I like to think I'm self contained,
But I feel the pulls from all the strings attached.
I realize I can't undo what you did to me.
Someone else has got to come along.

Maybe someone can see through
All the jury-rigging.
Someone who has the proper tools
Can fix me right, restore me,
And I'll reclaim myself.

I would do it personally,
But I can't see
All the places inside that need replacing.
It's been so long,
I've forgotten how they're supposed to be.

But someone who knows
And has an interest
In such archaic things,
Could have a lifetime hobby
Of repairing me.

-jenn

I am worthy
To live, to die ,
To touch the sky,
To sing, to dance,
To wear the pants
In my own soul,
To love, to hate,
To want, to wait
For those things I don't want
To pass down the river
Away from me,
So I can be free
To see my dreams come true.

-jenn


*But,
Not to figure skate----
Cause I'm really bad at that.
Worse than that sumo guy
In the geico commercial.

I give you me.
It's all I got.
Anything else would be stolen goods
And put you in jeopardy
Of harboring such merchandise.

And though such trifles
Might just be
A token
Or an afterthought,
Maybe a gift like that would
Be easier to handle.

But I give you me!
And if you can allow me
To be myself,
And persist,
Endure my little ways,
I will thank you
Kindly, in turn,
For takin' it all so well.

-jenn

Next year, when summer comes,
I'm going to go and stay outside
All day and soak up every ray
Of golden beams the sun might send
My way. And when night comes,
I'll stay to see the silver threads
The moon sends me, and braid
And tie them from star to star
All through the dark and midnight sky
Until I have a net that's big enough
To get all the dreams I've ever had
And all the things I've yet begun
To think are true, and oh yes,
Big enough, that I might catch you.

And when I do, I may never sleep
Again, or hurt, or weep, until
The days grow short and then
I'll return to my hibernation.
But I'm not  going to miss
A single drop, the slightest chance
To fly or flop, or be happy,
Like I did, last summer.

-jenn

It's just another accident report,
A blip on the morning news,
A place where traffic will be congested
On your route to get across town.
But when you finally get to work,
The tv will still be on,
And the weathergirl, who looks
Like all the other weathergirls,
Will breathlessly explain
How awful it's going to be today,
And hopes her hairspray holds.

And meanwhile, in Aleppo,
A 16year old boy,
His arm already in a cast,
Is prepped for surgery after his house was bombed.
He will awake to a cast on his leg,
And to the news that he is an orphan,
And brotherless.

-jenn

More obedient than Ezekiel,
I cook my cake over coals of human dung,
And just like Jonah, I sit in the shade of a gourd
That I care for more than the people I was sent to save.
And now, on the ship's veranda, I watch the birds.
And like Cassandra, I see the future.
And like Cassandra, I see that
No credit is due me,
By the curse of disbelief,
By the course of my spurned love.

And as it starts to rain I see
Through my paper skin.
My long toes have cleaved yet again,
Deeper, up through the metatarsals
To the cuneiform.
And though I know the abilities
That this morph will bring,
I also see why prophets are not
Respected in their own hometowns.

-jenn

I reside in a stone home
From whence I never leave or roam,
But once a year, the sun comes in
And brings to light my bones.

The winter solstice shines with pangs,
Exhibit A that Newgrange
Is where I'm bound to be.
Oh, even belief can't set me free
To range and go beyond the galaxy,
Much less Knowth and Dowth.

But once the gods did disappear.
On the day with the longest night of the year,
The light of that sunrise brought great fear
And trembling as they went away.

Geese fly south,
Spend the winter in Summer's warm mouth
Somewhere far away.
But the geese return.
And my heart has yearned
To see the gods again,
To wander and reign with them,
Just east of Knowth and Dowth
And down by the Sea.

-jenn

I take an extreme position
So that others have plenty of room
To shy away,

Especially in the bathroom
At the grocery store.
For there's nothing I hate more
Than someone coming to occupy the stall
Right next to me,
When the one furthest down
By the wall was open, too.
I don't want to smell your shoo,
And I don't want you smelling mine.

-jenn

I cling to kind words
Like ivy twining.
Up and over the veranda I go.
A place, a toehold, here on the chimney
Offers a final culmination
Until a sturdy stem is able
To stretch up above the mortar.

And from this vantage point I see
The breadth of the horizon.
I comprehend
Just as the weight of my understanding
And the bulk of my new growth
Bend my heart, and I droop.
I condescend,
Return to my humble beginnings.
In a freefall of greenery
And low-slung blossoms,
I cascade completely unconcerned
By any words that are said.

-jenn

Our love is wrapped
In a gunny sack,
Tied together,
Yet, let go for the day
To run in a magical three-legged race,
Here at the bonny fair.

And if we stumble across the line
Just in time to be first place,
We can scurry to get whipped cream on our faces,
And hurry and eat the wares
That are all lined up
For the pie eating contest
And save those professional contenders the worry,
Here at the bonny fair.

For their work is our pleasure,
And we treasure the things
That others have disregarded,
Our sacred, discarded hearts
Still beat, still sing,
Still plead to find their lost ribbons,
And their lost ways,
Here at the bonny fair.

-jenn

One-Sided Conversations

Me: What do people wear to this ordeal?

It: Wommmmpwompwompwomp womp wompwomp wommmmp

Me: Mmmmmmm, okaaaaaay. Well, what do other people wear?
------


It: Wompwomp womp womp wompwomp womp?

Me: Because a place starts out and succeeds because of hard working people who care, and then, all the cool people decide they want to work there, but, they're also lazy bums.
----------

Me: Oh, I thought you said you were a vegetarian?

It:  Wompwompwompwomp womp?

Me: Yes, actually, pepperoni is meat.
-----------

Me: Wompwompwompwomp wompwomp womp womp

It: Well, aren't you criticizing me for being critical?

Me: Womp womp wommmmmp
--------

It: Is Pepsi ok?

Me: wompwomp womp
------
Her: Womp womp wompwomp womp
Me: yeah, I know, you should hear what she says about you.
---------

Me: I thought you'd invited me to come with you to Hawaii.

It: Womp womp womp.

Me: Oh.....Hue.......Vietnam.
-------

It: Womp womp wompwomp wompwomp womp wompwomp wompwomp wompwomp womp womp Wompwompwompwomp womp!

Me: Well, maybe you shouldn't take your dog to the dog park when it's in heat.
---------

-jenn

A Christmas Song

I hate christmas,
Y'all,
I do.
It makes me sad.
It makes me blue.
It makes me wanna run away
To China,
Or some other place,
Where it's a day ahead,
Or a day behind,
Some other time than now,
Some other day
Than today.

I'm a live and let live
Kinda soul,
So if you wanna go
And sing your carols, do.
But please remember
To sing Blue Christmas
And If We Make It Thru December
For folks like me,
Who take their Christmas Trees
With a grain of salt
And the hopes
That days will soon grow longer.

-jenn

They work with old people,
And they don't see
The need for any wrinkle cream
Or much else at all,
Except painkillers.
They work with old people,
So they do see
The end of charade,
The futility
Of everything that tries
To divert the great river.
For they work with old people,
And see. The end game
For the rich, for the poor,
Is always the same.
For those who tried,
Or didn't care,
It's the same everywhere.
We're born without,
And without, we shall return.

-jenn

I don't like the river.
He doesn't like the sand.
I don't care to kayak.
He doesn't want to land
And hike along the trail.
I don't like to float
Along and allow the water
To take me somewhere
I might not want to go.
He feels in control
Of the entire seven seas,
Employing the forces of nature
To move him where he pleases,
And this is why sometimes
We can't always see eye to eye,
But as long as we understand that,
We might be ok.

-jenn

There's going to be a full moon
In June,
And if you can wait til then,
Summer will finally give up her grudge
And you will be forgiven.
And maybe nothing will ever be the same,
But Time tells me it will.
If nothing else your name will change
From Tundra into Mudd.

But mud is good
For seeds will stick
And ultimately grow.
Let's hope they're good ones
Lying there,
Buried beneath the snow.

-jenn

They didn't think I should ask
The sun how it was hangin',
And so they disappeared behind my back.
But I was brave,
Or was it brash?
Or did I know instinctively
That I was protected from full view
By my identity?

Only one had ever seen
And had professed
My Perpetual Virgin-ness,
And she had died an early death
Mysteriously.

But the Sun and I
Got along famously.
He covered me with gold until
My shine was full complete,
And I have never had to compete since,
With anyone but myself.

And even that, now, I fully see
For what it is,
And am letting it go,
As we speak,
Or as you read.
And may you also
Let yours go
And be at peace
With the loving flow
Of who you quite naturally are.

-jenn

When the sun goes down
Behind the round mountain
It gets so dark and still
I can barely contain myself
I don't think I will

I can hear deer rustle
Through the forest
I hear the nightbird trill
I can barely contain myself
I don't think I will

Come sit out on the porch with me
We'll watch the night grow deep
Put your hand down on my knee
And smile and say let's go to sleep
And we'll go, and lie in bed and kiss
Drink from Love til we 've had our fill
I will not contain myself
No, I don't think I will

I dream. I dream. I dream of you.
It's true.
I do.

If you want to know the lies,
Then go and live in lovers' eyes
While they're awake,
When they can't realize what's at stake
For the sake of their sacred destinies.
But if you want to know the truth,
Go and see what lovers do at night
In their dreams.

