total page views

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

SCALES ON A PLAYGROUND

Life is a balance between holding on and letting go. I am constantly pondering which to do. To me it is similar to the childhood ride of the teeter totter. Life goes up and down no matter what your age.

There is a place like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger. –The Mad Hatter


Scales on the Playground

Come ride with me;
are we the same?
A balance of nature
some would say, it’s
like the moon is teasing
earth’s gravity.
Up and down,
up and down.

A child’s ride or
emotional scale?
It’s made of wood,
sometimes metal;
it’s a teeter totter.
Up and down,
up and down.

Rocket ships
and Tinkerbell,
pushing up
through the yellow
summer air, falling into
a blue magic world.
Up and down,
up and down,

and then a crashing jolt
and up again.
Keds create puffs of
dry brown dirt, bare legs
dangle, white
knuckles grip
the drivers handle
contemplating life and
down you go.

And up again, and
down again.
Is it all fair; capture
your companion.
With bent knees
you stare and laugh,
fake control and up you
go again.
Up and down,
here and gone.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

LADIES AND....

Ladies and ladies rooms is all I will say--I know we have all felt this way. I will let my poem speak for itself.

I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.
Dorothy Parker



Ladies and…

I locked myself in a
pre-fabricated necessity where
lack of sealing exists;
I am peeing in the ladies
powder room and being a
bit voyeuristic.
I watch with one stalking eye
through the one eighth inch of
a crack, as I execute
my personal dealings, I
contemplate the acts that we
all are doing anonymously.

I observe a blond meticulously
putting on her berry lipstick;
the mirror reflects wrinkles
only she can see. I thought lines
on the face equaled experience.
I think she sees it differently.

A demure woman looks away
from the reflection in the mirror
as if she doesn't care and
lets the warm water and soap wash
her secrets away. She is not
a conversationalist in the all-
women’s hide-away.

The blonde's shiney lipstick is finished
and she turns for one more glance
checking on the tone of her ass.
I know
she thinks it is sagging
by her discriminating glance.

And then she hikes up her right cheek,
a natural ritual, a comforting dance and
she finishes with the push of the palm
into her stomach, smooths down her dress
and spins on her tip-toes no less,
and heads for the exit.

Does this make you thinner?
and any younger? Turn back the clocks of time?
I wonder. Or is it simply healthy for the self-esteem?
to block the effects of life.

I look for white squares of tissue from
the metal dispense to get my business
behind me and yet the ways of women
continue.

I cock my head lower and see
the demure hand washer mesmerized
by the final dance of
her counter partner.
She turns off the water and pulls out
too many paper towels,
she is lost somewhere in her trance.

She fumbles in her purse for
support and finds original Chapstick.
She leans on the counter, glamorously
and applies.
She pushes up her B cup breasts
and turns to check the rest.
She is startled by my fiddling,
and she starts speed walking
right out of there. I ask,
who can be normal?
in a place like this, with mirrors on
every wall.

Now I am alone, I flush and
slide the metal lock and open the door.
I admire the universal house of
four pink stalls in a row.
I head for the counter,
inspecting the splashy condition,
I do a little washing and wiping and then look into
the mirror.

I could use a little lipstick, maybe buy
a Victoria Secret push up, I know a part time
job at the gym as a spinning instructor would
do the trick and
all I can do is smile discreetly in the reflection
of the mirror at another woman who came through.

My internal monologue turns to many unanswered
questions, small talk that equals silence.
My sorority sister still acts like a stranger even
in our house of gossip.
I am giving it up. Leaving it to one of life’s
unsolved mysteries,
and head back to the party to discuss you.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

THE COUNTESS WITH HER WHIP

Whether she, he, or beast, one notices a woman in a fine pair of heels. I wrote, The Countess with Her Whip, because when I slip my feet into a high, high pair of heels, I like the way it feels. I don't do it for YOU, I do it for me. Heels are one of the forgotten pleasures that says more than nice legs!

