Plenty

Plenty
Acrylic, Mixed Media Collage

Monday, July 05, 2010

Poem From an Other

When my heart is hollow
and jagged synonyms
for grief, loss, pain
tumble from my eyes

when there is no comfort
in old routines
and everyday objects
become waiting landmines

when even simple kindness
disturbs the surface
I have worked
so hard to calm

I turn to you, favored poet
but find you busy
constructing verbal walls
to keep the rabble out.

With my finger I trace
book-jacket photo
lines of worry carved
on your bald head

to fear
your own voice
might not be heard
above the dissonance.

Have you forgotten?

Self-expression
is a lonely highway
traveled by many
owned by no one

where accolades
provide no fuel
but true words
freely given do.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Foreign Object

My soul is ancient metal, containing all the secrets of the universe, if it would only speak.

I orbit another; longing for my own gravitational pull, rate of rotation, my own elliptical relationship with the sun.

I am a verdant streak in the summer sky, a slash in the atmosphere of a larger body.

I wait at the edge of obscurity, while those who understand little about me decide if I am worth naming.

The truth is, I will never be known.
The truth is, I have always been known.

We are linked in ways beyond all knowing.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Intention

I wish I had
my daughter's forgiving heart
my son's radar sensitivity

the ability to start over
without remembering wounds
inflicted by barbed remarks
allegedly untainted with intent
to harm or inflame old arguments

but my heart believes intention
presages any interaction
words, the concrete bridge
to a truth from which
the soul cannot hide