Bigger meals will be served

I'm back to serving bigger meals, so it's back to Poet's Dinner: www.eatingpoetry.com.

Peace,
ep

The Crush

Okay, here's a little nibble. I promise, more to come soon.

You seduce me,
Your silent manner stalking the night

You confuse me,
I think of you when it’s not right

I want you,
To slip inside and hold me tight

I need you,
To kiss me, hug me, gnaw and bite.

Posting Soon

My life's been so crazy recently
-- in a very good way--
just so many changes,

that I haven't had time to post.

But I promise... soon.

Dappled Sunshine

A meandering path
wandering
amongst the dappled flowers
pondering
what business daisies have
amongst the daffodils
blowing in the wind
conjuring

storms that have no names
plundering
people with no faces
simpering
for flowers gone to dust
turned to cherry must
eating apple pie on a Sunday.

Finding gold for free
lingering
amongst the grass and trees
mingling
with people that are sold
on dreams of being bold
asking what they did on a Friday.

Sin

I sat and waited
contemplated
under sated
on life’s chicken wing

eaten at twilight
gaining foresight
crucial insight
that chickens don’t sing

but squawk and squabble
whine and wobble
hop and hobble
a-ding-a-ling-ling.

The bells are ringing
dinging, singing
sadly bringing
an overripe spring

of flowers fruiting
rash polluting
convoluting
a bittersweet sting

of wise unknowing
which wind’s blowing
sacred sowing
of Satan’s ripe thing

tasted at daybreak
soul-shake earthquake
my own god spake
“Au bon appetite!”

Hope, Tears, Nothing At All

A thousand flowers fall into my lap,
but I just want you—

your crooked daisies, wilted roses,
daffodils…

you send me a dandelion,
it blows, blows away—

others send me stars of gold
wrapped in crimson fire
but you send me a sad balloon
that flies, flies away

until it gets stuck in a tree
of gnarled branches,
leafy foliage
weeping with joy
that maybe, maybe you’ll stay—
but to my dismay

you POP

dissipate into nothing
nothing at all,
just wasted remnants of hope dashed,
crushed
withered
gone, gone away.

Raindrop Romance, Forgiveness at Last

The sky was yellow as the rain
Dripping, dancing down the lane
Rolling down my window pane

Stopping, stuttering with a hiss
Saying howdy-doody miss
How about a little kiss?

Warm a fellow with your love
Singing, ringing like a dove
Floating, gloating up above.

Grab me now, while I’m here
Before I go and disappear
Into thin transparent air

Take me while my love is hot
Lest the notes become forgot
Crumpled, wrinkled, and besot

Take me where the angles sing,
Crown me, drown me as your king
Up to heaven we’ll take wing.

You say I weep and block your view
A great big raindrop lumpy stew
Don’t you know how I love you.

So kiss me quick, you toady child
Don’t look doe-eye tripped beguiled
You know the rain is wet and wild

Dance with me in the grass on its blades
Play with me, you Queen of Spades
Even as memory withers and fades

You’ll remember me when clouds collide
Sending raindrops for a ride
Down your window pane they’ll slide

To call your name like I once did
Even though you ran and hid
Behind your sweet and soft eyelid

So farewell sweetheart, your heart is free
To capture anything you see
And treat it better than you did me.

Life as a Word

My life is a word, floating in space
Curling up at the edge of a book
Laying down, hiding my face
Teasing those who dare to look.

Better men have captured me
Writ me down when all seemed lost
Then at last, set me free
To pay the price of what I cost.

Petals flutter to the ground
Lay down next to me in my cave
They’re the dearest friends I found
None but them can make me slave

To beauty, to life, to everything good
Even as nature melts away
Flowers make it understood
Though night is dark, there’s always day.

The clouds are pink, they make me fly
With other words, they are my soul
I break glaciers through the sky
Descend to earth completely whole.

Jigging it

I danced because I could, because I would, because I should.

Chrysalis

I’ve been in a cocoon all winter,
all winter,
all my life.

My butterfly calls to me,
but I forget I have wings
wrapped in a cozy ball of love.

I forget I have a life
outside the glistening raindrops of warmth.

But spring is now here,
though she refuses to show her shoddy face
and Persephone is late in coming up from the grave.

Spring is here,
and this time I refuse to miss it.

I will bloom,
whether the flowers do or not;
I will fly,
whether the wind blows or not;
I will sparkle,
even though it means sparkling somewhere else.

I am a butterfly,

and this season I intend to be.

