Watching a death can consume you
With each heaving breath.  Is this the last?
Where the death rattle that is said will come?
When will the peace, the angelic expression,
Spread across the pale tortured face?
I have seen it, and yet I watch and wonder,
When, when, when both our release?

Deep pains leave the best scars
Like braille on your skin

Follow the story as you feel your way
Through a history written on thin sheets

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

Her fears rise-up like a great angry bird suddenly
Flapping black wings. Flitting here, then there.
Glimpses of what had been, what was, what might be.
But these are only the shadows of clouded eyes
Dulled with age and thickened in time.
Held within a brain dulled and thickened the same.
Shadows had darkened her life before,
Throughout her almost 90 years.  Now once more
They were back like an unwanted friend,
Yet these had never really been real
Only in that they now grip her life.

Your plane through pink clouds,
At sunrise, my sinking heart.
Heart breaking, you, departing.
Your plane through pink clouds
Departed, and the sky
And I am empty.

Do I disappoint you, dearest,
When I do not call your name?

Do you sit there sad and lonely
With your face a black screen?

But, you are a true, dependable
Friend within a box waiting.

Waiting loyally in eagerness
Simply to hear me call

Your name, "Alexa."

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

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

There is just something about taillights
Whizzing past in the dusky path of night.
All are in such a rush as they drive fast,
And my imagination wants to follow
Wherever it is that they are going.

It is that which drives me
It is not hardheadedness
Although it has been called such
It is, rather, a stick-to-it-ness
That guides me to never give up
A dogged determined outlook
Which tells me not to stop
Because ultimately all will be okay

When you force your thoughts and opinions
On me you are in one sense abusing and ****** me
Your saying is effectively true “It’s my way or the highway.”
At least it is certainly true for tiny minded you.
You will soon be left alone living in your empty mind.

You ******* a kiss from across the room
Boom

I catch it in my hand, but it escapes to the moon
Too soon

I reach for you as you draw near
No fear

I know we are tethered even if we stretch
It far

You rubber-band back to me
See

Later we get into our car
Drive

Then like a wisp of fog
Disappear

Dissipating into each other
Forever together

Succeed

She has a head, which floats
Above her body. Large eyes
Open wide. Picasso,
He could very well have made her.

I’m so tired
Tired of falling
Falling in love
Falling apart

Falling to pieces
Falling down
Down a rabbit hole

A deep hole
Wholly deep
Diving into you

When you dive into the deepest, darkest voids;
The dark velvet space envelopes you
Like a womb that you had no longer remembered;
And you realize that the farther you go,
The more you learn and the more you come to know that
Amid the blackness, it's full of light and stars that glow brightly
Which more clearly comes into view around you.
It is this type of warmth and light that engenders growth;
Then you come to realize that in truth
You were planted firmly on the most fertile of grounds all along.

Dog gone those lawn people
Buzzing around like bees,
Swarming on mowers.

Rushing around with leaf blowers.
How they are bothering me!

Hitting piles of doggy poo which
My lovely neighbors leave behind,
Too lazy to own pets responsibly!

As if the noise was bad enough,
I have put up with the smell of that stuff!

Repeat with me:
I must go on;
I must not pause in the midst of the storm;
I must not waiver nor become immovable;
I must go out throughout to the dawn;
Until the light is bright on a brand new day
And I can see the clearest way  
I must step one foot at a time.
In this, I move forward.
Repeat with me:
This is the way my life moves forward!

You dope
To push the envelope.
I'll throw no rope.
You need to learn to cope
Or stop acting foolish.

Pink bald skin shines through
A few plastered strands of hair.
That is just the back view, there.

O, this silly, psychotic old man
With the reigns of power
Held tightly in tiny wrinkled hands!

Make no mistake you need to quake
Because all this crap is very real,
Pretty much it’s a done deal.

Straight up it's a ******-land.
We’re living in a reality show
And in reality, we all know.

As he listens on a private call,
Step-by-step instructions from
"How To - The Manual," y'all.

Her little belly glows.
It pulsates with anticipation
Waiting, listening for my voice.
Eager to please should I have need.
When I am at rest she hears my breath,
And waits for me to speak so she can please.
Her little light interrupts my sleep at times
But she is there bright and early
To make sure that everything is fine.  I say,
Well, thanks to you need to go back to sleep,
You little busybody creep!