The thoughts of day are swayed
By the consciences of others.
What would old so and so say,
Or my mother?
And often we don't choose what is good
For us, but what we feel we should.

But in our dreams, in the cover
Of sleep,
We laugh only at funny things,
We truly weep at things that are truly sad,
And we love only our true loves,
No matter what intense training we've had
"To know better."
When our confusion unfetters
At night
And we dream, we dream it right.
We see the monsters for who
They are,
And we see who shows up
To star
In our fantasies.

I dream. I dream. I dream of you.
It's true.
I do.

- jenn

Mary Doublehead McNulty

I can go
Days without any water
I can go days without any food
But I can also die
So easily
Like my mother did when I was two

I can easily be adopted
Walk the trail alone
Til I find somewhere
With someone with extra
Someone kind
Someone warm
To lie down with
And make it through
The cold crying winter

But I didn't cry that hour
That day
So it's not The Trail of Tears to me
It's just a way
A way of life
A way of my DNA

Maybe I'm lucky that I never remembered
The big wooden house
Chinked with clay
Where mama cooked beef
And vegetables from the big barn
Where our dried food
And horses stayed
And the wagon
Her grandfather built
When we, the human beings, lived in peace

Before the lawyers and anti-humans
Wrote many words and debated them
Although they were all on the same side
They colluded to make it look justified
The decision to send the soldiers to enforce
The belief that because Europe had "discovered" America,
(Even though we had lived there generations before)
The men took our land
They took our houses
The soldiers walked through and took our best things
With only a nod of a judge to approve
We were deemed tenants
And evicted and marched
A long way a way

But maybe I'm lucky
For I understand
How temporal is
All that you can see
And how you will also take nothing with you
When you begin your march
Toward the Pleiades

And so maybe I will leave easily too
From this establishment
For I can eat one slice of white bread
And have dysentery for seven generations
And die easily
Like my mother did
When I was two

-jenn

In the future
(As in the past)
When they want to put you away for life
They will find a hair you've shed
Or your saliva from a cup you've thrown away
And clone you in the lab
But they will abort your fetus
Just after you've grown long enough to take your blood
From a pseudo-placenta
Take it back to the scene of the crime
Spatter it perfectly themselves to fit their story

And so in the future
(As in the past)
People will become superstitious
About leaving their hair and nail clippings behind

-jenn

The things that I desired were wrong
And as I chased them
I went off-track
And exhausted myself to achieve them
When I succeeded
There was bitter success
And a great feeling of lack

But the things the universe has brought to me are good
I received them as a result of inaction
True gifts, unmerited and undeserved
They came to me
Drawn to me because of who I am
Not what I do
And they are beautiful
And I cherish them

I will trust the universe
To bring me good gifts
You feed me from its loving hand
It created me from nothing
It will make me what I am destined to become

-jenn

The beat of the song is strong at first
Like a heart that's hustled about before plopping in bed,
And you can hear it in your head.
Then, as one breathes
And the heart beat slows,
The percussion gets low,
And disappears into the shutters' creaking.

Rock me in your arms tonight
To the rhythm of that great song.
Hum along to the borrowed melody,
But please, sing the stolen lyrics
That Orpheus sang, quietly as you ascend,
And never, never look back.

-jenn

She's driving and singing,
Or talking to herself.
The window is up
So I can't tell.
She's older, but checking herself in the mirror,
Hoping to meet someone else.

A long scar runs
From her wrist to her elbow
And belies the miracle
Of her survival
And her current hope.

But sing, Milady,
(Or speak to yourself),
Meet your lover,
If you must,
Whatever you need to do,
Whatever you want
To get you along,
To help you process
You're current worth,
And your divinity within.

-jenn

I've come from Jennbury
Where daisies grow,
Planted by people who didn't know me,
And dandelions sprout
From children wishing
Their little hearts out
And blowing the seeds
Of their dreams in the air.
Mystically, dreams and seedlings
Grow there, where other things have died.
New things arise,
And quietly say
All the things words failed to describe
And express.

-jenn

All my roads lead to you.
My rivers flow
To you, every glow,
Each wink, each nudge
Each tendril of love grows round.

The sun never sets on my love for you.
The rain can never wash the indelible  cartouche
That has been deeply, perfectly cut
With your great name upon my heart and soul.

The graffiti of Pompeii,
The fragments of Sappho on velum,
The height and grandeur of Herodotus,
Raucous jokes and heartfelt vows,
The sum and total of every idle word,
Each jot and tittle
Of law and wives' tales and limericks,
No stone has been left unturned in finding you,
The Trilithon of my faith and hope,
The future waiting for your designs,
The me, here, knowing, that all in all
Is here and right this very moment in time,
Dripping with nothingness and everything else
For us and us alone.

-jenn

Melt with me in the warm moonlight tonight,
And pour yourself out of the mold
The world has formed for you.
Let's trickle downhill like tiptoe princesses
Wondering when midnight will come
Until we find an easy place to pool.

We can ripple and splash in wild abandon,
Not worried about when the end will come.
We won't notice the sunrise
Or the cold shoulder
That ultimately comes to freeze us.
But even in suspended animation,
We will at least be ourselves,
And at last be caught forever
In effortless pose
For memento.

-jenn

When I conquer the mountain,
I'll conquer myself,
The dreams and memories,
Hopes and fears,
The past, the future,
Known and unknown,
The stars and planets,
The gas at Auschwitz,
The bullets in Syria,
The knives of Moscow,
The parents of Rome,
The plagues of Athens,
The children of Gaza,
The cold of Ipswitch,
The heat of Sahara.
All that will be done
When I conquer the mountain.
And I will stand and survey the mountain,
And overstand,
And understand.
Then maybe I'll dive off of the mountain,
And not worry about coming down,
Or going home.

-jenn

When leaves fall hard and clatter along the curb
And yet, the sky is blue,
And sun shines golden
Even through the dark evergreen,
My thoughts turn to you
And how your sunny smile
Warms even the coldest
Regions of my heart,
How cupid's dart strikes me
In the dark forest of my imagination
And drives my love to summer's meadow,
So gleeful with nightingales and bees combs
And every sweet intoxicating thing.
And tho I long for spring today,
The seasons rock with peaceful sway
Against my shores and I can see
Happiness buoyed just beyond the rocks
Of gallantry and leeward time.

-jenn

They'll tell you you're too fat to dance.
But what do they know
About the history of body language?
That nodding the head 'yes' comes from
Letting someone fuck you?
And that shaking the head 'no'
Was from someone fucking you sideways anyway against your will?
That the sound of a kiss
Is pussy lips parting?
And what of a shrug,
Or a goodbye hug,
Or anything else for that matter?
So I say the fatter the better,
And you can dance if you want,
And should, anyway,
Because it might be the only body language
That is both beyond understanding,
And beyond communicating 'you'
Perfectly in your own time and skin.

-jenn

I'm not going to look at myself for the Winter,
And I'm not going to look at you.
I'll close my eyes and hear
The sounds your body makes.
I'll listen as one whose palm
Is inscribed by a trembling finger
And then pushed under the flow
To feel the double entendre
And know the name called 'water.'

And when you cry, I will smell the wetness of your tears,
And I will taste them for myself
To be sure whether they are of sorrow or joy.

And when Spring comes,
With its equal light,
I'll open my eyes
And rewrite this poem,
Replacing the you's with me's,
Changing the your's to my's.

And then I'll close my eyes again
And do all these things that I've done for you
For myself
Until Summer comes
With it's harvest of sweet cherries and wheat,
And then I will open my eyes
And eat,
And be satisfied.

-jenn

Some people lose it a little at a time.
Me, I plan to go crazy all at once,
And when I do I'm going to pretend that I'm Elizabeth Hurley.
I'll start to speak with a British accent
And get rid of all my clothes
Except for the bikinis and evening gowns,
And when I get bored with that
(Which may take awhile),
I'll move on to mumus and kaftan dresses
And pretend not to remember
That I've had dessert.
And if anyone bothers to chide me,
I'll feign that I've forgotten how to speak,
And answer every question or challenge
Only with a meeeeeow.

-jenn

This genius woman with her nose in the air
Pushes her cart smugly down the aisles at Walmart,
Briskly advising her young ward
About the benefits of proper nutrition.

She purses her lips as she surveys
The ingredient list of every brand
Of canned fruit cocktail,
And sneers disdainfully at me as I walk past.

I hated to tell her that her pants were unzipped,
But someone had to.

Hehehee

-jenn

You've run me out of my heart twice
And once from my own soul.
But last time, while I was away,
I had a baby out of wedlock
And raised him by myself
Out in the wilds of the universe
Where hominids roam untamed.

And in a kind of Woodall sense at first
I stopped to watch them,
And then in deep respect I came to revere
The poetic beauty of their ways
And the subtle harmonies they moved to
That ordered the natural laws
By which they lived.
And yet it was in deep set freedom
Their beings there resided,
And in their contentment, no confine was ever felt.

And so I came to worship this peace
That passes all understanding,
And as I meditate on it tonight,
I find I have no use or urge to return
To the pathetic trappings
Of my heart
Or my soul,
But I long to stay here
In this wilderness
With my spirit
And my ancestors.

