Poetry Slam
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Endings & Beginnings
Big changes have been happening, both internal and external. 2020 is a big year. Can you feel it? An old friend observed today that my energy has changed. It certainly has, I thought when I read what he wrote. He said: the old you is gone and another power has come in. You are more open now in a different way. And then he went on to say: you will teach others. I suppose I will. I have been for a long time now. It will look different now. Less doing, more being. One can teach quite a lot simply by being.
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Circadian
I prowl restless empty streets Savoring your breath upon the wind Hungry for lips, tongue, the hard safe circle of your arms Indoors, art-strewn walls sing and remember our passion’s roar We are animals sated, panting Love-slick drops roll down our limbs entwined At night I sink into a white-pillowed embrace Dreaming ecstasy, dreaming bliss The seeds of hunger buried deep, fermenting Morning dawns and I lie curled in your apostrophe You whisper the day’s excitement Enchantment is birthed anew
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Beach
Sunshine melts into jeweled waters Wave after foamy tumbling wave insouciantly approaches wetted sands A community of graywhite gulls awaits sunset Pods of black-suited surfers bob companionably over the far reef Determined walkers leave deep-heeled prints Wide empty seaweed-strewn sands beckon, remembering summer crowds Shoes in hand, we amble where ocean meets earth, leaving no trace
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Circuitous
In the far, far places where mermaids sing and fishes cry for their mothers there are no sounds only the soft slapping of waves Your heart stills and your breath sighs raggedly but your feet keep moving, moving pushing your warm soft pliant body of stitched-together skin stretched over tangled red-blue pulsing cords and hard-breathing whitened bone to find the spot where sky meets earth You sit and wait for a sign, a sob, a sweetness but the roar inside silently deafens and drowns your fears and ambitions, grinding past-present-future into a bright purple Now In the far, far places where mothers sing softly and ancient…
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This
A beautiful wild dream erupted in pink-glowed majesty this morning. Rough white-tipped waves greenblueing between me and the leafy redyelloworange panoply that lay at the feet of Spirit Father as he rose through the mist into a magical glowing golden sky. This O my father guardian of this watery green and low bluegray on weary feet. O my father this, this blink this gasp this wonder. This is why we come and sing our dreams into the graycloud skies.
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Keening
Her open mouth screams silent tears, gasping sobs tear her body into pieces that float above her, waiting to be sewn back together One thread drawing them tight and snug again, a sweater she can thrust her arms into gladly, wrapping warmth around her icy bare branches. Inside her, alien flesh pricks with tiny knives, razors opening sealed wounds that cry scaly tears and glue their eyes tight shut, denying their misery. Above her his spiky breath covers her hair, her ear, dripping down her neck with a snail’s undulation. She rises, tasting ashes in her mouth, and floats, now lost in a sea of misty grey, now lifted above…
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If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Haiku’s Day
From My Window Gray-blue sky, still wind Buddhist prayer flags hang from branch Monday morning cars ~~~~~ Sing Us Peace, They Said Lapping waves at feet wheeling seabirds cry above Sun warms driftwood seat
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Longing
I long to travel where my body cannot go; through doors and walls and windows to unseen worlds of dizzying possibility. I lie awake, willing a single silver cord to emerge from my body like an astral umbilicus. At the mirror I chant I AM and wait for the reflected worlds behind me to unfold like petals after a spring rain, worlds that will swallow me into nothingness. One day I will scream for an hour so shards of my shattered heart will break my brain into halves and I will disappear between them. Float away, Self, I whisper in my dreams that follow me like twisted shadows. Float away…