bloc

I am afraid of desolate dark woods

Where we have no words

Poets without muse.

In thistle thicket budding

From the Wild Rose that Grows in Winter.

Outside my protected plot

Thriving in expert isolationist landscapes,

Hanging from bare honeysuckle branches.

Riotous and greedy

Star-lings, grackles,  blue Js,  Mock-ing birds,

Searching for sanctuary in my treeless bloc.

Now feeding on black oil.

and sunflower seeds

I want quiet here, away from word woods,

Without the noise of thesaurus, lexicon, and glossary

I want to drink at the first font

To quench thirst from frost forming at my temples

But I am at a loss for Words

Photo credit to Brianna Sargent

{÷} = $

Sighs of our tiempo.

my sisters, Ginny and Laura,

though a continent apart

in Cabo and Veracruz

together, recline on Sol’s  heated stones

pacified by Del Mar in Mexico.

while flurries pad Rocky.

mountain valley walls with feet of snow  .

aquifers diffusing.

through obstacles/ and (barriers).

to inundate faltering seas.

in time,

erasing every palisade and rampart.

oceans sing a  global song

to every winter.

escapee.

I’m yours.  $ave me.  $ave me.

save yourselves.   <                         >

 

 

 

Second Day Chili

Potent comfort steams off thick blue bowls of

Yesterday’s chili

Seems that which is mulled, mused

Holds  solace flavored seasoning

Like poems that sit overnight on laptops

 

Into profound silence of approaching chill

Edging mostly eastward

Swarms of  Canadian and Snow Geese

Gyre as one

Undoubtedly distinct voices

Now that hushed Lawn mowers and leaf blowers

Are a muted majority

Reserved for emerging spring.

 

Hands cupped around the blends of Second Day Chili

We eschew cable tv

We devour  nostalgia from

Name that Tune

Boggle, WordTwist, CatchPhrase

Cackling brashly over the shadows

as our old brains try to connect

Nuggets of  timeworn Golden Oldies.

 

But mostly it about us.

Finding ties in times of disparate reasoning

Fueled by spices

Of second Day Chili

Drury Lane

Now. We ALL know

The Muffin Man

Do we not?

Since his move to Drury Lane.

(Depends on which word one emphasizes)

Do you really know this nursery rhyme? Check here.

Reciting his song

Repeating his chant

Drowning in brownie batter

Eating his cheap breads

(that he tied to string

To draw the hungry home)

Cooked to a pastel pink

We didn’t know his st0ry

As we blindly

Recited his song

His delicacies:

Glazed Dough-Nut

Big Apple Turn Overs

Arsenic apples

Bare Claws

Lady Fingers

 

We trip over mortar and pestilence

 

 Death by Muffin  The Pastry Diva

Foiled

I have 10 rolls of aluminum foil in my Dollar Store basket

I know it’s foolish but it is my only recourse

Worried, nearly despondent

I clean out clearance Holiday candy

Like I don’t really care about my teeth anymore.

 

I have trouble focusing on what is real

What is fake news and which are suppositions.

What is bluster over bravado.

What is narcissism and what is buoyancy.

 

I buy foil just the same

Enough to line all my windows

In the event of The Event

 

It’s groundless and baseless.

Foil does not protect from nuclear fallout.

I know that.

Speculative news scrolls along a dozen store tvs.

A dozen different truths.

I go back into House Wares

And clean the shelves of foil.

 

Adventures of Pinocchio

The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

I am a big fan of embellishing alternate truths

Shillyshallying between exaggeration and de-emphasizing

Trivialities like measurements of my weight or hips

The amount of sleep I got last night

How much water I (actually) drink

Or maybe, wind chills in depth of midwinter.

 

‘Course actual widths and breadths

Can’t be changed by repetition or recitation

And I can hear my mother on the phone

Empathizing in her soft, low sweet drawl

even though she doesn’t really believe me.

Some surveys say we tell two lies every day but

This strikes me as surprisingly low.

I have the feeling that people

Were insincere about the extent of lies

 

Accuracy & honesty wane while i stumble closer

To the approximate vicinity of Truth

It is much preferable to lean comfortably against hyperbole.

 

It’s quieter now that I have squelched (the Wicked) Jiminy Cricket

And the silence

Won’t bother me til early mourn.

 

Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket by artist Kaws

 

 

 

Wulf-month

January has a voice of its own

Like the sound of Styrofoam peanuts

Rattling along edges of  streets lately turned iceseas.

Odd deep resonating crunch of below zero crusted snow under foot

Can rime be colder than freezing?

Reverberations of shotguns echoing forever

Through  leafless valleys

Does time slow in winter?

Longwinded by

Sunless days and moonless nights.

 

It’s harder

Harder to be heard in the growing chill

Harder to feel in cold-numbed limbs

Achy in rapidly rising and falling barometric pressures

 

Decades old snow boots hurt when I march

New snow boots aren’t yet broken in.

Deep scars twinge from stiff leather trusses

 

Decades old teeth hurt when I eat

Because I clench my anguished incisors anxiously

Now must grind my meat in the food processor

 

It’s nothing new

Woes  of winter

Passage of time

 

January has a voice of its own

Solitary gives way to solidarity

We all groan alone

ZuZu’s Petals and FailSafe

I want to believe that I’ve made a mark.

I have altered lives .

Rescued some from icy waters.

Reached out. Enriched.

and, in turn, became Richer.

(we all do?)

But  does the past look eerily similar to present?

This old smoky hick town

Has the same sad skyline of soulless eyes

As the day I arrived

I, for one, feel nearly as poor.

Somewhere there has to be a fail safe.

A switch that stops the rich and powerful from

Tippling poor and downtrodden.

Surely Something stands between us and

Tumult.

I want to find  ZuZu’s Petals

Tucked from an eon past

into my pocket.

I want to go on believing

Good triumphs over evil.

One word

One action

 

One

That separates  Futurevile

from past possibles.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

It’s a Wonderful Life-ZuZu petals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_Safe_(1964_film)

Nailed it

I pick up nails when Yellowdog walks me.

Disregarding ice cemented by January,

Or scalding asphalt in July.

A dangerous occupation, bending to fish out a single

Rusty nail.

Dirty and foolish.

Vertigo spins  my horizon madly with simple efforts.

But I pick up nails all the same.

It’s a gift I give to you.

It’s all I have.

Seems so little to do for humankind

On a day when I feel so helpless

At a loss how to ensure the survival of kindness.

I hope.

It means each day there will be

One less…..

        Middle of nowhere

        Middle of night

        Middle of a dirt road

        Middle of a blizzard

Flat tire.

It seems so little

But it’s all I can do.

Maybe

You will do it for me.

Together

One rusted nail at a time.