Keep Your Balance

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The head turns too quickly and

The room becomes a dizzying carnival ride

Mundane objects

pass in and out of vision like Dorothy's tornado

turn sinister in twisted vision:

Here's a stapler

Here's a desk chair

Here's a purse

Here's a window

Here's a pen

All fly by, ungraspable

Here is what you tell yourself:

It's all right

This feeling will pass

Hang on

You can get through this

Don't vomit

Calm down

Here is what you must do:

Lie down (the floor will do)

Close your eyes

Ignore the low hum/high ring  in your ear

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

Wait

When it's over:

Assess the damage

Sit up slowly

Drink some water

Walk a straight line

Listen

Keep your balance

Keep your balance.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Recipe for...Poetry

Uterine Blues

Well, I woke up this mornin'

Felt something out of place

I looked in the mirror

Checked my hair and my face

I walked into the kitchen

to start off my day

when, I swear, I felt my uterus

had wandered away!

I've got a wandering womb

Oh yeah, I've got a wandering womb

And a womb that's off to wander

Well, that ain't no good

I'm thinking that my uterus

is misunderstood.

Well, I hurried to the doctor

to get me a cure

The doc, he said, don't worry

He had seen this before

What troubles you, my lady

is quite easy to see

Hysteria we call it

Now just leave it to me...

Oh no! I've got a wandering womb

Dear me, I've got a wandering womb

And a womb that's off to wander

Well, that's really sick

Gotta get my uterus back home

real quick!

Now I was really feelin' anxious

I was a mess

The doctor claimed the cure, it lay

under my dress!

He took a pair of gloves

from the top of his shelf

"No thanks," I told him quickly

"I will do it myself!"

I've got a wandering womb

Oh yeah, still got a wandering womb

And a womb that's off to wander

Ain't really a plight

'Cause now my uterus and I

are feelin' all right!

submitted (with aplogies!) for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Sing It Toads

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

Phantom Pain

The Phantom was having a rough day

No one was taking him seriously-

An elderly woman with a small dog

was sitting his seat

and that bloated diva Carlotta

still couldn't sing worth a damn!

He thought he had made himself clear-

Threatened "a disaster beyond your imagination"

should his demands be ignored

Then he received the note

He, the Phantom,  was being charged:

"making serious threats of bodily harm,

and creating a hostile work environment"

This was unbelievably insulting

He was the one bullied

all those "monster" and "gargoyle" taunts

Now they were accusing him?

It must have been that twit, Christine

He should have known not to trust her

A beauty for sure 

but one crystal short of a full chandelier

He was only trying to encourage her

flatter her

and now, he's looking at a sexual harassment charge!

Homeland Security had been notified too

Seems that "You will curse the day you did not do 

all that the Phantom asked of you"

was perceived as a terrorist threat

Good God! 

No hope of coming above ground now

O.G. was a criminal suspect!

Oh well

the daylight hurt his eye anyway

He would wait until this blew over

He had his music

and his stash of Hustler magazines.

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

Feline

You sneak up behind me
A cat after prey
Soft and silent
as night swallows day
You sedate with your purr
Rub your body on mine
Make me believe
You're a creature benign
Crystal green eyes
Reflect my desire
Give nothing away
of what will transpire
I reach out to touch
Pull back bloody and scratched
You walk away
Smug and detached.

Submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, The Art of Guido Vedovato

Here is the link to the painting that inspired the poem

The Leaves Have Eyes

The leaves have eyes

You think no one sees what you do

You are wrong

The leaves are thousands of silent witnesses

They write my story in bark etchings

that you can't decode

The roots remember everything

When you say that I best be careful or

you'll bury me in the ground where no one

will find me, I just smile

The trees will know

They're waiting for me.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday: Seraphine Louis

Letters

We found them
when we cleaned out your house
You had saved them
all these years
My letters
tied with a pink ribbon
kept in a shoebox
in your dresser
As I read through them
I saw my writing change
from big, round letters
to cursive
to hearts dotting the 'i's
to hurried adult scrawl
I met myself
as a child
a teen
and an adult again
Thank you
for giving me back a piece of
myself.

submitted (late again!) for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Postmark: Poetry

Life

The butterfly is never born with wings

She starts upon the earth and only crawls

But to that form she knows she cannot cling

For holding on means transformation stalls

The courage to allow yourself to fall

So freely that you fear that you may die

Becomes the very thing that lets you fly.

Another Rhyme Royal for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Fridy, Rhyme Royal and BT Benda

She Rides

She heard the hoof beats and she thought of stripes

Imagination conjured up the rare

For all her life she was one of those types

Accomplished what the others did not dare

So with proud peacock flumes tucked in her hair

She rides a zebra through the azure night

She knows that life is more than black and white.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Fridays, Rhyme Royal and WT Benda

Those Boots

Nancy Sinatra wore them!

I saw them on the Sony and Cher Show

Coveted them

like any 9 year-old girl covets

horses and 10 year-old boys

My mother said no

Too expensive

Besides, I'd soon outgrow them anyway

But on a birthday shopping trip

to the city with Nana

(We rode the bus; Nana never learned to drive)

I saw them in the Thom McCann window

Nana let me try them on

The salesman zipped and laced them up

I wore them home

feeling like a star

White go-go boots.

Mod Barbies had them too!

