Tag Archives: women

February 28, 2024 · 10:44 am

Weight

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.

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Tagged as compassion, death, god, love, poetry, women

December 13, 2023 · 3:03 pm

Priestess

Sometimes we must learn to live with uncertainty, the priestess said. Sometimes we must endure the unendurable. She smiled at me. Come take a walk, she said. Let’s walk over there, under those trees. That pine grove over yonder. Under those quiet pines, on the hush of the needles. Let’s make a basket out of them. Let’s walk to the spongy banks of the creek & watch the salamanders wiggle across the damp. Let’s phone home, and listen to your mama’s voice. Go ahead, let us surprise ourselves by crying.

(Illustration courtesy of Mike Willcox, https://mikewillcox.bigcartel.com/product/the-high-priestess)

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Filed under animals, beauty, compassion, courage, earth, faith, Uncategorized

Tagged as beauty, compassion, death, hope, love, poetry, truth, women

August 11, 2023 · 1:40 pm

Out of The Wilderness, a poem

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.

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Filed under beauty, compassion, courage, death, development, dream, dreams, eternity, passion, poetry, prose poetry, relationships, Uncategorized

Tagged as dreams, fantasy, god, intimacy, men, poetry, spirit, spirituality, universe, wilderness, women

April 2, 2023 · 2:40 pm

Jasmine

The old lady didn’t know she sat under poet’s jasmine. She didn’t know the plant was native to Iran and of course, she didn’t know another name for it was common jasmine. The coffee was nice & hot and her sprinkle cookie was nice & sweet. Did you know every time a love song made you cry, an angel got its wings?

So she sat at her table, outdoors in the cool shade, writing & editing & surprised every so often by a whiff of some heavenly perfume. She kept writing & smelling heaven, writing & smelling heaven. Someone once said that every love song was really about god.

For a while, she thought this gift was courtesy of a young woman at the table in front of her, but she left and the puffs of light sweet perfume kept right on puffing. She nibbled what was left of her glorious cookie. Your soul is a mirror, my soul is a mirror, she thought.

She saw, reflected in a pane of glass, the image of vines. She lifted her head and saw dozens of jasmine blossoms swaying high above, each tiny, white star the universe’s own perfumery. Right there in a coffee shop, on Sixth Avenue.

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Tagged as aging, beauty, compassion, heaven, jasmine, perfume, poetry, truth, women

September 13, 2016 · 1:17 pm

Notes From The Unconscious, a poem

illustration-notes-from-the-unconscious

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.

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Tagged as beauty, compassion, death, dreams, faith, god, healing, hope, life, love, nature, peace, poetry, Relationships, sex, soul, spirit, truth, women

August 12, 2016 · 11:00 am

I’m one of those women who didn’t negotiate her salary — Quartz

You have to understand how embarrassing this is for me to admit. As far as people go, I’m an alpha male. I speak my mind. I work hard curb my desire to best other people for the sake of besting them. I will probably fight you. And I take pride in who I am, warts…

via I’m one of those women who didn’t negotiate her salary — Quartz

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Filed under civil rights, courage, development, human beings, identity, insecurity, justice, karma, logic, mourning, personal responsibility, regret, transcendence, truth, woman, women

Tagged as economics, equality, gender bias, salary, sexism, women

August 10, 2016 · 3:51 pm

Latin Epidemics, a poem

mane-placidus-et-gnosce-latin Latin Epidemics

Everyone’s caught this bug, talking to the dead, palms upturned.
Hope, long dead, the naked white bones a comfort; leaving homes,
wives, husbands, dreaming toward love; signs of birth.

People so disciplined, so filled with the rules of grammar; staying
married for life, or at least a day. A good day, kiss-filled; warm,
moist lips, not bloodless, cold & grey. How did we catch the fever?

Dreams uncatchable, passion withers; too much hope, too much
trust. Not much honesty; not much logic; a man wanted his wife
to talk to him. A woman wanted her husband to stroke her cheek

with his finger as if she was a flower, a child wanted her mommy
to drink less, wanted his daddy to stay longer… words come easier,
etched on lead sheets thrown into a sacred spring, asking favors of gods.

May he who stole my dog be plagued with gout; may she who
laughed at my husband grow warts on her nose… in a millennium,
nothing has changed except the curses, the fashion, the cheese & wine.

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