In the classic fashion magazine,

The clothes hang just so upon the racks

And upon the starved women with their sunken eyes.

They’re always in Paris,

And I always see,

At least one whose been caught

Eyeing the pastry tray.

Her yearning gaze is wistful

Like that of the men who want to consume her,

And the women who long to look like her,

But she just pines for one apple dumpling

And a deserted alley to eat it in,

Where no one will see her shameful act.

-jenn

 I slip into anonymity.

It fits me like a glove.

Like a drop in the bucket,

I merge into love on the broad white avenues of Lubbock Texas.

No one cares what sort of shoes I wear,

Or if I’ve bothered to do my hair,

In this, the true north,

The true Windy City.

And 49 cents is all you need to eat around here.

Can Chicago offer as much?

It’ll buy you two bananas at the grocery store.

They don’t sell beer.

They could now.

It’s not a dry county as it was before,

But they don’t want to,

And you don’t really need it, anyway, do you?

They took the time to mix something pretty up

Into the mud they poured the sidewalk from

To make it shine,

Just like the city fathers did down in Abilene.

The curbs that line the public library there

Sparkle like a beacon to the poor

Who farm in the small communities that dot the countryside.

Come and learn!

Learn, I know not what,

When all I’ve ever needed to know

From living on the common street,

Is what the grocery stores have got

That anyone can buy and eat

For 49 cents.

-jenn

 Build me a fire, Love,

And let’s burn.

The wood that fell this summer in the forest,

Now it’s dry, and I can see

How the fire clings to each piece

That you have thrown into the stove,

The way I cling to you,

The way you cling to me.

In Love, it seems,

The many splendors shine

With warm welcoming.

The eyes do glow with sweet sincerity 

And hope.

Let’s throw ourselves on the hearth of Love tonight.

In the churn of Life’s great unknown, 

Deep down where the magic lives...

Build me a fire, Love,

Let’s burn.

-jenn

 In this economy,

You’re only as good as your phone battery.

Once it starts to go,

And the charger cords are frazzled,

No one wants to know

What you’re having for supper.

No one wants to see

What your grandchild is up to,

Or how many followers you have achieved on your business page.

And once your phone has finally given up 

Every visage of a ghost,

There will be no more posts

When day is done,

And you will have been forgotten like

The setting sun.

But who will come and clear your browser for you?

And who will ensure your page is not hacked by spammers?

Or that your enemies don’t come putting up the blackmail pictures of you

That make you look like a bag of wet hammers?

Forget about where you’re spending eternity or

The next great Aquarian age!

Who will secure your Facebook page for you

When you are gone?

-jenn

 I know you’d like to share your sky with me.

The photos are incriminating.

But I’ve just discovered my genealogy.

I come from a long line

Of sky people, and the sky

Is rightly mine.

I’m inclined to share,

But because it hasn’t been fair for years

For so many reasons

I’m also inclined to guard the sky

And all it’s seasons hoggishly.

I must summon all my power to be kind.

I must use all my strength to find it in me

The sincerest forms I hold of gentleness and equanimity.

For my grandmother spoke to me

In riddles and prophetic mysteries,

But now I see it was for such a time as this, 

An opportunity to be correct and true,

And maybe even share the sky with you.

-jenn

 People appear on the planet.

They pop up

Like goats in reservoirs,

Like trees that one sees but never noticed them as seedlings.

Where have they been?

People disappear before my eyes.

Where did they go?

They were walking ahead of me,

Like a mirage, naturally occurring,

But possibly just light rays

Bending via refraction.

Optical phenomenon 

Can be confusing.

Maybe no one else exists.

But maybe if we resist the illusion,

We can quit resisting ourselves,

Resisting others, resisting life,

And quit letting Truth be eclipsed in our hearts

By anything else.

And maybe we can live again,

And love and smile at how everything 

Waxes and wanes, 

Including Truth,

Within ourselves and within others...

The ones we know...

The ones we don’t...

And even the goats 

(In the reservoirs).

-jenn

 If we give in to our nightmares,

We may never find our dreams.

We may get so tangled up

That we won’t bother seeking the thing

That seeks us.

But can we hold our way!

And turn our backs on that which doesn’t really serve us!

Behold the beautiful blazing sun!

How it shines upon the face!

How it beckons us to come

And be great with it!

Behold the stars!

The way they gleam with love for you!

How they sing above you!

Rejoicing at your name!

