My Poetry

  I said, "I'll see you tomorrow."  You nodded weakly and replied, "Tomorrow."    But tomorrow never came.  "Tomorrow" is the last word  I ever heard you say. "Tomorrow," haunts me.    For weeks you said you were ready to go  because you were in so much pain but I was afraid to lose you, Mom,  to lose your wisdom  all your love your strength.    The world is colder without you my poem shivers on the page.  I try to embrace the echoes of your voice that still linger.   Your dog stopped eating no matter what I tried  he just laid  with his head on your purse still full of prescription bottles and butterscotch candies.   Graham buried him this morning under your favorite pine tree.  When your heart stopped for a moment  I thought all the clocks everywhere, would too.   How can the world   continue to spin without you?   I pretend you aren't gone I'm just too busy to ...

Men envy the cigarette pressed between her muted lips. Her body speaks every language breasts high two peaches in the tree most men want to climb.  Skin smooth as the glossy pages of a magazine. She is the yardstick real women stand against the ideal measure of beauty. She infects other women with insecurity. She is the cure for Ethiopia spreading anorexia to devour starvation. Ageless as a vampire, sucking wallets dry in the latest scheme to stay young. She is paper and plastic music and electricity she is air-brushed perfection. (She does not exist.) _________________________________________________ I know that there are women as beautiful as the ones we see in the media, but what we see in magazines and on television, in movies, is a fantasy. Models and actors don't look that way when they roll our of bed.  Personally, I have pretty much accepted myself for what I am and don't strive for perfection the way some women (and men) do.  It was a thrill to meet you at The Mi...

The billionaire walked into the white house and the women marched on Washington. You can't save Eden by electing the serpent. The Devil doesn't have horns and carry a pitchfork. He plays golf and wears Brioni suits. He bathes in narcissism parades naked through superlatives. His words are tipped with a contagion called Hate snd his tongue is a corkscrew that twists out lie after lie. He surrounds himself with fools too weak to speak up or out they carry his ego like a bridal train. The GOP goosestep down Pennsylvania Avenue.     He installed a revolving door in the White House. His nose grows longer every time he opens his mouth. He denies global warming dismantled the EPA A one man hurricane left Puerto Rico out in the rain. He consciously fans the flames of racial tension while likening himself to Abraham Lincoln. He plays the victim quotes Hitler saying the "lying press" is out to get him. On the border children have watched fireworks of freedom from his crowded k...

I was out with friends drowning my heartache when he walked into a redneck bar wearing a tuxedo and I laughed. I’d had a drink or five too many feeling very bold I strode up to him ran my finger down his silky lapel and asked “Why a tuxedo?” “I just came from a bowling banquet” he said in all seriousness as if that made perfect sense. “Do you wanna to dance?” Sliding together on a crowded dance floor me in my white cotton dress someone asked if were just married he told them yes gave me a kiss left me breathless. Then he said “My girlfriend dumped me tonight. Come back to my place help me forget her?” Too inebriated to find better judgment I followed him out the door and by moonlight sampled expectation sprinkled with desire too luscious to savor or dunk in illusion impatient fervor somatic fusion hot breath on cool skin temporary collusion. But we were both hung up on other people using each other as Band-Aids for broken hearts. Six months of lust was all we had with no lies false exp...

His shoulders were boulders four fatherless kids climbed on. He never cracked a smile but we all watched him crack August, 16, 1977 when he lost his king. The sight of tears in the eyes of our mountain was an earthquake in our chests. His priorities got all shook up. He quit his job picked up a guitar a gallon of sarcasm and took to the road. Now he hides deadpan eyes behind mirrored sunglasses stamped Graceland ‘78, when he still rode his motorcycle without a helmet, and though he slept in a different bed every night, he never slept alone- he just scraped love from the bottom of his boots every morning. Those sunglasses are a time machine that cover the spider webs around his eyes, and deflect any attempt to see inside. He slides them on and stands there man from another time a velvet Elvis, ready for another show but where did the audience go? He denies wrinkles on the hands that play his guitar, and he wonders why the twenty-something girls don’t look his way anymore. Night after ni...

Independent eyes would not share a color. One holds an ocean of blues colder and deeper than the Mississippi Delta at dusk she drowns in insecurity. The other stares gray as the Alaskan tundra at dawn furious as a newborn blizzard. Mismatched as her gaze are her moods  at times quiet and cloudy with self-doubt. Other times volcanic with resentment.  She feels bleached-out by the sun. (She longs to see the sun rise in the west.) She envies the moon. (She pretends it’s a pearl around her neck.) She walks the cusp of daybreak and twilight, with their long, tangles of shadows. Spinning in her contrary orbit, she can’t see  that she is the brightest point on the horizon. __________________________________________ Venus is both the morning and the evening star, so I felt that it was a fitting metaphor for heterochromia. It  is also the only planet that spins counterclockwise in its orbit. Sorry to hear that you contracted Covid while you were in Europe. I am very happy tha...

 Changing Colors I've always hated fall it was death dressed in pretty colors. I lived for summer travel swimming, fireflies and blackberry pie. Lately though the summer heat is just burning me out. Like a needy toddler the heat clings to me weighs me down like the ring I used to wear. When you walked away I buried my face in my hands embarrassed that I couldn't make it work in denial of my failure. I was stuck there like the groove left on my finger but it's finally faded. Now that I've reached the autumn of my life the fall breeze feels like a mother's caress  and carries memories of song and innocence. Geese fly in vees trees do their slow strip tease leaves line streets fragile as a lover's vow. Amid the black opal sky Libra Moon calls out to me to embrace my changing colors to sweep regrets into the wind to cherish family and friends.  To be grateful for little things the sunset, a kitten's purr pumpkin pie and my granddaughter's smile. But there...