Dream Song
I dreamed I dreamed in one two three
I dreamed that you were here with me.
Repeating music held us close
its harmonies in measures dosed
as phrases that sang again again
while we seemed to be back then
when you were you and I was me
and we could see, hear, move freely,
when you held me and I held you—
we didn’t know time held us too.
Now all that’s left is time’s tight hold
so close around as I’ve grown old,
I see it as through a magnifier—
blurred, yet lined, a fist, a mire.
You, like the music, just in my head
when I lie upon my bed
in the dark that even enfolds time
sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes.
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Hello! Here’s a poem that I am posting for Kerry O’Connor’s post on Real Toads, with the wonderful picture by McMonster, @mc__monster, below. Pic above is mine. 
I am very pleased to announce the publication of two picture books, written and illustrated by yours truly!
EVEN SINGING WAS THE MOON!–for those who love to sing and read, also a bedtime book.
ABC GOAT–for those who love letters! And cake! And friends!
Please check them out! Review if you can!
What Makes One
what makes one begin
after a battle
begin again
after a war
after whatever
razes all
to the ground–
maybe it’s hunger,
or maybe the need to breathe,
to get out, get away,
get the bodies out
of the way–
maybe something in the cells
cries out for water
says get water
guard water
find what water
can be guarded–
or, maybe its the hearing of cries
for water
the not wanting to hear
such cries–
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For my own prompt on Real Toads about rebirthing,, rebooting– The pic is mine; all rights reserved.
So, says the Universe
You think I do not love you because
people die;
because you lose your sight, because
leaders lie;
because your child may be harmed.
How could a universe that loved you
let your child be harmed?
You think if the universe loved you,
your life would be charmed.
I send you signs–all the time I send you signs.
In the moss that grows
beneath your toes, every thread crowned;
in the moss crowned with stars
beneath your toes.
In the stars that moth your nights;
In your breath, in light,
in what grows from death, from blight.
In what’s born
from what never really died;
in all that stands and sits and lies.
I roar that love
in strong winds,
murmur it in all manner
of susurrus,
holding you in my non-arms.
What you look at, you’ll find charmed.
Even when you cannot see,
oh my dear one.
*******************
Poem for April and Fireblossom’s Friday on Real Toads. The prompt to write about love from the perspective who loves someone who does not know about it. (The poem is still a draft, and I have edited it since posting.)
Finally coming up for air on my end and hope to return comments.
The pic is mine from my book, Good Light Room, available on Amazon.
After Dickinson (In Modern Times)
Because I would not stop for Life,
he did not stop for me—
Life not really a creature
of posed civility—
As I drove and drove myself
Life hopped on for the ride—
Though he’d himself no need for haste
He let me indecide—
We passed by schools, their playgrounds bare—
youth stop-starting ahead,
each of us scurrying plural
to find our own instead.
I didn’t see my horses’ heads
eyes round with darkling strain—
I did not marvel at the gleam
of steaming car or train.
I did not really see at all—
oh yes, there was my screen,
someone was doing something there
someone else too, it seemed—
Missing much before me like—
the cornice in the ground
that grave site sometime swelling—
that loss most surely found—
Till then, it isn’t centuries
it might feel not a year—
yet still I hunt some distant there—
although Life sits just here.
*****************
Drafty poem for April after Emily Dickinson, for Marian’s prompt on Real Toads about etiquette. The Dickinson poem that inspired it follows vaguely can be found here. Drawing is mine (as are all on this blog unless otherwise identified.) All rights reserved.
I’m not really satisfied with this one, but I am already a day late and need to leave for work! Sorry I have been slow to comment. It seems very hard for me to do the blogger/wordpress interface and a lot of the comments I did yesterday seem lost in some nether space. Agh.
by Jason Limberg
What they want of us (Certain Lawmakers)
To reproduce like rabbits.
No, just to be rabbits, pussy soft hares,
mute and cute.
To just shut up and hop to it;
mute and cute.
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Thinking of current assaults on Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood in the U.S. (and on women’s rights generally). For Kerry’s prompt on Real Toads; the pic is a wonderful ink drawing by Jason Limberg. .The views expressed here are stricttly my own and have no connection to Jason.
Cold
I have been so cold
all day,
one hand mittening a tea mug, the other icicling
rough lips, a quaking
inside.
Why have you come to me, virus?
When I was already too sad
to be sick.
But that’s how it works, you whisper,
snarkily,
while me, I sniff, and tell myself
that time will surely bring
relief,
and tell myself how still I must change
my life,
and wonder whether I will now.
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Another drafty poem for April and for the Real Toads prompt about the monster that’s a bad roommate, this the rhinovirus currently camped out in my throat and nose.
When Thinking of Scars
I have heard that Buddhists ask
what one should do in a world filled
with sharp stones?
Should we cover the world with
soft leather, so that we might walk
where we will?
Or should we simply cover
our feet?
I tend to wear thickish shoes,
my skin so thin.
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Drafty poem for Sherry”s prompt on Real Toads.
Somewhen
Somewhen a car roams,
the shape of my torso already
ghosting its hood;
stairs I will have fallen down
await,
a stream slips around the sometime rocks
in my pockets;
the sea breathes me.
They all speak late at night, sotto voce–
They think that I don’t hear them.
(They know that I hear them.)
(They count upon my hearing them.)
In the cone that is a too-bright light lit late,
the car hood blinks, the stairs shrug,
the stream blushes – the sea too feels sheepish–embarrassed all
by how they need me
to make them into fates–
embarrassed all of them, but not so embarrassed
as to simply let me be.
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Another would-be poem for Sanaa’s prompt on Real Toads about late nights. It is difficult for me to return comments till this weekend, but will.
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