Catacomb

Hallowed chapel glimmering
gold in the light of a hundred
candles shining on a thousand
years of coded messages
Chi Ro anchored frescoes
of incorruptible peacocks
bright symbols of resurrection
as the flesh of faithful
decayed, despite the lime

Deeper in ash
grey dormitorios where
corpses slept on laddered
shelves carved to exact size
as if faith were a winding cloth
that clung to the dead
and needed no extra room

hale bodies shrunken
in death pressed
flat enough to slot
into custom beds

babies tucked lengthwise
into corners and edges

some few niches scraped
just wide enough for two
and sealed with terra cotta tiles

until the breath of Jesus
could inflate their shells
like balloons rising to the sky

The graves are empty
now. Selected martyrs
were carted to sanctified ground
when Rome converted

Barbarians sacked
the rest, found marble-boxed treasure
leaving shelves as empty
as their heathen hearts

Janu-ennui

It is a season of hunger
Of pacing cabinet to fridge nibbling
edges of things
dust on restless tongues

It is a time for prowling 
Discontented stillness
impatient curses thrown
against unappeased dark

Refugees seek golden
light stories of far away 
nestled beds puddled high
with blankets to keep out
the seeping cold

Crave the bright salvation of seed
catalogs, bulbs
bought too early piled
high on porches until
the thaw
as we wait for the sun

Coal Train

Diesels bay at 3 a.m.
as they prowl railyards
on the north end of town

A screen lights the kitchen
half-cleaned, still
fragrant with cumin and onions

an update chimes:
the rodeo queen has shared
another picture of her boys

Facebook maps a diaspora 
coal-dusted children
departure-seared

poured like mine tailings
from the Valley down the 
slopes of the Rocky Mountains

Goodbyes trace like fireworks
the explosion at the mine
blew out the heart of our town

Iron wheels clatter in time
with breakfast pans. Men
descend into the seam
echoing 
the whistle of the coal train

Poets of G+ Challenge: write a  poem the starts at the end and moves toward the beginning

A List

Things that hollowed me out
today, a list for
no good reason

Casual jazz under red
string lights
a gift from a man who
will never be my friend

The moment a little
girl rested her head
butterfly gentle
against my shoulder
before flitting off to play

The elusive scent
of lilacs

Two chattering women speed
walking past
as I untangled
The dog’s leash from
my legs

The wobbling path
of my son’s bicycle
as he rode away

From the Dusty Corners of My Hard Drive

Just ran across this, er, salute to Poe which I wrote in response to a Poets of G+ Community prompt for National Poetry Month. It is silly and made me laugh, so I thought I'd share it. 

The Dogs
See the puppies with their tails
Wagging tails!
With furry smiles and joyful leaps they happily regale
How they wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
With obvious delight
While tiny children giggle
And even grownups sniggle
And everything about them seems just perfectly alright
Barking: ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff
Pretending to be tough
Running laps around the living room like tiny springtime gales
Wagging tails, tails, tails, tails, tails, tails
The whirling and the spinning fluffy tails.

See the doggies with their paws
Giant paws!
What muddy tracks and messes these beloved pups can cause
How they scurry, scurry, scurry
With evident delight
To greet another furry
or guard against all worry
Always ready to defend against a stranger in the night
Drinking: lap, lap, lap, lap, lap
before a twitching nap
Pacing ‘round the house with clickety-tapping claws
Giant paws paws paws paws paws paws paws
The scratching and the thumping massive paws.

See the canines with their teeth
Pointed teeth!
So sharp and white and perilously unsheathed
How they glisten, glisten, glisten
With pendulous saliva
A shiver comes, a frisson
of tension. Be still, listen
Pray a fearless warrior does in time arrive
Clasp your hands upon your laps
Hope for werewolf traps
Strongly made of iron but in hammered silver wreathed
Lest beasts eat, eat, eat, eat, eat
Feast upon the mortals, flesh between their teeth.

Anything, but

You can do anything
I tell my girl
corralling my sadness
for another place-time

Who wants to tell
a child she is limited 
by her physiognomy
to a lifetime of
servitude and struggle?

