The bitter taste of a green pecan

Lingers in my mouth.

I run my tongue

Up over my palate,

Behind my two front teeth.

I have the urge to spew right now

But laugh instead,

And sputter, "Thuffering Thuckotash!"

And now I'm fine.

-jenn

The only trouble

Anyone ever has with me is

I'm too agreeable.

Why, I can agree you half to death

Without even trying,

And that, before ten a.m!

But don't get me to lying

To have to agree,

Because I'll climb a tree to agree with you

When I could stand right down 

On the ground beside you and not.

But I won't do it,

Because I've got to, got to, got to agree.

You know, I've just got to agree.

-jenn

The ladies are here in their pale pink tights,
Their hair tied up in Buns.
Their make up has been applied perfectly.
They wait for the conservatory doors to open
With the rest of their outfits slung
Over their shoulders in plastic.

Not one hair is out of place,
Not one hint of individuality left on their faces,
But I'm show sure the show will be beautiful.

But I'm also glad that I am on my way home.
I can let my hair down,
Put on any music I choose,
 And dance my heart out
For no one but you
And me.

-jenn

I'm walking down the street,

 Admiring the trees,

Drinking a glass of iced tea,

And I don't think I'm getting much exercise,

But I'm having a lot of fun.

I do the things I do for me and for the world.

I want to become as a little child

With an innocent mind,

A heart that is wild enough to play all day,

Come in and eat supper,

Sleep like a baby,

And maybe dream of wild adventures.

For such is the kingdom of artists and art,

With a hope of transcending,

Heart to heart,

And opening the imaginary and real gates

That exist between various peoples,

So the world can be a better place,

Where we are all free to love one another 

In peace and in joy.

And so I walk with my heart toward you,

With my iced tea,

My particular point of view,

And all my silly hopes,

Collecting poems along the road of humanity,

To share with you,

And see if I can get you to smile,

For me,

For you,

And for the world.

-jenn

My cat likes to play with the dogs

When they're on the other side of the glass.

Some people like to play with me

When I'm on the other side of the ocean,

Or the other side of the room.

But you have looked right into my eyes.

I've seen your heart,

And I don't think you're playing,

Or if you are, maybe I like your game.

I love your eyes, by the way.

-jenn

When the eagle flies over,

The Blue jays screech.

They try to warn brother crow,

"Don't fly too slow.

Don't fly too high either."

But the eagle eye is neither here nor there today.

The eagle soars above competition,

But when he gets hungry, he will eat.

And when he tires,

He will rise on the wings of the wind,

And go high to the place where he can rest again,

Then take another solo flight

At great heights,

Above and beyond the screeching throng,

But will the Eagle smile

To know it's all going on

Just because of him?

-jenn

My son says if they ever institute the draft again,

He's not going to bother going to Canada.

He has decided he could hide forever

And survive just fine

At Walmart.

He plans to sleep in between

The toilet paper and paper towel aisles,

Because he says he can make a soft bed,

And that's the one place he figures 

No one will turn him in,

Because people buying TP and PT

Are in a hurry and don't really want 

Anyone to see them,

And they have their own messes on their mind,

And so they don't have time to meddle

In someone else's dilemma,

And therefore, are much more likely

To be some sort of sympathizer

At that particular moment.

-jenn

You want to steal a poem I took from the air,

That flew too close to me

And got tangled in my hair?

I wrote them all down in one year

During the peanut harvest.

Just after the first frost,

We'd dig the peanuts.

I'd write the poems in the peanut dust in the air,

The dust so thick you could cut it with a knife.

I was five.

Many of the words I didn't really understand,

But they would land in my head

And I would kind of understand them,

And the air would air them,

And the sand would sand them,

Until they got into my mouth

And I ate them with handfuls

Of raw peanuts, because there 

Were so many of them,

The poems and the peanuts,

And hardly any much of all of nothin else.

Then the government invented a word

Called subsidies,

And they paid peanut farmers not to grow peanuts,

And so then there really was nothing.

But there was still air,

And poems floating everywhere,

And now I was six,

So I wrote the poems down 

All across our land with sticks,

Right there in the sand

Where the peanuts used to grow.

So now you know

How I started writing poems.

