Follow me
To the inescapable
Matter of shadow
Unerasable
Shivering to escape
Your footsteps
In the sun.
Shape shifting
Always there
Tuned to you
Even as you lay
In the grass
Of a park
Where children's voices
Have their own
Wave length.
Your history of insults
You carry around
Year upon year
May feel absent in the light
But your shadow is
Inescapable.
Like your hand in
The pocket of your purse
******* the seam
Is vulnerable. Tend to it
This Place you fear.
There is no war.
Come out. Reach.
Dance with it.

Ambiguity
Seven Times
Maybe one and two
Or many verbal words
Scatter our grasp
For sense and meaning
A puzzle thrown
In the Air here and there.

Here these words
Are pieces unconnected
Even as the word, THE,
Can take us to "the" beach
Or to " the" room
What you bring can
And Might
Be your rescue. Maybe.

You are here.
In the dark or light
Where one can't be defined
Without the other
Just as the meaning of you
Lives never in just one place
But resolved
Simultaneously ambiguous
This is your beauty.

I looked up
This morning
Before
the globe
Of life lifted from
The dark horizon

The passengers
In the sky
Began to announce
Their arrival
With frosting
Dressing the gray floaters
Tipping a hat to the mistress sun

As do the yellow roses
That glow in the darkest
Of green along the
Fence. Next to me.
Waking up.

One only knows
The presence of the days beginning
By these clouds
These flowers
And the black capped chickadee
Announcing all clear
See-see dearee
All threats are gone.

Churned by cream
Sweet
Oh, but it is
A rose
Dipped in butter
Translucent yellow
Melting into fleshy
Pink
Punctuated thinly
On the edges
Where dirt might get
Into a fingernail
Showing a line
Where color meets
Love of a rose
Singing the sweet and salt
Of butter on
My olfactory
Tongue to the
Earthy fragrance
Only a rosey delight
Gives
To my sight
You are one
Of a kind
My butter Rose

Vibration of light
From the flower Moon
Like buttered tulip
Melting inside
Dancing between my joints
Weaving a river in my blood
A yellow only flowers would know
Moving like honey-milk
To a temperature just right
Breeding wave by invisible wave
As you set far south west
Before anyone knows
You left behind your pollen of hope.

I find self in argument
With sons
Over money, over crypto
Which is a mysterious coin
Being chased by new generations

I am belittled
When giving advise on
Intangible wealth of this century
That my experience is seen as useless,
Described by them to me,
"My Boomer generation knows Nothing"

Told to feel unworthy as an argument builds
Put down as a mother as
My brain pain of their reckless youth
I had to pay attention to
As if the reciept of my womb
Was a wasted placenta
All because of a bit of coin searching for wealth

The riches these young men of mine
Will likely not find from the
Depth of their families legacy
Who will be written off in their own time
Is in their grandfather's wartime draft card, tied to the most important person
Asking,
"Name of Person Who Will Always Know Your Address",
Let that sink in.
"Relationship  of This Person" , "Mother"

From here, four thousand feet down
The Rocky Mountain Range
As winter subsides and spring begins
Purples and whites among the forest, up there, from here
My shaded porch by a hundred years old ash
I see where I once was, high above.

From here, as the tick, toc, tick, toc
Snuck through the air of time
As the children lost their wonder
The fancy climbing, the hold on tight
Of a tree swing dangled, beckoned
Them. They lost their spark
From here at this distance I see it all stuffed in the dirt of time.

Every thing made,
Not from human-kind
As if humans knew
Kindness, From this earth
Has a song each its own.

The melodies of every stone
Of every branch, from every
Droplet of a wave,
The Wave itself
Lends a message that is held
Together by the sun.

The lyrics cast light
On every shadow
Drawing maps of age
And wisdom along a line of Ink
So fine that it remains hidden
Behind what it means to be alive.

Every thing is a seed
With its own song
Rooting up for no reason
Heavy, even as the weight
Of a raindrop tries to be measured
In its sheer amount, the music will
Outlast this and every season
Beyond this
the orchestra of time.

All this life sought
Was in my feet forward,
Backing into stumble on rocks
With no path, life is an S curve

It hurts to fall hard
Worse yet
Is to not know why
I walked at all

A cool spring morning
In the rain with my canine on lead
Rushes into the glade
Where a doe may rest unaware

Still at old age I know, nothing
Every morning in the dark
My eyes open, for what?
I have lost all meaning of why

Are the next rising suns
Teachers on the green that
Remain after the snow melts
A reason for standing up?

