On Rejoining the Chaos

After 6 years of living in near-Nirvana, I have moved to the city and am experiencing all that a city has to offer.

Last Saturday, it had to offer:

1. Me running a red light
2. Mocha getting so over-stimulated at Petsmart she peed a wide swath from the front door to the car
3. Aggressive posturing in the Krogers parking lot

...and that's when I thought it was best to retreat to the safety of four walls.

Under the "not new to most, but new to me":

1. Learning how to use a Smartphone
2. Adjusting from dial-up to high-speed internet
3. YouTube

When my neck and shoulders started aching and eyes watered, I resorted to my fall-back position...

Home Made Mac & Cheese

Shadow

for two, maybe three seasons of flight,
his absence has left a shadow on the heart

still, the eye scans the shallows
for a glimpse of the arched neck,
the poppy-colored beak
made famous in another poem

about Swans,
how their grace causes the breath
to catch in the throat
like the memory of a lost love

who too has left a shadow on the heart

Front Porch

plastic orange flags
flap frantically in the breeze
between newly-leafed trees
and sweet spring grass

who know,
in their state of natural being
how to bend, to sway, to swoon
at the touch of a breeze,

their fickle dance partner

A Shift

Hello! Is there anyone out there? I don't blame you for walking away from this rarely-updated, dull-as-dishwater blog. I have a bag of cookies and I'm going to drop crumbs all over the Interwebs and see if you can be lured back. Yes, they're chocolate chip.

This blog has been a wonderful place to house my poetry and photos and occasional observations and rants for the past 6 years. Funny thing is, about 2 years ago, the poetry stopped flowing and the daily existence of being me didn't seem blog-worthy. Two major life events contributed to the muteness...knee replacement surgery and the bitchin' flood last May.

I don't know if there's been a permanent change to my landscape or if this was protracted writers block, but I'm about to do something to kick myself in the writers butt.

From Apri 7 - 10, I'll be locked down at a writers retreat. Just me, pen and paper and maybe my laptop. I'm pretty scared because I run the risk of uncovering a fraud of such grand proportions it makes Bernie Madoff look like an alter boy.

Ok...that was pretty dramatic but there it is...I'll either come away from the retreat with poetry oozing out of my pores or with me in leg irons.

So stay tuned...this should be interesting.

They Didn't Make the Cut

Just a random list of names of dwarfs who didn't make the cut for the iconic Snow White companions:

Sniffy
Drippy
Fluffy
Squishy

Feel free to expound.

Unleashing the Poet Within

A few new poems by yours truly written at a retreat led by Nevin Comptom Trammell.

The Irregular Heart

The irregular heart
knows not the confines
of chamber walls or rhythms
of the lub-dub doctrine

Look there, in the corner
where pigments swirl
birthing a fifth chamber

an irregular heart
made new
for a new way
a new day
a new doctrine

**********************************************************************************
Litter

A mirror image lies
beneath the soaring boughs
of a white oak tree

it's astounding,
the luxury of it all

as golden hues of fallen
and to be fallen
compete for my gaze

it's reminiscent,
the duplicity of summer

when crepe myrtles
drop their pink petticoats
on the floor

rushing into another season

**********************************************************************************

A Journey in Two Stanzas

on a journey
with words suspended,
between the lines
old thoughts upended

hands moving cautiously
left to right,
voices give wings
words take flight