Wednesday, September 30, 2020

 Self expression 

Reveal yourself to me

I am aware 

That all you are

And all you want to be 

Is right

Is part of the bigger picture 


It is good

And I can see

The exact ways

Your divinity plays

On the rippling water

And I enjoy

Watching your face

Seeing the real substance

Of happiness in your smile


-jenn

 All is well when Mama dances

Anything that happened yesterday 

Is gone

Boogeymen have men defeated

Nightmares dissipated in the dawn

Light shines 

And truly blindness returns with it


But as we stumble

We watch Mana dance

And everything will be okay


For there is a day that’s coming

When our fears won’t torment us

We will see as in a trance

That we are the only boogeymen

And it is us who chase ourselves in dreams


And the yin

And the yang

Play against the great mandala

Of the day

And of the night

But from the safety 

Of the corner of our eye

We see

It’s all alright

And righteous 

Because she’s there

And she’s still dancing


-jenn


Monday, September 28, 2020

 Strange bluebonnets grow

Down on the border

Between Texas and Mexico.

They taste like corn

In the morning when there’s nothing else to eat,

And they’re supposed be

The state flower of Texas,

And it’s against the law to pick them.

But, when one is hungry,

Is it a sin to steal a loaf of bread?

And if there are no stores for miles,

Might one pilfer a few state flowers instead?


I’ve seen a photograph from 1926,

When my grandmother rode the train

From Cisco to Ft. Worth

To have her firstborn child

In a maternity ward instead of at home,

And the train made a stop at Weatherford,

And my grandmother and her mom,

Who’d come down from Jersey, 

Took a walk to a vacant lot adjacent the depot

And stood In a field of bluebonnets. 


And the stems and the petals came way up

Past their knees, and two live oak trees 

In the background stood, whose leaves

Seemed dense and plentiful,

And my grandmother’s grin

Was so beautiful, and even her mother smiled.

And I remember blue skies, too,

And white clouds, and food that tasted good.


And am I finally getting old?

So stuck in my ways, 

Recalling all the good old days,

When there was something better to eat

Than wildflowers,

Or am I really lucky now?

Satisfied with such an all-natural,

Genetically unmolested meal?

Full as a tick or a big brown cow

With a belly full of wildflowers.


-jenn

 Is there another way into the universe 

Than that a couple of parents 

Got together and had sex?


Who was the first to ride a bicycle 

To know he could never forget?


I’ve walked a beautiful tightrope to you

In my bright jester’s hat

And my “I-don’t-give-a-damn-tutu.”

Why don’t we dance while the music plays? 


The balance of time is shifting 

Like Libra’s weighted scales,

And if it ever comes to a stop,

We’ll see our oatmeal’s still moving.


And then we can say we don’t like it

If we want to,

But tell me when 

It will be okay to say we do, 

And can we just keep on doing it up til then?


Please.

Please, tell me when.


-jenn

Saturday, September 19, 2020

 He lost his head,

And in a twisted way he went about

With his shirt half inside-out

And also halfway-in.

But, in seeing that his mind was with the gods,

I took a closer look at him,

And saw the unfolding nature

Of the non-duality.

I smiled and offered him a cup of tea,

And he smiled back,

For he said he saw in me

A blithering sweetheart,

A tart pulled from the loaf and pressed,

Dressed with sugar and jam,

Then cooked to flaky humble pie perfection,

And he didn’t give a damn.

He said I could be his horse

If I never won a race.

And in his eyes I see a face

That only only a mother could love.

They say the mother principal lasts a long time,

And lucky for me, that face I see is mine,

With eyes that shine and lips that pout,

Wearing my skin, half inside-out,

Half inside-in.


-jenn 


Friday, September 18, 2020

 I’m starting to love again.

The feel of a warm towel on my skin,

The dewdrop light of butterfly kiss,

The smell of puppy breath,

Mud between my toes, and sand

Drying on the backs of my thighs,

I realize how lucky I’ve been,

How lucky I am.


I feel you squeezing me like juice

From an orange, fresh and full of

Nutrients, and I can almost taste it.

I’m starting to love again.


-jenn

 When I heard about entropy,

I remember knowing it to my core,

Feeling it in my bones that it was true,

That everything tends to go from order 

Into chaos.


I don’t fight the futile.

I operate along the river of beauty 

That is destruction.

I dance in the waves that beat the shore.


All the energy I had wasted

Working against My Beloved,

Waging war against time and mortality,

Now goes into Living. sans scapegoat,

Sans apology, sans exhaustion,

Seeing My Beloved as

My Believed In and My Disbelief.


