Music Is How We Humans Fly

Music is how we humans fly
We flutter and strum
And chords take flight
We swoop down low
Like a lonely crow
And soar with the eagle high

Our bones ain't got much hollow space
And as we age, the tallow and fat
Keep us a knowing where ever'thing's at
But our minds get the chance to get free
And when we hear the rhythms
And cadenced words
Of some other, fellow, cage-lessed birds
Our hearts fly
Cause we need to see

We want to cut that turtleneck off
The suit and the tie that's makin' us cough
We wanna get loose and into a rhythm our own
We wanna fly
Way up in the sky
Where the air ain't already blown

-jenn long

Words

If words could hear,

What would they say?

If they could listen for a day

And decide what, in fact, they mean,

And be up front in the face of things.

Would they abandon their history?

Would they discredit etymology,

And stand up for themselves today?

Would they claim to be alive?

Or, as soon as spoken, good as dead?

Isn’t that what Nietzsche said?

Or because he said it, is that dead too,

And the other words, trying to be said too,

Are they worth saying?

Or like pets, should we neuter and spay them

Before we spray them?

But I think if a word could hear itself,

It would recoil at its own sound,

And turn the volume way past down,

And quietly slip away,

To a beach where topless is the norm,

And tequila is served, sans worm and warmed,

And maybe have nothing to say.

-jenn long

Convergent Woods

I’ve split again.
A choice required,
And somewhere,
In a parallel universe,
Everything came out right.
While here,
It looks to be all wrong.

But in that better place,
When two roads diverge,
I often take the wider one.
And the woods aren’t yellow.
They’re black and green
With hints of skybright blue
That glint and blink
And watch me make
Little difference at all.
But, at least I interest them.

-jenn long

NaCl H2O

I don't want to cry today.
Been fighting it.
But I look for something real
In a world that's not.
And that's a formula for tears.

We don't have anything when we’re born?
We don't have anything when we die?
But is it the truth that
We don't have anything, ever?
Not even our hopes or fears?

Well, turn on world.
Turn on them.
Just as you've turned on me.
Grind out of us the few precious minerals
We think that we possess.

With eyes too blurred to see
The motionless foundations of eternity,
And the myth of days, and years,
And the brotherhood of all humanity,

Then, grind us on into backwardness.

-jenn long

Healed

The quiet confidence of your words
Is the Liturgy I seek.
A solemn sweetness reaches in
To fix my fetal DNA.
A silent smile,
A wry twinkle,
An authority speaks.
Let us begin says

"Let there be Light,"
And I feel electricity.

So please don’t think
That I don't pray,
Or sing,
Or worship you.
And please don't forsake
Assembling
Yourself to me.
And don't forget the magic words
And their sacred order,
For you are the sacerdotal priest
To me.

-jenn long

Comin' Crazy With You

When you go crazy,
Can I come too?
I derail a little
At the sight of you,
And if we could
Get face to face,
I could get sucked in
To your warped space
And let the orbit begin!

But what with the spinning
And gamma rays,
I can't be held

For what goes and what stays,
But maybe we could have some fun?
Maybe dance?
Maybe run?
Or maybe just lie on our backs in the sand
And look down
On the earth
And the sun?

Jenn long

The Big Nice Dipper

Mighty nice Dipper you have there, Polaris.
His feet sit atop the fine clouds,
His head, way up
In the heart of some lucky galaxy
Where even the moons are called stars.
And look at him!
Pouring out
Milky Way Magic
And stardust
On lovestruck moths,
That flutter like punch drunk sailors
In oversized painting smocks.

And will they go all Fred Astaire
And dance in the pouring down rain?
And glitter like diamond cufflinks
At the sight of him again?

(God, I hope so....)

But I am not jealous of you, Polaris,
And though my feet touch the ground,
My head is way up
In the midst of fine clouds.

And when I tiptoe,
I can reach
The tips of the Dipper's winsome feet,
And I can kiss them
With my mouth,
And worship til the north turns south,
And both our cups have poured plumb out,
And the Pleiades finally sigh.

-jenn long