I lost track of my dog in the meadow
As I listen to a poet who says
That tomatoes do not bleed
Is my life a fruit I can eat

Through the spring branches
I see a home below, pale yellow
A white door and a pane of glass
Asking, will I come forward more

An unknown, will I care to find out
Where is the deer and my dog
The door seductively beckons,
Walk this way with strong shoulders

Every day is an opening
For planting new things
Or letting the past burn to ash
Stunned in body and bones my trips to the ground

The knees and hands ******
And worn, as the apple skin
Holds a hole from the worm
I am the fruit as much as the scar that shines, happening now

Memory garbage dump
Holding everything old
Aged releasing all

I've realized my brain
Swollen from decades of thought
Now, only wants now

Goodbye to the past
Earth quakes releasing the crust
Cliffs of synapse fall

I walked into
An old building
Vacant yet
Lived in

I opened
Door after door
Peering into
New air

I realized
I was searching
For what was
To be

There were
No windows
On the doors
For a reason

I could not peer
Into the future
The past
Was futile

There was
No knowing
Left only to patterns
Or engagement

I could stop
Walking
The corridors
Of this wood abode

One more door
To go
What was next
Solitude or sorrows

As I stood alone
I met the room
With nothing to lose
No compass for death

I'm a shell
My soul has left
Empty as can be
Space that's left
Is not me

I'm useless
As a highway
Without cars
I might as well
Be on Mars

I'm gone
But still alive
Like stars persist
Until the light is gone
My body insists

I'm a circumference
The boundary surrounds
Dry carcass bone
I care not
Just lost-and-found

I won't return
To my body of ruin
Burial plans made
Threaded into a patchwork quilt
Upstaged and waylaid

I'm now safe outside
Myself
I see you looking in
She is gone from her
Forever now thick and thin

I'm tired of sycophants  
Complicit in democracy's destuction
By their hands, skinned alive
I left my body today
In order to survive

Fate slips
As a fallen horse's
  hoof
To prove there
Is a yonder, unwritten
Which we can not
   write
With our fingerless hands
Stumbling through life
Gripping guideless
    reigns
Tripping over a wish
Never to be ours
Fate did never
     find

How sorry I am
That's the title of the
Book I will write.
If I say,
I may write,
Where does my sorry go?

Tell me of your delight
The wisp of wind
That catches your hair
Breezy enough to sense
The winds direction
To which you set your sails
Moving through glass water
Unwilling to break

Tell me of your delight
In the shell of a snail
Digging up its squishy life
For just you alone
Thumbing through
In a smile and a jar of joy
Enough to break a mother's heart
With every win and loss
On your way to manhood

Tell me of your delight
As you swing in the air
Legs kicking as branches do
When the air picks you up
No longer weighing you down
All cares wash through
The space of regrets
And deposit themselves
As pebbles on the shore
Where your feet will land

Tell me of your delight
Where the garden snake
Attempts to outwit
Your stride in the grass
As you quietly watch
With patience of a lifetime
That marches ahead in this stillness
That is between the distance
Where now is forever
In your hand you swoop up
A life trying to escape yours
Gleeful are you as you set
The creature free once more

Tell me of your delight
As you see the rays of a day
Shine on every stone
And drop of rain
Washing rivers deleting cares
Surpassing a mother's gloom
Her soup of ingredients
Marinated longer than your
Innocence wants to keep birthing
It will be her death that it takes
To be released and unburdened
So you can breathe again this day
Heart open to drown all sorrows
Brand new as the dew

On the road outside
Of the fence
The Border Collie hears
The call of the
Doggies
On the inside

Enclosed behind
The wooden fence
The Alaskan malamute
The Drever, the Poodle
Bustle the edge of the barrier
Bark, bark, bark
A cacophony

Let us out
Let us come with you
Pledging to obey,
The Collie
On hind legs
Of a towering stature
Lifts a paw
Finds the latch
The gate creaks open
Uncorking in celebration

They run in gleeful circles
Hounds to escape artists
Unbound and free from tyranny
Of a heartless master
Marking their new territory
Of tree trunks
Sidewalks and fields

Have you ever seen
Such jubilation
Mirth and gaiety
Wagging their tails
Like helicopter blades
With gail force glee

They take off
Like upside down rain
Up, up, up
Every which way
Friends forever
Boundless canines
In search of the next
immured pooch who waits
For the musketeers

Let's walk down a path
Of economic prosperity
Turned to wealth
And forget the person

Definition of improving
What already exists
Translates to robot creation
From human biome matrix

We look over our shoulder
What wAs once us fades
As R and D facilities erase
Try to prove their worth

At what cut in our flesh
How deep into tissue
Or sawed bone are you
Willing to purchase

A world now
                 not our own?