-jenn

 I’m burning.

A flickering, yet steady flame,

A splash of color deep,,

I whisper, “I don’t know.”

The search keeps me happy.

Surprise me, Life.

Delight me with mysterious quests,

Guests of various, sundry gaits,

With jests for which I wait

To hear the punch line.

This way I find in you,

So true, my mind tangles

In a beautiful mess of knots

And strings, and yet my flame gets air

When I declare, “I love. I let go.”

I surrender control to every living thing,

Its right to be born, be green, then ripe,

Then brown, and I trust Life

To let me down gently when it’s my turn

To blow. I know that I’ll still be burning,

Just in some other way.


-jenn

Thursday, September 17, 2020

 Of course we all know that “butterfly,”

Was a child’s mispronunciation of “flutter by,”

But what am I?


How is it that I cannot know?


Can the eye see itself?

Can the ear hear its own inner work?

Something’s amiss if they do.


What are you?


I call myself “inclined,”

But is that a childish, pidgin way

To say “Divine?”


In a child-like innocent way,

I’ve let you go.

I call out after you.

“What did you say your name was?”

But you can rest assured,

In the spirit of purest humility,

I’ll mispronounce it.

“What did you say, again?

Is it, ‘Wubbwee?’”


-jenn


Saturday, September 12, 2020

 My dreams have returned.

I used to wonder where they had come from,

Marching me down from my grandma’s shelves,

The tall mahogany ones that lined her dining room.

My dreams would carry me like a crumb

That ants had stolen from a picnic

Away from the top,

Where the good books were,

Down and around like a spiral staircase,

To the ground floor where the children’s books lay.


But I would ride on the backs of my dreams,

Like Santa in his sleigh,

Only I whipped my reindeer,

And then I would laugh as they flew wildly

To throw me off of the sled,

For I knew someday

My dreams would leave me

Up at the top of the bookcase,

And I would be able to see from up there,

And maybe understand.


One day I woke and wondered 

Where my dreams had gone.

It seemed I hadn’t had a dream 

In such a long time,

Like a deep well without a bucket

To let down in and draw up water,

Something amiss, too much this,

And not enough that,

But my dreams are back.

They’ve grown into beautiful young men

And women, who dance divinely 

Round the ballroom floor.


A chaperone just asked one of them

If he had any lofty aspirations,

And the reply came from the normally shy guy,

That he hoped to be a saint someday.


My dreams... like a deep thought,

My bucket, I’ve dropped it!

But, it’s no matter, my dreams, like the ants,

Have formed a ladder, and I’m going down

After it, all the way now.


-jenn

Thursday, September 3, 2020

 If I don’t talk much when we meet

I’m busy hearing things

That you’re not saying

There may be poetry talking to me

In my head

There may be things better off unsaid

But they are the better things to think about


Please don’t shout

It’s not that I am deaf

But rather whisper

Something only meant for me to hear


My ear will decide

If it’s right or not to carry the gossip to my mind

To interrupt the ideal conversation 

Of poetry going on

Between my feckless heart

And my uber-accountable brain


-jenn

 I only ever trust a comedian with my heart anymore.

Who else can understand the comedic timing

With which it beats

Who else can stand the wait

Between knock knock

And who’s there

And leave the pulse to share the tension


Tell me a story!

Better yet, tell me a joke,

And smile with me.

Let’s be happy together.


-jenn

 One plays with grace.

He seems unaware of the gallery.

Another one plays badly,

But he plays the gallery well.

I watch with wonder at the whole shebang.

I’ve never been put into the game,

And I have never put myself in.


We’re all different.


I’m a no-heart they say,

A no-mind.


But this is not like being heartless.

This is not like being mindless,


Just empty in a vacant way,

A vessel for wind and song and thought,

An ability to change,

By what the universe passes through me.


What are you?


-jenn

 I was raised by wolves,

And now, in polite society,

Have learned it’s better that I eat alone.

It scares people to see me gulp down food

Like a voracious she-bitch

With six starving pups.


I have learned it’s better for me,

And for the world.

That there are many things

I should do alone.


-jenn

 My keepers kept me.

Now they set me free.

My spirit, white, as a sunlit cloud,

Flies against the bay.

Their faces are shadowed by their gloom,

Their dark lot,

To tie me to

Some forbidden thing,

A taboo no one could tell.


The first one kept me

With a lock and chain,

And underfed, I struggled

To maintain my strength,

But I found joy,

And so I ate of unseen happiness, 

And made him guess which way that I would go, 

And made him say,

He’d cut me off, 

If he knew where I was getting it.


