The sun has petals with purple hearts .

They turn to red.

The sun’s on fire inside my head.

My eyes are sunflowers that bloom for you

With purple hearts that turn to blue,

But my heart’s on fire.

It only burns a different way.

When day is here, we feel the burn,

But night gets its turn to burn us too,

If we can close our eyes and see

The darkness within us,

Burning black and blue and green,

And stars twinkling cold from far away.

They are shooting gamma rays at us,

But we shoot ourselves with helpless strife

That we build up because 

We never bothered to see the Life

That burns within us.

I’m looking in,

And deep inside myself 

I hide the petals with the  purple hearts,  

But they’re starting to bloom,

And that could mean doom

To part of me,

But it could mean boom

To a better part

That may start to live when I’m free,

And the Big Bang starts something new off in me.

-jenn

 My purpose was only to sit and peel crayons,

But I wanted to test their colors on a page.

So, as I stripped the crayons of their wraps,

I scratched some pigments on a scrap of sun bleached parchment, there.

I watched the Master takes his charcoals and command

A presence on his canvas, and,

His flowers, just in black and white and gray,

Were dowdy and disheveled like the ones

That linger toward the end of May,

And yet their beauty brought a lump into my throat.

I asked him quietly what to write the title as,

And he replied, “Dark Flowers At Sunset.”

-jenn

 I always thought he was just so imaginative and fun,

My son, when he was young,

And he would ask what price 

It would take for me to eat

Some certain type of food I hated.

But now that he’s rich,

He comes to me slyly,

With some said hated item

And reminds me,

That I said I’d eat it for ten thousand dollars,

Which he’s already deposited in my account,

And so the contract remains

For me to consummate.

And he says I can’t return the funds

Because according to our oral agreement 

So long ago,

I said I would eat it,

And Lo! And behold!

The time has come...

Brussels sprouts covered in burned goat cheese and raspberry jam!

Yum.... Yum....

And he remembers exactly the amount I said,

In what he terms, “our negotiations,”

This kid is crazy!

(I don’t know where he gets it....)

So, should I eat these weird concoctions?

Why did I only say ten thousand dollars?

I guess it seemed like a lot of money at the time.

-jenn

 In the Nocturnes that the moon sings,

In the often, unheard, melodies,

In the cycle that women of childbearing age have,

In the circular nests of the wood finch,

Life brings its mystery.

I’ve seen the life of a Sunflower timelapse in my mind.

How starting from a seed down in the dirt,

The hull gives way and roots begin

As hairlike tentacles, then horns.

They prowl the underground of the earth for food, like worms.

Then out of bliss, a shoot of green sprouts up,

From the darkness into the light of day.

(I’ve prowled the underbelly of the city for Love,

In places where trash, and old newspapers had blown,

And there, where they, and I,

Were undergoing the process of becoming topsoil,

Right in the darkness there,

I found none, so I went home.

And on my loom, I stretched out yarn

That I had spun from wool and flax,

And died it red, an earthy, dusty crimson,

And I began to weave.)

2

When the first green of the flower sprouts,

It rises as if it just awoke.

It sits up in bed, then stands,

And then, two leaves of equal size open,

Like a mouth, hoping for something to eat.

And it does. It eats the sun,

And wiggles, even if there is no wind to blow it.

And its stem begins to spin up and it puts out

Two more leaves, these, now, with a shape

More wild and ragged, and more recognizable 

As the leaves of sunflower,

And the stem keeps pushing its way

Up into the sky.

(I grew once, and my stem twirled.

My leaves unfurled two by two,

First the innocuous regular pair,

And then the jagged ones that declared my true allegiance.

The dark green places between my leaves

Soaked up the quiet of summer evenings

And the heat of summer days in Texas,

And the songs the warblers sing.

And my eyes, sought the skies

For something for my soul to eat,

Something to devour, a lover or a friend,

And so it did. 

I ate the sun, daily.)

3

The lonely Sunflower spends days

Digging it’s roots into the loam,

Shooting it’s stem into the airy space we call the sky,

Building its stem, in height, and also girth,

It’s intelligence, impossible to measure,

Putting leaves out in the perfect arrangement 

For each to get the most abundant sunlight.

(And I walked the plains for years.

My only canopy was my wild hair,

Blowing like a horse’s main.

I fed on the stars that shined at night,

And in their poems they breathed out,

I saw them fall.

I heard them cry and yet their happy songs belied

A deep reverence for the source of Life.

And sometimes I ran.

The sandy plains that gave way to wind,

The beaches, the dunes, the marinic tunes

The ocean sang, yes,

Sometimes I ran.)

4

(Wanna be in love with me?

Play some jazz, and croon my name.

Tell me that you’ll never be the same

Now that you’ve danced the dance of love with me.)

The stem of a Sunflower will finally reach

The statured height that its own DNA

Has written down, so secretly in code,

And just as you think it’s energy has stopped,

A node will form, a nodule sprawling green and wild,

A tumultuous head,

Like a monster, fanged with teeth

And terrible eyes, all of green,

And in a heart-stopping jolt of a moment,

It raises up, inquisitively,

To see who it is has woken it

From its sleep, its peaceful slumber,

To this strange life where days are numbered,

And then, its petals appear.

5

(I’ve practiced being here with you

By lying on my side like this and looking up 

To listen to the sky, while it whistles 

And tells about its day.