There was a shoe
Black and white tartan pattern
Woven ***** white laces
That walked
In aimless directions for its master

The rubber sole sturdy
No matter the terrain
Of homeless encampments
Rocky back alleys
Snow climbed inside the bare foot

"Can you bring me some socks"
When you called that winter afternoon, the sun fading
"My toes are so cold"
Our house but a mile away
And you almost die at my feet

I rendered a recipe
Of leftovers in my mind
That happen to be
Complete garbage
Of dysfunction.
Where do I begin

It began in my heart
Where I pulled out,
Longing for safety,
Dripping clotless
Rags that made up my frame
My apron stained red.

In the middle was observed
A town of hate
Lacerating the bowels
Of everything and anything
Leaving a mighty stink, mistaking it for butter.

Towards the end a drifting
Spice of malcontent
Sprinkled from the pores
Of harmless thinkers
To crisp the tenderloins
of affection.

The oven is preheated
Everyone a dark hot mess
Needed no thawing
As the goop of alienation
Makes everyone a witness
and a vulture
     for a meal.

No matter how
un-schooled you are
Your neighbor shouting, the stranger drooling,
The cop beating, all have the same home-spun recipe and one main ingredient,
         Human, baked at 325.

Resulting in
a deus ex machina.

I was sent
to a dark room
From your words.
Littered on the couch
Spilled into the air
Dark-like smells
smudging and
Textures touching
With antipathy for being futile.
       Irrelevant.
That artifact of darkness

I know the unlit
The heavy
      immovable monolith of despair.
Fence sitting for days
In Wait for a shape of
intentional light.
Incremental, as it
Fractured the silence.
That burrowed through
Despondent dirt
down Here.

I saw you flick past
a sliver of
Shiny coins
Alarmed by their details,
Lost in remnants
Of absurdity
As the cloudless score
rounded the sharp
        edges
That softened
        your eyes
       as you peeked outside.

Prayers don't go anywhere
They are encapsulated
In our air down here

Where you stand now,
can be moved.
It's either you or
the ground.
Is it light you seek
or darkness?
If you remain immovable
Like that thing in the street,
Tripping, your face will meet
The ground, hard.

Lay ****** and bruised,
Defiant as the cement
That slapped your face.
It gets dark real fast
When all you hear is the mold
That lays you to rest.

Be alert and aware like
A library door.
Possibly your unnoticed
Life is awakened by
Words that wrap you with
History and comfort as if
Every minute is the opening
From a wrapper of your
Favourite candy. Live
In the trace of  light
Where you stand.

Engrossed in
Electronic word game
Famed on phone

Ad delay my
Path to next level
Dropping my attention

Sudden rush of
Nothingness in
My blood

No screen time
Felt a bottomless
Bleak pit

I fell until
I measured my breath
Of existence leaving

All defined on
False electric bait
Clips of wins and loss

Almost threw up
In my felt emptiness
Messy messy power grab

Measure me alive
Today and Now
Not then or ever

My tongue left me lost
Telling stories of jungle and mirth
Vines around my voice
Sounds that were not mine
Leaked out

My mind escaped all my plans
Evading the minstrel of imagination
Symbolically dampening my conceptions
Reluctant troupe performance
A coy castaway

My legs marched without me
Trampled every blade of grass
Concluding I have no where left to run
No path at all
Upright disorderly conduct
On two feet

My heart forbade another beat
Leaving a bowl of dust to swirl
Aimless joys and sorrows
Suddenly freeze dried
coagulant
Without conduction for lust
Or anger
Thumpless

My life dropping out of sight
Evading the drones
Searching for me
Here I lay in this late hour
Evaporating like the rain puddle
With no where to go
On the hottest day of the year
Dissipating until
I vanish

I am amazed more
and more
how much the mind can be stuck
in slavery
to thoughts.

I am less afraid of people
who commit suicide.
Suffering is so intense.
It makes me think of how
low our minds can take us
down to where
we feel we
might drown.  

No one, not one person
is to blame for
suicide.
There should be no anger,
no shame.
Be real in life.
Do not shelter shame
as if it is a friend,
a payback,
or a way of life.

