Has god granted me a gift
That can't be used in polite society?
That even his church would shun?
A hidden talent found,
Too late? Is it now confederate?
But when I look into your eyes
And see the part that I can do,
And when I know the Love
I have for you is pure,
I could anoint you with
The curative power,
Revitalize your health and youth,
If you would let me love on you.
How often have I wanted
To take you under my feathered down,
Gather you to me,
As layers of petticoats.
If you would let me love on you,
I'd spread my canopy all around
Your royal head,
And kiss your tender temples,
And fill your lips with honey,
And crown you with many crowns.
If you will let me love you?

-jenn

Every broken heart brings you
One closer step to me,
The one who would never hurt you
Or defame.
Take one down, and pass it around,
99 more letters in your name.

Every one that doesn't work
Will turn your head to me,
The one whose love will never skirk
Your call.
So take one down and pass it around,
98 more broken hearts on the wall.

-jenn

The cat lady gene has evolved within us,
Coded in our DNA
And revealed by the environment in which we mark our time.

For even and especially the most intelligent
Can find themselves overtaken
And overrun by cats.

In this age of cold love,
There's something warm about a cat,
Who, in spite of its aloof independence,
Chooses to come
And rub itself on your leg
And purr.

-jenn

The birds ain't prejudiced.
The whippoorwill trills
As I walk the street
In the so-called black neighborhood.
The jay birds solo in the barrio,
And morning dove mate
On the damaged curb
In front of the section eight housing.
Robins peep "tweet, tweedely deet deet,"
As I go bee bopping by them,
And mocking birds mock
And try to talk about the white girl
That's just moved in.

But they can't,
Because they don't know what to say.
No one 's ever told them,
And they can't see color anyway.
No one 's simply black or white,
Just twelve hundred and fifty shades of gray,
The birds just wonder why none of us are singing.

-jenn

It finally got to the act
Where the curtain opened
And the Hero stood playing a song.
He had been there along,
There in the orchestra pit,
Playing what others had written.
But now he took center stage alone
And commanded the attention
With the music that flowed from his own heart,
And I am smitten,
And the play is over,
Unfinished but too rehearsed.
But the Hero is playing!
And his song is overturning,
Reversing the curse
That had been spoken,
And now I'm not acting,
I am ovation,
Free to be true to Love's great prompt and the improvisation
Of genuine authentic pure dee Love.

Women's Work

I marveled that It offended some,
That they could see my camisole
Through my blouse,
But I took it off,
For I'm not one to offend.
But it troubled others
That they could see my bra straps
Through my camisole,
So I removed the camisole, as well.
And now, my nipples are showing through my bra,
And I wonder why I must be such a stumbling block to the world,
And smile to know
My work is never done.

-jenn

I'm way ahead of you, Timer.
You beeping yore fool head off at me!
And I've already taken that pie out of the oven.
It was done!
And you didn't know,
But I did,
And I'm already sittin' here
With a big ole piece of it on my plate,
And now you take a notion to howl!

Well go on with your big bad self!
I can't even hear you, now.
I've gotten so used to your bellyachin!
But I have pie!
And the only thing that would get me up from this table
Is if I had ice cream in the freezer,
Which I don't.
So I'll just sit and enjoy this heaven,
Right here,
Right now,
Just like it is,
Even if it is a little bit
Ahead of Time.

-jenn

My heart is made of unbreakable plastic,
And it's very very small.
No one can ever even find it to break it,
But if they did,
And took it out and dashed it,
It would lie there unscathed
Until it flattened and oozed
Like a plain, round ink blot.
And if you step on it,
You would fall out of the picture,
And looney tunes music would play,
And Elmer Fudd would stammer,
"Eppadepppa....That's all Folks!"

-jenn

I'm going to get dowdy like Albert Einstein's cousin.
Then I'll be the kind of girl that even a genius could love.
I'll cook him duck and pastry pie
And apple berry muffins.
We can walk along the dock
And watch the boats and feel the fog
And see the light and be it's constant speed,
Quantumly entangled,
For all the world to see.

-jenn

Yeah, he goes to church.
It satisfies his desire for live music and loose women
Without the temptation of alcohol,
Because that stuff will kill you,
Kills brain cells, you know?
Hard on the liver, too, to denature all those toxins.
Meanwhile, he can think about denaturing some of these loose women up in here,
Because most of his brain cells are already gone,
And he doesn't realize that these good Christian women
Will kill you just as quick as liquor will
Without a hint of the joy.

