Boy, did she know how to read between the lines! And upside down, and in a mirror, and in the dark. She knew how to read in Braille, in cuneiform, in emojis. She could read between the lines, and hear the unspoken secrets of many people. Not all, thanks be to god.
Goddess. There is only one woman, she heard in her head. There is only ONE WOMAN. One universal truth. Many fractured mirror truths. Everyone was cracked, somewhere.
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We met Jesus at his gate. My little daughter was so excited she ran up to him & clung to his legs. He put her little feet on top of his big feet & continued to walk forward wheeling his luggage, while she squealed like a parrot.
His suitcase was brand-new & shiny, and it had a piece of purple duct tape on it — JHC, his initials. His carryon bag looked like it had been trampled upon by a multitude. Jesus looked… tired & dusty.
Not what I expected. Always, always, always use waterproof mascara. One never knows when one might find it necessary to cry.
He couldn’t believe what people were doing with his name. The worst kind of identity theft, he called it. Jesus knew swear words that hadn’t even been written yet.
He had a work ethic nobody could fathom. But superhuman, no. He functioned mainly on coffee and chocolate and weed, just like the rest of us.
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You were not built to carry the weight of this world. And yet. It is upon you; you feel it, heavier every day. Your prayers have been shouted and whispered, in communion and all alone. There are four thousand languages, in this world. Don’t you think God can speak every one? Never be afraid to grieve; to cry; to pound the ground; to bang a drum somewhere; to appear naked as a jaybird, before your maker. And don’t be afraid to make your own mark, on the wall of a cave, on a server, in a cloud. Do you need a map? Some create their own, mandalas with colored sand, swept away after three days. There are so many ways to pray, and the most important way is kindness. You, my beautiful daughter, will begin and end with a simple breath — and you, my well-loved child, were not built to carry this weight, the weight of the world.
Filed under compassion, courage, death, dreams, earth, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, everything, forgiveness, god, grief, heart, human beings, kindness, love, mourning, religion, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, universe, world
The bride’s laugh vexed the lands,
overlooking the great, bruise-colored
canyon, when she first said to the groom,
No, I don’t think so.
She defied his desires,
for nearly a century. He tried so hard…
it nearly brought death. His, or hers;
it didn’t really matter.
We’ve learned how some of them,
my darlings, are nothing more than creeps.
And rest assured, our game does have an end:
an end which tips the scale. The journey
out of the wilderness, away from the pit,
will find our esters quite changed.
Our journey was (or will be)
long, and very quiet.
Now, our shimmering skin dims to the shadow thief;
time is stealthy, taking soundless, fevered positions.
The anticipation is delicious, under our knees,
truth thrust like a knife (between waxen observers).
Soon, light-dressed love will be in your hair;
and wrestlers, across the colors, will shift through the room.
Desire, realized, is hot silk, slipping quiet and soft.
Dear one, there is no other course found.
You know more laughing is the way —
and less is usually, but not always, more.
Filed under beauty, compassion, courage, death, development, dream, dreams, eternity, passion, poetry, prose poetry, relationships, Uncategorized
Every moment of her life had been marked by her soul, waiting and restless, trying to elevate itself. Yearning. In the end, she had done what she had HAD to do… she recognized herself only from a great distance. Was she Mary Poppins? Pollyanna? A doe-eyed Disney princess? She remembered driving across Western flatlands, as fast as she could, her head out the window, her face into the sere wind.
She, an Air Force pilot’s daughter, felt bad for the poor stewardesses, who knew what was coming in a way mere passengers could not know… stoically dumping everyone’s shoes in the bathroom. Collecting all sharp things, taking people’s eye-glasses away from them. She remembered walking along the edges of the Atlantic, feeling the cool sand under her toes. Mother Universe keeps her eyes on us all.
Someone reached out to grasp her hand, solid & firm. She grasped back. She looked at the sun through the little window, a flashing brilliant light, and lightly closed her eyes. It would be quick, merciful, and good. And right now? Right now she was still alive. She was still a witness. There was no other way to get through life. Mercy was revealed, and blinded her. Everyone was waiting.
The woman thought of God a hundred times a day. A thousand. An infinite number of times. Consciousness on the quantum level. And each day, she grew unhappier. More discouraged. Bleaker. Uglier. Sadder. More uncertain. In the trenches. Wanting to know for sure, and be done with it. The big picture… could anyone see it… could anyone imagine it… could she, or anyone she knew, ever have a clue to its subject… its matter. Most people seem strong until something goes wrong. Could time really heal?
Her belly grew heavy and cold, a dizzying pit of endless space. Would she ever be able to see it through to the end? Where was the end? When was it reasonable to stop trying. When was it the right time to stop trying… too hard. Where were people when you needed them. Bullets never did any body any good. The first human-killing weapons led to more, and more deadly, machinery for war… cannons and tanks and bombers. Land mines. Napalm. Nukes. Propaganda. Poison. Secrecy. It all boiled down into the same rotten thing, in the end.
