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