At times we all thought
Was he stupid?
His only sin
- Falling in love
With an unfaithful woman
Who became an unfaithful wife.
But he never let that stop him
- From loving her.
So we left him to it.

Star lit sky,

out where the blue begins,
I'm feeling strong in the wings, again;

  And,
     I
       want
                to
                    fly.

I dream my poem as if a sketch
The stroke of my pen is the first step
From which it can become painted reality

This stillness at dusk, its radiant heat;
The comfort from the soil beneath one's feet;

Dimming light's playful shadows sweet
Which shift and dance and oft' repeat.

Filled to the brim, I am a soul lifted up.
Thus, I rise like a drinking cup.

You, oh Day, have comforted completely
As another page turns in this life sweetly.

Fade away flowers,
Just as my love has.
Do not return to grip me
In illusions, in delusions of love.

Brittle each leaf, each rotting bloom
Live for an eternity in this box;
Until the garbage heap consumes you
Just as my love has me.

It started to rain, and a wind blew
It put me in a mood, I started
Thinking of you, a thing I never do,
Really.

I could hear the rumbling heavens move.
Do you remember how good it was
To make love during a thunderstorm?
I do.

The leaves on the trees rustled loudly,
A few sticks fell and hit the roof of the house.
I can never forget the pecan tree,
Remember?

It was heavy with its fruit in Autumn
As it stretched over our bedroom.
And every time the North winds blew
Nuts would hit the roof.

You would say “I love you”.
With each clank or bump, rumble, tumble,
They would roll down and I would get
An “I love you”!

And we would lay entwined cuddling.
Do you ever wish it were still true?
Now that we are both older,
I do.

It’s easy to love
From afar
Where you never will know
Who they are
Really.  Truly inside out
Sinew deep

It’s harder to love
Up close
An in your face true love
Seeing warts and all
In the big
And small hours of a life

It was so nice to see that honeyed-sky
Back from days of the cloudy tides
To watch the cherry, apricot, marmalade
Flowing now wide for many sunny days
I could if I were a mighty celestial hand
Dip and spread it on toast in every land.

What is infinite is the eating of pie,
Cherry, pumpkin, apple, rhubarb, cocoanut...
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592­30781640628620899862803482534211706 ways,

Until there is enough pie for everyone.

In this vast echo chamber
I cry out the words I want to hear
Then I no longer hear the truths
That causes me to fear
The facts become a stranger thing
As truth has flown on fragile wings
And all sound reason with it

Echo, I cry out
Echo, my words bounce back
Echo, a controlled narrative

In this vast echo chamber
I cry out the words I want to hear.
Then I no longer hear the truths

Which causes me to fear.

The facts become a strange thing
As truth has flown on fragile wings
And all sound reason with it.

When a tree falls in the forest
And there is no one there to hear
Will it echo in the mountains or valley?

Sound, sound, sound on through time?

If no one is to lie against my chest, listening to its patter,
Does my heart really beat at all?  Beat at all, at all, at all.
Or are these things mere echoes throughout time

Without sounds?

The dank warm air stirs,
I hear sound echoing,

Moving towards me
Or am I moving towards it?

Dim light, tunnels of trees;
I am deep into the unfamiliar.

What is that sound
Vibrating through me?

Is it moving towards me,
Or am I moving into it?

An uneasiness moves
Up my body.  My blood

Is pumping, flushing me.
That sound engulfs me.

The echoes stir and I realize
It is my own heart.

I, rag-doll-like, am
Limber like rubber
Bendy parts

Elastic sinew
Stretches far
Ruptures  

Easy like glass
Breaks
I fall apart

Pain drains
Out of my brain
At times cry

I used to ask
Why, why
Now I know

Spires of dreams, space,
Time, to see beyond the seen,
A fourth dimension,
Daily we take a quantum leap.
Spacetime is just a mathematical object.
Who can escape the hanging pendulum?
Back and forth it and we go.
Does time flow at different rates
At different points in space?
Time relative to beyond the known,
General relativity predicts
What is yet unpredictable.
Is life itself just a mathematical theory?
In spires of dreams all is possible.

