“Finish Line”

All the colors—
my lungs are incensed with cedar,
thickly enchanted with
the sparkle of everything.
I never imagined there
was so much to be interested in.

I was running on the treadmill
when I found out about the bombings
at the end of Boston Marathon.
Everything begins and ends with
an explosion.  Just look—

It’s spring again.
I ran around my backyard, a little girl
in tears & made up a song about how sorry I am
for everything.
A daffodil corpse hangs lifeless in my fingers.
I remembered about eternity and
didn’t feel as sorry anymore.

I’m still a baby. The human race,
the beloved children of the universe—
Death is a but reminder of the purity of
Forever,
and I see no damn sense in behaving as if there’s more
to life than
Right now.

Beginnings and endings are everywhere you look.
The past & present & future all wrapped up in one,
bursting outwards like a peony
in patterns, ripples, waves—there’s
colors, colors everywhere,
everything is colored
with this separation of the black/white,
Just look at this spectrum unto which the universe
gave birth!

Can you see?
There is no finish line because
there was never a race to 
begin with.

”Fulcrum”

You lost the moon.

You can’t see her.

She’s hidden somewhere behind your

Glistening eyes.

And we always deny what we can’t see.

You can’t see your bones or your

Nervous system but just like

 a map

I see the way a

Fire burns down the back of

Your neck,

And your chest, your collarbones—

Trailing in an electric enchantment like

A dotted line to where the

“X” is your

Heart.

I found the moon.

We all turn wild

When our chemicals mix.

But I want to

Taste without tongues and

Touch without fingers.

What is in this space separating

The Moon and I?

Love is nothing more than the escape from

Gravity. Let me know

the pull.

Stockings and tights, dresses and turtlenecks, pianos and bows, lilacs and stained glass. Scrap paper, scrap paper, and a whole lot more scrap paper. A closet of arts and crafts.  Roasted garlic and olive oil, poupourri. Blankets everywhere, a little white dog, chalk on the knees of my denim overalls. Lawn mowers and lemonade stands. A wooden drawer full of scrap paper, and The Pen Drawer, second cupboard next to the fridge. Car rides and waking up in the shade. I still get sleepy. The bookshelf and the closet, popsicles under the clouds. Hot rollers and pin curls and mom brushing my then-blonde hair too hard. The smell of hairspray and lipstick. Playing dress-up, every day. Playing ”school” with my brother, dog, and Beanie Babies. Writing plays, riding my scooter down a small hill, scabs and bug bites, caterpillars and lady bugs.  Herbs growing in terra cotta pots in the sun porch. Garage sales and tomatoes. Fishing and blueberry picking. Puddle jumping and Easter Eggs. Andrea Bocelli and wine from a box. Sunday school and girl scouts. A whole lot more scrap paper. Reading books out loud together. The sprinkler and water balloons. Freckles and star searching. Louis Armstrong and cartoons. Making up songs. Shyness and scrap paper, mostly.

Every beat of my heart is to the tune of the truth, but my mind is a metronome wavering in clouds of fog. Somewhere, I know, there is a golden ray of light streaking through, which is always seeking an instrument through which it can accurately express itself.

How does one decipher these unformed thoughts? Such is my life, the picture of which is not more than a hazy vision—I know that I alone am responsible for shaping it into a creation of value. Are all efforts vacuous in the end?  Would my words be even considered in the slightest by the ears of the willfully deaf?

At present, it seems as if I am buried deep in a desert, ten feet under the earth in a transparent chrysalis.  There are ghosts of my own creation haunting the barren vastness of my own head.  I am tired of feeling so small, like an insect.  I am not a worm waiting for a bird to carry me away to the heavens. I tell this to myself: I am just as complete, and, like a worm— my heart remains intact and beating no matter how many pieces you cut it into. But I am the product of an evolutionary process so unfathomable that the worm quivers below my boots and birds take flight at my presence.  And it is so— as sure as the warmth of spring melts away the hardness of the winter, the rain will wash my soul to the surface with the glowing moon making my blood stir and dance with all of the joy and excitement of eternity.

