Take one moment for your anger
And one more for your sadness,
And another for your regrets.
Then two more move past these,
Then strive to let it go.
Only then will you regain your joy,
Your love, your life, your true purpose.

A little ditty

From sun-up to sunset
I love you the very best!
You're more special than the rest
Because you love me, too

A fragrant memory among those left behind,
Memories of you are like a walk in a blooming garden.

One stops to take in the perfume of each flower,
And says, "Yes, I remember this one."

I am fresh out of love for you,
You who have crushed it from me.
You pecked a hole in my heart
Until my soul all drained away.
I am fresh out of love.

In my ancient history,
A mother stands over her daughter
Twisting her hair into Bantu knots.

The young men gather,
Who built the Great Enclosure
With the strength of mighty warriors.

I am 'umuntu,' a person, I embrace
The ancient beauty in their face,
Their shape, the color of race,

My ancient heritage.

My history stretches
For miles and miles before me
Across time and memory.
The young man drove
His souped-up blue Nova
With the blue tinted windows.
Racing up and down my street,
More of a country lane, really.

A black-topped shortcut
Leading into our small town.
My daddy would rush out
Wave fists, then call the sheriff.
A couple years went by,
The Vietnam war raged,
The souped-up Nova
Ceased to drive my street.

Daddy was relieved.
Mom and Dad grew to love
That young speed demon,
Though they didn't know
He'd been racing through time,
Racing towards me
And our life together.
Love, a home, children.

All while carrying his war-burdens.

In human relationships we start out on the teeter-totter of a fulcrum.  When one side of the relationship does something painful that affects the person at the opposite end of this balancing act the tetter-totter can become a slide.  At which point you must choose either to jump off or work harder to keep your balance so as to not go down the slide into anger and bitterness.  You may need to remove a harmful person from your life, jumping off the slide, as it were.  However, in life few things, if any, are worth punishing yourself with bitterness.  Yes, I said punishing yourself, because when a person spirals into anger and bitterness it is self-harm.

Life can be so very pleasant, as we putter along.
At times we must stop to remind ourselves
That it too soon could all be gone.
So, grab the gusto of each experience and reflect
Because this life is far too short, by heck!

The joy of spring
Our summer games

After a dream
Our oeuvre starts anew

A slumber which held
An image of you

You, so true
I become spellbound
For it is raining flowers

My knight rides out seeking me to greet
I run to him as though on winged feet

The bright morning mist gathers
As we in each other's arms shelter

Though day begins to burn away
Let time weld us together, pray

And our love eternal will stay
That never should it fade

To remain embraced forever
From this very day, and stay this way

To remain embraced forever
And stay this way from this very day

Isn't ironic how some become enraged at you
When you stop drinking their poison, begin to choose?

You purge and wipe your lips, then walk away,
Escaping the drama of the day-after-day-after-day.

And that is when the thought of your escape
Suddenly chokes in their throat.

Then the tricks and threats start piling high.
You have taken their drug, cutoff their supply,

Now they must find another dealer.

A song and melody
With its words
Exquisitely heartbreaking

Rips into the chest
Picks at the core
Yet, giving caress

Steadies the vessel
Causing it to rest
With a stillness

That becomes the Devine

5-3-5
Watching it go in
Basketball
Arc of perfection

7-5-7 Haiku
My favorite team plays off
Enter the finals
Being champions of the West

7-5-7
Watching the ball reaching home
The basketball is flying
It is an arc of perfection

As I age my imperfections no longer
slap me in the face,
Now they only pat my bottom.

Life is kinder, gentler.
Why is that so?
Because I don't have to care

Unless I really want to.

(I lost a dear friend, yesterday.)

It is cloudy and
It is dreary on this day.

And why should it not be?

Although temporary,
You have gone away.

So, hide Sun, behind dark clouds
Until the sky and those left behind

Finish shedding our tears.

You have made mistakes, and
You've let me down in the past.
At times I have been
Disappointed in you deeply.

But you have made heroic efforts
To change and to grow,
To become a better person.
In time I have come to know

That I can finally trust myself.

Because
I can take a piece of paper
And write our story
To be whatever we want
And then dream together

As evening falls a cricket creaks
On the crisp crest of night alone
And waiting in the moonlight.
His heart listens.

My heart listens.
I hear a frog singing on the bank,
See the sunlight filtering down,

There are miracles all around.
Who needs mysticism in life?
For life is miraculous enough,
And therein lies the mystery.