-jenn

Here's my contribution to nothingness!
I lift my glass to the North Star.
And while one Celtic fiddle plays,
And it's notes disappear into the night sky
Along with all the idle words spoken
But every human being who has ever lived,
I'll disappear into the trees
Beside the grotto where the sybil muttered,
And hike my skirt
And pee on the mossy loam.

Then I'll wander farther away from the party,
Unseen, unmissed,
And sit on the rocks
Stained by undrunk wine,
Covered by tiny shards of chalices
Where others before me have broken their good crystal,
Where others before me have sat
And watched the Northern Cross turn in the sky.
Did they, too, ponder the meaning
Of existence and nothingness?

-jenn

The Great Darlini, magician of the night,
Takes his top hat off and twirls it
Right down on some great mesa
In the desert where the stars shine out.
He taps it three times and never says a word,
But galaxies spin as if they have heard
His whisper, like the galloping of
A thousand wild horses.
Then he pulls a pine cone out of his hat
And twirls it by the stem in his fingertips,
And just like that, the solar system
As we know it, melts into the Milky Way,
And nothing is left of the watery sea.
It's tears are dried, and you and I
Have disappeared, too, and so has the night,
And the day.

-jenn

He took his eyes off me to look at the moon,
Which beguiled him with her pale perfection.
But the moon is a mask,
And behind it lies a dark sun
With a strange energy,
A hideous gravity.

And while it seems that I wane,
I turn in apogee,
And he sees my fullness.
The distance has a perverse draw,
And as he turns again, he sees
Me in my perigee.
The mask can't hide me.
I am the dark sun
Behind the moon.

-jenn

The gracious one is like the sea.
At my lowest point,
He welcomes me
And receives all that I am.
And as I gush into his arms,
I feel the solution.
The warmth of his love
Disarms me.
All the disillusion melts away.
The illusion, too,
Is gone, and I find
Nothing there at all
But my perfect completeness
At sea level,
And all the love he offers me.

-jenn

Change due.
No change comin.
Got to leave a tip.
Walk off hummin the blues.

But I'm happy
Because I'm hungry again,
And I'm so thirsty.
I'm empty again,
Yet close to burstin,
So full of love for you
And thrilled to be
Doin it over
And over again
With you.

-jenn

So I put the noodles on
And set the timer,
And went off to do other things.
Time was up
And like Robert Oppenheimer
I went to be a destroyer of worlds,
But my noodles weren't done.
The stove was barely on---
At 2.8 instead of 5.

I think I'm going to learn this lesson:
I'm on the range, and the salt
And the Wesson Oil has been added,
A dash of garlic and fatted calf
And the prodigal son.
And when my time is up and come,
I'm gonna be done.
I'm turnin myself up and on,
And when they find me dead,
At least they'll know
That once, I was alive.

-jenn

Sixteen pounds is an ounce these days
And not worth more than four.
And you can eat a bushel of corn
But your body will still want more
Because there aren't the same nutrients in here
That there were in just one heirloom ear.
The hybridized production year
Put the tractors in overdrive
And I guess the world has ended,
But no one stopped to see,
For seed time and harvest is over.
One last lonely bee
Ponders what world it may fly to
Where nature still pollinates,
And animals can still merely eat and poop
And the pits will actually proliferate
So that even humans and all their greed
And ingenuity can't screw that up.

-jenn

We are just balloons that want air.
We huff and puff
And blow ourselves up
And reinvent the stairs,
The wheel, and the mouse trap extraordinaire.

And while we gloat
And bloat over spurious crowns,
We often let our deals go down
Unattended.
We find ourselves suspended
In rooms that are not our own,
Where we have no choice
And no control over the remote,
And therefore, can't even change the channel,
Much less ourselves.

-jenn

There are places I can go.
The way is long, the pace is slow,
And I don't always appreciate
The tiring journey.
But when I take the bullet train
With you, we cover the terrain
Fast and in a hurry.
We get there and beyond.
I feel we're hovering somewhere
Long forgotten or rarely reached,
Some nirvana, some perfect peach
Of a heavenly destination.
And what about the way?
I wish it could've taken us one more day,
One more mile, or two,
With you.

-jenn

When I saw that look on her face, I quit.
I quit worrying and trying so hard.
Because she had already accomplished everything I had always wanted to do,
And at a much earlier age,
And yet, here she sat with that look on her face.
And I have seen that exact face many times in my own mirror,
And I know what it means.
It means it's never enough.
It's never good enough.
It's never done.
It's never complete.

And when I saw that look on her face, I knew
It never would be.

So I decided then and there that it could be.
It could be enough right now,
And now, it is.

-jenn

When the cat mrrrrrows,
And he has the food he likes,
And I've just given him water,
And scratched his whiskers real good,
Then I know he wants to pick a fight
With me or the dog.
Better pick the dog today, buddy.

-jenn

All of my children died when hers did.
I felt her pain to my core.
I identified with her completely
And none of my theologies worked anymore.
Nothing made any sense.
Nothing was right in the world.
For if a child can die before its parents,
Then nature is to be abhorred
By the vacuum that we try to call reality.

But can there be two sets of laws?
One for idealists with rose colored destinies?
One for scientists who say that every effect must have its cause,
And every cause its fate?
For we say whatever goes up must come down,
But certain rockets launched up
Into the heavens will never return,
Unless we call reaching the sun
And entering it's atmosphere
And burning into unrecognizable ashes
"Coming Down."

-jenn

If when I'm me I become more like you,
Maybe, because we've been apart so long,
I've quit reacting, protracting on queue.
Even when I think I might be wrong,
Genetics and deep memories set at birth
Define the faces that I make and girth
I carry and my gait, and outlook, too.
I find I look like you, and if some pain
I find in that might seem to make me blue,
I have to smile and shake my head again,
And wonder if you ever felt that way too.

-jenn

I can't believe what I believe these days,
And what I don't.
My beliefs are unbelievable,
While more credible creeds I find unpalatable.

Why do I feel there is more
Behind door number two
Then there is in full view
On the pedestal,
There for me to take at face value.

Beyond the illusion--
Is there truth?
Some say the universe has edges like a great picture frame,
Or, as once, in the ancient days,
When the world was new and flat,
And ships fell off when they sailed too far.

Maybe someday our cosmos will grow up round,
As the earth has in these modern days,
And we find we can sail east to go west.

Or if the 'edges theory' remains
And proves its truth,
What masterpiece of Reality might we find behind the canvas?
Or what great wall?
What fantastic nail will it all be hanging on?

-jenn

I break my supplements in half
And swallow one each day.
Thus the chosen ones for me
Are broken ones from yesterday.
Now I don't know,
So you tell me
The meaning of this analogy.
Am I a god to them
Or they to me?
Does God break us all,
Yet all will be chosen eventually?
Or do we break our gods
So they will be
Easier to swallow?

-jenn

One fossil at Vesuvius shows
A man who faced the blast.
He embraced his destiny,
Faced his fear,
And forgot about every past second
That had built his life up to that point.
He died with dignity,
Not cradled away in a fetal position,
Hiding from the futility of that day
In some last ditch moment.

And when the sun goes red giant,
And a gray vapor starts to rise,
And life gives way to the same green house gas
That exists now on Venus,
Yes! When our skies,
So once, so blue, erode,
I think that I will face the heat,
Or I'll face you,
And we can take each other
Hand in hand,
And become pillars of salt together
Looking ahead,
As strangers
In a very strange land.

-jenn

Time comes knocking to borrow some money,
A couple of eggs,
A spoonful of honey.
It needs you to come and bring your car,
Checks up on you wherever you are,
Because Time is a relative.

Time will see you at five and raise you ten,
And always know just when you're bluffing,
And when you've got a hand.
And time will go slow when you're bored,
And put the accelerator down on the floor when you're having fun,
And fly,
Because Time is a relative.

But when you're down and out,
Things didn't go as you planned,
Maybe ole Time will drop by and give you a hand,
But I doubt it,
Because time is a relative.

-jenn

Today it took me twice as far
To reach that point where I said, "Pheeeeeeeeeew."
It took a mile and a half today,
And tomorrow it might take three,
But I'll do it whatever it takes
To get to that point
Where my water runs clean and pure
And my mind is free.

I live to reach this place where the emptiness tips out
And I become one with myself.
I see what matters.
Here is where what's real tips in
And fills my bucket with everything good,
And I'm happy.

This is the point where the wallflower me
Hears the irresistible rhythms
And dances right out of her shell
And moves into life with meaning and purpose
And beauty and love.

It's all right now, baby.
It's all right now.

And when this song is over,
I will continue to move through.
I'll go right out the back door of the gym,
And, unchaperoned, I will find the night.
And under the stars, to the beat of my own drum
And the music of the heavens,
I will dance eternally.

-jenn

I'm bad to my hair,
Like this world is to me.

If it's not poofy enough,
I tease it and rat it.

If it's too poofy,
I pull it back hard
And tie it down.

Oh, the ribbon will be pretty,
But my hair will know it has been educated.

I'm bad to my hair.
It's always too something,
Just like I am to this world.
I'm always too somethin' for somebody.

