Sunday, June 30, 2019

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

Saturday, June 29, 2019

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

Friday, June 28, 2019

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

Thursday, June 27, 2019

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

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

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

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

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

Monday, June 24, 2019

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

Sunday, June 23, 2019

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

Saturday, June 22, 2019

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

Friday, June 21, 2019

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

Thursday, June 20, 2019

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

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

"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