished for,
Will you be satisfied now?"


-jenn

The blustery day caught me in a loquacious mood.
I bubbled all my secrets out
Like chocolate from the fondue fountain,
Rich dark intricacies,
The spiderwebs that I called heartstrings.

And then, not usually the imbibing sort,
I had an extra glass of port and wandered on my way.
And I wasn't hungry,
But something smelled so good to me,
That I was filled with desire to eat it,
And so, I followed my nose
To the second level of the parking garage
Where a vagabond had found a place to plug in a toaster,
And was cooking a piece of bread.

But he gave it to me to eat instead,
And I guess that is why I spilled the beans
And told him everything I knew about myself,
Even down to the pin number on my debit card.

Well do you know what you would do
If you didn't know you were hungry,
And someone gave you some delicious food?


-jenn
I'm watching a man who stands,
A David against Goliath,
Just across the alley from campus.
He has my attention
As he rails against the university.
"Four years!" he shouts! "Here's my big diploma!"

He preaches on about the evils
Of mammon and propaganda.
"Actually...Actually...Actually..." 
He mocks the academics, 
Both the students and the teachers.
He says he learned more about science
And possibility from comic books,
And I believe him.

Then he asks a question:
"Why do we have so many homeless people 
In this country who are veterans?"

They call him "crazy,"
But I'm listening,
And I wonder if anyone else is.


-jenn