You’ll go far
though in every place she will be
a vessel
for someone else’s idealized interpretation 
of a few scraps
parchment, bound
by tradition into
inescapable expectations 

Looks don’t matter
though breasts will be
the first and last 
of her that some men
Notice. Not
how brilliantly her mind
shines

You are fierce and strong
which of course means
she’s a bitch, though
didja get a look at that ass?

I will protect you
as best I can, but
my needle and thread
cannot mend a
broken dream

Click here for an audio version

Poets of G+ prompt: write a poem in which everything is lies

for National Poetry Month

April Moments

Rain curtains billow
Revealing distant mountains
Dusted with fresh snow

Robins hop green paths
Between clumps of melting ice
Suddenly, crocus

Asparagus stalks
Verdant ditch to dinner plate
Spearing winter’s bite

Spots of bright color
Jackets, hats left by children
shed like autumn leaves

Four linked Haiku about spring. From a prompt in the Poets of G+ community for National Poetry Month

Westward

Indiana maybe. Somewhere
not long before Chicago
we rolled into dark shelter 
behind a growling semi

You slept, contorted
narrow seat pushed
forward to fit kids
behind us: yin/yang somnolence
underneath collected miscellany
and two days worth
of snack wrappers

I sank behind the wheel
into a fretful pause

Short hours later
I slipped from
The leather seat grown
stiff with morning chill
stretching
the kinks out of thirty hard
hours driving west

The dogs leaped over waves
of dew-encrusted grasses
swishing wet to the knees
cresting hills fog shrouded
suddenly limned
by the rising sun 
Cattle lowed
in a distant barn

I meandered through the rest-
stop bathroom, coffee shop
then settled back in, captain
of our dreamy prairie schooner
and raced the dawn toward
home

We sang

We sang Shosholoza
the day you won
your freedom
was celebrated with dance
ululations rose to
frost-bitten stars

Fresh from the hot springs I
steamed joy like a prayer
until my hair iced over
and I could no longer distinguish
rapture from chill

I secretly took a little
credit for your release - coming
right after a hundred
students marched an empty
stretch of I-25 United 
World against apartheid!

Ever since
though my lens collapsed
the gumboot has tattooed
the beat of protest
in my battles grand
     and small

I still sing Shosholoza
one more voice raised
for justice

Contentment

Boots pendulum across dry hills
kicking up intermittent static
from disturbed grasshoppers

The tang of bar oil hangs
in the still air, blending
with vanilla rising from 
sun-roasted Ponderosas

Leaning into a tangle of
slashed pine I am surrounded
by Christmas. Sap
smears sticky across my arm
each toss of limbs
brings a fresh whiff

Burring chainsaws drown
speech; unnecessary anyway

Later, chunks of peaches
and pineapple soothe parched
throats. One uncle always
brings cookies. Another
has the beer. Every time mom
suggests pot pie
and serves sandwiches

Plastic forks scrape
heavy paper plates while
our outside life is shared
between tasks. Cousins, returned
update each other on career
changes and impending babies

Drenched in sun-raised sweat
filthy with labor
arms sketched with scratches
torn jeans and tattered shirt
I can think of nowhere else
I’d rather be

First Impression

Were I honest
upon first meeting
I would eschew mascara
and don old
jeans, smeared
at the knee with
dirt from a garden
remnants of pine sap
and some sort of
cooking incident

Maybe I’d wear a ballcap
over practical pigtails

Definitely hiking boots

On a cold day flannel
would settle
in soft frumpy folds
around my curves
over a shirt whose
humorous message
expired long before

That sort of honesty
is frowned up
but somehow my dress
always has a splash
of food somewhere
as if my soul has
leaked through this
carefully made-up
disguise

Change of Seasons

Winter approaches
in thousand-foot increments
heralded by mountain-measuring
weathermen

Snow above ten thousand feet
flounces across peaks
frothy skirts from a period drama
Snow down to eight thousand feet
sends chills trickling down foothills
whispering across sandal-clad toes
athletes stand askew, weather eye
on peaks -- anticipating
fall’s icy end while
the squeals of sprinkler-dashing children
tangle in still-green 
leaves whose veins run red

At six thousand feet
closets are turned inside-
out come jackets and hats
gloves scatter across the floor
like sidewalk leaves
in preparation for
the next 
      great 
          step

