She’s playing for the men’s team now

But the game is over

They ask her which locker room is funner 

And she says the women’s 

But she looks around and smiles 

There’s nothing better for a former runner

To make the football team

They’re looking for it and they’re getting warmer

But things aren’t what they seem

And if she makes a little money along the way 

She looks around and smiles

Nothing like making a little hay 

While the sun shines

They say the sun never used to shine there

In Seattle where it’s rainy all the time

Somebody told her back when she was feeding cattle in Laredo 

Somebody ought to stick her

Where the sun don’t shine

But it shines there now

There’s nothing better for a former runner

To make the football team

They’re looking for it and they’re getting warmer

But things aren’t what they seem

And if she makes a little money along the way 

She looks around and smiles

Nothing like making a little hay 

While the sun shines

-jenn

 She’s trying to find the room key

In front of the hotel.

She protects her purse like her life is in it.

It’s in that thin metal wallet

With those hundred dollar bills,

But it’s a tell that could get her killed.

Her hazel eyes are dead already.

They have been since 1942,

3 years before she was born.

Her mother was torn 

Between who to marry,

And maybe she chose wrongly, who knows?

But standing in front of her

And behind,

Was her mother, too,

And hers and hers,

Like the fun house mirrors.

You know the kind,

That reflect your own image

Shattered 

A million times over 

And over again,

And a long line of other women

Who’ve stood there, too.

-jenn

 I had a dalliance with disaster 

And in the ashes there I saw

The beauty of creation 

Preservation and destruction 

All as One

One dark dance of Shiva

Is the light of a thousand suns

All is right with the cosmos spinning

All is One

There will be no more duality

For me

No knowledge or ignorance 

Only joy of beholding

Yes and No

As all in One

-jenn

 So you stood me up

For some other girl

Who wanted you 

To drop everything 

And come and do something for her

Now you want to re-seduce me

That’s fine

It may take time

It may take dancing

It may take wine

And chocolates

But don’t give me the flowers

That grew on a hill far away

That someone cut with a knife

I’ll feel the strife of that day

Those flowers died 

Just like I do

With you

Today

-jenn

 Why are you you?

Why am I me?

Why don’t we see

How beautiful it is that we are a part

Of something divine?

There are venues where you have to say

Before you play “Vincent,” (The starry starry night),

Now this song is about the plight of Vincent Van Gogh,

And many people still won’t know what you’re singing about.

Let’s try not to shout.

Try not to glare.

Yes, whisper your truth.

See who salutes it that way.

You’re beautiful, especially when you’re so aware

That you’re a part of something so divine.

-jenn

 There are some famous people from nearby my hometown,

And I’ll tell you who they’re related to:

These two brothers who used to ride the bus with me.

They were grimy and unkempt,

Ungroomed and greasy.

One of them skipped school a lot.

One day I found a note on the floor beside the trashcan

That the younger brother thought he’d thrown away.

It was from his mother, to whom it may concern,

Asking if herboy could please be excused from PE class

Because he had leukemia.

I kept it in my duffel bag for at least two weeks,

Tormented by what I should do with it.

Turn it in?

When the kid had tried to throw it away on the bus?

None of us at school, including the teachers knew he was sick,

But he sure looked it.

One day it hit us that he hadn’t been at school for awhile,

And his older brother wasn’t riding the bus anymore.

He was driving an old beat up car around town.

Some of the better, more Christian parents of the town

Had given him the nickname Satan.

They were pretty sure he was dealing drugs 

Or at least taking them.

And I still had that note in my duffel bag.

Every once in a while I would take it out 

And read it, and cry.

I still do.

Or at least I did

Till my house burned down a month ago.

Everything went up in smoke,

Including that old duffel bag,

Swollen with strange eclectic memories

That I collected through my teenage years.

They helped me remember the fears I had, 

And how far I’ve come since then.

But right now I don’t feel I’ve come very far at all,

When I think of the Croft’s brothers

And their very famous uncles,

And how close to greatness they truly might have been.

-jenn

 I’m soaking up all the blue I can from the sky,

All the light that’s left from the winter clouds.

A dry snow falls like talc.

I’m right back at the chalkboard,

Taking it all back to formula,

My pablum, just this dusty snow that falls.

Why do I think dreams might come true

If I can just soak up enough blue?

When you drink from the Midnight Sun,

A heart of darkness sets in on you.

The message intended for your toenails

Goes to your head,

And those intended for you mind

Go to bed with your feet.

No answers this time for the chalkboard. 

I’m standing where the teacher told me,

My problem written in white

On a green chalkboard.

The class is giggling at my ass

And my incognition.

Damn that teacher anyway! 

Damn this school! these kids!

And all these diagrams I’m sposed to know!

I want to go outside, 

Ride my horse,

Grasp my fingers in his coarse mane

And hang on tight

Until the ride is over,

And I’m carried off to where I want to go,

Because I’ve been to that place where problems disappear,

Where grammar fails and algebra 

And social schemata of who is right and wrong,

Who is popular, who is strong,

Who is weak,

But that’s not here

Where problems reign

And bullies have their way

And the mind slips from an ultra conscious state

Into a self-conscious one.

I’m done.

I’m going outside 

To ride my horse.

-jenn