My poetry and children's stories are like gifts. Sometimes I awaken and they are there, the remnant of a dream. They often come to me at add moments when riding my bike, driving my car or walking. Some are inspired by a painting that I am working on and others inspire the painting. I've promised myself to finish some of the children's stories and poems this year so come back and visit again.

These thoughts that pop unbidden
Like shrapnel embedded in my Psyche –
When it rains they flare up.

At night a million eyes squeeze Tight
To shut out
The sound – not the light
The blare of history filtered
Through several quarts of beer and Sinkers
The glare of bombs bursting in air
And silk parachutes that never open

He sat there is a pool of light – worrying his brow
Each crease and furrow a year, a memory counted
Over and over like saying the Rosary, lips working autonomously
In sync with thoughts kept at bay, by concentration on the mundane – a crossword puzzle
I wanted to be on his lap then - running my finger along with his
Down the parchment pages of the dog-eared dictionary
Feeling like Braille for the magic word that fit the white boxes wedged between the black.

He never told us anyone had died
He only told us a few stories over and over again and only when his tongue was loosened by brew – Schlitz then. It took less and less as the years passed to bring on the oddly syncopated way he had of telling his stories of war – stopping absently to inhale deeply - the cigarette suddenly glowing fiercely as if it too was remembering those times.
An odd combination of bravado and regret made the words thick on his tongue.
I breathe in the smoke in my small breath inhaling his pain.

Always with a cigarette suspended loosely between his fingers over the orange plastic triangular ashtray. In a gruesomely humorous attempt to cut back he switched to a cigarette filter tightly clenched between his teeth focusing the smoke on the back of his throat beginning the killing process that took him after five years of struggling with cancer. He never saw it coming.
Hark the Herald Angels sang and Johnnie came marching home with a pack of Lucky Strikes in his pockets.

Somehow the word shrapnel told in these late night kitchen campfires never really made me think of blood or pain. Somehow those words meant that my father was very brave and no one ever died or cried.
There were some stories where people were hurt – shrapnel
Somebody “caught it” the shrapnel I thought– but he never told us about anyone who died –or that even some of his own crewmates never came marching home again.

Our favorite story was about the “sulk” parachute returned because it was packed carelessly. The lazy @#$! (a colorful story) corpsman reaches below the counter to pretend he is getting a new one but comes up with the same one after stuffing the silk back in.
There’s something fascinating to me that parachutes were made of silk
Did the worms ever dream their pithy urgent need to exude their precious cargo could be the cause of both destruction and salvation?

Like a mirage of a peaceful life conjured up by the lazy float of smoke toward the kitchen light my memories of him disperse with the years into the atmosphere of my life. They are my bones, they are the sinew that holds me together.

MY LIFE AS A KITE Click image above for enlarged view.

For a very long time I lived my life
Entwined like a ribbon in the tail of a kite
When the wind blew my way a dizzy ascent
Along for the ride till the wind whipped and rent
Soaring and plunging plummet and crash

The trees were all whispers - the girl must be thick
Whipped to a frenzy then dropped like a brick
Deep rooted they hug themselves tight to the earth
Shaking their branches and leaves in great mirth
Watching me whirling tilting and smash

The thrill of it all the loss of control
Soaring in dreams observing below
Entreating to join me but when I'd awaken
Trance like I'd follow the path the winds taken
Swearing and cursing my own lack of dash

We've since parted ways the wind and I
All huffy and puffy I watch it blow by
Spread eagle I soar then free fall descent
No fear in my heart no frightened lament
Swooping and whooping and having a ball
Laughing and crying and having it all.

We've since parted ways the wind and I
Its rudderless future uncertain

Distant drone of drumbeats...stomach thumping knot of fear
Eyes fixed on flat horizon
seeking silhouettes
Gallops pony coarse hair flying...whipping at my face
Racer's run to warning
approaching storm of men.
Black night's shadow to protect them...flowing silently beneath
Glowing red reflection
full moons appetite for blood
T'ward the distant drone of drumbeats...hot moon lusting for revenge
Why do they come this flowing tide
this growing tide
Why do they come this mowing tide...their faces carved of stone?
No warrior's raid for ponies
no brave paint upon their skins
Stinging blades and roaring cannons...drumbeats sound the elegy
Eyes fixed on flat horizon
seeking sad redress
Eyes fixed on flat horizon...feeling deaths caress
Drumbeats sound the eulogy
wailing fills the air
Faces of the old ones Ojibwa, Sioux and Cherokee
Lost tribes of the old world
which world was meant to be

THE CONVERSATION Click image above for enlarged view.