And I must always consider the self-reliance I have gained in these trials of suffering.  It is lonely without an honest mirror of the contents of my soul, the truth of love which is always unconsciously sought after in another human.  It seems that the line to enter this promised kingdom of love is a mile long, with the crowds hurling into themselves, never seeing what’s on the other side.  I have never been one for waiting, nor crowds, and it is so that if I cannot smash down this wall separating myself from true happiness, I will turn around and walk the other way. I have spent too many hours lost in romantic daydreams, and have too much invested in a vision of perfect love to throw my heart away on any memory, when there is, and always will be, the Whole of Life in all of it’s infinite perfection and beauty to move my soul from it’s earthen slumber, even on these wretchedly cold February nights.

  The snow sits on the earth like creamy, sparkling frosting on a bed of spongey, layered cake.  I can feel the core of the earth escaping from the mantle in the same way my breath mixes with the color schemes in the air. A blood orange sunset cracks through the dreamy clouds and paints the sky with a transcendent, knowing glow.  The essence of each moment swirls in wisps through my being.  If I can love the coffee maker, I can love another human being. If I can love the coffee maker, I can love another human being.  I repeat this to myself, over and over, knowing very well it’s not fully true.  I’ve become cold and hardened to this world, like a deadened plum rose cracked over with frost. The only thing separating me from God is this gorilla costume.  We’re all just talking monkeys, walking around the Earth like we know every damn thing there is to know. I’m embarrassed for humanity, for the things they think are important.  I lay on my bed, the room dimmed to a dusty yellow glow.  I can’t do anything but laugh, dryly, at everything. Perhaps I’m delusional.  The lack of mirroring to my soul’s emotional states has left me empty and broken.  But I’m so very sick of feeling dark and miserable. I swear I won’t stand for another day of it.  It’s all I can do to empty my awareness of everything except simple and pure pleasantries and a burning, passionate love of God.  I have no desire to exist in this world as it is any longer.  I’m burned out on life. I’m nauseated to the core by egotism and greed and the cheap version of love we’re fed. It’s inescapable—the way humans take from and use each other for the fulfillment of their own needs, instead of learning how to be self-reliant and giving. I have no idols on this Earth; there’s no individual I look up to or worship in anyway, whatsoever. I feel a connection to some far off world in space, perhaps, where I will be welcomed by my True family upon my return. I will tell them how the people here don’t know how to love, of how trite and stale and colorless existence is. And, perhaps then, when I have put enough time and space between here and then, I’ll be able to comprehend the beauty and brilliance of being here, of how breath by breath, we’re all in part doing our turn in creating the same masterpiece.  As it is, my mind is aching and it’s all I can do to sink into the bath, pour myself a drink and stare into the flickering flame of a white candle, losing myself as the sharp edges of reality soften into a haze. But I don’t want to wait until death to see the meaning in life.  I want every moment of eternity to well up inside of me and warm every cell with poetry, poetry, and more poetry, aching and haunting, and just truthful enough to send shivers up my spine and goosebumps on the back of my neck… so much there is to hope for, so much there is unseen in each second delving into the depths of infinity with a precision and perfection that is nothing short of Divine.

“Lilacs”

These violent delights
have no ending, and it’s my
poetic obligation to make you
understand that each sunrise
presents a unique unfolding
of bounty and splendor.

What could bring this dreamer down to Earth?

—the lilacs.
When it’s not showering,
the sun shines
 as bright as April
 here in my heart.
When the pitfalls of winter
consume me, there are
always the Mayflowers.

 If the emptiness is too much to bear,
escape is always found
in overwhelming my senses
 in lilacs.
I grew up on a lilac farm &

&ran freely through rows and rows of the plants,
intoxicated by the wind chiming melodies in my ears.

Here is a place I keep safe in my memory,
a Home
where I’ll always be as innocent as Eden—
childlike, and as resistant to change as a 
caterpillar.

Life is as beautiful as a lucid dream, you see—and    
Springtime is never far away
for those with an
imagination.

A hobo’s abandoned shopping cart, rusted with a locked wheel, skittering helplessly around an empty strip mall parking lot. The bulb of a fluorescent street lamp is buzzing, fading away. Yellowed old newspapers are in the basket, headlined: ”The theatre’s on fire.” The show burnt to the ground, now hallowed and exposed—

I’m suffocating,
and I’m always looking for an exit.
Saturn’s rings are around my neck.
If it weren’t for gravity, the sky would swallow me whole—
and would probably choke.