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, The Clothes Make the Woman

The Denim Jacket

The eponymous jacket

Can't explain

When I saw you

I was smitten

You wore that denim jacket

It was as much a part of you as

your right arm

Freshman year

That jacket was already

broken in and faded

but it brought out

the blue of your eyes

I loved how they sparkled

You were adamant

Either Led Zeppelin or The Who

I knew by the Union Jack on the left sleeve

just where you stood

A roll of peppermint Certs

always in your breast pocket

I tasted them

 mingled with beer

the first time you kissed me

The night you spent in my room

you left that jacket

hanging over my chair the next morning

You knew my boyfriend was coming to visit

and threw down the first bid

in a poker game I wasn't yet sure

I was ready to play

It didn't take long, though

before I began wearing your denim jacket

like a second skin

Singing Who songs

I think it's love. 

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, The Clothes Make the Woman

Angel

photo by MyBlackPrince

Her mama called her Angel

even though she was conceived in sin

Never knew her daddy

Her mother never saw him again

She was the prettiest baby in town

Never cried when mama brought the men around

She just looked out her window

and listened to the city's sounds

How can angels fly

when they're born with a weight on their wings?

The closest Angel got to Heaven

was when she heard her mama sing

a sad song about flying away

They'd go together some day

Until then, be a good girl

Be an angel

Angel went to school

but she didn't have too many friends

Couldn't bring them home 'cause

she never knew her mama's plans

Sometimes she found a man behind the door

or her mama passed out on the kitchen floor

Angel saw the worst of Hell

and quickly learned to ignore

How can angels fly

when they're born with a weight on their wings?

The closest Angel got to Heaven

was when she heard the radio sing

a sad song about running away

Someone would take her one day

Until then, she'd just pretend

There were angels

Angel was sixteen 

when she saw the guy on her street

He told her she was pretty

talked to her so low and sweet

Angel thought he'd give her a new life

She didn't know that he already had a wife

He gave her some cash then

told her to forget his name

How can angels fly

when they're born with a weight on their wings?

The closest Angel got to Heaven

was when she heard the church bells ring

She prayed forgiveness for her sin

Sometimes you end up right where you begin

Angel had a daughter

who never knew her daddy's name.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Calling All Angels

Redemption For Beginners

Don't come to me asking for redemption

I gave last Christmas

Hella good it did

Now I'm more careful

where I spend my forgiveness

I'd give my last dollar to a busker,

my last smoke to a truant kid

before I'd  give you a damn

You want atonement, go to a priest

or a whore

They make money listening

to lies

You can count your sins

You can count your rosary beads

You can count me gone, and

I'll count myself lucky.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Fireblossom Friday, Redemption

Sylvia Knew

"Mushrooms" by Enola-Autumn

She never feared
darkness, moved freely
among shadows
Whispers
were her native tongue
She asked for little
and was rarely disappointed
She practiced
economy of emotion
Quiet
Thoughtful
Reserved
She was described as shy
This was not true
Sylvia knew
She was a mushroom
Watching
Waiting
Biding her time.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Fridays, The Book Within the Story Within the Poem in which we were asked to compose a poem about a character somehow interacting with one of our favorite poems. I chose Sylvia Plath's "Mushrooms." When I was in junior high, I was very quiet in school. One summer, while at a writing camp, the teacher called me a "mushroom." I found the reference and loved it! I thought it conveyed a sort of quiet, subversive strength that others rarely recognized. The poem may be read at PoemHunter.com

Planting Rosemary

She spent years trying to forget
Looking for a place to bury the feelings
she didn't believe she should have
She didn't understand
why the ghosts kept haunting her

She tried to fill the empty space
with slogans
with battles
with righteousness
She didn't understand
why it grew larger
with every effort

She wasn't entitled to tears
Her loss was her doing
She didn't understand
how she could miss something
she never wanted

She didn't understand
why she dreamed
of counting fingers and toes
and woke with her heart pounding
in her aching chest

She didn't understand
why she felt compelled to apologize
or to whom
when she felt no regret

She didn't understand
why certain dates made her sad
and why her sadness
made her angry

She didn't understand
why she felt she had to scream
with her ears covered
so she didn't hear her own screaming

She didn't understand
that black and white
don't always make grey
There are hues that words can't describe
and that most eyes
can't see

And if she didn't understand,
how could anyone else?


submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Fireblossom Friday, Loss
and for d'Verse Poets Pub, Listen To This: Anaphora

Cheaper By the Dozen

This poem was inspired by a conversation I had with my daughter about why she doesn't like shopping at large discount stores. Most of the descriptors are hers.

Open the doors

Get swallowed by the vastness

the feel of an abandoned warehouse

into which someone has wheeled in hundreds of racks

of haphazardly hung clothing

Dresses mix 

with shirts mix 

with pants

No apparent arrangement 

     by color

     by size

     by function

Hear the buzz of overhead fluorescent lights

one-third of which are burnt out

giving the place a strange bright dimness
reminiscent of purgatory

Voices mumble in the distance

Babies cry somewhere

yet silence surrounds

Over the dirty linoleum floor

roll dozens of squeaking shopping carts

pushed by sad seeming middle aged women

They plod through the aisles

adding to their purchases

     plus sized jeans

     boy’s sneakers

     men’s underwear

     a ceramic soap dish shaped like an alligator

Their faces blank and haggard

like they’ve never known joy

and have given up searching

except for that queen sized mattress pad

which seems to be sold out.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Location Location Location!

Overexposure

source

I feel so exposed,

so vulnerable

These clothes, this skin

don’t protect me.

Where is my armor,

my home?

I want to hide. Instead,

I clash with everything around me;

I can’t seem to stay still;

I make too much noise!

The predators will surely find me,

and I, no tougher than a worm,

will yield to their teeth

in a frenzy of flesh.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Not Feeling Like Yourself?