-jenn

Every Sunday he's on the corner by Starbucks,

Preaching Nietzsche and the evils of David Boren.

And every Sunday I walk by and hear him.

He goes on and on

While the people drinking coffee at the umbrella-table ignore him.

And he is not so different from me,

Except that I write all my wild ideas privately,

And then blast them onto Facebook.

-jenn

Big blossoms sometimes make

One's branches droop after a rain.

Sometimes reductions are needed

To one's mane or tail,

And some have even thought to

Have their bosoms reduced

Before their branches break.

But I'll take my chances and bear the pain,

And try to stay out of the rain

With my big blossoms.

But boy do they ever smell extra great

If you wait beside them

Til the sun comes stoutly shining

And evaporates the rain from them

The deep Within

To the everlasting Without.

-jenn

I missed the oaks

From my old neighborhood.

And it's taken me two months to see

That there are oaks here.

Sometimes we don't see the forest for the trees.

Sometimes we don't see the trees

For what they are.

The oaks here are so much bigger

That I didn't see them as oaks.

Sometimes we don't recognize the people who come to us

Because they are so big on the inside.

They shatter the symbols

We hold in our minds

Of what friends can be,

And we find that we simply cannot take them for granted.

I am happy to find myself surrounded by giant oaks,

And by giant personalities

Of human loveliness.

-jenn

Someone stole a trashcan.

Someone left the lid on the ground

Turned upside down like a room service tray

Set outside the hotel door

For the maids to come pick up.

Several plastic cups with lids and straws

From some fast food place

Lay akimbo like my arms now across my chest.

Am I the maid that must come and deal with the mess?

A few wrappers, soggy from the rain,

My sullen eyes see lipstick on one straw.

Someone's having more fun than me!

A bell chimes now!

...... too loud.

-jenn

College town Sunday,

The dark circles under the eyes of the streets

Are from no sleep.

They were up late

Watching people vape.

The sounds of people laughing nervously

And fake how-do-you-do's

Turn into true blues,

And the smell of real vomit

On the sidewalk pavement.

The streets are harder in this part of the city.

They can't afford to have pity,

And so, they don't.

-jenn

The flowers got rained out 

In the seventh inning,

Closed their petals at two p.m.

They reached for their wraps

But hadn't brought them.

The flowers know to shiver

When they're cold,

And sigh and sweat

When they are dry and hot.

And if they haven't brought their wraps,

They'll curl up in their wet t-shirts

Til the rain stops,

Then open for business again.

I see them in the sun,

Already hawking the merch,

The fans are just filing back in,

Wiping the wet aluminum before they sit.

But the flowers seem unaffected,

Right back to work,

"Hot dogs! Get your hotdogs, right here!"

-jenn

My garden is peace.

Blossoms show,

Then a baby vegetable grows in its place.

The birds and I keep the bugs picked off.

The wall keeps out unwanted fowl

And things that would steal my joy.

In the cool evening the birds begin to sing.

I play my guitar for them.

And together, we are all thankful

For this haven in the midst of the city noise.

-jenn

You argue with me

As if I am a fence post.

Yet I nod, and agree with you

And smile.

Finally you say, "Oh."

And give me the correct change I've been waiting for.

Now, should I wait to hear you say,

"Have a nice day,"

Or should I just keep smiling

And take my pastry 

And go home?

-jenn

When the sound gets off from the picture,

And you're not watching a TV screen,

Something is getting lost in translation.

Question the validity of reality.

The problem may not be with your set.

Then again it might.

But in the virtual of the virtual of the virtual,

Which dimension affords solid ground

To shaky feet?

I say, when the hall of mirrors cracks,

And you see anything that even remotely resembles real daylight,

Make a break for it,

And take a chance on that reality.

-jenn

When the sound gets off from the picture,

And you're not watching a TV screen,

Something is getting lost in translation.

Question the validity of reality.

The problem may not be with your set.

Then again it might.

But in the virtual of the virtual of the virtual,

Which dimension affords solid ground

To shaky feet?

I say, when the hall of mirrors cracks,

And you see anything that even remotely resembles real daylight,

Make a break for it,

And take a chance on that reality.

-jenn

It takes nerve to speak.

It takes nerve

To hold one's tongue.

It takes nerve to sing

One's heart out.