-jenn

What happens to the people who used to write the songs?
Do they run out of things to say?
Or does the machine
Eat them and their dreams
Until there's nothing left to hide away?

What happens to the love that squeezed their feelings into
Ink?
What happens to the chilling harmonies?
Do they fade with time
Ike a moth lit nursery rhyme
And quit hearing new rifts and melodies?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm
I love the skies
Where music never dies,
And clouds create new stories in the air.
Strawberries peek thru them for the sun.
And there is love for everyone.
And the sound is fresh and comes from everywhere.

So heavenly and so very delicious!

-jenn

I bring you a song from the hermit's mountain.
I bring you a drink from a virgin spring.
I bring you breath from life's best hollows
Where loneliness gives way to solitude
And prepares the soul for its mate.
Then it can embrace the dewy buds of free range love.

For I have come from a place
Where sound still creates it,
Where the echoes of the original hum can be heard.
Come and listen to the music
Come and sing it to me as we go.

-jenn

They say if you believe it will be so,
And so I choose not to believe in the illusion.
They say fire burns, regardless of one's belief,
But I disagree,
For I have walked the burning coals
Without a scar.

I choose to believe in you,
Because I want you to be real in me.
I choose you
Because you are already real and genuine in every way,
And because I prefer you
Above all else.

-jenn

Mathematic theories describe the laws of illusion
Within the domain and range of illusion itself,
But only magic cuts the plane of existence
To infuse the illusion with the power of Love.
And only Love can see the place
Where time and space separate,
And only there do the dimensions of reality emerge.

For Love alone and light are real and constant.
All else is illusion.

-jenn

Come and sing into my original darkness.
Make a place for yourself with psalms and hymns,
And I will make a place for you, my Lover,
A place where we can laugh and talk and sing.
Wish, and step out, to walk across my waters,
Stretch your rope out from north to south.
Stand with arms stretched, one east, one west,
And expand your mighty sails
To the rushing wind.
All things will move to you as you stand,
Your dreams and thoughts will bring them all to you.

-jenn

Oh yes, if you'd been first at the red light,
You'd've hit the ground running the second it turned green.
You'd've never skipped a beat or wasted a 10th of a millisecond
Before your foot would've hit that gas pedal and spun rubber.
You would never have to find your gears or grind them,
Because you're a world's wonder
At being first out of the starting gate.

But you got behind me today.
And I'm slow.
And I would like to put a nickel in because I don't like the color.
And I do want to see if it'll get any greener.
And I hesitate to put it in gear, Myrtle,
Because I wonder if the fan belt really might pull it.
So, I give you your heart's desire,
Someone to honk at,
Someone to despise and ridicule
Because I'm not like you.
But then again, you wouldn't really be you without me.

-jenn

Some are hitched to a plow,
Some a cultivator,
I'm pulling two garbage cans behind me.
They rumble and stink to high heaven.
And when they are full, they are worthless,
And when they are empty they're unfulfilled.
They crow like a mouth with a bottomless belly for more.
And there is much more for them,
If only I could let go of it all.

But what should I spend my life's energy on,
Trashing the world as I go?
Or should I find seeds to plant
And bloom out of all this compost?

-jenn

I stood in line at Walmart
And thought about the trail of tears.
I thought about my great, great ancestor whose name I do not know,
But that person was the parent, or the grandparent of,
My great, great grandmother,
Alcie Miller,
Who was born in Talequah.

She married an outlaw.
Who could blame her?
He was Scotch, like Sean Connery,
And they had a son,
My great grandfather,
Arthur Graham.

Gramp lived to see Walmart
Come to his hometown,
Lindsay, Oklahoma.
He wouldn't take his Indian land
Or put himself on the role.
He had his own money,
And no, he didn't steal it.
He worked hard in the oil fields
Between Bowlegs and Seminole.
He bought a corner lot on the hill in Lindsay,
And mowed it all himself til the year he died.
He didn't care for government cheese,
And he didn't buy his at Walmart, either.

