Rotten Sweet Potatoes

Awoke to the orange coming over the water through the slats of 2 windows
Acknowledged my gratitude then rolled over closing my eyes again for a few more hours of morning dreaming
Tossing sweet potatoes into the yard I scolded myself for being wasteful Lazy
Cutting a pineapple is what I have
Coffee with milk and honey
I've tried to quit a hundred times
Yesterday's rage at the callous stupidity of some men tore the cloth of my lungs and I sit on my bed in my room paralyzed having wasted 1/2 the day

Empty Tank

I ran out of gas worrying you down my mind road
Regretting past weaknesses  
Cracked boundary lines
Flooded by your eyes' colors 

Wanting to call wanting to laugh again like a brother

Tears come suddenly instead

Hot sun amplified by the windshield

Would you come get me right now

Take me away from here 

On rainbow trails past smoke and mist 

Where Skuld resides

For a conversation because I want to know

Trance stopped by the pop of the trunk

I walk along the shoulder in sandals 

Carrying a big red tank

It's Autumn and breath releases from my ribs

Pegasus

Paused in the sky for only that moment

Bleeding and on fire

I was losing my grip of Pegasus reins

When I asked who I was to you

The spinning wheel never fails

Tireless weaving threads in cosmic soup

My hands forever scarred

By human limitations of heart and mind

I am not Athena

Nor child awaiting Myth's Awakening

Post counsel and calculations

Before fire ritual

My five-year-old self caught me

Carrying a Monarch in each hand

Respecting the space of man

While sleeping gently through the night

Dreams tell me truth

Trust tangible syllables, flavor, pain

Colored in empty boxes in spaces

Where Time never lies

Riding My Big Wheel

Cul de sac to the vacant lot

Minnesota Wheat grasses over my head

Their smell keeps me alive 

Tom’s bike was purple 

His bus arrived after Sesame Street

My mom caught a bumble bee by the wings

She parted my hair down the middle

High fly-aways secured with plastic colored barrettes 

Encapsulated in my car cab 

Crying driving through Kentucky snow March a year ago

I Will Be the Villain

I burned myself alive with silence

Where Fear of Chaos

Built a dam behind my eyes

To hold back Reaction to 

Your beauty

The way you move 

I’m drowning  

Sand castle Beaten by low tide heat

I come apart burned in

Crossfire of drought and fault lines

I will be the villain

The shark biting off Whole

Legs of the swimmer 

Striving toward shore 

Goals unwritten silently 

Assumed telepathy 

but only was a myth

In the nightmare I lost grip

While the ice spun around the North Pole

I will be the villain 

I promise

I am drowning 

In the cold cold deep

The Covid

The Covid was a circus in the center of a war

Crimes committed none compared 

To sinking deep into my mess of sensory deprivation breaking my moral compass 

As I spun into the sea of oxygen

Everyone was dying

My mouthless face watched their eyes

We could save no one

Me inside travelled back in time 

To a forest of wood and dirt

Nitrile blue hands wrapped plastic tubing 

Turning dials as far West as they could go  

Colliding with you colliding with you in combat or the dark

Where trees whispered secrets inaudible under medical chaos 

Reality more fantasy than my dreams of retreat

Stained my debriefing forever my love

Northwest by Southeast

On water’s mist this morning 

Memory stole my breath

That first time you encouraged me

Easing into your pressure

Watching your eyes forever

Our boats fade apart

Wind’s wing carrying me back to snow

As your wings fly toward fire

Into dolomite caves

Eating Mango after Sleeping Late Nights after I Promised to Start Early

Half Moon so bright tonight

She cuts through the clouds 

As they are unreal

Ungraspable mist 

Rising toward thrones of gods

Sea of Atmosphere

And deeply I love you

While Moon refuses to hide 

Her darkness mystery

Sun’s spotlight captures

Safety comfort 

Our vulnerable creatures 

Crying and crawling 

Home to our instincts

Your face in my hands

Traveling skyways through

Your eyes where I know

Tomorrow I’ll eat mango

After sleeping late mornings

Months in a row

Trance Walk from the Florida Trip and Atlanta

Surf churned a nonstop roar

Creating swaths of foam rolling like tumbleweeds 

In a windstorm desert

Unseasonably cool 

Just me and the sea

In the Third Eye's sky I sat in her kitchen 

Watching your mom pour coffee

My feet trance walked while I cried

Words without words 

Warm hands in my chest

Feminine Chaos of the original seed

She polished and presented me

Canoe

With you

I am an abandoned canoe

An object of your desire

Whose thirst is quenched

Only after the harvest

And sheets are tucked

Under offsprings’ chins

Laid to waste

In grass with eight legged widows

Lonely and endangered

Afraid

Only soothed by Moonlight’s Love

And Frogs’ Lullaby

Bess Beetle

Want to come play 

She says “Please, Sir”