Then come to me,

And let me love you.

Let me love you.

Let me wear your beating heart upon my sleeve.

-jenn

 The Edge

Blue is the color of the corner,

And it’s hard to tell,

Which side of the block is the end

And which is the beginning.

There’s no mortar holding up these dreams,

But I’m laying bricks and can still feel the twinge

In my shoulder

From picking them up

And laying them down over and over.

And something there is about a poem,

Even one that doesn’t rhyme,

I remember a certain line about 

Feeling a ladder rung under one’s foot

In apple picking time.

And I can still feel the sea surge

Picking my feet off the ocean floor,

Riding the waves at Matagorda Beach,

The thrill of the sun and the sand and surf and

Feeling a little out of control,

Hoping the undertow wouldn’t come 

And carry me away too far,

But a strain, like a dark refrain

From a sailor shanty,

Wishing it would, so I could see

If the world really had an edge

And if I could fall off.

What else would there be

For me to do

Besides picking apples

Or laying bricks

Or losing my flip-flops to the breeze

That blew on the beach?

But somehow I knew when I was thirteen, 

The edge of the world would be impossibly blue

With dark green streaks,

And if one sailed over,

There’s be no telling

Which edge was the end

And which the beginning,

But one would see

With perfect clarity that

There would be no mortar 

Upholding anything,

But rather the sweet fluid thoughts

Of the Innocents.

-jenn

 Snowflake 

This Snowflake doesn’t melt.

It does a hyperbole of energy

Upon my window pane,

An energetic dance of Life

And all things wonderful.

I smell the orange slices and the clove,

The Mistletoe,

But that is just my cologne.

This Snowflake has captivated me

In ecstasy,

To watch it whirl and twirl,

Plié, 

And with a magic arabesque,

It flies away.

But I am here dancing in my heart.

I’m glad my car wouldn’t start .

I’m glad I couldn’t turn the heater on,

So I will never know if that alert piece

Of frozen snow

Would have ever defrosted

Or not.

Instead of doom,

 I’ve got a wild idea in my head.

Brightness has replaced my gloom, and I’ve been cheered,

Dare I say, by something most consider to be

Inanimate?

-jenn

 There’s a random number of people you meet at the doorway.

Someone’s coming out

As you’re going in.

Someone’s going in

Just behind you.

You hold the door for him or her.

She or he holds it open for you.

Some will blindly walk on through.

But there’s a random number of people 

You’ll meet at the doorway.

Some may offer a quiet smile,

Some a mischievous grin.

Someone’s always coming out,

But who may be coming in

Just behind you?

Now it’s time to go back out.

I’ll wait for you.

I’ll hold the door just so,

Until the noir of night

If I have to.

The moon shines bright,

The light of day,

There’s certainly nothing random about that?

And neither may there be

Anything random about

The people you meet

At the doorway.

-jenn 

 The big trees are turning hue,

And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

The burnt orange and sienna,

The yellow mixed with gray and henna,

The streak of blue I see behind

Is just the sky laughing at

The foibles of mankind’s attempts at dishonesty.

We dye our hair and paint our faces.

We rue the day the graces made us.

But the big trees accept the winds that blow,

The undertows of the breezes,

This chilly currents that change the seasons,

The unknown and hidden reasons of the change.

They don’t complain but only quiver

While the river flows.

The range of colors merges with the night,

And their leaves mingle with autumn’s sweet palette,

And then they drop

So beautifully that I must stop what I’m doing today

And admire.

-jenn

 Bread and Jelly

On a day where the festival begins,

And he, or she, who bustles best

Is seen to win,

I ask my son what he would like to eat,

And he says, “Bread and jelly.”

And now it’s time for me to cook for you,

And when I ask what you would like,

Will you tell me true?

Or will you tell me what the world may hold so dear?

Or will you tell me what I want to hear?

Or can you stand and in gentle humility 

Speak the words of true desire:

“Bread.... and jelly.”

-jenn

 The Sun warms me and sets me free.

It calls on me to sacrifice my negativity:

My anger, my anxiety.

I like to hear the wind bell chime.

It rings not once, nor twice,

But forty times,

And now I know what time it is.

It’s time to sing.

Now the wind plays a melody.

It’s modest reticence appeals to me.

I give my worry and my esteem to the Sun.

I believe in it.

I have experienced its radiant beams.

I have seen it bring my dreams to pass.

It’s sprouted seeds and given them life,

And now I know what time it is.

