People call me ignorant 

Because I come from the countryside,

Because I don’t talk politics, 

Or religion, but stick to planting my purple beans,

Cherokee corn and sweet potato slips.

I walk amidst the big oak trees,

And when they offer their acorns to me,

I take them and offer

The first ones to the sky,

And make meal from the rest

For my daily manataka bread.

When night comes, I happily

Take down my stringed tortoise shell

And sing divine glory,

The blessings of appearing ignorant to the ignorant,

And wise to the wise who see,

That really, I deliberately choose

To ignore and to renounce the false chaos,

So I can embrace the true one.

-jenn

 “What do you want to eat?”he said.

“I want something kind of good,” I answered.

“Mmmmmmmmm,” he said, “Well, what would that be?”

And I just smiled and looked away.

In a previous life, I was a snake,

And I would slither out,

Looking for an egg to take.

Stolen morsels have that extra tang.

And if I found one,

I’d swallow it whole,

And then lay around

With my belly swoll up,

Digesting.

“Boy, an egg sounds really good,” I sigh.

I think I really might miss those days

When I used to be a snake.

-jenn

 They secretly hoped I’d fall

And break my face

Because I walked so happily 

And proudly down the street,

But when I did, they couldn’t bare

To look at me, and guilt prevented them

From coming out to even offer any aid.

And that’s because we’re all connected,

My love for them, their hate for me,

My ups, their downs, my fall from grace,

Their momentary hubris as I ached,

Their guilt, my shame, 

The blame we cast to one another. 

But now I’m up and going on,

And I have this type of thing before.

My face will heal, and somewhere 

Somehow, they will remain 

Steeped in contempt, and they may never learn,

But that is neither here nor there,

Nor any yet of my concern.

I’m up, and I’m going on.

-jenn

 They say to leave the old year behind,

Yet I have last year’s dirty dishes,

And this same dirty mind I’ve had

For all the New Years’ that have passed before.

I just turned, it seems,

To thank to my parents,

Ah and Ha,

For having me,

And Eureka! I see 

That everything’s gone.

Only this candle

And the winter snow

That covers me,

Covers me,

Covers us all,

Like frozen seeds

That wait 

To grow again

In spring,

With new parents to thank,

New lives to live,

New adventures to dream 

Through the brand new,

Same old seasons.

I hope and pray we will all give thanks,

And that, in spite of long winters,

We’ll always remember 

To laugh our way through them.

-jenn 

 I’m falling through reality

With nothing to grasp,

Nothing to have,

Nothing to hold.

I was trapezing without a net,

And it was so exhilarating.

I’ve been falling for some time,

But I have yet to hit the ground.

Maybe I’m dreaming,

Or maybe I’m falling up?

-jenn

 This is why we like hotels.

They’re clean,

And they, mysteriously, clean themselves.

There is a big comfy bed

As a centerpiece by the window.

If you have a balcony door 

That you can open,

The floor length curtains blow,

Like an evening dress

That waltzes mysteriously by itself,

Like my daydreams of love

In a heavenly place,

Where I, for once,

Am someone’s lovely centerpiece.

And if I have a belfry,

There are surely bats in it,

That fly as the glory bells ring.

-jenn

 On my shelf of shrunken knowledge,

Books about books

And authorities on authors,

And I find one shrunken head.

It says more to me than all the rest.

“This world has tried to shrink your head too,” it tells me,

“With endless loops and hoops to jump through.”

I go outside,

And now a second guru comes,

Hopping along the picket fence, 

A tiny grey finch.

He told me just before he flew away,

“Watch this, and you will see a glimpse 

Of the supreme reality!”

And seeing him fly

Through the empty sky,

Suddenly my spirit grew.

Knowledge swelled inside my empty head.

Now I see a beautiful, passive day,

Instead of a rather grey Monday. 

Everything is simply in retrograde. 

And everything will be ok,

Everything always is.

-jenn