Thursday, September 23, 2021

 I live with a personal guru.

He calls me mama.

Can you read the crossword clues to me

While I drive?


He tells me how many letters the answers have,

And what is second letter of the answer may be.


But it may not be,

For as we play this game

I realize, the name of it is not

“Fill the puzzle in correctly,” 

But, “fill the puzzle incorrectly, 

And while you’re at it,

Help yourself to my dyslexia.” 


And then I see the conundrum 

That we call life for what it is:

How it wouldn’t be any fun at all without him.


I live with a personal guru.

He calls me mama.


-jenn



Monday, September 20, 2021

 It’s the type of periwinkle blue

That envelops you,

And yet, it seems so far away.

And yet, you can reach right through it

And touch the sun

Before the star’s so blazing hot

That you can’t even look at it.


Everything stops talking, now,

To admire the pastel gown

That the sky was truly wearing, 

When everyone thought that is was black, 

And when she turns, the backless nothing

Glimmers skin.

She goes within herself and folds into

The morning blue,

And who can rasp a terrified ‘hi,’

To Morning Sky,

When she is so ghastly beautiful,

And so far above 

Our highest concepts, of even truth,

Or even love?


I will.

Good morning, Morning Sky!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Kiss me.


-jenn


 No time to run


Standing on the precipice 

It’s all falling into 

The cosmic sinkhole 

It’s beautiful 

It’s no time to run


I’m going to stand right here

On the precipice 

Until the line of dissolution comes

And pulls me down

My arms are up in joy and bliss

And I’m twirling around in

The sight of it

It’s no time to run


There’s nowhere to go

There’s no time anyway 

I’m going through this door 

With dignity and fun

Do you want to come with me 

It’s no time to run 


-jenn

Saturday, September 18, 2021

 Her kitchen makes me cry like a wedding. 

She’s left me here by the window

While she retires to the back room

To fetch something she wants me to see,

And my heart wants to run to avoid the pain,

But I’m stuck here, staring through the window

That looks out on the lawn.


And I know she has stood 

With her feet on this hook latch rug 

A hundred million times

And washed these same dishes

That gleam at me, drying on the rack right now.

And she’s looked out this window and watched the world go by her.

And I feel the vibration of her energy here,

Even when she’s gone.

And the old country love songs

That sputter out of her fm radio 

Have wrapped themselves around my chest

And are starting to constrict my air flow.


I’m going to burst into tears

If it takes her another second to find

Whatever it is she’s after back there,

But I’m sure it will be something that 

She thinks will influence me to change my ways,

But it will only remind me

That I’m really ok with the choices I’ve made

And the life I’ve lived, even tho it looks nothing

Like that of my identical twin

And her perfect all-American dream,


But I’m screaming inside,

Just being here, beside her

In this bright yellow kitchen.


-jenn

 The young moms in the neighborhood 

Have stopped to talk on the corner beside the school.

They shake their heads and knit their brows

About what it’s all coming to now,

Quarantines and Covid tests,

And whether the children should wear masks at recess,

And whether to vaccinate children or not,

And just what is going on?

Does anyone know?


Suddenly my mind flashes back

To a boy named Jack who always sat

On the back row of our jr. high class.

His sultry eyes, mystic like the sea,

His sinewy arms, tensing, in the shirt

He’d cut the sleeves out of,

His expressionless mouth,

His chin jutting out, as he took his pocket knife and cut

The immortal truth in the faux wood on top of his desk,

“SCHOOL SUX.”


-jenn

Monday, September 6, 2021

 I was raised by wolves 

And do not understand 

The proper ways to walk on two feet

Across the land here in the town.

I don’t understand the words or gestures

People make, or how they take their bread

And eat it plain, without any raw grass

Or berries.

I’ve learned not to eat the meat

They cook here in the taco trucks

Or any that they package in the store,

But I was raised on something fresh,

And realize the sacrifice, and more than that,

I came to see the holiness of the hunt.

 

But now I’m living in the city,

And I never know just what to do.


But I’ve seen you

And recognize 

The wild forest of your eyes

That locks its step right up with mine,

And shines in such a moonlit way,

And even in the broadest day,

The wilderness breathes its life through you.


Tell me, 

Might it be, that you raised by 

Wild wolves too?


-jenn

 If we think life and death are opposites,

Maybe we shroud our hearts in false mystique

With the segmented ideas of various words.


Then some might say,

In order to correct us,

Let’s more say that death and birth are opposites,

With life being something else in between. 


But what if death and birth are the same doorway,

And it only seems different depending on

Which side you look out from

Or from which side you look in?


In the labor of death,

Those loved ones who gather

To support you while you die,

Are all at once, trying to hold on to you,

And trying, eventually, to let you go.

You slip away, through the doorway.


Meanwhile, the loved ones who 

Are expectantly waiting for you to be born

Watch the doorway anxiously. 

They want you to come, but patiently

They wait. They know it’s not best

For you to arrive much too early 

Or much too late. And finally,

You’re here, and they see your beautiful face at last,

As your mother has delivered you,

And the nurse brings you out through the doorway.


The labor of birth,

The struggle of life,

The will to survive,

The brightness of what we call day,

The darkness of what we call night,

The humanity of being

Always alive,

Stays with us along such a powerful line,

A continuum of possible consciousness 

That is all the same,

If we can learn to go beyond 

Our temporary definitions

To reach beyond 

The various stages of this big game

We call Life.


-jenn

 I’m out of the picture 

Just outside the frame 


(He loves misery

And here I went 

And tried to impose happiness on him)


So I’m such an imposition 

But luckily, I’m just outside the frame 

I’m out of the picture 


What’s your name 

It’s clear to see

You’re also out of the picture

Like me

Just outside the frame 

Of where you want to be


But there’s a bigger picture 

And we’re all there

Having our bad hair days

Forgetting to wear our good clothes

Someone knows the truth

Somewhere 

Where no one can crop 

Or photoshop 


Our identity 

Can be

Altogether lovely 

If we could only see 

That we’re all together here in the bigger picture 

All together 

In the bigger picture that has no frame 


-jenn