Without this wretched clown costume,
I would be as peaceful and free as the space between stars.

Don’t be worried—
the veil has been lifted.
I looked around for ghosts on the other side,
but was the only one there.

For my 7 year old sister.

“The Queen of Castle Hill”

On a peaceful street called Sumner,
In a town not far away,
There lived a girl named Natalie,
Who became Queen of Castle Hill one day.

Her house- it was blue,
and her wagon- it was red,
She had a dog named Riffy
and she liked to watch Fred.

One day our Queen took off to the Lake
With only her wagon and her bear
For great riches there was to behold
At the bottom of Lake Mansfield down there. 

Now Riffy the dog who lived under the porch
Gave Queen Natalie some advice:
Don’t go into the bathroom and don’t go into the woods 
For there are sure to be millions of lice.

With this in mind, she embarked on her quest
To put her bravery to the test
For once she obtained the long lost treasure,
Queen Natalie knew she would be the best

Now Dylman the Bear was a little bit silly
He liked to filly and nilly and willy
And they had almost made it to the park by the lake
When Dylman the Bear got a tad bit too “Dyl-ly”.

Perhaps it was the full moon, or the cupcakes he ate-
But soon Queen Natalie had a lot on her plate
because Dylman the Bear went a little Berserk
He didn’t listen to Spongebob—
It was Christmas and he was being a big fat jerk.

Into the woods he went, for there had been talk
Of a picnic of sorts, to which bears would walk
And feast upon cupcakes and bagels and donuts
Poor Queen Natalie didn’t forsee that Dylman would Go Nuts.

For next he went into the bathroom against which Riffy had warned—
A radioactive poop chamber that had for centuries been scorned,
And came out a mutant of monstrous proportions
He had strange looking limbs that grew in all contortions.

The treasure was never found that day
Because Dylman’s stinky butt got in the way.
The one thing that happened that was pretty nice,
was that at least Queen Natalie
Didn’t get any lice. 

An iota of inner strength is worth more than any other chemically compounded substance found in the universe.  I’ve learned to transmute my weakness into a power so unshakable that death itself holds no bearing above my head— for these lasting alchemical changes are eternal, burned into the imprint of the soul—

            This is the magic. To be able to transform—to create love in the place of fear—to inspire greatness and fortitude—

            Through my existence, through the flames igniting my heart with this obsessive passion, I wish to pull from the depths of the collective unconscious the individual brilliance in all sentience—- The murky tide pools that so often cloud my mind always subside to reveal fresh, unseen truths. I’ve learned that it’s okay to be broken because nothing is beyond repair, everything can be transmuted into something higher in it’s place.

            Furthermore, I’ve become fully convinced of the virtues of remaining childlike. To me, imagination is the highest form of genius to which I can only aspire.  Legends such as Dr. Seuss, Tim Burton, Walt Disney, and of course, Edgar Allen Poe, have all managed to retain a sense of child like wonder that is unmatched, leaving behind a legacy that demonstrates the great potential of the human spirit.

            I am ruled by my mind—the warrior— and my heart—the lion.  I am a  pioneer and a leader, the full extent of which is unknown to me—but once I have tasted this truth, once I’ve let it ripple throughout my being—I simply can not be anything else.        

            In this endless search for myself, I feel that it is vitally important to continually embrace the softer side of life—to comfort and nurture and display empathy— as the “feminine” energies are equally as important as the aggressive, get-it-done masculine energies.  Everything is about balance. I seek to embody black and white and the infinite spectrum of the rainbow.

“Calm Before”

I am an abandoned house and 
i’ll never forget how you saw some light
in some forgotten upstairs window
and grew on me like
vines.  

and somehow
you fixed the loose wires and
everything began to fizzle and
if there were words enough to describe the feeling,
“like melting gold” comes to mind. 

So who really knows. by the holidays,
we could have a write up in the paper, 
families driving by in their cars,
gaping at the display of lights.

i’ll leave the door unlocked, the fire stairway intact.
i long to escape myself too sometimes.
But I’ve lasted this long.
Despite a leak and a crack here and there,
I’ll always have enough space to provide 
shelter from the storm. And it’s true that

a house is no match
for a hurricane,
but all good universes know
that to start over
it only takes a single 
spark.