Trying on the words for size-
how do they look
on the page
all curvy with serifs and
capital D's-pregnant
with thought -
impressive-impassive
I mouth them to see
if they fit-
my mouth, my face, my eyes, my voice
letting them sound slide over my tongue-
in and out my ears
to fall or float
to hit or miss
to sink or swim-
their bobbing rhythms ride the tide
washing over my wave of thought-
scrubbing the sand-plate smooth beneath
smooth hard packed thoughts
compressed like angry lips
words together
a necklace of pearls
tight around my neck

Close your eyes,
quiet your mind.
Ignore the noise, the clatter of dishes,
the bleating of horns,
the subtle deep growl of an airplane,
the pushing and shoving of things to do.

Trace the pressure,
feel the pulse,
back to the thread of your heart.
Hear it and listen,
listen to where it all begins.
Focus and hear the voice of every cell.

Find the angry ones
and give them their due.
Find the happy ones and rejoice with them.
Focus and move outward
to the membrane that holds their shape,
the flesh that meets the world.

Do not touch,
but listen.
Let the sounds of the earth enter.
Not through your ears,
but through your very pores.
Let each revel in the sound that it hears.

Eyelids-soft huffing of the wind,
Breast-the breath of the loam,
Feet-absorbing soil's hot sounds,
stirring of slow traveling farmer worms.
Listen and again become a part.
Listen until you hear the earth listening to you.

And this is the way we hide our grief,
we come together in mourning,
to gnash our teeth to rend our clothes to tell the stories we've heard before

And this is the way the morning comes,
too soon and all alone.
Too long until the noon until the night that mocks our earth bound tomb.

And this is the way we come to know,
our own mortality.
To wrestle with the angels to damn eternity to question if God meant it to be.

And this is the way we come to grips,
to eye the narrow passage.
To see our place amongst the hosts, to celebrate His message.

(on awakening August 28, 2001, 5:30 am)

Just before I wake
I say goodbye -wrapping up
the loose ends of my life.
All the things I couldn't say
the right way - a healing way.
In slow rhythmic tones
measured with love for you
and longing for wholeness
I say to you all the things I wish
someone had said to me;
The giving of the gift - some
Ancient rite of passage
cleansing at once my spirit,
our relationship - preparation
for some great change - something
monumental. You sense this
and accept with gravity - a touch of
fear. How sad that your coming
requires my going. That we cannot be
together in this same time
I cry in the dawn for what we might have been

Written to accompany my encaustic work "Embrace of Angel's Wings" after "9/11"

Soft breath of God from Angel's lips
Caressed and calmed their fears
Soft Embrace of angel's wings
Surrounded and healed their tears
Then all at once - together-
They rose on angel's wings
A might legion martyred
A sacrifice for earthy kings
A mighty legion martyred-now
Freedom's sentinels on high
Guardians of our future
Our humanity must survive
Soft embrace of angel's wings
Protect and heal our sadness
Soft breath of God from Angel's lips
Whisper the way out of this madness
Amen and peace to all mankind

SYNCHRONICITY Click image above for enlarged view.

Inspired by my painting of the same title

bits and pieces of you exhaled
toward me
effortlessly transparently
I laugh and inhale what is you
while moving through the miasma
of all that surrounds
bits and pieces of me in motion
toward you
melding moving with the pulse
of the cohabitant layers of us
synchronous with the universe.

What are these people all about?
These learners-
these turners of pages
Lips moving as if to digest their knowledge
by chewing and grinding it
between--
gaining--insightful incisors

An odd mix they are-
Ethnicity oozing
generations gaping
Their new found knowledge
a reckoning force,
a beckoning call to the future,
challenge to a nation's ever changing face

Knowledge rubbed -
scrubbed against reality
Will it bring them together
Will it drive them apart?
Ruffled pages, ruffled feathers
Hold onto your hats America
Destiny is a fickle gal.

SHADOWS Click image above for enlarged view.

The moon and stars
cast their cloaks of shadows
draped soft in folds upon the earth/poked through
with stubble of wheat and corn
snagging at your passing
soul to anchor it steadfast to earth.
But beware in the city lie frantic
scattered beams that fragment twist
and multiply. Hiding
dodging in amongst the bricks
sliding long and hollow on
cement/hard edged shadow of a life.