At The End

In the midnight of our days

routines will have

fossilized. Fried eggs will grace

every breakfast plate. I’ll refuse

your daily offer of juice

There will be no more

surprises. Politics

will have rasped away our edges

loss rounded your rigid spine

contentment slowed my steps

Grandchildren

borrowed or begotten

will make up for cataracts

Through hearing aids

their shouts become tame gurgles

You will climb ladders

unsteadily, whittling

away my endless honey-do list

and read the newspaper aloud

while I knit

Shuffling between the accumulated
ghosts of long lives

we won’t speak much, but

Papery skin will whisper
of old love when

your hand grasps mine

And we peer blindly

into the darkness

from a prompt at Poets of G+

Celestial Choir

I imagine angels

wings like helicopters

thrumming reflected

by a sodden sky

voices rasped by indrawn smoke

exhaustion tempered

with hot coffee

riding four wheeled chargers

that in no way resemble

fiery steeds

peering out from careworn faces

waiting for us to recognize

the divine within

This Wondrous Now

This wondrous now

is time suspended.

You still hold my hand

when we walk to school

though you now look me

straight in the eye.

You laugh at my jokes

            turn to me for advice.

The eyerolling has yet to start.

Sometimes my words

seep out of you.

My guidance

has stuck, somewhere.

I am reassured.

I hold now
fast in wonder

At my lovely boy
nearly a man.

Cemetery Interlude

I went left as my children went
right through the waving
unkempt grass shrouding
bones beside a road in New England.

Stones tilted toward
me gently reminding
that we tread ground once
hallowed by death, if not God.

Roots twined through remains
whose names were long ago
smoothed by rain and blown away
by a kiss of wind.

My little ones galloped over
the silent graves indifferent then
clambered into the truck continuing
our long day’s journey into night.


From a prompt in the Poets of G+ Community, requiring that I use the phrase "Long Day's Journey Into Night"

Estate Planning

Two dozen graying

cotton pillowcases are

uncloseted for the first

time in twenty-five years

by a woman

Who has grayed as well.

With inexplicable purpose she

   bleaches

     rinses

       washes

          hangs them to dry.

Once inspected they will be

folded along old lines

by creased hands

and tucked away

for good.

I-95 to Baltimore

We must have been

The very image of

White trash that night

Battered truck

Holes in the knees of

My tattered jeans

I was barefoot

We had an upright piano

A toilet

construction tools

And two hound dogs

In the bed

My feet hung

out the window

to catch the breeze

We were headed

all the way to Vermont

in one long shot

That trip has become family

Legend: the first time we

traveled together

I-95 North was, then,

a wasteland between

DC and Baltimore

where drug smugglers baited

state troopers

in nondescript cars

Which might be why

a thousand cars

had passed the Toyota

sedan on the side of the road

But it was probably

because they were

Six young Black men.

The man who became

my husband pulled over

white knight to the rescue

without thought

to race or peril

I fell a little more in love

watching him cheerfully

offer a lift to the nearest

filling station.

Their astonishment speared

my heart as I squeezed over

to fit four into a

three-person bench seat.

Two for safety:

we could have been

crackers on a joyride

in rural America

We managed.

Me shifting the gear knob

between my knees

while he steered.

They prattled on

about their schooling

and their jobs

as if we needed proof

that they were harmless.

We left them under

sizzling fluorescents

two miles down the road

with a gas can and an

assurance that they’d

be okay from there.

It was just

a kindness between strangers.

The moment sticks in my mind

because I’m still waiting

For that to be true.

Spirit of Words

Poetry is

The essence

Of language

Oceans of words

Distilled

To a few lines

Not one word

Out of place

Not one extra

Grapes must pass

Beyond juice

Beyond wine

To become brandy

So must writing

Be tended

pruned

aged

To achieve poetry

Write a novel

   Cut it to novella

      Slice it to short story

         Pare it to flash fiction

Only then

Can you remove

The chaff

And call it

A poem

Fulgurite

Grit-clad glass tunnels

delicate hollows branch

downward through sand

jagged shards that

capture the sky

upside-down

lightning reflected

in white green black brown glass

just as love

leaves its mark

on our hearts

A fulgurite and a human heart