Lost


A doll on a high shelf
made her wonder
if perhaps she had told
too much
of her heart

She never showed the doll to you

But along with ringlets
and porcelain
along with the pretty
or beautiful
or sad, or desperate
or lonely
pictures she wrote
for us

were nightmares
and daymares
sometimes here
and sometimes not
but the fear of them
was always with her
hiding in the trenches
like rats

She got lost in her eyes
and the pictures
they made


So she changed things.
Because a life in the trenches
feels like no life
at all

And she went back
to the words
who had sustained her
for so long

but they were gone

Now she wanders
searching

and she wonders
how to write the words

without the pictures

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Inside-Out

What if beauty was on the outside
the sores of the soul visible to all
Would we then, in pursuit of beauty,
work to heal wounds, salve burns,
sew up the things that cut us to the heart

Would we become so used to seeing suffering
that it would be -dare I say it?- acceptable
to attempt to staunch the flow of blood
that trickles from a new wound
Would we become accustomed to knowing
when we’d hurt a friend
by the bruise that appears on her cheek

Would it be acceptable to see one’s own hurt
and work to heal it oneself
Or would we simply invent new ways
to cover it up
the make-up and stockings
of an inside-out generation

azephyrrose

In a small boat
afloat on an inlet sea
I see the wind
scallop the waves
with tiny white bubbles
It cools my cheek
with the same vigor

On an adjacent shore
wild, red roses
adorn a trellis of sorts –
a rock wall
lacy with age
and covered in moss
looks a little like Christmas
and a lot like blazing summer

The breeze rustles serrated leaves
then rushes to caress my skin
teasing my clothing
to come and play

But it does not fill
my sail too full
this breath of the heavens
for I am strong
and I am the one
who decides
where I go

So play with me
dance with me
as you will
bright zephyr

I, too, will rise

Thank you, Suzanne, for the prompt!

If you’d like to read another poem about the name of this blog, click here.

Loneliness

It reaches out from within me,
cries, Speak to me!
touch me;shake my hand
pat my shoulder –
Something
to acknowledge I exist
Something
to say I am worthy
of a glance
a smile
Of interaction unencoded

No mere visualization of voice
nor actualization of electric impulses
Prove to me
that we exist together
in this space
this place
this Life

Shake me from
my stupored slumber
and sing to me,
Live!
We are here in this place together
we are more, here, now
than we have been
while we were apart
Let us live, then
while we are intangibly more
and tangibly here
Let us live!

First

Down the sunlit road I drive
toward a travesty of relationship
and a beautiful-hearted, hurting little girl

I must drop off a package
wrapped in the future
and plastic
for a day that marks a first I will never see.

My eyes prick
and my nose runs
But my face remains
and remains

At least she will never know
that my heart has been torn from my chest today
Again, today

The sobs have been pushed down, and down
so the only thing she will see
is my joy of loving her

buoyant bliss in her hugs
crackling joy in each kiss
and a warm lamp for my heart
each time she reaches for my hand

brush

A short bristled brush
wends its way across the canvas
Leaving only rarely a trail of perfect paint –
The rest is marked by globs and sputtering dryness
Sharing canvas with this glossy-eyed reverie
Pigment covered with varnish

And still it haunts me