Category: Uncategorized

Nothing is waiting in the dark
That is the lie they tell us
Nothing is waiting in the dark
But what is that movement in the corner
Just out of sight

Nothing is waiting in the dark
But what is that scratching sound
Every time the lights go out
Nothing is waiting in the dark
But was the wood so warped before?

Nothing is waiting in the dark
But I know that wasn’t my stomach
Growling loud enough to echo
All through the room
Nothing is waiting in the dark
But now the light isn’t as bright

Nothing is waiting in the dark
But I feel hear something moving across the floorboards
The sound of feet, claws, paws
Scratching, lurking, creeping
From the impossibly dark corner
Nothing is waiting in the dark
But the room is more dark than light now anyway

Nothing is waiting in the dark
But I feel something breathing
Rank breath, splashing its thick odor across my face
Sending chills down my spine as my stomach churns
I try not to vomit, to cry out, to open my eyes
I back away as far as I can, but I’m in my own corner now
Nothing is waiting in the dark,
But now the room is only dark
And I know I am not alone

Nothing is waiting in the dark
When the sun rises
Light fills the room to find…
Nothing
No one is left to wonder if
Something is waiting in the dark.

Honor Hallows’ Eve
Stay cozy in the rain
Crunch the fallen leaves
Before winter comes again
Put your nose on the grindstone
Let the work begin
Reap what you have sown
Before the frost sets in
Cherish every stride
Enjoy it while it lasts
Keep your friends by your side
The cold approaches fast

As a protest to jockeying, I beat a dead horse
Hearing the still breath of the piebald
I love conducting witchcraft in Ohio graveyards
Inhaling the taste of frozen blood
on an iron wrought fence
Hearing only slush
and gravel

Smelling this mush I come to a fury
Then calm to worship the sun
rising over gravestones
Ghosted by even the night

“I can’t afford to die,” says the nearest stone
The ghostly goulash of rotting things
The dead grass of resilence

The marker speaks to me, “Why do you beat a horse?”
Emmie pays no mind to what gravestones have to say
Witchcraft is lessons in poetry

Cursing the sun when it rises above the treeline
and awakens birdsong
Running from the yard
and taking off down the brightening street, I say
“I am sister of Calliope, sigomi!” to no one in particular
I’ll go down the street, to the church by the corner
And ask the cross if they have any more horses

I went downtown today in my patent leather shoes
To do charity work in the new jail for criminals

I went to teach a young man to read because
He would be a long time there and
Boredom would make him crazier

He had killed his mother

He twitched nervously when
I looked into his heavy eyes

No, I said each time you see these letters
You pronounce them the same way
He looked at my feet
Cool shoes Babe
His grin like a rip in his face

The vampire awaits his next victim,
To savor the blood of this person,
When will this happen?
It is hard to say,
He will go out during the full moon,
On a clear night for this escapade,
He believes he can find a victim,
This is how it will be for this vampire,
He obsesses about fresh blood,
The time is passing,
He is ready to go,
He will turn into a bat and fly to this next destination,
May he find him or her,
The night awaits his calling every step of the way.

Creating a new universe as we know it
We live in the present universe now,
However, there are changes,
What does this new universe bring about to others?
In what part of the solar system does it exist?
These are questions to pose,
Are there any answers to them?
Our known universe keeps evolving,
This is just how it goes,
Are there other beings out there?
Do they live in a universe that is adjacent to ours?
Or is there just a new one on the horizon?
These are questions that are hard to answer,
The universe as we know it is, is what it is,
Keep an open mind about tomorrow,
Who knows what will happen?
For now, be good and be happy,
The future will continue in a good or bad way,
We as people will continue to live on planet Earth,
Take care and may a better tomorrow happen,
Seize each moment with open arms,
For now, and always, carpe diem.

Whenever I went to Costco, I bought condoms for my son
I never said anything. Never made a drawn out speech
I figured the Trojans spoke for themselves.

One day, I came home to this girl in hidden in his room
chin to chin they sat there watching tv
Even if he didn’t, I knew why she was there.

The next day, laying barefoot, she painting her nails
A shade that made canaries proud.
“I’ll get you a bottle if you want,” she told me.