An orange fog
Descends on the land
Grabbing at it with
An aged orange hand
It will choke the life out
Of you and out of me
Hindsight is 20/20
Unfortunately

The scissors marched across her forehead;
When Mommy stuck her head in
Baby Girl said

"Not now Mommy. I'm cutting my hair."

And sure enough, the horror was true.
Baby Girl's hair lay there on the floor
In little tufts of such pretty curls.

A tear rolled down Mommy's cheeks like a tiny pearl.

The silence passed between the two
As a mist encircled like a glove,
Fingers reaching for something.  Love?

One cut through the void with few words.
And a weight fell from off their chests like feathers
Floating down and filling the space between;

As these words broke through, "I love you.  
I love you, Dad."

Someday soon
He's gonna ride up
On a hog; it was a Norton,

Actually.

I will jump on the back.
Away we will ride into
Our history.

Actually. . .

Here,
In this womby-tomby

Safety of my coverings
I begin to realize,

I don't want to remain unborn.

Ah, that stolen kiss. Motivated from the purest
Innocence, which turned to secret delight. Captured
On friendly lips. It was not your intent

To steal an electric moment. But, oh, the shock
Of fleshly desire. We could speak
Of it. Never.

I see the hint glinting in your eye
To repeat mistaken affection.
I will offer only my friendly face.

“I am thinking about the road.”

“Why? Is the road good?”

“Yes, very good.”

“Let us go, then.”

With the changing of sunlight into moonlight
Supple dappling of changing shades dance on every surface
And rays quiver in and out of existence.
Another day is dying an exquisite death.

Night came,
stole her away.
It slipped in through a slit in the light,

The stranger, pale and grey,
with unfamiliar rudeness wrapped
tight boney fingers around her neck.

Then she was gone.
Now we both are captives
of the night.

As the sun colors flowers with an
Outward gold on leaves and petals
Bright and pastel like hand-painted blooms
With inward greening, they stand on delicate legs.
Time holds us in their exquisiteness.  As they
Gather us into the security of their beauty
We are warm and safe within this moment.

beyond hippocampus'
strong connections
representing behaviors
so well-practiced they require
almost no thought at all
grooves etched into grey matter
tendrils on neurons
transmit messages,
wrapping themselves into knots
that sounds a lot like
love and life and reason

I defiantly said,
"I don't need anyone
Or anything!"

Then took
A deep breath
And said, "I see."

Life is bound up in,
As Shakespeare wrote,
A "mortal coil"
- Eternal energy
Loosely bound
Like some cosmic spiral,
Atoms of the ages.

I watch you play
Small and mighty
Yet you are flighty
Swift as an arrow
A funny fellow
Beauty shimmers
Light glimmers
As beat tiny wings
Inebriation
On occasion
Or so it seems
You sip then zip
Away

Though, like a leaf we wither
And in a light breeze are carried off
When the things we cherished lie in ruins
We refuse to become a wilderness,
Nor a wasteland without growth
While the earth we love continuously stands
Love is the thing that continues unabated,
Eroded yet grows, a bud, in hearts
Forever.

Fleeting moments cannot be captured
Never really possessing true permanence
Haiku-like moments experienced
But never touched by hands
Mere reflected glints on a heart
Recalled within the poetry of a mind

“Often the Muse will not respond to direct and logical requests.
She must be lured in with the playful and gentle.” – Jill Badonsky

Step one: the lure

O, muse, love so true,
You Precursor,
You appear as prelude
In all that I do.

Where are you now?
Why have you flew
To unknown places,
Strangers you never knew?

Do you, come back, live here!
Remain, here, forever friend.
I will create a safe place for you
And it will be just you and me.

I love my baby with the almond eyes,
China doll face with shining dark eyes.
I love my baby with the golden hair,
She is the one with bluest eyes like the sky.
Through old eyes I can see them there

And see snapshots of them run and play,
Picking wildflowers for me most days.
Swinging high or tumbling on the ground
Running up to me to show what they've found.
Life was so much simpler then.

Now I get to call them daughter and friend.
The years have gone by like a spinning wheel
But I can tell you that I still feel
They will always be my babies though grown.
Here within my heart, they will always be home.

Fleeting moments which cannot be captured,
Never really possessing true permanence.
Those Haiku-like moments that can only  
Be experienced but never touched by hands
But remembered within the poetry of a mind.