Forty o’clock— 

Shocking, but true,

And I will sacrifice my strife and all my

Unfulfilled and ambitious aims to you, Great Sun,

And then I can merge with you

And your radiant beams of bliss,

And see that I’m at one with you,

And truly one, with everything else,

Because I know what time it is,

And, yet, I know that time does not exist

Here with you, Great Sun.

-jenn 

  I go to the mountain

And sit and stare.

“How did you get to be so big?” I ask.

I watch the mountain crumble a bit.

“I’m not as big as you think I am,” it says.

The mountain is tall, but it looks up, and it looks down.

It casts it’s mighty shadow on the ground below.

“This body is just a heap of things I gathered from all around,

But it’s not me.”

The truth waxes and wanes,

Even in the mountain.

The mountain may come to you,

But will it be with hat in hand?

The mountain crumbles a little bit.

“What do you want from me?” the mountain asks.

“What do you want from me, Mountain?”

It’s a good day for rain.

It’s a good thing, too.

It cleanses the air.

And now you can see up, into 

The clarity of the sky.

Now you can see:

You are a mountain inside the earth,

Tall and abundant,

Strong and true,

But supported all around 

By the vastness of the planet.

And so now you see, too,

Your height is nothing,,

Neither your stability,

But in modesty, you can offer honest admiration to the sky,

As it offers its honest admiration back to you.

Then the sky crumbles,

Just a little bit

And offers its blessings.

-jenn 

 In the vast and fertile valley

In the night when stars are shining

Peaceful clouds drift by like smiles from strangers

There is no sense of false security 

There is no whip or lion tamer 

Only the beauty of the empty wind

The moon is quietly patiently waiting 

For its soft glow to work on the mimosa

Slowly and only when it’s ready

The flower will open 

And shed its fragrance 

Then the moon will be so happy 

But the moon will never gloat

Never kiss and tell

This is the vast and fertile valley 

Where crickets chirp

And nesting birds

Dwell together 

And sing in harmony 

In the beautiful morningtide 

Into the light of day

-jenn

 I chase blackbirds into the day.

They fly away, just ahead of me,

Sidetracking me, leading me astray,

Just as a mother killdeer would

So I can’t see her babies.

But I have seen the killdeer chicks.

So fluffy and fresh and full of life,

Their infant eyes seem extra large 

On their undeveloped heads.

I chase the raincrows into night,

For never have I caught sight of their offspring,

But if I could see one,

Even in a dream,

I feel I might know for once

Where I got these very large eyes from,

And this underdeveloped head.

Because it may be, for all that i know, 

That I might be a baby raincrow.

-jenn

He wrote me a story in ancient Latin.

Scrawled across my bathroom wall,

In a place I couldn’t miss it,

Like a cryptic forgotten missal,

Or the middle works of Verdi,

An opera, enigmatic lines,

Baroquely italicized manuscription,

It captures my rapt distrait attention.

If anything could speak to me,

If anything could touch my soul,

The door was opened by his hand,

And in moments of me not breathing,

And in moments of realizing that I should,

The heavy gauge of his guitar strings

Sustained a darker tone, 

So that I could see the velvet 

Stretch itself across the night.

Sometimes when the moon is almost full,

One has the opportunity to

Get out of bed in the middle of one’s sleeping,

Rise to the occasion, and hear

How slowly the moon crosses the Danube,

How rich and mellow the stars do shine.

My heart is beating now,

However arrhythmically

And out of time.

My heart... is beating now.

-jenn

 Lady Godiva had no pride

And said so to the magistrate,

Her husband, the earl.

“Oh no?” The magistrate rebuffed.

“Then strip off all your clothes 

And ride your horse to town naked,

And we will call it good enough,

And I’ll forgo the taxes I’ve imposed onto the peasants.”

Now I often wonder why

It has always been a desire of mine

To climb up on my horse and ride naked

The five furlongs into the heart of the city.

I do pity the tax burdened tenants.

I also long to demonstrate liberation 

To my brothers and sisters so condemned 

By the steeples that sit high atop the churches in this nation,

But most of all, I think it would be fun.

No cause to benefit, nor any charity, 

Nor anyone, per se,

But only to clothe myself in chastity,

As ancient lore and Alfred Lord Tennyson records that Lady Godiva did,

And ride my horse, naked through the streets of Coventry,

Or even a modern day~~~> Indiahoma.

Voila!

-jenn