Undressed of flesh
the pride of man goes undetected,
in bug eyed wonder at his own foolish image;
Looking strangely like the sea horse,
frail, diaphanous creature,
all bones with a slip of a tail,
to wiggle and dart away
from predators sharp teeth and neon eyes.
His teeth and bones he leaves behind
as fodder to the earth
who notes his passing hungrily.

How thin the guise
The masque of day
Crow's feet at the corners a painted on smile
red tips on her fingers
all hide the decay

A cartoon of prevention
Preserved like a jam
Sealed tight lest the mold spores
invade
impure thoughts will grow
in the dank moisty places

The yellow stripe marks the jester
whose strutting plums grow wide
each time he makes his mark

The unsuspecting innocent
foil to the mask of hate
that marks the cruel clown

Foolish antics at dear price to others,
bitter cover to spite himself,
laughs and weeps alone at last.

Black tar-tacky-sticky hot holds my heel
fast to pavement waved with heat
sucking off my shoe causing wild crane dance
Cursing

Covering that other black - black soil - top soil
soiled by asphalt ruined forever
plugged up earth fouled for parking purposes
Suffocating

Asphalt and concrete - concrete and asphalt
earth an asthmatic struggling for breathe
thrusts through with spindly leaves
Surviving

Courageous Earth will overcome
man's insensitivity incessantly resurfacing
Enduring Earth be patient
Renewing

I FEEL YOU LOOKING Click image above for enlarged view.

I saw you smiling just the other day-
you thought I wasn't looking.
But I always have you in the corner of my eye.
I always feel you looking
feeling for my attention
knowing that it's there
too proud to ask.

Like the bird a flutter the first time from the nest
Yet races back at merest mother's chirp
So I to you have oft returned
Afraid to venture far
Uncertain of what lies beyond the edge
Clinging to a need no longer there
Waiting for my inner self to wake
Each time I venture farther your call holds less persuasion
You guess but will not hold me

Do not enter, no admittance
Signs of the times I guess
Could they be more than plaques on a door
guarding a room at rest
The heart of a nation caught up in frustration
A world that is round but not whole
A riddle you say for the answer we'll pay
a price that is too great a toll.

Bug stuck wings spread wide
Radiators searing hot
Sun fun vacation

Dabs of colors on
Grey hot ribboned wings
Flying off the handle

One-eyed Jacks bandits
Eagles nest empty feathers fall
Casino light flash

Velvet moss creeping
Devours monuments gently
Black tarred highways too

brush poised above the parchment
no movement toward a stroke of the artists hand
no inspiration
shouldered shovel clean edged
shiny new with promise of work to be done
no perspiration
weapon shouldered muzzle silent
waiting for an itchy trigger finger to draw to it a life
no instigation

Sometimes I feel like a stony, rock hard place
Hot lava roiling or desert dusty dry.
Sometimes I feel like an anchor dragging bottom
A pain in someone's ass or the only one who can.
Sometimes I feel like a bubble nearly bursting
a butterfly aloft or a secret silent power.
Sometimes I feel

Oh isn't it a pity
Puppet Swan-
Portrayed in plastic thus
Grayed with man's own droppings from the sky
Keeps them from descending though they must
Oh isn't it a pity
Sharp arrow pointing south
Blackened sky with wing
Too many too loud too dirty
for this urban scene
Crowded out by bricks and asphalt
From wild marshes drained
progress at any cost
progress in whose name?
Oh isn't it a pity
A pity what we lose?

Shattered-pride-hubris
takes its toll-treachery
of polyester slip hugging
high above my thighs
beneath gauzy strip
flag of dress waving in the breeze

tangy sweet-soft flesh yielding hint of
acid bites
grinding molars overpowering
seeds caught in small places

This is a poem to my husband Bob,
who knows me as no other can.

Sometimes I'm frightened, he knows so much
beneath my surface to find I am not worthy
of this thoughtful, teasing, tempting man
whose sensitivity, worn like a shroud
I pounce upon at times like a mad cat
slashing at the fabric that I love.
Generous in spirit you speak of your wound
then let it pass with broken sigh,
betrayed.
I feel ashamed to have betrayed the trust of your heart.
No one should betray a thing so dear.
So in the morning I put out a request
for forgiveness on the table,
a patchwork of pancakes for breakfast,
soft and warm and sweet like Bob.