“You put high heels on and you change” - Manolo Blahnik



The Countess with Her Whip

I don’t wear high heels for YOU—
I choose to wear them to own my
balanced position on a three inch heel,
which is six inches combined. I am
suggesting my seductive gate,
allowing me to just stroll
right above your opinion.
Those heels YOU gaze at have
been following me
since Hellenic times.
I have been waiting, just
waiting, for my adorned foot to slip
into my soft leather shoe that
erects my attitude. It fosters my
female emancipation. It
demands I put on high, high heels.
And my feet slip in, snug and fit,
and I stand and I feel my calves
pump up with fertility and
my pointy heels dig in and I
can’t deny the phallic nature.

I don’t wear high heels for YOU.
I have on stilettos and I know my
heels are glancing up at my Achilles,
strongly cupping my calf and I know
YOU are looking at my shoes as you walk
behind me, and YOU are mesmerized
by the red soles glimmering.
Impervious to the slings and arrows,
words and accusations,
desires and images--
I don’t wear high heels for YOU,
darling, I wear
armored patent leather stilettos,
black stilettos that make my
aesthetics sleek and pleasing,
slender and toned, like
I am walking on a perfect quest
to own my powerful womanhood.

Well, okay...
perhaps fifty percent of me
might wear high heels for YOU.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

WHAT LEADS YOU TO YOUR PATH ?

“I am my own woman.” Evita PerĂ³n


What Leads You to Your Path?

Pace,
a woman understands
her nature--
tracks of black and orange
mix between day and night.
A woman masters her stride.

Birth,
a woman puts all
questions to heart,
nurtures and protects
through to the moment
of balance.
It is a life of focused concern
which will not cease.

Truth,
a woman knows,
is theoretical,
yet her definition is concrete.
As a women, she forfeits
herself for what she
loves.

A woman says nothing;
she does not have to.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

BETWEEN THE LINES

Lately, I have come across many stories of older people sharing or passing on a life time of love letters, which have been held dear and secret from their children or dear friends. A letter can hold a thousand words, express a thousand passions, or portray a thousand reasons to love in a single line. Have you saved a history of your loves in letters?

“To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written. Jean-Jacques Rousseau”


Between the Lines

I find
our night sleeps
lightly, my one curled
body denies me comfort;
my hand wanders
over the soft curves
of my pillow case.

I find
a surprise sharing my bed,
close to my cheek.
I trace it with my fingertips,
a rectangular shape,
intentionally placed,
among my white bed sheets.

I find
your tender face
and remember
the warmth of your skin
as your gentle breath
once filled me.

The intimacy of four corners
of firm paper, us two
divided by
the questions of the world;
quotes of harmony fill
my veins and slip into yours.
The pearled moon and
I are sharing you;

my nervous hand slips inside
my white case,
skims over goose feathers
and knows where you rest,
each fold of you,
each delicate line of you.
I pull you to
my kissed lips, and then
clasp you to my chest,
my hands cradle your
anticipated
penned paper; I hesitate.

What if I dream of
a love letter written to
my heart?
I hold you there in the dark
and breathe in your
parchment scent.

Your words pressed against
my skin,
my beating poetry, your
paper and my flesh intertwined,
like ivy growing,
winding itself
around the vine
next to it.

What might your sly
words say to me?
Slowly as I lay with the
illuminating dark,
I open you, and
my eyes are owned
by your will.

“I want to be next to you;
I am next to you.”

Friday, May 13, 2011

ON THE WAY

Let the passion of your wings fill your lungs. Tracy Greenlee


"Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life"
— Pablo Neruda

On the Way

I cannot stop
the magnolia heat of
a Carolina morning; I
thirst for salt the sun craves--
your white velvet flower
opens for me, giving me
a droplet of sweet dew
leaving me with
aromatic honey that
fills the warm air.

I hear a fountain and
turn to see water
spraying over a statue
of violet bare breast,
crystalline confetti falling
onto a steamy afternoon,
my mysterious night lies
in the fate of the
coming dark.

I run into the
shade of your
sultry mountains,
the curving wet earth
filled with a cool
seduction underfoot,
tree bark touches
bare back leaving scratches
of crimson and love.