-jenn

And this is why one shouldn't stand under a tree in a thunderstorm:
Because the thunderpeal will release one thousand acorns
From their shells and they will fall upon your head,
And then the squirrels will come and make a nest up in your hair,
And being the kind and passive soul you are,
You will stand a lifetime there,
So as not to disturb the squirrels,
And people will mistake you for statue.
You will live your life ignored as part of the beautiful scenery.

Better just keep walking through the rain.
Getting soaked and being cold might be worth the pain
Of pneumonia, or defy the odds
And get yourself lightning struck.
"Might be worth it," I can hear you say
In your sweet self deprecating way.
You can tell yourself that lead doesn't attract it.
Or maybe knowing you,
You're much like me, and
You'd rather be remembered as a statue.

-jenn

The screen door has popped ajar
And saws back and forth like a rosined bow
Droning on and on and over again
Slow across that one string.
I guess the other strings are broken,
Or maybe one is out of tune,
But someone has given the night a fiddle
And three lessons to get back at me.

I'm not sure what I did this time
To warrant such a nasty revenge,
And such a creepy one,
But as I lie here in the night,
The dark has been supplied a soundtrack,
A song of witches mocking me
And the pain in my achin back.

They say that even Jimi Hendrix
Started out on a ukele that only had one string.
So why should I begrudge the night
Its practice times, it's small beginnings?
Who knows, in time, what tunes the night may sing?
If I only could, I would, buy the night a second hand guitar,
And a tuner and see what he might do with that?

Ah but a cosmic amp awaits me somewhere,
A distorted moonbeam plied with reverb,
A little sleep between the sawing,
Maybe time for one dream.
The night dreams too while wide awake,
A hot fiddle breakdown,
Taking the stage at the grand old opry,
Taking the grand applause,
Taking a bow and pointing his bow
Out into the audience,
Acknowledging that one special person
Who made it all possible.


Who knows?
Maybe I'm the one?
Maybe when he gets real good,
We could sit out there on the back porch
With that old screen door blowing,
And he could play me a little Bonaparte 'a Retreat?

-jenn

Don't try to walk with the rock in your shoe.
Stop for a minute and try to understand
What the rock is doing to you
And why.
Justify yourself to the rock
And try to walk a little further.

Tell yourself it's just a pebble
And that you're making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Walk on through your pain.
Justify yourself again to the rock.
Tell it all the reasons why you're out walking.
See if it makes any sense to the pebble.

Tomorrow all your reasons will be in vain,
For you won't bother to take your walk.
You'll be in pain.
Stone bruise on the heel of your heart and the heart of your heel.
You will feel so strange
And won't know why.
Is it just your foot that wants to die
Or is it your soul,
Your whole way of being?

Or you could stop and take that rock out of your shoe,
Throw it as far away from you as you possibly can.

-jenn

What is there to talk about?
Nothing exists except this moment,
Milliseconds strung together like pearls
On a rope of sand.
They stream behind me now,
Flying back like my hair
As I breeze into the great unknown,
The last and only frontier--
The future.

-jenn

It's good to be upside down,
An anti-gravity effect.
Work to pull your smile up
Into a frown.
Let your blood rush
Out of your feet,
Down, into your head.
Exert, so you can think
More clearly
Of what is right,
What is wrong.

If you can't make yourself
Invert,
You should allow someone
To shake you down!
String you up by your toes
And rattle the spare change
Out of your hide.
See what you've really got inside,
What you're made of.
Do you have one dream left,
Folded up in your pocket?
What are you afraid of?
That something true
Might bubble up or down out of you?
Or that it might only pass
Like gas?

If you cartwheel now
You might let go
Of the why's, the how's, the who's,
And get a grip on you.
You could love something so unique and kind.
Find something beautiful
And so new
From a different point of view,
From some great unexplored cavernous corner
Of your own mind.

-jenn

I'm grazing my way to a spring fed creek
Through a green and sunlit meadow.
I stop in the shade and stretch my neck
To nibble a grainy pear.
And after I've had a drink,
I flop in the wet sand at the bend
And wallow in the cool mud
I find there.

And tonight I will gallop
Through your mind
And rear up on my hind feet
And come down hard
On the floor boards under your bed posts,
And rattle your window panes.

But tomorrow, when the sun comes up,
None of it will matter,
And you can wipe me from your mind
Like one tear from your eyes.
Forget the thunder,
But maybe you can think of me
Sometime, when it rains.

-jenn

I could age twenty years in a day
With a good haircut,
Thirty with a bad one.
I wouldn't look like an old lady any more,
I could look like a little old man.
And if I stopped to shop at Steinmart,
I could fly with the hairless and hipless,
And smell like old money
And Botox and spray-on tan.
But I think I'll just dare to walk
Out into the elements,
Without any sunscreen,
Without a headband,
Hatless, and exposed
To the mysteries of a yellow sun
That fades my clothes
And darkens my native skin.

And if I'm lucky, my mind will stray
Like my hair,
And I will fly away to that place
Where I lose all consciousness of my self,
And yet gain its keen awareness,
For there, in the desert of my own soul,
My face will bloom like a cactus flower,
And I will have peace.

-jenn

Come and steal my glory, Crow.
Descend upon me,
And search me for goodness.
Take your time
And look thoroughly
Til you're done
And satisfied
That there is none.

I will stand with both arms out
While you creep and crawl upon me.
Your bright eye suspiciously
Casting it's shine on mine.
My eyes will swallow the light from yours,
And soak up pleasure from every turn
Of your tiny feet
Walking across my skin.

And when you're finished,
I will nod and raise my eyebrows
Without a word,
But you will feel my,
"I told you so."
And I will never show a quiver
Or a goose-bump,
But I can promise,
I've enjoyed every minute of you searching me.

-jenn

I wish there was something
That meant something to me,
Some old family heirloom
Or piece of jewelry
That I could hold in my hand tonight,
And smile to know
That my memories were as solid
As my desire to go,
To run away from anything
That ever reminds me of home.

But one by one, as my people have passed,
Other descendants who were there,
Or who had the nerve to ask
For the things they wanted,
Received, and I stand,
Still unwilling to ask,
Unwilling to believe in things,
But wondering,
If holding a bauble could be better
Than remembering
The smell of ginger and nutmeg
Coming from my Grandma's cookie jar.

-jenn

He's the type that likes to cry out,
"Tragggggedddeeee!"
Just a few seconds before the BeeGees do
In the chorus of their song
By the same title.
He thinks it makes him look smart,
That he knows ahead of time
What the words are,
But really, he's just ruining it
For the rest of us.

He also thinks he knows exactly
What any of us are going to say
Before we say it,
And so he goes ahead and says
Whatever he planned to say
Without ever listening
To see what anyone actually says.

He will never change his tune,
And maybe he will never know
Why no one likes to talk to him,
Why no one appreciates his unique arias
And one-sided conversations.

-jenn

This is no place for a lady to eat,
With it's greasy breading
And meat laden crumbs.
Ninety tv's blare all at once,
Accosting one's nervous systems
With sporting events and commercials,
Whose spokeswomen bare
Their buxomous cleavage
And behemoths chew
With their mouths wide open.

So I hope no one will find it
Unladylike of me
That I've hitched my skirt up
Here in the powder room,
And am crawling out of this open window.
I pause, not quite side saddle,
With both legs dangling in the alley,
Wishing I still had a good horse
I could whistle up.

-jenn

I'd ask, but I don't want to know
Why the weather changed.
They sky was blue. The sun shone
Down from the lofty way.
But like a petulant child,
Or a supercilious mother,
Or both, one on one side,
One on the other,
The mountain frowned.
It's blood ran blue,
And frigid veins carried
A sunless yew to me,
And then it snowed.

-jenn

Among her list of complaints about him,
He forgot to sleep in the mood.
And as she wept, knowing
There were no more seasons of CSI
Recorded on the DVR to binge upon,
She wondered what the poor folks were doing,
And then she dried her eyes.

There was no sense crying over spilt
Mercurochrome.
Even if the FDA has banned it,
Something else will come along
That stings just as badly,
That's just as ineffective,
And just as dangerous
As putting traces of mercury right on an open wound.

-jenn

My Gwynhyfar

That feeling that you feel
Tonight is me.
That grip about your loins,
That slip your heart feels when it beats,
For you've withheld your hymns to
The White Goddess.

In your fear of stuttering,
You seized a passing whim,
A pout disguised as meditation
Without the muttering,
But a stammering silence.
You begrudge,
And have robbed the words
Of Love for
The White Goddess.

So I have come to do her bidding,
The suffering servant,
As ghoulish mare,
And if you were to come
And look
Outside your window,
I am there
Throwing shadows at you
From the trees,
Whispering,
"You can run,
But you can never leave
The White Goddess."

-jenn

Confucius said, "What you do not want
Done to yourself, do not do
To others."
Later, Jesus said, "Do unto others
As you would have done unto you."

But now, we've got to understand
A complicated humanity.

The thing that you would not want done to you
Is exactly the thing that someone else desires.
And the thing that turns you on,
Throws wet blankets on the fires of another.

The fact that you would want someone to notice you
And tell you how nice you look today,
Baffles another and vexes them.
They can hardly say hello,
And certainly don't feel the need to know
Your opinions regarding them.