And now here I stand,
One of many,
In one of the many trails at Walmart
That lead to the place where they take your money,
And you hand it willingly.
And many are crying about it,
But as for me,
My trails have given me
Something to cry about,
So I stand, like a wooden face
With nothing behind my eyes
And nothing ahead,
Because I know,
That all of the human beings
That race from birth to the great finish line,
Occasionally are forced along a trail
Where, we too, will cry.

-jenn

I let myself go.
I'd always tried too hard
To live up to some schema
In my head.
But always scratching at my door
Was my morbidly obese cat lady self,
Who knits her own sweaters
And stocking caps.
I paint sunflowers now
On the columns of my portico,
But only the front side,
For I never go behind.

And am I happier now, you ask,
That I became what the DNA seeds
And the greenhouse effect produced from me?
No. I'm not.
But since I'm allergic to life and death,
I wonder about parallel universes,
And I hope.

-jenn

I was just wondering what I was going to do with the rest of that popcorn,
And who appeared, nose wrinkled up and sniffing the air like a blood hound
But you, and you stuck your little paw in there and rooted around til ya got a big handful,
And you looked at me sideways
To see if I minded at all.
"You want the rest," I asked.

We sat and talked
And enjoyed that popcorn together,
Thankful we weren't having to sit down and be quiet somewhere,
Thankful we have dyslexia,
Cause we believe in dog,
And we believe in love,
And popcorn.

-jenn

The bluebonnets have invaded north from Texas
And bloom in big patches on the road sides of Oklahoma.
They don't grow as tall here yet,
But "incrementalism" is their motto,
And they'll get taller every spring,
And there will be more of them.
But for now, I can tell you that they are every bit as blue.

Their blueness drops like a ball bearing
Into the well of my heart,
And the depth splashes onto my face.
I don't know if it's politically correct to cry anymore,
But that doesn't matter anyway,
For when I taste these tears
There is no salt,
But only a sun-warmed weediness
And a sweetness of wild honey and missing you.

-jenn

I'm learning to love.
And I live in a world where
Politics is fake and wrestling is real,
And I've cut the bottom out of my paper cup
So I can look out onto the horizon
And see.
And time isn't linear.
And it's not cyclical.
It's rolling me out like a rolling pin,
Stretching me out,
Making me see through.
The past pulls me one way,
The future, another.
But it's ok,
Because, I'm learning to love.

-jenn

TrueSong

Sometimes ya got to be true to the tune.
Ya pull in the driveway,
And the song ain't done.
It ain't had enough of you.

And I've heard that song a million times,
But I've never really heard it till tonight,
Because I've never listened to it
With your face in the forefront of my mind.

As a listen, it's pulling me in,
Shooting me out across the airwaves with it,
And I'm crying, too, as Harrison's guitar gently weeps.
And my tears are dropping into every home and into every car
As the radio plays.

And in a moment of poetic justice,
The song comes to a close
Without a DJ talking over it
Or another song blending in too soon.
And for just a few seconds,
All you can hear is the sweet sound of silence.

And I know, it's only rock 'n roll,
But I like it.

-jenn

I'm soft clay
Your two fingers,
Third and fourth
Are inside me,
Forming me to you.
A cup for you to pour yourself into
and overflow.

A perfect match for you and your desire,
For you, and for your love so great.
For you to drink from and be very satisfied,

For there was nothing ever there, til you formed it in me.
There was nothing. Now, is everything.

-jenn

I'm wantin to love on you tonight,
And since I'm not close to the ocean,
And can't kiss you as the waves crash over us by the sea,
I want you to love me as the train goes by.
It's almost time for the 2:13.
So come and take me by the heart.
Cover me with your sweet love.
We'll hold our ears as the whistle blows
And giggle as the Doppler effect pulls at our clothes,
And then we'll stand and feel the rush of the power
Bigger than us.
And then we'll kiss in the quietness
When the train is gone,
And all that's left is our love.

-jenn

Send me the poem that you dream on.
Slip it out of its case and let me feel
The years of images and fantasy
That swirl in your great mind.
Let me put it to my face
And breathe the musk of your whiskers,
Feel the sweat of your life's journey.
Let me know you
As you are
And as you want to be known.
Let me fall in love with you
Over and over and over again,
As the feathers in your bed
And in your cap shift.
Let me turn the pages of your mind slowly.
Tell me even slowlier
What every layer might mean.
Then let me read it aloud
So you can hear
The beauty of your love
Come back to you.

-jenn