Shame is as deep as
******
is the devil.
Deep in an inkwell
Black tar stuck in
the pits searching
for free skies
for air
the soul is not for sell.

And it can come to this.....

Dead Enders

Places we have been to
Places we compare to
Travel light-years
In circles around us
Overtime
Around and around we go
Spiraling through the
self-disparaging
Thoughts we hack ourselves into.

Until,  Sense-less
Dead enders.
So, unthread,
Un  thread,
Un      thread.
Unwind
Before your prospects
Leave this space.

Around and around
we go
Transcenders
Looking out, looking up
and
Down
Sinking
Please me here
Take from there
Give to him always
Without a dare
Sunk and done
Dead end right here.

"Right under the skin it lingers
Sitting alone in a field laced with nevers
The stockings were hung but they fell off the wall
The tearful shedder from whom you depart
God,why is the stairway so high

Hate locks the door to the heart
Within that gloomy volume
true wisdom would not
give desperation
a chance to grow
And passions are cooled to absolute zero
And chimpanzee bookies
Lay odds on your death
Over/Under 2 weeks

I knew there was a turn
but it never turned up
Remnants find their way to the floor
A soak in the rain
Casting light through
all my shadows
Our perfect shaped stone in the dark of night
Leaving your soup of hope in Everything you touched
A day for lions will come

Squirrels came out of nowhere
My face gets
sticky
To the point you come out richer than you were before
The cold kept me in today
Captivated by captivity
I only let her skim the surface
But I see too much, scratching out your eyes
I write to be free, flows right out of me
She let love lead, soft, slow and brave
And the spark off a sparrows wing
All of them
In their wonder
Are on my side"

Once, you leave again
Are my wounds bigger than me
An outline contains

That voice
Inside your head
The untrue you
Past and future dread

Remnants wanting to shape
Events that are not facts
Wanting to control
Anything else

The low burning blues
Up from the underground
Seen when life around
Is shining

Fly above, look out
Beyond your self
Take a peek
Glide right back in

Into your spirit
Into your hope
Turn fear into angels wings
The universe needs you
To stop trying to fix it

An hour of fire
Catches sight and soul for hire
Pain recedes in light

Between leaf and life
Wet ochre leaves bundled exit
Life was lived now gone

Are you of perfect
Circumference for
A captain in the sky
Voyaging vagabond at night 'til morn'

Walking under the
End of season elms and sycamores
The branches as oars in water
Tilling below shadows come, shadows go, as you stay steady
For I was the water in a rippling stream and you were a solitary sturdy force above
Emulating my gait and gaze

Light hanging with every branch
Into my water
As you lay your supermoon
Beam into our futures
Until you come  again
Leaving your soup of hope in Everything you touched
Even souls

Where will the future be at your return
With hate or love,
Or something in between as a sturdy captain should, be there once more for all the visitors below
Beseeching you for navigation
From on high to below
Altruistic by sight, your perfect shaped stone in the dark of night

Disagree with me
Ever which way on a tree
Branch follows no one

Dropping the arrow
Flung to the centering heart
Blood remains untouched

The autumn moon was receeding
At 5 AM this morning
Riding the wave of seasons
Wind stirring in a constant dance with the leaves

My cold mug of milk set upon the wire table outside
Under the Serviceberry
So I can pet the dog.

Kinetic shadows on the table
Wisped and whipped over the mug
Laying upon the white liquid
Thicker than the reflected light and dark. Boundaries that can't be bought.

Did the shadows, could the shadows, penetrate the surface of the milk?
Going deeper in where I can not see
To a place furrowed low
Perceived, yet not seen.

Is it a place with a soul
Creamy and still
Unmatched like time, marching or halting, that
which we can not ever hold?
Shadows on milk do not sink.

Corners of the heart
Where sorrow lays in blood
Loving kindness seeks

Time bequeaths a tune
Folding like fading petals
Butterfly breezed by

Today I need you
One line of words mistaken
Remember I live

Lay upon the asphalt of your tender life.
Where is your OK line?

Does it fall straight or
Wander like a rivers ebb?

Does your OK line look away from Native children
forced to give up their language
with a safety pin in their tongue?

Does your OK line conform blindly with false prophets who seek control
making it easy
for you to turn away
   from suffering?

My OK line seeks parity,
self-determination,
and soothing
With my voice and images
that will never be silenced in a democracy
but could be sold to the highest bidder in a dictatorship.

