He didn't know I'd seen him treating his mother poorly
At walmart.
And so he was surprised when I told him "No,
I didn't want to share a dessert and coffee
With him."
I wonder if he'd been shocked to know
That frankly I don't like sharing the planet
With his kind---
Arrogant self absorbed control freaks
That think they know better than everyone else
And always insist in having their own way,
And never bother to listen to anything real.

Lucky for him,
I'm madly in love with someone,
And something there is about true love
That washes one from the slime of everyday schtuff,
And the cloud of peace that carries me
Won't allow me to stay disturbed long enough
To remember the rest of the litany of things I'd thought
As I watched him disregard someone who was weak and sickly and old,
Or else I'd have offered to let him share a real ass chewing I have ready for the likes of Hitler or Stalin
Or the pope who sanctioned Giordano Bruni's burning at the stake,
Or a certain high school basketball coach
That shall remain nameless.

-jenn

I provide bread for them.
You'd think they'd see
That I mean them no harm,
But they fly in a tree
When I come out to look at them.
You'd think they'd fly to me
And land on my finger,
Stare into the eye
Of one who cares for them.
But that might terrify me,
For they're wild little creatures
With feathers for hair
And beady eyes
That stare,
And I'm not God,
So why should they care about me.

-jenn

I see you everywhere
Your energy dancing in plasma colors
Making everything good
Yellow and orange sky blue and applegreen
But when I close my eyes
I see my Lover
So beautiful
Your brown eyes as deep
As light years of space
Your Love
A love of peace and joy
And such ecstasy
I love you

-jenn

Love is kind.
Love takes the bowl
After the beaters have been 'tooken' out
And away to be licked.
Love sees that the batter has not quite been mixed.
Love says not a word,
But takes a spoon.
Love contemplates as it completes,
And smiles,
Thinking of anxious anticipations,
And how lovely they can be
This time of year.

-jenn

He's the sort that draws on foggy windows,
Pooches his lips out big and fat,
Then flattens them on the pane.
Now a lolling tongue swells out
And larrups about the condensation,
And now a hundred fingerprints with sugar cookie crumbs!
Splat splat splat from top to base,
His handprints wondrously appear--
The Dandy Door Decorator!
I paid goooooood money to have such a luxury.

-jenn

He used to limp religiously,
But now he walks without his Cain.
He finds he's more than Abel.
He's survived the jealous tithes
And all the zealous tides.

And now his guilt is gone for good.
He's a reinstated Robin Hood of sorts.
He takes back pardons from the ones
Who'll never need them anyway,
And offers them to those of us who need them all the more.

-jenn

The study of literature
Is just as mundane
As the incessant watching of tv.
There is no end to other peoples' visions and ideas.
But what do we know of our own?

If some good thing should come along,
Would we recognize it?
Could we act on an impulse of love
Or simply watch the reruns,
And do only what we've seen others do?

If two can walk a new path,
Not the less traveled,
Not the more,
But the never traveled one,
Then
They are trueloves.

-jenn

The berries called to me yesterday
With an aroma that stopped me still.
I paused to breathe the delicious smell of perfectly ripened strawberries.
They were red and juicy,
And I thought, "I'll eat them tomorrow,"
For I have a frozen dinner in the microwave right now.

But berries won't wait,
And today I see
That something got to them before me.
Mold has come and ruined them. every one.

Was I worried about the carbs,
Or did jabs of guilt convince me
That I didn't deserve the best?
Or was it just easiest to reheat a tamale?

And so today I have black grapes,
Seedless and plump,
And yet the hum of the microwave
Beckons me,
The ding a ling ling of a digital triangle
Calls me to another sordid affair--
This one, some call breakfast.

-jenn

Even though your touch is gentle

You make a deep

Impression 

Even your eyes

So lightly touch

And look away

But your mouth holds me 

Open

And free

You kiss me

Deeply

And leave a lasting impression on me

-jenn

I don't know if Time has hands,
But he definitely has feet.
He sticks them on me,
Cold as death,
In the nighttime of my life.
So I try to oonch up a bit
And angle around counter clockwise
To get away from him.
But he oonches, too,
And gooses me
Just as I'm drifting off again.
And so we dance,
Time and I,
Me to forget,
Him to remind me.
And I'd be relieved,
If he only stepped on my toes,
But that's the least of my worries.

-jenn

She's dancing in her bathrobe at the home--
Her eyes seductive,
Mona Lisa smile.
And she's good, too!
Her moves have captured
A captive audience
That normally doesn't care.
They don't respond to the gospel clan any more,
Or the barber shop quartet,
But they're sitting up straighter collectively now.
One sweet dowager covers her eyes
While a normally demure widower
Shouts out a "WOWZA!"

They're coming to get the dancer now,
And offer her a different, or more, medication,
But not before she climaxes in a shimmy that reveals
That she is in fact The Magician's assistant.
Her smile is wide now.
Her dentures gleam,
And her arcing hand movements have distracted us
From the fact that she is completely naked
Under her clothes.

-jenn

I pull the night over my head
And lie in the fetal position.
I stare and lose myself,
Unaware.
Are my eyes open or shut?
Am I alive
Or dead?
Am I breathing
Or flying
With gills for air?