Unfortunately, my smile translated to consent
Because the next day, she brought a putrid vial for me
Well, I thought, at least she ain’t stingy.

As weeks melted to months, I hoped she’d evaporate like soap
but with the door closed, she shrieked to Judge Judy on tv
followed by laughter that sounded insane.

I was going crazy. Everyday was the same. Soon as my
husband left for work, she appeared. Her oversized purse bred
under the bed and I wondered if one Costco box was enough.

I should have spoken sooner, especially when a Courvoisier bottle
appeared but as a step-mom to a full-grown son, I didn’t rock boats.
My motto was more like, “Who wants cocoa?”

One day, I woke to the microwave beep and the sound of feet
scurrying down the hallway. Eventually, she sauntered in the kitchen
at her leisure, peering in frig, helping herself without a word.

Maybe it was her laughter, or all the liberties she took,
but one day, I finally snapped. I didn’t care if I caught them buckass
or in the middle of the act., I swung the door and barged in.

“OMG,” she said “This food is so good. He told me you could cook.”
She made ravenous jabs. I swallowed her complement hook,
line and sinker. Everyone has their weakness.

Two months later, she rolled a new bike down our hall.
“I’m hiding my son’s gift. He won’t find it here,” she grinned.
Your son? Who was watching him? After that, I admit, I was done.

But I procrastinated. Grappling between rat fink & cool mom
Meanwhile, the bike gleamed like a shiny Trojan horse
reminding me that Christmas was right around the corner.

After the holidays, the bike was replaced by her son.
He stared at a Game-boy like it held the secret of life.
“Hi,” I said to him. “Hey,” he replied. His eyes looked like he drowned.
.
When my husband took a business trip, she moved in.
El Pollo Loco wrappers flooded the counter. Happy Meal toys ate my toes.
The boy rode his bike at heart-attack speed, and I swore I smelled weed.

That day, I grabbed a plate from her hand, “You can’t stay here,
we don’t allow overnight guests.” Who was I kidding?
I let the fun last for months and now I was playing the heavy.

She looked devastated. Eight months pregnant, she packed & left.
When her water broke the next day, I felt conflicted.
Later, after their break up, I clutched my grandbaby to my chest.

That’s when it hit. You can throw box after box at problems.
Or pray they’ll go away. But some things just happen, whether you want
them or not. And sooner or later, life breaks your heart

The mushrooms sprang forward,
jutting caps out of the grass,
dreaming the earth’s breath
could taste fresh linen rain,
a tripped ballet of shadows
in the dusk’s curious dance.

Time lingers—
a woven tapestry of silence
and dreamscape,
softened whispers of yesterday’s sunlight
pour through the knotted foliage,
the synergistic sounds
of an eternal, unclaimed afternoon.

Beneath the sleepy-lidded sky,
they untangle—
ink dripping from broad-tipped fonts
onto a blank page,
the cap’s crown absorbing Latin chants
of Rilke’s lost hours,
and shadows compose their whispered histories
as the light folds in on itself,
crimping the forked edges,
where unseen hands stretch
the hidden thicket.

In this phantom hour,
the turned earth
tilts,
and the mushrooms arch like opaque figures in a fable,
suspended in a liminal space of fractured twilight,
where the grass intertwines into loved shapes,
and the dim light courses life
into smaller trunks,
each precious minute
a fluid reverie
of redefined existence.

Tiny caps, half-formed, severed
by blades that do not wait—
the earth swallows viable tendrils,
the hive mind’s social kindness.

The sky’s yawning cheesecloth tears
as dawn breaks,
its citrus edges seeping
into the mushrooms’ errant forms,
while the morning’s first brush
paints thin fine lines,
tumbling into and through the maze of our thoughts,
where each cap,
like a blessed relic,
silently journals a world
where fabric tears and then mends
the fleeting light.

As day unfolds
the night’s last melodies,
the mushrooms dissolve into the ground-birthed fog,
their caps slipping into the new day’s narrative,
a faded sketch of future fogged memories,
where grass and sky mingle like liquid—
a dammed sigh before
the gathered pond.

Fungi speak in silent tongues,
whispers borne from spores,
a language soft and lost,
where each cap reveals a story in its unseen folds,
and shadows, long and twisted,
write their own memoirs,
unfolding mysteries in the quiet dance of dusk,
as echoes of the past weave through the present.