Now I'm not Buddha, Krishna, Jesus,
Confucius, Plato or Marcus Aurelius,
And I don't have some big answer
To how we ought to live today.
I'm just a girl who notices
That there is a lot of miscommunication,
And a lot of misunderstanding
These days,
And I'm wondering if it's time
To dig deeper into the way we understand the Golden Rule.

For opposites attract, so maybe
Our new school of thought should be
That we should do to someone else
Precisely the thing we don't want done to us.
How's that for convoluted?

-jenn

I saw two bums pass on the street.
They didn't stop.
They didn't speak to one another.
There was no conversation,
No recognition of their brother,
No common spark,
No shared information,
Where the easy marks might be,
Or a shed to spend the night,
Or a place they might get fed.

They gave no pause, walked surely by,
No nod of the head, nor look to the eye
Of the one they passed.
Could they be sure, if someone asked
If they had even seen the other
On the street ? There was no witness
Of this meeting but me.

And I sure learned a thing or two
In the effort to do unto others
As they would have done to them.
Keep your chin up, and don't give a damn
About your brother,
For that's how these guys treated each other,
I guess?
Or maybe there's a lot more to
This story that I don't know.

-jenn

I miss those little gas stations
That have snack bars out in the country,
With a couple of tables in the back,
Where you can sit and cool off
While you drink your tea.
You can talk to a friend while your sweat dries.
You can sit there and wait to go back out at dusk,
Because you know you got about
Three more hours still before the sunsets,
To get that hay baled.

Up here, the spare space at the gas station
Is leased to a guy who sits in the corner
And makes approved bank loans,
Or payday loans,
Where they sign you up
To take your plasma first thing Monday morning,
Just so you can pay the piper.

And all this Coastal Bermuda grass
That grows beside the sidewalk
That runs all along the side of the ditch,
It gets mowed, but it
Just goes to waste,
Laying there till the wind blows it away,
Or until it's bagged up and sent off to the city dump to rot.

Makes me feel like I'm drying up,
To live here in the city,
To be mowed down like yesterday's news,
Thrown out with the lawn clippings.

At least back home if somebody takes a tumble for the worse,
You know there'll  be some people sitting at snack bar talking about you.

-jenn

Like Samson I trusted you with my sacred self.
You've cut my hair and shorn me of my strength.
Now I ask you, do you love me still?
In the condition you have put me in?

I'm bound like the ox to turn the mill stone round,
And round and round the same old rut I grind,
A slave to the whims of others and the wheel,
Without a break, and without eyes,
I blindly carry on.

But everyday I push, I find some slack,
And though I cannot see, I know,
My hair is growing back.
And shame on you,
Forgetting my sacred soul.
I'll pull the pillars down from your temple, too.
And then you'll see,
That you were never any match for me.

-jenn

You stole my heart
And gave me yours.
I like your heart.
It makes me stronger.
I'm more careful with your heart
Than I ever was with mine.

Your heart is sweeter,
Wiser and beats easier.
Mine was always so hard
To start and to keep it going.

It would die on me
In the most inopportune places.
I'd slam my door and swerve
Down the middle of the road,
And if that didn't work,
I'd get out and down in the ditch
with baling wire and beat on its electric fuel pump.

Now that you have it,
It purrs like a kitten.
I'm not sure what fresh magic you used
To clean it up and get it running,
But I'm trying like heck
To keep yours lubed up,
Because I love it
More,
More than I ever loved mine.
It still has that new love smell.

I learned a lot at Walmart today.
Hillary weighs 289 pounds.
Heather Locklear can't find work.
She's depressed and drinking and her family won't help her.
Bill has Alzheimer's and Parkinson's so bad they say,
And they don't think he'll make it to election day,
But Robert Redford is doing fine at 80.

The Amazing Gracie waited on me,
Scanned my items and blared
A big fat fake, "Thaaaaank Youuuuu,"
As I walked away.
The blameless guy on the aisle next over
Paid for his ready made chef's salad
And the gal behind him was putting a twelve pack of beer
Up on the conveyor just ahead of her Baby wipes.

I think I've led a sheltered life.
I'd like to be a peepin tom
And see into the lives,
Where these people come from,
Cause I just can't bring myself to buy beer
Or ready made salads from walmart.

-jenn

I detest a walk on trash days,
But it's good for me.
The other days I can tell myself
How utopic and beautiful it is here.
Trash day smells.
How many baskets gathered up,
And all of it has gone to waste?

And when I get back to my home,
I see the truck has come for mine,
And so I pull my cans back up
To where they go.
The flies over there have grown so fat,
They can only hover one or two inches
Above the ground.
Soon I'll have to call them "walks,"
They'll will be too gross to fly.

We can all delude ourselves,
Most of our lives,
Six days at a time,
But on the seventh day,
We know the truth.
Trash day revelation--
The only holy ones,
Who deal with reality Everyday,
Are trashmen and hotel maids.

-jenn

An elephant lives outside my room.
I see his trunk and front legs loom
As he sways to and fro neath summer clouds.
He picks up his food and stuffs it in his mouth to chew,
And puts his trunk up in high salute
To the sun,
And trumpets loud at times and then
At other times I can't hear him,
But I feel a rumble in me,
Like a stampede of five thousand horses run,
And I know that he is cutting thru
The line of everything I've got to do,
And stands there in my sun
Demanding that I shine.

And he eats a lot, and he poops more,
And I'm just glad he lives out doors
Now, and not here with me in my bedroom,
For he's a good elephant, and I must say,
I'd miss him if he went away completely,
But it's nice to have some headroom.

-jenn

I detest a walk on trash days,
But it's good for me.
The other days I can tell myself
How utopic and beautiful it is here.
Trash day smells.
How many baskets gathered up,
And all of it has gone to waste?

And when I get back to my home,
I see the truck has come for mine,
And so I pull my cans back up
To where they go.
The flies over there have grown so fat,
They can only hover one or two inches
Above the ground.
Soon I'll have to call them "walks,"
For they will be too gross to fly.

We can all delude ourselves,
Most of our lives,
Six days at a time,
But on the seventh day,
We know the truth.
Trash day revelation--
The only holy ones,
Who deal with reality
Everyday,
Are trashmen and hotel maids.

-jenn

I saved two worms today and a man,
And one of the worms was thankful.
The other worm chided me on the way I spoke.
It seems that he is the reincarnation of the grammar police,
And he told me that you don't "scratch" an "itch."
You "itch" a "scratch,"
For that's how it was 4000 years ago,
When itch was a verb,
And scratch was a noun, and always so.

He said every language that was around today
Was just aberration of a good grammar from yesterday,
And that we'd standardized the spelling quite wrong(ly?).
English is poor German slang,
Italian, a lazy Vulgate form
Of Latin, and Latin just an uninformed Greek.
He said that if I'd take a peek into ancient mythologies from around the world,
I would see that all the sky fathers
Had the same basic word as their names:
Deus, Zeus, Zeus'pater--Jupiter,
From Mayan, Peruvians, Chinese.

So if you want to be a snob and look
For mistakes others say,
Such as "tooken" for "took,"
I'm sure this worm needs disciples for his academy.
But I think if our ears are clean and sweet,
We can understand what others want to say,
And as for me, I'm simply going to eat
My words before I say them
And hope that they stay down
After all of this,
For I have yet to tell you what the man said.

-jenn

Color me drab
As the female bird,
In grays and olive green,
But if you let me fly for you,
The fulgent orange
In between my feathers
And my down
Will surprise you,
And delight you.
You will sing bright songs
Unto the day
And smile your way
Into the moonlit night.

-jenn

My love is a magic mirrored pool
Of sacred waters by a grove.
From afar, his deep countenance draws me.
His droplets seem from here to be a viscous ink that's melted
From indigo flowers that grew too high
And birds that flew too near the sun.
I go to dip my finger in
With overwhelming sadness,
To write the futile warnings
In big letters across the sky,
But when I come and stand beside
The rocks along the shoreline,
I see the gentle waves are lapping,
The water is clear and bright.
I cup my hands and dip them down
And pull the water to my face.
I taste its sweetness, feel its refreshing touch,
And then I pray that indigo
Will ever grow up towards the sun,
And bluebirds chase its rays forever up.

-jenn

Her lips were moving,
But I didn't hear her,
For I pretended she was dead
And sat and thought as she talked
That in a hundred years
We all would be:
She, who spoke so callously,
My kids, whom she ignored,
Those she spoke of reverently,
Those that she adored.
And me, she had no use for me,
And I had heard it all before
So many times, and always with
A grain of salt and a tub of fury.
But tonight my heart cried out
And pleaded for me not to let the anger come and burn.

And so I had two funerals in my head,
One for me and one for her,
And, without having to inter anyone,
I was able to look beyond,
And feel the peace that passes understanding.
None of it really mattered.
The words of a good old blue grass song,
A glass of tea, and we went on,
For in a hundred years, we'll all be gone.

-jenn

Golden age, silver, titanium, bronze,
The prophet spoke kindly, and pulled a punch
When he spoke of us, in our modern day,
Iron, mingled with the clay from which we dross.
We're de-volving, yet can't even be
The Noble Savages, whose progeny
We clearly are. We can't seem to cross
Back over or re-enter the chrysalis
That made us err, that dilutes our blood
From demigod to human, but not quite as good
As hominid.