Until then, the second keeper came

To put me on my heels.

In constant undertow,

He fed me too much

And kept me fat,

But I got wise,

And started sharing 

My supper with the rats,

Who thanked me by gnawing a hole

Beneath the bars,

And I dug through.


And now I’m here with you,

And I wonder if you would try to keep me?

If you would,

I would say you better have a really good way.

Maybe you could trick me into staying?

Or better yet, just let me want to.


The geese fly south today,

Over the lake.

They have no intention

Of casting a reflection,

And glassy surface of the still water

Has no intention of keeping it.


-jenn 

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

 The bells ring with a dampened knell,

A mellow tell.

My Love has died,

But like a seed I bury it.


And without a care from me,

These rains may bring a sprout.

Something new,

Someone who will beanstalk me

Out of my doldrums.


I’m climbing you in my dreams,

Scaling up the daunting vault.

I’ve just seen your golden goose.

Striving purposefully, so intrigued,

Pushing on, I hear the hum,

“Fee fi fo fummm,”

An eager beaver trying to play coy.


To date, the seeds have yet to sprout,

But in my mind, what games we play,

And who’s to say, that imagination isn’t real.

These things I feel as I clamber your specter here in my heart,

I start to see, in spite of myself,

How deeply invested I’ve become in these magic seeds,

And how sweetly even dampened bells do ring.


-jenn


 I’m busy today,

But between my chores,

I slip away,

Always to resume my conversation 

With C.G.


C.G. Jung, that is.

He’s 83.

He’s telling me his memories,

His dreams, and his reflections.


I’m fascinated by him,

And mostly only listen,

And giggle occasionally,

Because his wit is deep,

But, also entertaining and funny.


And he likes me.

He says I’ve been loosed somehow

Upon the world

To love it

And to giggle so expressively,

And if no one else appreciates that,

He does.


I’m so glad that I 

Have larger than life acquaintances, 

As well as great enemies to contend with,

And beautiful, ingenious friends

To listen to,

Who sometimes make me giggle.

Maybe I’m the luckiest girl

In the whole world, after all?

Who else has this much fun

Shadow talking?


-jenn

 The storm blew part of the roof away,

And a foot of snow blew into the cabin.

We made a Rube Goldberg 

Out of the snow and the possessions we still had

Lying there in ruin,

All for our cats to play with.


We rolled a ball down a chute 

And watched them chase it up and down.

The motion set off a concatenation 

Of whirring distractions for us and for our cats.



My neighbor had told me to come at eight,

And she would go to church with me.

So I dutifully left the fun to walk across the street,

And when I got there she shooed me away.

I was too early she said.

I went back home to wait and smiled while watching the cats instead,

And then tried once more, 

At what I thought she’d told me

Was the appropriate time,

But she only shooed me again.


I’ll never go back to her house,

And I’ll never go back to her church,

Her pursed lips tisking me, her disapproving face.

She tore her hair fifty years ago, 

And donned her sackcloth and ashes,

And never gave them up.

The the period of mourning is long past,

And yet, we never knew who or what it was that died.


But I have cats,

And they eat and sleep and play,

Even when the roof is gone,

Or the “usine à gaz” breaks down

And the ball we set in effect for them 

Goes off track,

And the powder train breaks.


And we all know the end is near,

But the causal nexus is confused,

And so the end is not in sight.

But one thing’s clear,

The meaning of life... is .... cats.


-jenn


 Sometimes after a puppet cuts its strings,

Before it gets up,

It lays in a tangle of threads

For just a minute and wonders

If it’s right to be free.


But as for me,

Even the falling away felt so good

That I could never question the decision.

I’ve found I can use my head

Without permission,

That I can use my legs for “something else.”

I got up and walked happily away.


I’m still walking.

I’m still happy.


-jenn


Tuesday, September 1, 2020

 I’m standing in a tower watching it rain.

Birds are fluttering in the puddles,

Taking a bath and a shower

At the same time,

And splashing nude with one another,

If you don’t consider their feathers clothing.


The butterflies have gone and hid.

They’re more aware of the secret,

That the id is plain and obvious

To everyone but the birds and apes. 

I consider the nape of your neck.


Glorious the rain! It’s trapped us here

Between the place where angels fear to tread,

Like butterflies, and this place, where the smell

Of wet earth has gone to my head,

And the little birds chirp. They’re telling us

We might want to reconsider id.

I mean, it.


-jenn