It takes a lot of nerve

For me

To smile this way at you.

-jenn

I dream a new dream with my better self.

I hear a lucky bell.

A red dress and a hopeful message,

I sing it to myself,

And you, and you, and you.

And when the song is over,

I feel satisfied.

Help me take a bow,

Then hurry! Bring the curtain down

Before anything weird can happen.

-jenn

Feng ling (wind bells)

The spontaneity of the wind bell suggests

A readiness of the chimes cast for the wind.

You think my smile suggests 

A readiness for you,

But if you change your mind with the wind,

And if I take all night to write this poem,

One line per dream,

One dream per line,

And I will smile a lifetime of dreams away,

Waiting for the right winds to blow me

So I will be ready for you, Feng ling.

Come and take one hand and twirl me.

Then take the other and hold it in yours,

Close to your breast.

Go ahead and smile back at me.

Tell me you are ready for me,

Feng ling, Feng ling.

Tonight the wind is blowing up my bedsheet.

It's billowed my curtains back so I can see.

The stars are ringing,twinkling clearly,

Twirling over us and ready for us to dream

One more dream of love,

One more dream

Of love.

(Feng ling. Feng ling.)

-jenn

The moving, cutting sensuality 

Of the Japanese women poets---

It's a good thing their words

We're hidden from me 'til now.

Foreign,

The artistic glyphs provoke me,

Jet black ink on yellowed pages.

Like the surprising sensation 

Of a cat's tongue,

It roughness hidden in its mouth,

Felt deeply from the first lick.

-jenn

I wake in the wee hours of the morning,

Confused by the smell of a cheap cigarette.

Faint smoke seems to seep in

Through the window

Closest to the head of my bed.

My mind's eye squints.

I get suspicious.

Why does the idea pop into my thought,

That my neighbor is standing just outside my window,

Smoking cigarettes and watching me?

Suddenly I remember a night

In a tent, long ago, 

From which, when I emerged in the morning,

I saw more than two dozen stumped out cigarettes

On the ground at the side,

Where someone had stood

And smoked and listened to our honeymooning.

I close my eyes

And relax my head back into my pillow.

And to think that now,

Someone is happy 

Just watching me sleep.

-jenn

When I go racy,

And all the prudes abandon me,

Then I will look around 

And see who

Is smiling.

Together we will laugh as a joyful tribe,

And know that the divine fire

Of prowess and nerve

Still burns with purpose

in the earth.

I will remember 

That there is a god,

That there is a journey,

And I will worship as a genuine natural.

-jenn

Some days dark and green, I hide

Camouflaged in the garden.

Olives weigh the branches gray and brown,

And heavy, I, crouched down among the nightshades,

Wait to pounce and take my love by surprise.

And other days a blushing glow 

Pervades. I sit, and bloom,

Patiently wait for you to come

And bring your face so close

To my petals rosy,

And smell me, and see if you will

Read my poesy and 

Take me home with you?

-jenn

Why is a cat better than me?

Because the cat knows

When to take a catnap,

When to allow the catnip

To free it's mind, and chase its tail,

And pounce on shadows

To no avail, and when to rub up

On its human's knee,

And demand to be petted and loved,

And that's how a cat 

Is better than me!

But, why?

-jenn

"This parking lot forces people

To go against the Tao,"

I grumble trying to get the car into a parking space.

"Everything seems backward here,

No matter which entrance I try."

"Sometimes the Tao needs something 

To go against it,"

My fourteen year old says,

Like a sage, never missing a bite of his french fry.

-jenn

Finally, I quit turning in the night.

I slept in a room somewhere else,

A place in a dream where my bed was soft,

And the air smelled vaguely of blown out candles,

A birthday sleep with cake icing

Still on my lips, and happy visions

Playing and replaying

On the inside of my eyelids.

And I'm only slightly aware

That this mansion I dreamed up is floating,

Like a grand casino boat afloat the Milky Way river,

Taking me to the heart of the galaxy.

I'm not really the betting kind.

A stowaway, I hide in plain sight

Amongst the gamblers.

I enjoy the pool on the deck

And take a glass of champagne 

From the waiter's tray.

I enjoy the scenery on the river banks

As the sun sets in my dream,

And the morning begins to shine

Into my deep awakening.

-jenn