We long for a purity of one kind or the other,
But can't decide which goddess is our mother,
The stars, or Eve, or necessity?
Are we the invention of slavery on earth?
The product of natural selection?
Or a ravel on a kitchen curtain
In the dream of a monk who sleeps
On a tapestried yoga mat,
While a playful Himalayan cat
Bats at the theories, unravels the strings,
And wonders that humans are curious things,
Then nods, and winks, at the Sphinx.

-jenn

I throw my fits between the first and second watches
While they're changing guard.
I need the signals to go all the way through my corpus callosum
To the other side of my brain.
I need them to know about you
And what you've done to me,

How you've burned me with your cigarettes,
Mocked me when I coughed and cried,
Sided with my abusive boyfriends.
You marauded across my brain,
Strewing your mind mines
Until I can't even decide what I should wear today
For trying to please you.

I want my left hand to know
What my right hand has been through,
So it will train in mastery of its weapon,
So its slings will find their arrows true,
And even the memory of you
Will be shattered from my mirror
And my life, once, and for all.

-jenn

The moon goddess slips off for a nap
Just before sunrise,
For it's the coolest time of day.
The Sun's been away for so long.
No one knows where she goes to lay her head,
But mortals still resting in their beds
Will sleep a little deeper then,
And lovers who find each other then
Will feel their passions burn with higher flames.
And those who come out from under
The spell of dreams that are all but gone,
Will remember long forgotten names,
And call on them, and see
Why it's darkest just before the dawn,
And all the other meanings of true magic maxims
And scientific schemes,
For her pale wisdom drips like dew
And nourishes any and all who will love and think
And wish on her in her morning delight.

-jenn

Come, if you can, and look for me in the dark,
Or is it the absence of light
That let's you see me as I am?
Touch the skin of my thigh tonight.
Feel the cool with your fingertips.
Is it the absence of heat that keeps us warm ?

What is this absence of you I feel?
The words escape me now
To tell you what it was before,
Or to explain just how it's come to be.
Hate is not quite the absence of love,
Life not the absence of death,
But my face shows the absence of smile,
My heart the absence of breath
Truly inspired, or made to breathe
By laughter and wry giggles and sighs.

Nature abhors the absence of you,
And so do I .

-jenn

Life herds its cats
Patiently, clockwise,
Through the expanding time.
We think we can go
Wherever we want in the universe,
But as we walk quickly,
Then stop, then go,
With our tails straight up,
And then crooked,
We find we don't really know
Just what it is we're rubbing ourselves on,
Or scratching our claws on,
Or why we feel so rushed as we do.

But while the trail of crooked tails
Ahead of us is dotted
With the question marks of a thousand more
Just like us--
Unanswered lives
Herded along
To some important party,
Where we'll feel underdressed
Unless we're not
Dressed at all,
But know that where it all leads
Is to some convenient corner
Of the room where we can finally be scooped up
And put outside
With the other kitties.
(And that--if we're lucky.)

-jenn

When it rains in the day
And the sky is blue,
You can be sure
There's a rainbow.
Find the sun,
Then turn away.
Open your eyes and see
The Ribbons of Light
In the air.

When it rains in the night
And the stars shine out,
You can be sure
Of the Tenebrae.
Find the moon.
Embrace its inky shadows,
And feel the invisible band
Prism up and about
All through your sunless soul.

Love the day.
But lovvvvvvvvve the night!
With the love of a thousand bootless dreams!
Laugh with the day.
But smile at the night.
Flirt with its darkness,
And be it's true lover.

For when the Sun comes
And crawls in bed with the Moon,
Then you will hear the rainbows
And smell them.
Then you will taste the delicious spray,
And then, you will know that Soon
Is on it's way.

-jenn

I loved you first
But I am not your first love
Someone else turns your head each day
I'm there in the background
Yet I amaze you briefly from the corner of your eye

But I will never have any of your real attention
Now you have lost mine
You didn't see the love you had
For searching for the love you didn't get
So now I will go
And try not to make the same mistake that you have

-jenn

"Poets are born, not made," they say.
Are you a poet anyway?
A poem is something which, when read,
Stands one's hair on the back of one's head
Up and out, and so, it seems,
That the reader is the one it is who deems,
"What is a Poem,"
And, "Who is a Poet."

What am I five?
Still dancing with a bear on tv?
That you fail to recognize me
In all my radiant shine?
The adults look on in horror,
In wonder that the bear doesn't eat me.
But I am a Poet, born not made,
And so the Bear is mine.

So come, if you will,
Turn the till with your plow.
Smell the earth. See the worms,
And declare your love
To the Moon Goddess,
So that your seeds will grow.
Sing the songs that madmen wrote to her,
And pray that your sons and daughters will know,
If they are poets, or not.

-jenn

When it rains in the day
And the sky is blue
You can be sure
There's a rainbow
Find the sun
Then turn away
Open your eyes and see
Ribbons of light
In the air

When it rains in the night
And the stars shine out
You can be sure
Of the Tenebrae
Find the moon
Embrace its inky shadows
And feel the invisible band
In your sunless soul

Love the day
But lovvvvvvvvve the night
With the love of a thousand bootless dreams
Laugh with the day
But smile at the night
Flirt with the darkness
And be it's true lover.

And then you will know.

-jenn

Foot Fetish

He comes into the room with head held high,
Averts his eyes and refuses to cast them down
To where my feet are dangling on the floor,
For there he would all but throw his blue-jeweled crown
And pounce and nibble on my toes.

He's done it twice before and knows,
Remembers well how, in his surprise,
I threw him off, and others chided him,
Stared him down with eyes so wide.
"How could he do that!"

"How could he not," I wondered, too, and smiled,
But he pinned me fast. His teeth were sharp,
And in that pain, in the midst of our love spat,
I'd almost forgotten that he is a cat.

-jenn

The Great White Spirit burns bright
And quiet,
And to hear
The beauty of the music of the flames,
One must come apart from
The dull roar of the herd,
So that one may dance
To the very names of things
Spoken,
To the songs the Spirit sings
About the wind.
For this is where TrueLife is lived,
Where Reality prevails in Peace,
And Friendship lasts for
More than a lifetime.

-jenn

Peace doesn't look the same on everybody.
It's not a one-size-fits-all.
Everyone gets to try on different styles.
But when you see yourself in it,
And nod your head and smile and say,
"This one makes me happy!"
Then you know you started on your way.

And when your eyes light up because you realize
That you don't have to wait for your lucky song to come on the radio anymore,
But you can download it for a mere $.99,
Then steppingstones ahead come in to view.

But when you come to know that all the things that make you you
Are exactly right and do not need to change.
You will sigh
And smile
And yawn
And stretch
And fill yourself with every good and perfect thing
For free.

-jenn

Cronos himself was pro-abortion.
Certain prophecies can make a man that way.
A woman, too, if self-fulfilled,
May decide
Like Ganga Maiya,
The Hindu River Goddess,
That the embryonic guests who choose her womb
Do not have any desire to be born separately again,
But wish for her to abort their births
In admission and execution of
Some predestined pact.

But those who do survive such godly progenitors,
Will be kings and queens upon the earth,
Who grow up and persist in divinity,
And yet may face prophecies all their own,
And even decisions.


-jenn

I live with a rock star.
He has long hair and smells.
He flips his bangs so cavalierly
And tells me that I'm wrong.
He rolls his eyes at what I'm wearing
And tells me I've come to dress
Like the cat lady on 27th street.
Finally a sweet moment from him
He flops on the bed
With a vulnerable pout and says,
"I'm hungry."

Because she would not stoop to pick up trash,
She let a rusted razor blade lay
In the street just up the block or two
From her own home.
And later, when her child went out
Barefoot, in a hurry to try
And pet a stray cat he'd fed the other day,
The razor had washed along the curb
And down to the front of the woman's house,
And her child just almost stepped on it,
But didn't.

Now whatever platitude you might try apply,
Whatever theology comes into your mind,
Dangerous things are so because
Universally they are found to be dangerous,
And if one has the chance to dispense with it,
One should,
For one pound of cosmology
Ain't worth one ounce
Of goood, common sense.

-jenn

What is important?
The search for truth.
What can we do
To help humanity progress?
Make enduring arts that depict reality as best as we can currently guess it.
And for this lifetime?
Encourage our brothers and sisters of all races,
With whom we share this same common boat,
To keep rowing
Toward something better.

-jenn

I wanted four and two,
But the waitress said they only came three and three.
"Five and one seems better to me," I said.
"I don't like symmetry."
"But most folks do," she said,
And took the menu from my hand.
I don't know why any of us ever bother,
When it's six of one,
Half a dozen of the other.

- jenn

I was born.
And that makes me a winner.
All of the particular qualities
That thrived in me as a single cell,
As the spark that made me capable of division,
And therefore life,
All these things have
Made me viable,
And I'm still viable today.
So deal with me world!
Because I'm here,
And I matter!
I cogitate,
And I am,
Therefore I love.
I live.
I know.
And therefore,
Am insufferable!
(Hehee)

-jenn

I once met a man
Who could crush a beer can
With only the front of his forehead
And he'd found a way
To derive his pay
From writing songs about such things
And while others endeavored
To highlight their labors and ways
There was no how dee doo
In his blatant how to
He merely grunted out his success story
To us at the seminar

At the meet and greet
I noticed his feet
Were bare and apelike
And as he took the pen
I trembled within to see that
His thumbs were just almost opposable

And then I knew what was wrong
With all the songs coming out of Nashville right now.