Embrace the fact that we

Are all the same
Are not the same

Feel the same
Don't feel the same

Act the same
Act strange

Because we are
We are from the same

Dysfunctional family

Em-dash
I look for you.
I cannot find you

It has been said that empathy is "Your pain in my heart."

Before we can have empathy for others, we must first recognize a couple basic truths.

1. They are human beings
2. They have the same feelings as you or anyone else.
3. They are deserving of the same basic rights as you.
4. They should be given the same dignity as any human should.

By showing empathy, you may help someone stitch their lives back together.

You make me ashamed
to ever write a line
and call it poetry.

Exquisitely, you drag
my heart from my chest
caress and replace,

Forever enhanced,
improved, and more pliable
at the experience.

My apiary buzzes.  On the breeze, nectar is wafting
Like an elegant perfume no money could buy.
They are as tendrils of the same vine,
A symbiotic call and response.
Their mission lofty . . .
Life

Every man fears the psychiatrist’s ****** cigar.
That fraudulent Freudian slip.  What freak-fantastic dribble.

Destruction of society imaged in a dream.
The apocalypse is light in comparison to his judgments.

Superlative pish.
Let this be a sockdologer.

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.

You will be outed
Whether as to truth
Or from hearts

Your funerary epitaph:
"He never told a truth."
Carved on stone in relief.

I am just an old woman who has read
And written poetry for many years.  
It is like daily bread to me,
Sustenance on which to feed
And to fill a deep soul need.

Poetry is like the essential oil
In an exceptional perfume,
Refined down to its essence.  
A distillation to what is pure.
It is the molecular structure,
The scent of the blossom.

Its scent deeply impacts all  
Who are privileged to inhale it.  
Smell a high quality rose otto,
Immediately you know it as a rose.  
You do not wonder what else it is.  
It is a note of singular distinction
Because it has been distilled down
To the very soul of the plant.  

Good poetry makes you feel that.
It does not rely on cliché,
Nor unsophisticated childish notions.
Poetry must not be superfluous.
But must be succinct, the essence
Of the feelings being expressed
Without the fluff.

You must tear a poem down,
Rewrite it, set it aside for a while
Then come back to it with fresh eyes.
Poetry is work and an inner struggle.
We must be willing to give the time
Each poem needs from our loving attention.  
They are our children, born of us, part of us.  
No child should go nameless,
Each one deserves a name to be given it.
We owe them nurturing as loving parents.

Love ignited flames, the torch threw
Sleep sweet, my Only - to rise anew
Faith & steady hope, I know to be true

But, my Only, I will be missing you
For my love, my Only, you died too soon
And I will wait, if need be, for an eternity

Hailstones
Ringing tones
Water flow
Windblown
Plane flown
Things that go
Sometimes fast,
Sometimes slow,
Life goes on and on

Our relationship never existed
Not in the real world
It existed in the ether of time
In a breath exhaled by lovers
In the brief mist at dawn
Amidst the weightlessness
Of a vast distant universe
Although it was tangible there
Within two minds in open air
Warmed by only the sun
Dried by breezes blowing upon
Our naked skin as we glistened

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.

Evidence of absence
Does not mean
Absence of evidence

In the field

The gentle breeze
Blows the leaves
On the trees, they move

Lying on the blanket

Your touch, goosebumps
Appear on my bare skin
Branches rustle overhead

Now, alone

Even the thought of you
Can create the evidence
Of the heat of our passion

Evil is born with little effort.
Goodness?
Through the struggle from within.

Evil eats from the inside out.
It tears at its own flesh, consumes 'self'.
Goodness?

It must be nurtured on the decomposed
Death of the evil growth within
Like some parasitic twin.

Goodness can win, must win.

You wash in the flood of the tears of mothers.
We lay at your feet the broken bodies of children
And wrap you in the very skin of so many victims.

As you paint your face and hands in their blood
To add a million scalps to your beastly belt
You should not be called "leader", for you are not.

In time you will ultimately fail and you will pay
For when love prevails, evil shrivels and dies
In the dense darkness that was created for others.

Then you will take your final "perp" walk.