Love Hobo

Blooming cherry trees adorn the river
A holly bush houses interesting guests
Outside, a warm breeze shakes clouds of dust
Into a swirl

Balloons of plastic bags float above
A celebration of city refuse.
Not-so-still life in the trailer park
Beneath the bridge.

Strawberries discovered outside the shanty house

Are softly whisked away by a delicate hand. 
They disappear behind cardboard.

The city alive with blaring music from cars
Coming from the lower deck of the bridge.
Summer, when the city is most filled with hope and energy

But the smell of decay and rot is the strongest.
Here by the river, 
Ice cream offerings bring a kind of peace.
The holly bush lady smiles 
A Buddha smile.

Coolness arrives in reds and oranges 
Whose reflection along the nearly still water
Are like Van Gogh and Manet
Wavy waterlike trees, or treelike water,
Either way, the view is priceless
And the sweet lady sings,

“I left to follow love 
and this is where I'll stay.”

The lady of the holly bush rejoices at her fate.

Now the city has turned grey
As if life has passed it by.
The dirty river iced
The trees a white delight.
The lady sits in residence inside her holly hut.
She has herself some company
And they're huddled under coats.
An impossibly large blanket is covering them both.
They sit with foreheads touching
Looking comfy as can be,
and the lady smiles aside and says to gawking me,
"I am a love hobo, darling."
And with that she nestles her head
into her bearded love.
My lonely heart and I walk back
Smiling, a thing with wings.

Bandaid 2

my life's a mummy
maybe yours is too
but my mummy beats your mummy
it's bigger and scarier
most of the bandages are falling off
some are so old they're black
you'd never know they were ever white
many of the bandages are oozing blood
a couple are freely bleeding through like waterfalls of cranberry juice
if cranberry juice fell from a waterfall
(this thought comforts me at least a little)
the free bleeding bandages are the worse
then there are the tiny ones that were supposed to only stay a short while
they were covering teeny scratches that started to deepen
and now they are wells of tissue deep to the bone
covered by tiny little baby bandaids
(this would be laughable if the wounds weren't festering)
my mummy sings though
it sings to forget that it lives
it lives, my mummy (a kind of life)
bandages are all that keep it going
do not look upon it in daylight
your eyes will need bandaging too
and why should you suffer my fate? 

Surrender

Today I surrender.
To what has been calling to me since yesterday.
Gravity too heavy on my shoulders.
Knees too weak. Feet of gelatin.
Head like a boulder.
I surrender, floor.
You have me, all of me.
I belong to you and the dust mites and the creepy crawly things,
To the grain of wood that will soon be embedded in my skin.
I belong to you and your cold cold embrace.
May you not lose the strength to hold me up
As my salty corrosive tears drench your planks.
Soggy like an old ship's deck.
If you fail, we fall together.
You and I, dear floor.
Right down to the basement.
There we can surrender to the cement.
It will take considerably more tears to soften it.
I believe we can lie there peacefully as long as we like.

When things fade...

It's the day after Christmas. This year I felt oddly Christmas-y. The past few years I've not felt the spirit at all. But this year I put up a tree and a couple of wreaths and some lights. I wrapped gifts with gusto and even listened to some Christmas music of my own free will (jazzy Xmas). I enjoyed my friends, I appreciated my husband despite his bah-humbug attitude and I loved my family for being. I even didn't dwell on the fact that I really am not making enough money doing what I do and that my "career" really is a glorified hobby if you look at it on paper. Truth be told, I feel like I've wasted my life away and have very little of monetary value to show for it. My husband is talking about early retirement and says I'll have to start making more money and I'm terrified because I don't see how I'm going to do that. Yet... I have this odd sense of well being. I ask myself why.

I fell in love again - with life. I decided that life is too short to spend it agonizing about the things that aren't, the things that should be, the things that should have been, the way things were supposed to turn out... what a waste of energy. You just do. It may sound like an oversimplification or even irresponsible. But I don't want to spend my last good 10-15 years not enjoying myself. Yes, I'm now of an age where I know my body maybe only have another 10 or 15 years left of health and vitality. Who knows? Maybe I don't even have that much time left? Maybe I'm a ticking time bomb and time has started to count down quickly unbeknownst to me? I just don't want to spend whatever time I may have left being sad about the things that aren't.