Love's Shadow

It feels good to feel loved,

even if it's just for a few minutes
of being wrapped in another's arms--

an empty hug,
yet still a hug

that carries me away to summer dunes
and salty breezes dancing in the evening

to a fortress of rose bedded ceilings and diamond walls

to mystery, excitement, forgetfulness,

to someone stronger than I am--

melting in his arms,
feeling loved for those few minutes
where I can forget

that later
I will feel an emptiness
that will be greater than before--

a darkening sky
where shadows crawl forever
and love is just a song.

The Wall

Sorry I've been away for a while, been really caught up in my life, without much timeto soak up the inspiration and write.

This latest piece, is not autobiographical, but inspired by a situation of a dear friend of mine.

Loneliness is the wall
erected between you and your partner,
the love of your life.

You fall into the arms of another
for comfort,
but all you really manage to do
is build that wall higher.

Grass turns to mud
turns to sticks
turns to stone.

There is an icy silence
pervading your day, your night,
time spent with the love of your life;
and the worse part is
you cannot tell him what's wrong.

Meanwhile, your comfort "piece"
disappears into the wind
that never was, never is.
You think he'll call and distract you for a while,
but he won't,
because he's nothing but a reflection
cast in the puddle of your weeping eyes.

You yell, you scream!

You want to tear down that wall--
go back to those idyllic summer days
that once danced between you and your partner.

But you don't know how to.

How does one begin to deconstruct a wall?
Especially, a wall that you don't remember ever building.

How can your partner help,
if he doesn't know all the wall is made of?
How can you heal, when you'd rather

turn your back to the wall
and crawl into the arms of another.

"He'll love me," you say,
"there's no wall here."

But he can't love you,
because he's running from his own wall--
the closed fortress of another's heart.

You both meet in secret.

A secret you share--
lolling in the open grass
with butterflies kissing your neck.

You meet,
and you meet,
and then he's gone.

Because the more you meet,
the more apparent it becomes
how your walls encroach on each other's territory.

You want him to replace your partner--
to go back to those days when love was free and wild.

But he can't, you can't--
there's an invisible line running between you guys,
with each of your walls standing right behind you.

You can either face your wall
and slowly,
slowly
tear it down,

or run from it entirely.

But as long as it stands right behind you,
you'll never be able to forget,
you'll never be able to move on.

Even if Mr. New Guy
has no walls,
he'll sense your wall standing right behind you.

He'll be with you
because he might not see it right away,
or he's just a dog.

In either case,
he'll be with you,
he'll have some fun,

and then woosh!
gone come Sunday morning.

The Fairytale Where Princes Need Not Apply

This new post is also thanks to Roger Stevens because while trying to figure out how to fix Tiger Stew, I ended up writing this one.

A stony winter’s touch
Grabs me unaware,
Hurls through my windowpane
The single word, “beware!”

To tickle my assumption
Of fairytale endings,
Princes that I’ve dreamed of
Riding round the bending

To sweep me off my feet
And plant me in a palace,
A magic wonderland
Inhabited by Alice

Where flowers come alive
To sing and dance and preen,
The rabbit’s a Mad Hatter
Playing Hearts of Queen.

A stony winter’s touch
Slips into my bed
Warns me of the story
Drifting through my head

It warns me of the knight
Riding his white horse
To pluck me like a flower
A candy sizzle source.

It warns me that the prince
Is not about this tale,
To reach this magic land
I need not go on sale.

I can have my garden
I can have my dream
I can have the Cheshire Cat
Drink a frothy stream.

I can trust my instincts
Find my own white horse,
Meander through the forest
Of my own self worth

Chop, chop, down a mountain
Chop it, till I see
That gardens, fairies, magic
Grow inside of me.

Tiger Stew

Okay, whoever already commented on this poem, just letting you know that I revised the first stanza. This is thanks to Roger Stevens' helpful critique.

He’s a pleasant summer evening
With warm eyes that are kind,
But seems to be impassible
A fortress of the mind.

He’s a flower in the winter,
Growing through the snow,
But ice can never flower
Ice can never grow.

He’s tall and ripped and handsome,
But might just be my brother,
For when we dance and jingle
I’m thinking of another.

I’d really like to like him,
But what good does this do,
When I’m looking for a tiger
And he’s just tiger stew?

The Little Black Dress

A little black dress
dances around a polished oak table,
mesmerizing the figure
watching from a shadowy corner
of a large green house
vibrating with music
and bouncing slivering forms
filled with Champaign and vodka;
toasting the sky, the moon, the earth,
the drunkard kneeling on the pavement
retching her guts up
with remnants of black liquorish, falafel, and gouda cheese.