Silence kills
and you suffer less
believing you are somehow more disserving.
You are as equal
as the stone stuck in the sole of your shoe.
We all hurt the same.

Remember discomfort
is equal for all.
That's the OK line.
Stone, thorn, blade
and heart.
Bleed, red
but bleed less
in the company
of a battling generation
who votes the OK line
For freedom
of choice
Until our last breath.

What is between schocking red, earthly pink, and plummed purple?

Life. Grass. A trembling leaf. Force of green.

He died without warning.
Lives fractured
From failing
Air bags,
Ten in all that
Deployed, did not protect.

It happened
Pleading to un do.
On a sidewalk in a fetal position, pleading.

Nothing, no money
Millions or more
Will ever bring him back, but hate takes up residence in your soul, burn until you can't move from the scar tissue.

He would not want hate. He would not want you in this state.

I see it so in every
Red fruit garnished
On the Serviceberry
This year
Three years after your death. I hear his echos, it will be ok.

It's all I have to give
Watered by tears.

Going on a rock tour
I'll leave you with the beats
in the ground.

Still, I will play for the crowd
Like I know what I am doing.

On return
Will I be home
Or was no one listening?

Cowering in corners
On lead guitar
And solo drums

The moon did me a favor today

It didn't drag me down.

It made me look up.

Where else is future found?

Besides our
Hearts and Minds.

In the sky where you will find Birds.

And wings
With golden strings

Threading

An imperfect map.

I'm still looking up.

Whatever I didn't give you

that you needed
that
. .   I
am sorrowful for.

I thought I was limitless
    in my charity and resources.

It is obvious
not
to be so.

It was all I had.

If ever I grow small
Consider me still useful
Uncrippled color

There is a fragrance
Remembered in its bloom time
Lilac yet made whole

Out of the darkness
I claw and rise to see
There is a forest inside.
The green surrounds me.
The sun's rays splatter
Me awake to my open body.
I let in the light
I lean into the forest
With the trees holding me up
- as I tilt to fall
Reinforcing my stand I forgot
- I was a part of.

The green has grown so strong
Like the blood that sweeps away
Inside of me to a rivers tune.
I don't want to leave this place,
Fearing it will be taken beyond
Or that it was never mine.
Reinventing this woodland
That has always been inside.
The pine, the wind through the branches, the owl winks.
It has always been here with me
Compelled to germinate
Waiting for my return.
I lift up my head and the sky
- Is so blue.

A mountain, a range
Carved from
everlasting ages
Did not crumble or wilt
to sand as it shook
from under my feet.
The granite face stood
Like statues
To manifesting
Into the space
around it.
Reminding me, that as weak
As I feel,
Inside of me
is a similar Persistence
Unmovable
From the capricious whim
of man and imbecilic masses who follow.

I will seize your sharp shank from excavators
trying to make me into something I am not.
A woman with equal
rights in the same air
you breathe
With dignity far beyond your pompous attempts
to roil this
robust range
down.
Your facade will crumble
when the mirror knocks
at your midnight door.
Here,
look at yourself.

This wasn't the train. It scooped you up to a different destination. Birds of splendor followed along
Out the window
Winding in your path of grief. Be ready for the station waiting
To greet your sorrow.

The platform is not clear. The mist hides the light then becomes a flow of water you can reach and touch. Become aware of the grief but don't move towards it. See it instead in the palm of your hand. Dip into the water cupped in your hands to cleanse your sorrow.

You will have times of freedom. Embrace all feelings. Let them fall into the stream of water. You will lighten. You will see more color as the mist dissappears.

You will see the light between the leaves of the trees. The sounds of song birds lifting you up with messages for you alone.

I felt it
When I spoke
To the judge,
For my son,
Years of shell work
Encasing fear and sanity, cracked with each glance, falling away. Everyone listening.
I was left lost
Like a snail losing it's shell
Mushy and vulnerable
A Pulpy mess.

Was it enough
That I said
Or too much.
So much was left out
The Russian Roulette admission
The thoughts of jumping 15 floors from his hotel
So many letters making up words and paragraphs upon paragraphs
of 15 years.
Throwing out a gun
Into the city trash.

How could I be anything more than a mother
Who let the saving flatten her out of existence. Incoherence and pulp.
Will it be discarded
All that effort
To keep him alive
At my expense.
Is that what mothers do?
I'll never get to return. Life doesn't
Let you.