So I took stock of some relationships that aren't being properly nurtured, through no faulty of my own. I made the decision to stop being sad that this person or that person isn't making more of an effort to be present in my life. If they can't see the value of keeping up the relationship then I need to focus on the people in my life who are actually making an effort. And I need to decide who I want to spend time with. Who are the people who fill me with joy and a sense of peace and well being? I need to be clear about who those people are and then I need to nurture those connections. I will stop twisting myself into a pretzel trying to make sense of people whose actions do not match their words. If you're not present, you're not present.

I will also spend more time in places that make me feel happy. My surroundings have always mattered to me. I feel calmer and more peaceful when I'm surrounded by beautiful. And it doesn't need to be much. It could be the one clematis I planted in the backyard or it could be the bed being made up and being neat for once. It could be me sitting on a rock in a park staring at the trees on a fall day. Or watching the waves touch sand while I read on the beach. It might even be me curled up in my favorite chair with a good book. Whatever it is on a given day, I resolve to really enjoy it.

So I say good-bye to the things that I have allowed to torment me. The people I have let zap my energy and steal my sleep. I will let those things go. They're already fading quickly behind me. I see road before me. Some of the terrain will be rocky and perilous, but the light is ahead of me leading the way. What's behind me is already fading. Fading into the dark.

Weak.

You been givin’ me a weak kinda luv

Don’t understand what you want

I thought you fit like a glove.

You been givin’ me an earful of trash

I can’t believe what I’m hearin’

All I get is table scraps.

You been tellin’ me a pack full of lies

My heart was bumpin’ and a thumpin’

While yours was churning out the ice.

You been cryin’ tears you squeeze from your eyes

I hadn’t sleep for a month

I missed your touch, that was not wise. 

You been sayin' your love is all and all

But you don’t put it to my body

You just hide behind your wall.

You say this and you say that and you say more

I think I finally got it straight

There’s not one thing you say that’s pure.

You been givin’ me a weak kinda luv

I think I understand now

You’ll never be here anyhow.

You keep saying that you want to be with me

But there you are inside your cage

Although I've given you a key.

You been givin' me a shitty kind of luv

I'm finally seeing the light.

I'm finally heading for that door.

One two three, and four and five and six and eight

This luv felt nice in the beginning

But my freedom now feels great.

Nine and Ten, and Eleven and thirteen

Don't even need to count well

To know this doesn't end with WE.

Mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmm hmmmmm hmmm hmmm

Feels good to finally get loose

My boots are going on parade.

BuhBye.

Sacrificial Lamb

Oh how you've enjoyed your

Sacrificial lamb

So sweet and soft to hold

So meek and mild and tame.

Oh, let her breathe

You'll just slaughter all her friends

While she watches and is grateful

That her tiny head was spared.

After all…

You love her.

Oh how you've been sweet to your

Sacrificial lamb

When she cried all week after you slay her mom.

You combed her silken wool

And fed her from the trough

“There, there, sweet lamb, I love you most of all.”

Oh, let her bathe

In your loving light

You give her honey and sugar and delights

Maybe she'll forget the blood that dyed her wool

The evening she ran forward towards the woods.

You caught her by her hoof

And dragged her to the pen

And held her down to help her heal her wounds

How could you let her go?
The pain would be too great

Impossible, you love her most of all.

Oh how you've enjoyed your

Sacrificial lamb

She bleats all night a sad and sullen song

How special that she sings you lullabies.

Oh, you loved her so

Until she grew those fangs

And learned to dig her way through rock and stone.

How you felt betrayed

How could she be so cruel?

She bit your cuff and spit blood on your shoe.

With heavy heart you slay

Your sacrificial lamb

She never would again dare be so bold.

Oh how you've enjoyed

Your sacrificial lamb

So sweet and soft…

You'll have to start again.

Bandaid 1

I feel myself slowly peeling away

Away from you

Tight plucking pulling away

Each tug a wincing stab

To follow each careless action you rubbed into the wound.

Like underestimating my desire

Telling me your want of another while keeping me hungry

Pluck pluck pluck

I impassively listen

While pieces of me are ripped right up

Like a rat escaping a glue trap

You in the other house - oblivious.

Tug tug tug

Careless selfishness

Your own needs superseding mine

You offer no compromise

Slowly the numbness sets in

The fervent desire softens to a dull ache

Rip rip rip

Miraculously

I feel nothing

Nothing at all

I must be healed.