I like for people to tell me I’m getting taller.

I like ridiculous things

Like wings on cats

And lips on birds

And synthetic filament horsehair strings.

I like to pull the bow across a fiddle full of them

With a rattle snake rattle on the end of the bow,

And listen to the prale and prattle

As the violin gossips and threatens its jaunts.

“Oh where are you going, and where have you been?” I sing.

“And what ridiculous things have you seen?”

And the sea shanty comes, with its finely spun tale,

And only the spirit can interpret the tongues

So that I can behold them with glee,

And my mind’s greedy eye can feed me,

And I can grow taller.

Promise you’ll never stunt my growth!

Rather, verily, speak this oath to me!

That you will never, ever withhold

The stories and songs and poems

From times of old and the prophecies 

Of things to come,

Ridiculous things to come.

-jenn

 Black Bird Ode

A large gathering of black birds

In the still bare trees of almost spring,

I heard them from several blocks away.

And as I rounded the bend, I saw them,

All dressed very sharply in black,

Swaying with the branches, 

In the raucous March wind.

It wasn’t a funeral, for it wasn’t a dirge they sang.

More like an ode, praising the glory

Of metallurgy.

And occasionally, they’d utter a screech

That might curdle ones blood,

Like someone pulling someone else’s fingernails 

Down a chalkboard.

But I just shook my head

And kept on my way.

I had the urge to say

That after the winter the world’s had so far,

Even the singing of crows sounds good today.

-jenn

 While We Were Sleeping 

A nap is just a mini-death.

I welcome it.

I lie down willingly 

And give my life away.

And if my dreams are filled with desert sunrises

And rattlesnakes,

I’ll hold onto your hand as if 

I’m not the only person there,

That lives in that strange world.

And if I wake

And see the world has gone to hell

While I have slept,

I’ll hold your hand

And look around and wonder 

In awe of the things

That people make out of life,

When everything else was a possibility, too.

-jenn