And now, we’ll practice saying, “I love you.”

You go first, and then I’ll say it, too.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Wait. Who said that?

Oh don’t worry it’s just the cat

Talking his nonsense again.)

But when the Sunflower blooms,

It doesn’t care

If anyone is there to see it.

It doesn’t bloom for me or you,

Or for the cat.

It doesn’t wait for truth to happen

Or try to go and find it.

It is truth and it just blooms

With bliss inside it.

The righteousness that shines from it is

Like the sun.

The happiness that everyone can see

If we would ever pay attention,

If we would bother to heed

The Life that longs to bloom within us,

Without a creed, or a teaching,

Without identity, just a far reaching sense

Of deep intelligence, and all the conditions 

Being ripe, for life to exist.

For us to thrive, and bloom, we only need to know,

We are alive, right here, amidst the wilds,

And rooted in, the source of all creation.

6

And now I wake,

Sit up in bed.

And now I stand.

I stretch and wiggle,

Even though there is no wind.

I’m weaving the earthy crimson reds

With the greenest greens

Upon the loom 

Inside my head.

And now I bloom.

-jenn

 After he passes by I fall apart.

I land on my heart and it stops.

My stomach drops down

Beneath my feet

And begins to eat dirt.

I hurt all over and I like it.

I crawl like a gecko back up a tree,

Changing colors hormonally,

Until I fit into the proper color scheme. 

A team of scientists study me

And can’t agree on why it is

That I’ve seen such catastrophe

And managed to live.

And if I could speak,

I’d tell them them true,

It’s you.

It’s all because of you

I turn and tame myself like a shrew

And laugh and cry

And go deaf and dumb a as d mute,

And succumb to the very likes of even

Any bum who slightly

Reminds me of you.

Present and past

And future,

My love burns through 

The boundaries of time and place

And color and shape and energy too,

To reach for you.

And now I turn

And look back through 

The vast eternities I’ve traveled through,

The beauty of space.

My face breaks a smile.

I wonder if you might follow 

Me for a little while now,

In this cosmic, eternal, game of chase we’re on about.

-jenn

 Pillow Talk 

I’m all fluffed up

Like a pillow on the bed.

I’ve been readjusted.

Come and lay your head on me.

Tell me your deepest secrets.

Whisper your desires to me,

Like a trusted friend,

And hold onto me

Like your heart depends on it.

And as you wallow into me,

Blow the candles out just so,

And I will grant you three boons.

I only hope that one will be

A wish for many more returns

To afternoons right here, again, together.

-jenn

 I’m going to whisper this in your ear.

So maybe the sounds of my thoughts

Will appear distorted

As they tangle through my hair, and yours,

And maybe you will hear what I say,

Or maybe you will hear

Whatever it is you want to hear,

But... I dreamed of you all night long.

It’s finally dawned on me,

All the way down 

To the deep unconscious places in my mind,

That every time I see you,

Your smiling eyes and loving hugs

And surprising words that make me laugh,

Are all a part of the love you have for me.

And so I’ll whisper this in your ear.

I don’t want to appear as desperate 

As I truly am, for someone to

Really give a damn about me,

But I dreamed of you all night long.

-jenn

 Somebody’s dog has gotten out. 

It’s the black generic sort.

I’m passing by in my car,

And the drama unfolds

As Verdi’s string Quartet

Gets to the part 

Where the bows saw violently across the strings.

The violins scream,

“No! Don’t run out in the road!”

And the dog nonchalantly saunters

Unaware how close he is to certain death,

And the cars are speeding along,

Unaware that there is a dog!

It’s a black, generic sort!

Luckily the dog has seen,

Or smelled, something stinky,

And has stopped, just short of the parking lot

That leads into the street,

And Verdi’s violins have, in sync, chosen 

To lengthen the strokes of their bows across the strings.

And now, a peaceful melody ensues.

And it seems that everything will be fine for the moment.

I have passed the scene, 

But the violins continue,

And the big bass cello has suddenly plunged in,

And I wonder how the dog will fare today.

Does his owner care or know

That he has ventured out,

And straight into Verdi’s E Minor String Quartet?

He, the dog, that is, is the black, generic sort.

-jenn

 My Pegasus, I see you fly.

I’ve longed to ride you through the sky 

With the black flowing by like a river.

I shivered in the night, but I’d always wait 

To watch you gallop by.

How I’ve dreamed of riding you

Through the turning constellations,

Above the tumultuous nations of earth,

Off into the heavenly places

Where I can see everything from a distance.

Put some space between me and them, Pegasus,

So I can see what lies in perpetuity,

And how existence would be

With a substantial expanse between me and my troubles,

And only a very fine line

Between you and me.

-jenn

 If you want to keep up with the times,

Just sit and watch a train go by.

Read the graffiti as your morning news.

Get the blues while the price of tea in China rises.

When pork bellies are up

And oil is down,

And leaking hydraulic fluid out on the ground,

And the stench of garbage being shipped as freight

Is making you late to your 9 to 5,

Then don’t drive away.

Don’t try to find some other street

That that the train doesn’t cross.

I’m at a loss for what to say here,

Except that it’s a chance to know something 

Very deep,

Beyond your belief system,

If you will sit and stare at the vivid view

Of the modern freightway’s coronary spew

Passing rapid transit by in front of you

While you wait for it.

-jenn