Terror. The dog barked and barked and yelped and whined and barked some more. He was single-minded; his existence that moment was all about the cat, the cat behind the sofa. She refused to be ruled by terror. She growled and hissed back. She sat just outside his reach and baited him. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it backfired. Sometimes the dog came so close to her, his mouth closed in on the long, silky fluff of her tail. He bore a complex pattern of red scratches on his black and white snout. The man wanted the cat gone in the morning. What if he insisted? The man, or the cat? She preferred the cat tonight. No telling about tomorrow.
Filed under anger, courage, death, fear, fiction, grief, heart, hope, human beings, humanity, loss, love, mourning, murder, peace, personal responsibility, prose poetry, relationships, short stories, soul, spirit, united states of america, war, wish
Notes From The Unconscious
Run me languid over a rusty road,
and you behind, laughing to pursue…
Take only my smooth love chain,
kiss me softly, without injury.
I am essential and lusty…
I will drive through it for her leg diamonds,
and use him at those bare places.
To sea and gone were the sweet peach thousand.
The blood goddess is frantic…
She knows how hard loving is.
All delicate language has arms of iron, so
sing elaborate love from your tongue.
How have I dreamed sordid roses?
Rob them of a tiny pink eternity….
As bees nuzzle, so shall I dive into you,
and sniff your scent like a mama bear.
A man I used to know lives less than anyone
under wool suits. He rips up rocks
as meat, then he must finger petals.
He has no idea this is happening.
For years, I floated bitter in a black lake…
I said, please, no beating,
leave out the ugly juice,
don’t make me drink any more.
No one listened. My eyes turned
red like woman vision…
I am still weaker & falling,
after death, beauty may ache raw & blue.
He let a void crush what we incubated….
Did it in my white bed.
One milk moan from an infants’
fresh red lips, haunting me forever.
Boil away the mist with lick power.
Heave away or use an apparatus….
Near the TV, these fiddles cry for feet
to dance and obliterate pain.
Our sad summer was like a repulsive
shadow of fluff. I floated like a dandelion seed.
But winter could recall a sweet day chant
with cool water, trips to the country like lazy sun…
Did the purple smear on the wall show size?
Why can the mad beautiful boy shake?
I watch a friend produce a luscious lie.
None trudge after me, but time will swim easy…
Blow your smoky symphony,
my green cloud angel,
and put the sacred blaze against a woman,
melting her like caramel.
Dirt will come and time bring ice,
so heal your broken voice, shed the marble
surrounding you like a deep bone prison,
while I bleed champagne.
Ask your heart to squirm, remember
the ship of spring, seek air blue kisses,
pierce the morning, know the color of liquid
magic, speak in a velvet stream, and love me.
Filed under beauty, birth, blood, buddhist, compassion, courage, development, dream, dreams, eternal, evolution, forgiveness, hope, human beings, humanity, identity, karma, kindness, life, logic, loss, love, manifesto, maturity, mitochondria, mortality, mother, mothers, mysterious, nature, passion, peace, poetry, relationships, science, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, travel, tribute, truth, universe, warmth, wish, world, youth
TRUMP is an informative guide on Donald Trump presented in a comics format by Ted Rall, published by Seven Stories Press. It is not a satire, nor is it a bombastic attack on Mr. Trump. In fact, if you were only to read a brief passage here or there, you might even warm up a […]
Filed under assholes, con man, con men, corporate states of amerka, criminal, criminal behavior, criminals, emperor, empire, evil, fear, hypocrisy, idiots, ignorance, insecurity, jerks, karma, personal responsibility, politics, satire, star spangled banner, tea party mad hatters, truth, ultra right wing loons, united states of america, users
PRETZELS & CHOCOLATE
(rented room, cigarettes)
I am eating pretzels
and they are hard
but splinter into salty crumbs
with the merest bite
they only satisfy
part of my tongue
(rented room, cigarettes)
so I pick up the chocolate
greedy for it to melt
against my palate
sucking the firm square
feeling it mold to me
the way I imagine
my body molds to yours
(rented room, cigarettes)
retaining the character of sweetness
to complement the salt
to balance my mouth
I am eating chocolate
thinking of us
together
(rented room, cigarettes)
Filed under acceptance, adolescence, adult children of alcoholics, ancient history, apology, appeals, artistic failures, assholes, beauty, birth, black, blood, Catholic, child abuse, child neglect, childbirth, childhood, children of alcoholics, christian, compassion, con man, daughter, death, development, divorce, dream, dreams, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, faith, family, father, fatherhood, fathers, fear, fiction, for children, forgiveness, friendship, funeral, gay marriage, god, grief, he, health, Uncategorized
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Kimberly Townsend Palmer 