Lavender Memories

source

If I could paint

I would paint the two of us walking

in a field of lavender

The sun warm on our faces

The bees dancing around our ankles

but never stinging because

we are so full of joy there is no room

for pain

You would tuck a sprig of lavender

behind my ear

I would nestle one in your shirt pocket

We would walk hand in hand

swinging our arms like kids

singing songs we make up

When we get home

I would place the blossoms between

dictionary pages so that when we open it,

scented memories would waft over us

This is what I would paint

if I could paint.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Transforming Friday w/Nature's Wonders

Moth Heart

I never fell for magic tricks

until I fell for you

You knew my cards

before I looked at them

Cut people in half

and made them whole

I was mesmerized

You made my heart disappear

under a silk handkerchief

and left in its place

a moth

The flutter of its wings

felt so much like heartbeats

I barely noticed it was missing

until the moth flew away

like one of your magic doves

I keep hoping you will return

to make me whole again.

submitted for Magpie Tales, Mag 255

and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Tuesday Platform

Nature Bestows Strength

source

Nature bestows strength on her children

Sometimes, we listen to the quietest voice

and the delicate flower is the most tenacious

Every living thing strives toward growth

Struggles to survive even the unsurvivable

Nature bestows strength on her children

Within the grinding chaos and nattering chatter

A breeze whispers through spring grasses 

Sometimes, we listen to the quietest voice

Storms bring down the grandest oak

A lone blossom pushes through a littered sidewalk toward the sun

The delicate flower is the most tenacious.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Play It Again Toads #13, Hedgewitch's Cascade Challenge

Don't

source

Boy, give me a burger

I don't want that ribeye steak

I need a little sugar, but

don't bake me a whole cake

I'll stain my lips with grape juice

Don't go pouring a French wine

I won't eat no lobster, but

your sausage mighty fine!

I don't need no gourmet dinner

I'm not really in the mood

Boy, you know just what I crave

I'm hungry for fast food!

69 words for Mama Zen's Words Count at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Tonight the Moon

source

Tonight the moon

lays against the sky

Perfect white crescent

on  black canvas

Tonight the stars

shimmer in place

Janurary snowflakes

on jet black hair

Tonight the barred owl

questions the stillness

Waits for a reply

as do I.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Tuesday Platform

The Girl At the End of the Rope

The girl at the end of the rope
dangled like a broken piñata
Her father found her first
Tried to breathe her life back
It was rejected
like an incompatible organ

Her mother screamed
A scream full of terror and grief
It echoed
in the house
in dreams

The girl's father had twice failed
Could not protect
his daughter or
his wife
like a man should
He became a cicada shell
an empty husk of what had been
defined now by its absence

The mean girls at school
rolled their mascaraed eyes
Said it was just a joke
Only a loser
would take their taunts and threats seriously
She did

Instead of returning from spring break
with a knot in her stomach
She fastened a knot around her neck
The girl at the end of the rope.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini-Challenge, In Other Words

Seven Thoughts About Privilege

I.
Privilege
can walk down any street
No one
is afraid

II.
Privilege
can shop anywhere
Clerks say hello
Privilege isn't followed

III.
Privilege
walks behind people
who do not
quicken their pace

IV.
Privilege
orders a pizza
It gets delivered
to the door

V.
Privilege
wears a hoodie
People assume
it is just cold

VI.
Privilege
passes on the sidewalk
Women
don't clutch purses tighter

VII.
Privilege
says, "I don't see color"
It doesn't have to.

submitted for dVerse Poets Pub, One-Two-Three-Ten Word!

Hoarfrost

It was the end of summer

that first time

We should have known

that something would grow

Everything was wild and

unrestrained

Death came

with the last of autumn's foliage

The maple leaves on the ground

red as blood

I raked them into piles

with a fury, desperate

to bring order to turmoil

It must have been December

when I noticed

my heart, covered in hoarfrost

like white mold

on a bruised strawberry,

untouchable and

spoiled.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Winter

Black Out Poetry: The Heart

The heart

may be
deceptively
absent

Insidious,

presenting only
 loss

Absent

Alone

Fatal

Its nature-

irregular

tangled masses of

destruction/

response/

destruction/

response

Difficult

deeply buried

ground fresh

Growing

Healing

through time

(perhaps).

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Tuesday Platform (though inspired by a prompt I missed at dVerse Poets Pub about black out poetry!) I used one of my husband's outdated pathology books for this one!

In a Storm

source

The lightning's skeletal fingers 

pointed down at us

The thunder accused

"Sin! Sin!! SIN!!!"

We watched the storm

through the moon roof

Seats leaned all the way back

Pretending 

we were comfortable

Searching

in the darkness

Sometimes a car

isn't the safest place

in a storm.

submitted to Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Road Trip

There Should Be a Word

There should be a word
for the experience of newly washed cotton sheets
hanging on the clothesline
A word that expresses
more than the fresh, clean smell of linen
more than the buttery warmth of the sun
on your face when you look up
to fasten the clothespins
more than the feeling
of home
of renewal
of nostalgia for apple pie cooling on the window pane
(even if your mother never baked apple pie)
A word for the wholeness of the experience

I'm thinking of a word
like petrichor
Petrichor captures the entire sensuousness
of the just-having-rained feeling
Say that one word
and everyone knows exactly what you mean
(once you define it for them)

There should be more
of these words
but since there are not,
I present to you a picture:
Newly washed cotton sheets
hanging on a clothesline
I hope that you understand.

submitted for Magpie Tales, Mag 252
and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, The Tuesday Platform

To Portland

photo source

She knew she had to break away

from small town ways and small town minds

For sanity, she could not stay

Her spirit had been too confined

The left coast called to her again

And she would answer it at last

To thoughts of what she might have been--

A middle finger to the past!

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus

New Year Ghosts

“For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await  another voice.”   T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

photo by Alina R.

You invited ghosts

to the New Year party

They made the other guests

feel loud and gaudy

with their quiet shadowy presence

We could barely hear ourselves talk

over their humming "Auld Lang Syne"

again and again, like sad chant

Remember 

when that girl wrote in your yearbook

"Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même?"

Well, I've been fighting that truth

ever since

I found new words,

a new voice,

a new sun to orbit

But you opened the attic

and let the ghosts escape

They glued hundreds of ripped pages

back onto the calendars

Tore out all of my bookmarks

so I had to reread from the beginning
They threw frail, faded petals
from old corsages
instead of confetti

And when it came time

to toast the New Year,

the wine had turned to vinegar.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Bits of Inspiration, Happy New Year