Then you leave

Her so low

Worse than anyplace

Wet and cold

Quieter than windless blackness

In a hole of a tree

Bess beetle foraging

In mulch for autonomy

Cold Creek

The creek is coldest where the rocks are sharp

Where beyond our bodies fall pulled into the crash 

And it’s here where I ache the most

Where I long the most 

For the heat of your breath

To massage the deepest 

Hollows beyond my throat

Here I stop 

Shut my eyes 

Retreating back to proper society

Away from edge’s harsh pain 

Overpowering thrills and joy

Icy cool cramping belly

Memories locked into 

Down of my pillow

Where time remains unmeasured 

Alive

May Day

All the practices I do 

To make me feel alive 

Taste like Shredded Wheat in water 

I lit a fire in the yard 

White heat spirals up 

To the carbon paper sky

Summer is coming 

My children are grown

My son plays trumpet

My daughter belly laughs

I’ll stay 

Bare feet grounded 

The grass is cool 

I tell myself

Collecting Stillness

Long enough to stay

Soaked

I misunderstood the lines in the story

Waited in the rain at the wrong stop

Disappointing  myself again

Forgetting everything I did by the end of the day

Silk

I found this silk runner

In an attic thrift shop

Sensually I owned it

Consciously today removing

Familiarity from my groove

Patterns and colors

Letting go

I feel everything

A blue rainbow

Twice as wide as the sky

I see all the souls

They are useless to me

Damaging

Crippled by ancestries of denial 

And blame

Anything can happen to anyone

Anyone can be unwavered

Gathered in the center of the sun

Ghosts

I drown my words

In Silence

Vowed to keep boundaries true

Eating walnuts out of a bag

In my car; I’m hungry

Lonely for the company 

Of No One

Daydream driving over a bridge

To where words don’t even matter 

And I was once a ghost

China and Crystal

Stars shatter broken light

My fingers are bleeding

over holes in the ceiling

Wolves scratch the door 

I’m unraveling 

commitment to half spoken wishes 

Interrupted by yours

Into this box

Into this bag

Burnt with limbs

Fallen from dead trees

I threw the mirror away

First Season

Limbo is Starkad’s breath and sweat

Dark and loamy wet upon my skin

Pinning me frozen to this dirt

Unable to stretch nor run

Watching for wings of my vultures

Gliding over the barn to release this spell

A hammer over my throat 

Keeps my song in

Unable to sing them to me 

Like on summer runs when 

The finish is so close and I call upon 

The will of my spirits 

To keep my legs turning

Cast

I pour my power into fire

Making fire my home

Wind and Earth carry me 

Water temper my soul

Lion’s dragon soaring the islands

Rise above 5 horses 

Toiling to tether me

Angels’ Fodder

Neither here nor there

Yes or no

Doesn’t matter anymore

With lack of voice 

Stones are placed

Over the keyhole

Dreams were fodder

Angels devoured

Before sunrise

Tree limbs broken 

Across the yard

Were meant to bend

The lawnmower blade

Humidity in Winter

The water in the air

Smells like summer

Won’t dare disappoint

Painted brick against asphalt 

As I approached the law office 

Brought to my forefront

My grandfather’s face

How do you know a man

But through his eyes

Wide and round

Perfect blue circles

Aimed straight deep into mine

As he spoke

Tinnitus and Chest Pain

The walls buzz 

Like cockroaches shimmering 

In the dark 

Waking me before 

I begin to sleep 

My heart burns at 3am

As the cricket chirps 

Hidden near the door

Frog I’m Tired

Hello

Mr. Toad,

Frog,

I’m tired she said

The road has been

Long and wet

I’m getting off here

At this bend

Under the violets

Low near the dirt

Where the smell

Of the earth

Reminds me I belong

With the whispers overhead

Of the branches

Waiting for buds of Spring