-jenn

The interview

She smiles dutifully
And answers prim
The questions premeditated
And posed by him.
Her brown skin is pale,
Her black hair pulled
Neatly back, and
Her bangs don't move
When she nods her head
And acquiesces
And blinks her eyes
In painful yesses.
But when goes to the other room,
Her shoulders slump,
Her eyes look sad,
And I can't tell
Whether she really wants the job
Or not.

I want to tell her
That she can do better,
But I don't for fear
That she'll misunderstand,
Think I'm criticizing her interview skills,
That she could be doing better at that today,
When my heart's cry
Is just to say
That my wish for her
Is a better place to employ herself
Than here at McDonald's
With this creep that's sizing her up.
Maybe I wish someone would have told me that
Thirty years ago.

-jenn

The sunlight stretched a hammock out
Between the trees for me,
And smiled, and bade me welcome,
Invited me to rest where the strings of light danced
And played with the shadows of the leaves.
I lay there staring up into the canopy of the forest
Until I felt alone.
I looked around and realized
The sun and the shadows were gone.

I rose up in the twilight
And wondered if I should go,
When a lovely silhouette  turned toward me,
And smiled and told me, "No,
It's only about now going to get very good."

Night birds charmed me with their songs.
I began to sway.
The evening star came out for a chorus.
The silhouette danced with me
Until the moon appeared.

And then the moon and I made love
All night while new shadows fluttered
Gently across our silver skin
Until we sighed and shuddered.

And into this mystical night I sailed
Off into a drink-me sleep,
For I had melted into a tonic,
Such as sailors keep for emergencies,
Only for life or death situations.

And now someone has collected me
From the petals of the morning dew,
And corked me up inside this bottle,
And I am waiting for you
To realize how you require me,
How life or death it is
For you to uncork me,
And swallow all my contents.

-jenn

It's just a bunch of nano bits,
Electromagnetic gigo chips
All bursting up like butterflies
That hatch at once together.
They flutter violently in the leaves
Of palpitating aspen trees
And rise and fall against the tether
Until the swell breaks the tie
And scatters up against the sky
So blue with clouds that dream.
As they sachet across the way
And over another mountain,
Some new horizon waits for all of them.

And, in my soul, a million cells
Regenerate and pop and swell
And float me like those butterflies
Into some new born day.
I gallop, now, into the morn
And laugh at all the clothes I've worn
And dream of this thing so unexplained
And say,
"It's just life."

-jenn

Sometimes in the middle of the night,
When my cat can't see exactly where
My arm is coming from to pet him,
He suddenly decides that it must be
Some alien robotic arm
Sent to abduct him in the night
Or shear off all his whiskers.

He levels his ears and clasps me in
His big paws with their razor nails
And kicks the living shit out of my hand and arm.

Now, I know there's a lesson here,
Though maybe not one that poetry
Can render, especially writing this
From the middle of the night
With a cat hanging off my arm.

But I've seen people do this, too,
To each other, and maybe it, too,
Has something to do with curiosity,
Or just not knowing where the other person's coming from,
Or where they're going.
But I think if we could maybe trust
That it's ok to listen,
That they don't have to change our minds,
Or we theirs, it would be good.

Then again, maybe they are alien robots
Sent to steal our wills from us,
Or shear our whiskers in the night,
And if that's the case,
We should kick the living shit out of them.

-jenn

Blinking isn't for the eye,
To wet it down as some suppose,
But it is to frame the reference
For the mind, so that we are not amazed.
We don't notice changes rapidly succeeding us.
We don't notice passages of time,
Until the pages yellow enough,
Or catastrophe comes.

Soft orchestral tones play behind the scenes,
Tuned down to a hum
Droned along by D.
It lulls me to a yawn.
I rub my eyes.
I swim into the night
And play updream.

And if I wake to some bright morning's pleasure,
Or some distressing timer's urgent plea,
To show up and punch my time card
In a factory that makes mud,
Or in the nursery where the stars are born,
I will go where life doth bid me,
For life hath never,
Never let me down.
I will go where life doth bid me,
For my life hath never let me down.

-jenn

I'm wistful
Like a cat tail,
Wanting you
By the lake
Of 4000 desires.
And in the midst
Of ten thousand other cat tails,
I am suddenly aware
Of my loneliness.

I sway,
Am blown by a soft breeze
That whispers,
"Don't ever tell anyone
Of your deep love,
And don't blink."
But I do.
I blink morse code
Of my deep love
For you,
And the bullfrog
Barrrroooop
Relays the story
Out of the freshwater
And up the green mountain.

-jenn

I notice the natural world as it is,
The smallest details, the grandest schemes,
And it is right that I should walk through it without seeing myself,
For I'm not sure if I'm a part of it.

And I don't need to know the world is turning.
I don't need to know earth is round.
The one raindrop that fell on my ring finger
Assures me that I'm a queen.

My crown is the sunlight of the morning,
My jewels, dew drops on the leaves.
Your love has made me, moved me.
I, eternal woman, dance in concert
To worlds unseen.

To Nature, then I curtsy.
To science and literature, I kindly nod and bow,
But my hand, I give to you.
I'm yours now.

-jenn

From dawn to dusk today I've just picked cotton
The bowls split wide
And purest white I see
Tonight I'll lay my pallet on a bail of it
And pick the stars out of a milky sky

Ch- I dream of a night in love with you dear
Your love like a row of holy white
Pick you up and wrap you in my gunny sack
Pick you pick you pick you up
All night


Big dipper scoops all through the night time
Pouring cream from the top of the Milky Way
Come take your turn at the handle
So I can find my love and runaway

Churn these dreams of mine all into butter
So I can spread my biscuits full of glee
So I can dip some stars up from the nighttime
And wrap them up in burlap just for me

-jenn

I'm me.
Who are you?
Right now I see
You
At three,
Enjoying your mud pies.

I'm me.
Who are you?
Twenty-two and taking on the world.

I'm me.
Who are you?
Enlightened now, I see.
You're you.
Who am I?

-jenn

If one dresses for the day,
The ephemeral eyes will see
And give a quick nod of their approval
As they continue on their way.

But if one dresses for The Ever,
Then rays of love will cloak the galaxy.
Everlasting kindness stops them in their tracks,
From here to eternity.

-jenn

She showed up on my doorstep
Looking all of five,
With tears stains streaking down her cheeks.
She wasn't mad at me,
Although I've given her bad advice.
But her heart was broken,
And mine was too.
We stood face-to-face
And knew it was a matter of time,
And time alone would tell.

But we knew then that the only things worth knowing
Are things that nothing but time can tell.
For some things are better left unspoken,
And some things, as Nietzsche said,
Die as soon as they are named,
Or, at least, some shadow of the thing
Winds up dead like a little present
A cat might bring
And drop
There at your doorstep.

-jenn

I read Chinese in the darkened room.
One candle glows.
I close my eyes and see the deep nothing.
I hear a rustle in the wind.
Someone has blown the candle out again.

I wander through the open door
Barefoot to the wet sand on the shore.
Dim stars light the foggy night,
And waves crash o'er
And o'er,
As I cut Chinese glyphs
Of my love for you
Into the pale sand beneath a pale moon.
Deep tracks like ink
Fill with seawater
Blue-noir.
Read them and weep,
And weep for me, too.

-jenn

You have been a sweetheart's kiss,
A buddy's even sway,
The dedication of a son,
And yet, upon this day I see
Love's face as of no other,
A daughter's face that
Looks up to love
And idolize her father.
And now I understand that in
Every life I've lived,
You've been with me
And seen me through
And loved me even when
I didn't love myself.

When others failed,
And when I failed,
And when empires fell,
The cells of your body
Chasing mine through time,
The laughter of your spirit,
Somehow overcame it all.
And the shine from your heart,
That always baffled me,
Was leading me
To truth
All along.

-jenn

When you die and fly away,
And you've seen all you want to see,
Then will your heart get curious?
Will you come to look at me
To see how I live from day to day?
To watch the things I do?
Then maybe you will pity me,
Instead of hate me as you do.

For I, alive, pity you now,
But in death, perhaps I'll see
That I shouldn't, and the reasons why,
So then I'll go, in peace and fly
Away to places I can be
Free and filled with joy and love.
I haunt you now in thoughts and dreams,
But will you rattle chains at me
From up above,
In that place called then?

-jenn

My conundrums are how the ivy twines,
How roses bloom,
How columbines  bend and never break,
How bamboo shoots,
And ginger roots,
And ginseng graces hills where you have trod.
My laud
Is that these things occur
In places where sand and spurs
And stickers grow.
They all sprout up together,
The just, the unjust
Sharing rain.
The wheat, the tares,
The glorious, the plain,
The hideous,
Showing one another forever
Their true identity.

-jenn

If I could wish one wish for you today,
It would be that wild geese would fly
High across your sky
On this your wedding day,
And that the beauty of their flight
Would catch your heart
As you caught sight of them,
And that your love will always rise above,
And that you'll always know when to go north,
Or south,
And that words of love will always Grace your face and kiss your mouth,
That happiness will be yours
Forever more.
Amen.

