Ashes to ashes,

Dust to dust,

We start out as minute particles,

Minutes in a day.

And when we die and return 

To earth and sky,

We spread out,

An eon in an age.

We nourish the eternal worlds

With temporal minerals

That are old and notwithstanding.

We disseminate to great lengths.

We become part of the great monsoon 

And rain and bloom.

We’re consumed by creatures

Who eat leaves and berries,

And decorate the rooms of their dna

With glittering array of us,

On a microscopic level.

And if any two can ever agree 

As touching anything,

The beautiful thought may dawn

To spawn in the river of sunrise,

And readmit the license to live.

And anything will be possible!

Two cells of ashes will double date,

Taking with them, two cells of dust,

As witnesses.

And one can hope

To be the product of love

And fate, and if not love,

Maybe lust, at least,

Deep desire, and not just a fire 

At a drunken feast.

But whatever the case,

Make the best of this span,

For this constellation of stardust passing through,

This whirlwind of ashes, this is you,

Exploring another aspect

Of Life in the space of a cosmic lifetime.

-jenn

Covid16, 17, 18, 19-

Ready or not, tag, you’re it!

27,28,29,30-

I’m doin push-ups in my room,

In my cell, 

To stave off gloom

And keep my muscle tone.

5,4,3,2,1–

Is there one person 

Who will tell the world 

The emperor has no clothes on?

Someone who can point out

To us the ever present anti-Christ,

Anti-Buddha, anti-Krishna, anti-Mohammed, anti-Shiva,

Anti-life, anti-science force of ignorance,

Counting it up and counting down to it,

663, 664, 665, 666?

-jenn

Perfection does exist.

It’s always seemed just out of reach,

But it’s just that I had other things to do.

But now I feel I step into

Perfect air,

Everywhere I go.

The greener green

Isn’t on the other side of the fence.

It’s here with me.

The bluer blue that I sink into

By day, has perfect clouds of white

To light my day, 

By sunset, rays of sky-blue pink

Mesmerize my horizon,

And by night, the starry lights

Display the aura of the world to me,

And I can see how perfect everything is.

-jenn

Invitation

I have picked mushrooms in the woods

And hunted truffles like a pig, 

Marinated all of it

In a barbecue sauce

To make a hearty, aromatic stew,

For you to come home to.

I got the recipe from a Roman Jewish maid

Who stayed in France after the war.

She told me it was the one

That Esau gave up his inheritance for.

And in that vein, my hope’s

Construed, that you’ll give up

Your work for the day,

To come, break bread, and sup with me,

And lose yourself, for the small eternity 

Known universally as “tonight.”

-jenn

This one was praised to be the dancer

That danced the dance

That was choreographed 

By the producer of the grande ballet.

And that one danced the night away,

In Paris, at the discotheque.

His mind was a wreck

From gin and tonics,

And just as his head quit the ache,

And he searched for something 

Else to take for his malady,

The muse appeared in the mirror 

Of his medicine cabinet.

She smiled and winked,

And perched upon his sink in there,

And wrapped her legs around his waist

And gave him a taste of her lipstick,

And kissed him deep,

And he heard music playing.

He hurried to scrawl the notes and rhythms 

Of just the way he heard the percussion

Answer the baritones,

And the sleepy, sensuous way

Their argument awoke the flute.

And this is the song that will make the people move!

The dancers will dance on the stage,

And the audience will squirm

Uncomfortably in their seats at the matinee,

Wanting to beat the traffic

And get home, to make love

In the heat of the muse, 

The heat of the afternoon.

-jenn

If I have a slightly nasal tone,

You don’t know which part of France I come from,

Or how hard it is to escape the nose

In my family.

I am only one of many children

Lost in gingham checks and calico. 

As one of the youngest,

I’m forgot,

And so they let me grow wild,

As natural as my unkempt hair.

The hand-me-downs I wear spoil me.

The cloth so soft from years of rough washings

That my older siblings bore.

I see their starched postures 

In the paintings done of them,

While I have never had a bath,

Or had to sit still

While an artist drew me.

I’m so far down the line

Of primogeniture,

And yet a child of love,

As royal as any other.

I may not ever rule or reign,

Nor will I stain some foreign land 

With blood of friend or foe,

Nor will I have to.

But what will become of me?

No portrait in the hall of me,

For all the world to see, 

That I too, was a royal?

But the river draws me,

And I can sit for hours

To watch him work,

While I shirk my name

And all the fame

And responsibilities.

Only the nose, someday,

May tell, or maybe 

It will only smell the roses,

The old, wild roses sprawling by the river.

-jenn

I can get so lost in the colors of the bricks here.

I lie on my belly on a beach towel, as I sun,

And with my eyes only six inches from the bricks,

Notice the various colors 

Embedded in each one,

And then, the combination of 

The way that they are laid

Together, in emblematic patterns

Of light and dark and shade, and then,

The mortar seems to be the exact color

That an artist would have chosen,

And I sense, indeed, some starving artisan

Was here, once.

-jenn