Oh yes!
I'm very much alive,
For you are here,
I see,
To resurrect me.
You stretch me out
And lay yourself upon me seven times,
And prophesy
Life,
And surely,
I do live.

-jenn

What are we gonna do when we go crazy?
I'm going to do my soulful strut
All the way across your Pizza Hut
Hi kick spin tilt my hat
Then you'll remember where your lunchbox is at
Right between the a and the tea

-jenn

Quit yore cryin, Heart.
Your sulky lips,
Precocious pout,
Champaign taste
And here yore pockets
Are a hangin out.
Get on you're bike
And ride south,
Or I'll give you something
To cry about.

Smile and be happy,
You orphan thing,
For you have chambers,
And you have strings,
And you have a brain,
If you'd think to use it,
Cause with chambers and strings,
You could have music.

And if you have music,
Then you're a king,
And god is your audience.
Everything
Is already yours,
So sing, Heart,
Sing,
And be very happy.

-jenn

There is more than existence and nonexistence.
There is.
This form that carries me around
Has embarrassed me many times.
My thoughts have fallen short.
My ideas have been awful.

I stammer through forests
Made of trees that I can't see,
But worst of all, I've underestimated you.

But now I've lost all courage
And all peace of mind,
And that is good,
For only humble eyes can see
Love and Time for what they are.

-jenn

The Tutor

He incorrects me,
Mesnomerizes me with false feet
And false grammaticles.
He forces me to go back again
And read it wrong.
Cyscopsoles Tringles
And Equicollaterals.
But this is the language he understands
And so I force myself to learn it.
And in a flash and a shout eureka
I see Archimedes run across his eyes.
"They always add up to 180," he says
In perfect English,
And suddenly it's all worth it.

-jenn

When love is bad,
It creates dark strains
Of things erased off the paper.
When love is good,
Muscles get pulled instead.
When love is bad,
Tummy's ache,
And nothing you bake in the oven tastes sweet.
When love is good
You can eat dogwood
And digest it perfectly
Even without gravy.
When love is bad,
It's not really love at all.
Something else has come to call
Disguised as love.
When love is good
Then love is real.
There is no need for mask
Or reinventing the wheel.

-jenn

I met Budha on the way to the market,
But I couldn't kill him.
He was way too beautiful,
Handsome, and charming and oh, so, smart.
And so we walked together to the mountain
And talked as we climbed up.
And on a cliff overlooking the sea,
He asked me if I was the Budha.
And my eyes were big at that,
Wondering if he thought to kill me,
Or if my kimono made me look fat?

But nightfall came and settled down
Like a hen on speckled eggs,
And the black was speckled by the stars,
Like the sun on the freckled legs
Of a green frog, jumping into a rock lined pool
Of crystal blue water
High on a cliff overlooking the sea
Where time stopped for me
On Green Mountain.

-jenn

We must watch for slogans, friends.
They sound like truth, but really, are not,
Like, for instance, the one that says,
"There is no 'I' in 'team.'"
Well, maybe not,
But neither is there "we" or "us."
There is however "me."

There is also "meat"
And "at," and "ATM."
So what should we make of that?

-jenn

I've been captured by the flag
Of sincere loving kindness.
Just to see it wave in the wind for me
Brings me to my knees.
All my philosophies fail.
All my reasons,
All my hurts,
And all my abilities
Collide with a power greater than,
And are awash,
And something new is happening.

I had an urge,
A premonition,
A dream that told me you would come,
And so I had one clue,
And only one,
But I followed it
Because I knew
That this white flag would fly.

But the part I didn't know
Was the monumental scope,
The flagpole here at national level,
The enormous drape of linen white,
Flown so high
For all to see
And few to recognize,
And the power
To re-create,
To be, to do
Something new
With you
Is monumental too.

- jenn

Pencils break
That's why pens are better
But pens run out of ink
That's why hearts are better
But hearts break

But sometimes they don't
And that is miraculous

-jenn

I don't know why Today
I understand
The mystery of things
That don't begin
Or end,
The expanse and glory,
Consciousness,
And Love.

And all that on a Monday.

-jenn

I tiptoe leap,
A leggy ballerina,
Alp to alp in Switzerland
And twirl on every mountaintop.
In the west, I see my heart
Billow like a mainsail
Out in front of a pirate ship,
(For surely it's been stolen),
And now I turn and Fosbury Flop
Over the moon and all my clothes
Are flying off. They are no match.
By landfall I'm as naked
As the day that I was born.

I've landed in a pea shell
In the pea patch of the soul,
And the warmth I feel
Is not the sun with all it's might
Or other germination in the garden that's occurring,
But simply you,
And the love of sharing
This pea pod made for two.

-jenn

I think the moths are up tonight with me.
We're night bright-eyed and curious,
Drawn by strange lights
That may be the death of us,
But, they're so beautiful.

Now, as I flutter toward I find it hard
To soar up where the light is in the sky.
My wings are wet and heavy,
And I struggle not to fall.
Clumsy and encumbered---a corps perdu,
I find I'm head over heels
In love with you,
The flowers of the Casablanca Lily
That bloom at night to catch
The silly moths who try to fly blind
Into the blinding lights
Of early watch.

-jenn