Light, perfect light,
You cannot scoop it up,
Get a sponge to absorb,
Collect it in jars.

Beautiful, just right
Light, it is ethereal
And cannot be captured
Nor contained.

But be assured that
With each new day
It will glow again
In its perfection

Across the morning sky.

How do you capture
A moonbeam,
The mist on the lake,

A baby's breath,
The exhalation of a lover,
Or glance from a stranger,

Smoke from a wildfire,
Fog on a chilly morning,
Attention from another?

The glimmer in your eyes
Tell me these are meant to be
Ephemeral things.

The night has fled
The sun is up, but
I watch a hole in the clouds
And wonder as it slowly slips by,

"When it reaches where
I know the sun to be,
Will it allow a shaft of light?"
And make my day bright?

I marvel at just how
And just why I
Get so sky-high
From watching clouds
Go by.

Skyward skylark,
Fly.  Skyward go!  

Freedom's reality can be stark
As only you should know.

I wish that I could fly
Like a bird from this cage

To get that true feeling
That so very few have known.

Skyward skylark fly from night
Onward into the daylight;

Fly, hit the sky to break the seal
And let the day leak away.

Untangle my thoughts,
Ease my troubled mind.
Caress me gently, tenderly,
So that, perhaps I may find
A gentler friend where I had not.

I look into your eyes to see
The comfort to what worries me -
Just caress me ever tenderly.
To reality let me continue blind,
Untangled in these thoughts.

It has been said that
A man will shape his tools
Then his tools will shape him.
It is true of male or female.
Necessity is the parent of invention,
Invention becomes the driving force,
The power to move forward towards
Life.

You are like moonlight in a jar,
The reflections, on water, of stars,
Soft strumming of acoustic guitar,

A cool breeze on a sultry night.
The thought of you sparks life,
And causes one to indulge in dreams.

Tiny, almost minuscule. Hollow *****,
The weight of petite feathers, silken sinew,
Sown into tensile strength, beguiling.

Beauty in song. Greater than giants.
Chirping out lovely textiles of golds and silvers;
Strong enough to hold universes in place.

Sweet like sugar. Sweeter than honey, elixir
Of baby's breath.  It ***** in air, exhales
Through an ***** the size of a raindrop,

Pushes out sucrose-laden vibrations
Which pour into my ears, my brain, my heart,
Until we both pulsate in an oscillating Self.

Under a canopy of dense and heavy clouds
She gazes out onto the familiar.

Gathered within a tiny sheaf
She carried dried flower and leaf
Gathered from their special place.

The wounds of a heart with glittering clarity
Contemplated with complacent resign, she

Looks inward hoping to know or to find
Whether her heart could find a space,
The space where happy memories can live.

I'll meet you at the statue of the boy by the stream.
You know, the one of the boy who is peeing?

Oh, that's not what I intended to say!
But you know the one and what I mean.
.
Well, that's where I'll meet you, anyway.
I will be there, then we'll both be seeing.

At times I'm consumed by oceans of words
And the many grains of the sands of notions.
All of which I desperately want to set in motion.

Other times, I might go to the water and it be dry.
But perish that I should sit and wonder why.
I dig like h-e-double-l letting dirt and sand fly!

Because you see, exploration makes one wise.
So, I'm not worried.   After all, hey,
Hakuna matata ends with a TA,

To be announced. . .

Her clothes are tatty, ratty, and soiled.
He needs a haircut and a shave.  Hair grows down his neck!
They are talking, but to who?  Themselves? An unseen being?
They grow unkempt in a forgotten garden.  They are not weeds,
They are wildflowers.

How long has she sat there, jam spread across her face?  I just looked
in!
The ice cream, there in the freezer has two deep finger marks dug in
it.
I don't even have to guess.  I saw, in the middle of the night,
By the light of the fridge a little girl who thinks no one sees.

Having been caught she says she didn't do anything.  I know what I saw.
"It's all right sweetheart, because it is all yours.  Whenever you want.
Anytime."  I buy her any and everything I think she might want.
I just want her to be as happy as is possible, feel secure, and loved.

I lead her to the bathtub, instruct her to clean, knowing
That I will have to wash that sweet face that I love so dearly.
After all, she made cobblers, cakes and pies for us when we visited.  
She wiped my face, washed my bottom, did my precious, Granny.