The wild play of shadows
palpates my pounding breath,
a landscape of you,
a time with secrets,
a glimmer of connection
allows me to continue
touching the tiny unashamed
flowers growing.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

GRAVEYARDS AND AIRPLANES

I can still feel the smooth marble or the crumbling tomb stone under my youthful fingers as I ran through the ancient graveyard. I can remember looking into the vandalized dark boxes that once held the deceased, and thinking where did their bones go? Memories of our minds, some clear and timeless and others clouded like the night, seem to define the spaces of our existence.


Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things. ~Pierce Harris

Graveyards and Airplanes

A dense memory
of pure white clouds once was
drawn by blue crayola crayons
on construction paper.
Flying in and out of
of a girl’s fairytale life;

a worried hand with
a flesh colored band-aide
wrapped tightly around
her index finger knows
of life and death. She pretends
to know how to draw the 3 cotton ball
cumulous outside her Delta airplane
window.

On the ground,
memory plays in an old graveyard
behind her house.
Children
lying silently still on the granite box
tombs where weathered names
from the 1800’s were
replaced with their own
prone bodies. It was a game;
a grown-up game of life.

Like angels,
the clouds floated by,
a silver solitary airplane as their guide.
Her eyes the only movement known
to a young soul as she waited to be
found, found in peace.

Friday, May 6, 2011

HIBISCUS WATER

Non action is action. No decision is decision. Water seeks its level. It is in the simplicity of our acts that we see life with clarity. It is in nature that we can learn the truth.

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. ~Henry David Thoreau



Hibiscus Water

Consistently,
arriving as a rippling river,
with a furrowed field near by,
a falling leaf whispers its descent
through the clear sapphire sky.

Hibiscus-colored water
touches a sturdy trunk
continuously curling underground.
“You will have to stand
as I continue to flow,”
the water intuitively knows.

The marrow of the trunk
is firmly grounded in its earth
to ponder and contemplate;
her burrowed roots creep and
drink the water’s life.

Sparrows of songs muse and
crimson fragrance fills the air,
caramel reed and moss stone
exhale and lay completely bare.

The gold of hibiscus water continues
its journey along the river's veins,
gracefully bending, and moving
around polished rock and deep caverns.

Drops of water fall back into place,
as a blue crane takes flight,
and the water knows like the bird
it is simply the flow of life.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

THE SHOT ABOVE HIS LEFT EYE

Standing on my third floor almost ten years ago, when I was nine months pregnant with my third child, I questioned everything that I believed was filled with gravity.

When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness.
When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil. Lao-tzu



The Shot Above His Left Eye

The face of terror was shot in the head and
as each flashing memory oozed from his skull,
an anonymous American face is still dead.

“Obama got Osama” thundered through the crowd,
infused with life and then withdrawn.
On some level, people don’t know what to do.

Cars sit in long lines of traffic continuously honking--
at first in frustration, but eventually in celebration,
New York City, ground zero, ten years later.

The operation that killed Osama bin Laden was
designed to prove he was captured, dead or alive;
on some level, people don’t know what to do.

He was killed by U.S. forces in a mansion north
of Islamabad, Pakistan. An enormously significant
moment in the fight against al Qaeda terrorism.

The mastermind of the worst terrorist
attacks on American soil was killed.
On some level, people don’t know what to do.

On many levels, I don’t know what to do.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

CENTURIES OF A GIRL'S DOLL

Locked inside the the imagination of a young girls mind, a doll comes to life with a name, and as that girl grows the doll becomes hollow once again. My grandmother gave me her porcelain doll which her father gave to her when she was a small child. Over the last hundred years this doll has touched the lives of four generations of women. My grandmother's doll, Elizabeth, is still just a little girl from Germany.


I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old. Billie Holiday

Centuries of a Girl's Doll

Blessed are her
porcelain bones
and veins made of string
and her black ringlet hair
held together with
rusty hairpins, her
cherry-parted lips,
a silent enigmatic smile,
sitting on the top
of an immaculately made bed;
her linen eyelet apron with
stained brown spots
collecting minutes of
loneliness, waiting
in perfect perfection
while locked behind
forgotten time.
She is forever just
a girl.