The painting stretches wide,
hugging the endless haze,
where cap and stem are tied with tales in mind,
silhouettes of stick figures etched in the evening’s air,
the fungal dance a script of unearned grace,
hung by a moment’s transient embrace,
where echoes whisper secrets
into caverns between pines.

The mushrooms sprang forward,
jutting caps out of the grass,
dreaming the earth’s breath
could taste fresh linen rain,
a tripped ballet of shadows
in the dusk’s curious dance

What if Emily Dickinson were a single mother
and I were her immaculately conceived daughter,
trying to understand her white dresses and recluse ways,
her poems about the snake, the ocean filling her shoe,
and Death like a gentleman in a carriage picking her up to ride?

What if Walt Whitman were my father, always singing
that song of himself in my left ear, his beard scratchy,
before he went out to chase after his lover-boys?

What if Queen Elizabeth I were my grandmother,
and she wouldn’t take lip from anyone, and insisted
that I grow up to be strong and courageous like her,
ready to cut my last words with a diamond
into a pane of glass, then escape my prison to map the world?

What if my memories of my great-grandfather, King Henry VIII,
made me sick enough to cry, but not sick enough to die,
as I turned the pages of the Book of Common Prayer?

What if my brothers and sisters, thousands of them,
were all Holocaust survivors? What if my nieces and nephews
were aborted, but I found their bodies in back-alley dumpsters
and prayed like Saint Margaret until they fell out
of the dragon, mutilated and deformed, but shining?

What if my aunts were dancers who occasionally
worked over-time as bar-girls in Thailand? What if my uncles
were rapists and thieves?

What if my mother died in her sleep, finally depressed
after years of manic visions and prophetic lies, only
to appear to me—sweet, beatific Emily!—caressing my face
in a dream and promising to protect me, finally, from
the father of American poetry?

I am a seed, hidden in a pinecone, falling
from a tree. When the fire burns through the forest,
my pinecone will split open, my seed burrow into the ground,
my roots go down, my trunk go up, my branches
spread wide, and my children flower in my arms.

I wonder if you see
my spirit animal
It isnt gentle, soft
or wonderful
It swims
in heart-stopping waves
of anger
sleeps well in
hollow caves and
soothes itself on heaps of ice

it has a hold on
my heart
so close and tight
suffocating me slowly
screaming senselessly
obsessively,

It turns brutal
when I try to fight
vicious, frenzied, seething
oscillating
between scared and savage
tearing at my insides

it wants me
to stay for me
to
placate its mind
Wadeing, wallowing in angst
seeking comfort
with all its might
I try to love this demon
this black hole
that eats any light in sight

On my knees looking towards the storming sky,
begging whatever entity is in charge to change my fate,
I’m howling like a wild animal, sobs being drowned out by the wind,
each cry a desperate plea swallowed by the roaring tempest.

The sky above is an unrelenting maelstrom,
dark clouds swirling with a wrath that seems personal,
and I am left to face the fury alone,
a solitary figure against nature’s overwhelming power.

I heard nothing but the rain pelting onto the ground around me,
a relentless barrage that echoes my inner turmoil,
the droplets merging with my tears,
creating a symphony of grief and unanswered prayers.

A possible prophetic sign that I am destined to walk beside the devil,
to tread a path full of darkness and condemnation,
where every step is marked by the weight of judgment,
where love is a sin, and acceptance is but a distant dream.

To be burned at the stake for my sins—
for whom I love, for everything I am and will continue to be—
seems an ever-looming specter,
a haunting reminder of the harsh judgments cast upon those who deviate.

The storm rages on, indifferent to my pleas,
its winds tearing at the fabric of my hope,
and I am left to confront the bitter truth
of a world that often fails to understand, to embrace.

Yet, amidst the storm’s fury,
I find a flicker of defiant courage,
a resolve to stand firm despite the tempest,
to face the fire and the rain with the strength of my truth.
For even if the heavens are silent,
and the storm shows no mercy,
I will not yield to the darkness,
but instead, I will walk with unwavering resolve,
embracing the path that is mine to forge,
and finding solace in the authenticity of my own heart.