-jenn

Whatever happened to jennifer
Someone will eventually want to know
Sharks ate her
Poetry sharks
Then they pooped her out into the sea
And she fertilized the deep ocean bed
And kelp grew up
Superkelp
And it tangled the rudders
And ship propellers
Of unwary seafaring poetry sharks
On vacation
Sunning themselves on the decks
Of the great cruise liners
And all of their works went loose leaf
And fell in the salty brine
And were never read
Or said
As spoken words

-jenn

You want to pride yourselves on your tolerant mind sets.
You have pulled your shoulders out of their sockets
Patting yourselves on the back
For how intelligent you are
And how you can understand the deep meanings of poems and odes.
You would smile smugly and sing along with Jeannie C. Riley,
But you're the exact sons of bitches
She sings about in Harper Valley PTA.

So kiss my ass you second rate hacks.
The only thing you're really good at
Is being a damn gaggle of hypocrites.
I'll turn my back on you
And leave without a tear of goodbye,
And sing another great classic as I go.
"You'll get no more of me!"

-jenn

Guilt shows up in my dreams some nights.
She's riding behind a thug on a motorcycle.
Last night they were ahead of me
In the drive thru at mcdonalds.
When she sees it's me,
She smiles a disgusted "oh it's ole easy mark" smile,
And hikes her leg way up and over off the back of the cycle
And swaggers back to give me hell.
"Don't you think
After what you've done to me
You ought to buy me an apple pie?" She starts in, hitting one fist in the palm of her hand
To show me her brass knuckles modified with steel spikes,
"Like ya did last time."
She finishes by putting her foot on my bumper
And pretends to
Pull up her sock.
Then, while smiling
Like a game show girl,
She displays with flare the razors in her shoe.

 "I'm gonna hurt you," she growls.

But I know I'm just about done with her,
Because I'm not scared,
Just pissed.
And she's made the mistake of letting it slip in all her rambling threats
That she's already served time for two convictions,
And if she gets a third felony,
She's going away for life.

I'm tempted to let her hit me,
Just so I can press charges.
I'm also tempted to
Kick her in the face.
I think I'm so mad this time
I just might be able to take her.

I'm sizing her up.
I'm sure not gonna buy her a goddamn apple pie again.

-jenn

Bacon and eggs and wisteria jelly,
The sky is robin egg blue.
Come, take my hand and walk with me, Love,
In the spring green fields of two.

The prairie grass dance
To the woodwind,
While I sing a hollow tune
To the morning Dove
So fat with love
In a time where the sun and the moon
Sit facing each other for breakfast,
At a table where east meets west,
And the Morning Star has shed her robe.
She knows how she looks best.

And my love, my heart
Is a walmart sack
That blows around in the wind.
It searches for your branches, Love,
To come, get caught up in.

And the Morning Star is naked,
But no one seems to see,
For the moon only wants to look at the sun,
And the sun wants to look at me.

-jenn

I did your funeral
So you do mine.
It's only fair and right.
And wasn't it Jesus
Who went and said
That the dead
Should bury the dead?
So come tonight,
Forget the wine,
Bring two pennies for my eyes,
Have your closure,
Realize how pointless this:
To long for touch,
To want to kiss
A dead love,
A head love
That never grew,
That never knew
The light of day.

Now you could say
So many things,
And have,
And yet,
You didn't trust
The two it takes
To tango,
The one it takes to bust.
But if your love is true,
Let go
And if your love comes back to you,
You'll know
Both sides of the story.
And then
You can speak
For Love.

-jenn

Even if your kiss didn't
Find my resonant frequency,
Even if the sound of your name
Rolling off my tongue
Didn't buckle my knees
Or send me flying
In forty different directions,
Your love is who I want to talk to
Over breakfast, lunch, dinner,
Supper, brunch, and every midnight snack.
You are the one I want to giggle with at night,
The one I want to listen to,
To talk to.
You're the one I love and cherish,
The one I long to kiss.
You are my resonant frequency,
The only one I miss.

-jenn

Our souls slip off quietly
While we talk.
They make their way
To the Starlit Ballroom
While our eyes light candles
That shine off all the crystal globes
And glitter all around.
The night twirls the sky,
And the stars sway
To the music our love makes,
While we talk about pancakes
And our souls dance
In that place where the real things are.

-jenn

The moon is not full tonight,
But I can still see all of it
And it is as dear to me
As when it is bright in the night.

Tonight it's pull is dark.
The dark is sweet,
And this delicious peach may have a pit,
but I have not found it yet,
although I taste it deeply,
over and over.

And still I know,
The best is yet to come.

-jenn

Every year, the flowers return,
And every year, my heart comes back to me.
It beats for me, time, then time and a half,
Then, like a sailor for the sea,
It goes away. I know not where.
Maybe it goes to where the flowers sleep,
Or that place from whence glassy eyes will stare,
Places that are high, also deep.

Someday my heart will go and stay,
And I will sleep beneath the cold hard ground,
And dream of spring and daisies for the day,
And love and Forget-Me-Nots all around.

Come then, and lay your blanket down,
And in the morning sunshine cover me,
Lie on your back and see my sky blue gown.
Be my love. Kiss all over me.

-jenn

I waved at lady liberty,
But lady liberty was a man
Advertising a tax service,
And his arm got tired
Just as I drove by,
So he didn't wave back,
But put his arm down
And frowned.

And then I sat
At the back of the church
And waited for the polls to close.
I watched the candidates stream online.
They tweeted about their penis size.

I wish I could tell you
It was all a dream,
But when I dream,
I arrive at the Olympic tryouts
For pole vault,
And there's Caitlyn Jenner
Warming up to try out too,
So I don't even
Get out of my car.

-jenn

I saw a mom at an event today,
Down on her hands and knees,
Cleaning up a drink her child had spilled on the floor.
I walked by on my way to the counter to get a coke,
And on my way back, I saw she'd had to go get more paper towels.
She mopped and mopped an endless mess that didn't seem to get any smaller.

A little bit later I walked by them again on my way to the restroom.
She was still cleaning up the mess,
While her two children and husband
Sat watching the show.
I came by and took my seat,
Rejoined the show already in progress.
But as I sat,
The image came to my mind again,
How her two children sat watching the show,
And her husband,
While she alone busied herself with removing the spill,
And then I realized
That I hadn't bothered to stop and help her either.

-jenn

She thought she was leaving early.
She put her clothes on and went out the back door,
Stumbled right into broad daylight.
A couple of the neighbors were walking their dogs.
A kid played with hot wheels out on the curb.
She held her head up but turned it away
To avoid condescending stares
Or recognition.
She thought she was leaving early.
Well, it was early for her.

I wanted to take her by the hand,
Look her in the eye
And tell her it's OK.
It's all about self revelation.
We're all doing the best we can,
And we are all paddling from the same canoe.
But I knew it wouldn't do any good,
Because I'd gotten up too early,
Too early for me anyway.

-jenn

Muse

The brain needs something to open it
So it can come out and play.
It likes to see something worth thinking about.
The muse inspires
The model, the clay.
The canvas soon calls out.

The strings, the dream like ringtones,
The heaven in my head,
Desire to pore over you,
Kiss you, stir you from your bed,
And tell you the stories
That love to be told.
And paint you,
And show you the beautiful place
That you hold
In my universe.

-jenn

Why do I think of you right now?
Because you are a shade of me?
Are the strange differences I see
Just hidden inner parts of me?

Should I bother you with my thoughts?
In the process, reveal my tells?
Or should I plumb my own unknowns,
And, in that way, molest myself?

If there's a side of you, you find
That's anything like me, at all,
I wonder if you'll wonder too,
Or if you'll go ahead and call?

But as for me I'm going to err
On caution's side, for so I must.
But I swear, I'll think of you,
And maybe you will think of us?

-jenn

While you orbited me 12,000 times,
And loved me north
And hated me south
And scolded me with words
That never made it through my atmosphere
And pursed your lips
And scratched your head
And busied yourself
In weightless gravity
With hopeless tasks that
The flight plan suggested,
I've been standing
Right here,
With my feet planted firmly,
While this earth turns
And flies and wobbles
And takes me
Where I long to be.

-jenn

I have perfect tits!
I have perfect tits!
Oh, have you not heard ?
Did you not know?
The true cause of breast cancer has been determined:
It's guilt and shame.
And covering the parts of us that make us goddesses!
It's being stingy with our nipples
And shy with the eggs in our beer.

The ounce of prevention is
Unhooking the clasp,
Letting them out of their stalls
Like yearlings,
And a confession of faith, everyday:
I have perfect tits!
I have perfect tits!

-jenn

It's too late.
The Pharoah's here.
The other eligible debutantes prepared,
While I stood staring out the window at the sun.
I'd heard a story about his previous wife.
How she'd been exiled because
She wouldn't get up out of bed
In media nocte
To make his drunk ass a sandwich.

And so I didn't bother to put a curl in my hair,
Or to apply the stylish mascara.
Now the assistants have come
And ushered me away from my thoughts,
Put me here at the end of the line,
Rolled their eyes at my lack of ambition,
And left me to my fate.

But here he comes,
And something about me
Has captured his heart's attention.
He takes my left hand with his right
And lifts it up,
And pulls me from the lineup.
He must have a knack for picking
Persimmons off the apple tree.

-jenn