The little black dress dances;
swaying to a secret rhythm
transferring the figure in the corner
to chocolaty nights,
fleeting perfume,
stolen kisses
in the baggage compartment of a runaway train
on a honeymoon, long ago,
with a doe-eyed, cherry-lipped sweetheart

and he wishes he was anywhere
but this throbbing house
of green vibrations,
reminding him of what he once was
and no longer is,
accentuating the dull ache of his heart
BEATING
in time to the grotesque music
THUDDING
to the little black dress
dancing, dancing—

But he cannot move—
he is transfixed
by the mystery
of the creature
embodying this apparition.

He imagines a wet goddess
of sea-like grace
tickling his inspiration,
transferring his soul
to gurgling gardens
of fairy tulips
infusing him with hopes of salvation.

But as the silhouette continues to dance,
dreams turn nightmarish—
evoking sinister images
of screaming babies,
charred furnaces,
black smoke curling over Satan’s palace
giving off the pungent odor of souls
BURNING.

Closing his eyes, he howls—
removing Satan from his mind,
but that dammed creature in the little black dress
keeps DANCING—
filling him with imagery far worse
than screaming babies, charred furnaces,
Satan’s palace.

He is choked with horror at the realization
that maybe there is no creature at all—
that the dress is just a dress
with nothing inside:
no good, no evil,
just a little black dress,
dancing,
dancing.

Too frightened to comprehend such thoughts,
he shrinks into his sweater,
rolls his eyes backwards,
stretches his arms to eternity,
SCREAMING—

until the party revelers,
jarred from their frothy revelries,
come to his rescue
dunking his head in stale beer from yesterday.

He slowly opens his eyes,
and at last, all is silent…

he doesn’t have to think any longer
about long gone cherry-lipped sweethearts,
tulip fairies, crying babies, black smoke,
burning souls, lack of good or evil…

the apparition is gone—
the little black dress
is gone—

he can finally move.

Life After Heartbreak

Do you suppose that when a heart has been broken
one too many times
it’s hard to ever really feel it again?

Do I become an ice princess,
frozen, impassable, impossible to melt at another’s touch?

Has the fire inside me died?
Am I destined to live, forever, incased in winter?

Is a warm body, just another body—
a momentary pleasure?

Is a conversation just another conversation?

Is intimacy gone, to be replaced by numbing coldness?

Am I capable of ever loving again?

Have I ever really loved—
or was that crushed heart,
just a wounded ego?

Has my blood flowed freely over nothing?

Have I built my fortress too high?
Collected too many crocodiles?

Can I ever let anyone in again
instead of maintaining this icy distance?

I’m elusive, and that’s why they chase me.

I want to be caught,
but where’s the man who will melt my heart?
Is he too afraid to even seek me out,
thinking I’m out of his league?
What if he is out of my league,
and I just keep running and running,
long after the race has ended
and no winner has been declared.

I’m the Gingerbread Man, afraid of everyone but the fox;
Little Red Riding Hood, who talks to wolves;
Goldilocks, who sleeps with bears;
Repunzle up in a far away castle
with long, long hair
just growing, growing, growing.

Favorite Artist

God is my favorite artist,
Dusk is my favorite time,
A splash of color streaks through the sky
Singing my favorite rhyme.

Frogs' Laughter

When frogs laugh,
we all delight,
in the bubbling,
giggling pond.

Summer’s Dream

A complicated cylinder
of raindrops and cherries
mingle and dance,
fusing into one—
a light summer’s breeze
on a cold January morning
blowing through my window,
flirting with the room,
skipping onto my dresser
making faces in the mirror,
dousing my sleepy face
with a fresh reality
that season’s skip records—
showing up
in the most surprising of places
to tickle my assumptions
and toss them in the wind,
to plant new ideas,
new thoughts
new feelings—
so that I can live a summer’s dream
every day of the year.

Black Ink

I particularly enjoyed writing this poem, especially since I'm friends with some of my X's. It struck me, that though I'm quite cordial with them now, how much I hated them at the time of the relationship's end. This really hit me when I read back some of my poetry from the time of the various break-ups. I like the idea of binding something to a page, because ironically that's what sets me free.


Words drip off my tongue
and turns to ink

as I think of you,

a shadowy reflection in my mind
tripping
slipping
dancing in angels black
as I bind you to the page
and torture you
as you’ve tortured me—

worrying you with my pen
as I turn you into a demon
that monsters are afraid to go near—

you will hate me
if you ever see
what you’ve become
in this cavernous book
that holds your twisted form,
surrounded by pages of emptiness—

but there’s nothing you can do about it,
you’re my prisoner—

and my warden is a nasty sort of fellow,
who won’t hesitate to drip black ink
on your silky forehead
if you dare misbehave.