Beans grow fast, most morninins I
go out and pick ‘em, being careful
that they’re filled out before I pull
‘em from the vine. Sometimes I’m
not sure so I leave ‘em and worry
they’ll grow old and dry before the
next pickin’ and something bad’ll
happen to me for my misjudgment.

I like to watch when you curry your
horse, brushin’ him till his coat shines
like an old copper penny. The barn’s
mostly dark with just a little light
comin’ in the door way at the end and
it smells of sweat and mash – I like
the smell, it’s a comfort like the animals
who don’t expect anything from you.

You’re all dusty from ridin’, a thin layer
of red dust has settled on your clothes
and the hair on your arms. I saw you ride
by at a canter when I was pickin’ the beans.
I watched out of the corner of my eye cuz
I didn’t want you to know I noticed. I was
listenin’ to Bob Dylan on my little radio
tucked down into basket with the beans.

“His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen”

I’m finally saying good-bye,
to you of the laughing blue
eyes that hide the dark purple
of bruises and crimson of clotted
blood. I thought you were one
thing but you were many instead.
The lushness of passion and the
thorns of disparagement were all
a part of you, but I didn’t know. I
only knew that I became entrenched
like a log caught in an underwater
world of clinging reeds until I
became the one who was clinging.

I say good-bye to you now when
I couldn’t before. As the years passed,
the current tugged me loose and
I floated gently away without
even realizing it. The shore that
seemed unreachable is solidly
underfoot now so I can turn and wave
good-bye and never look back again.

_____________________________

Shared on Poets United.

This house is starting to feel like
home again in spurts and starts –
not all the time every day, but
more often than not. It’s been a
long time since I felt at home.

This house felt like the underside
of an overpass and I felt homeless
in my own skin. It crept up on me,
this feeling, it crept up and took
over my life, my thoughts, my emotions
and held me hostage for nine long
years, invading my very core and
changing who I was until I didn’t know
who I was.

This house waited with the patience
of bricks and timber and roots that
burrowed deep into the earth with
each passing day that I was absent.
This house knew better than I that the
balm of home, of solidarity, of safety
would bring me back to myself,
one day.

Yeah, mamma said don’t trust a
man with caramel-colored eyes,
especially when he calls you his
Muse and says makin’ love to you
breaks loose the words and they
all come a-tumblin out through
fingers as nimble on the keyboard
as they were on your skin, the words
skippinn’ outa his mouth as he’s lickin’
your neck on down to your toes and
across that bright white screen shinin’
like the eye of the Lord on the
mountain top.

I told mamma I was leavin’ you –
you and your hard drinkin’, devil
writin’ ways, and I didn’t give a damn
about being no muse and I didn’t
give a damn about your caramel-colored
eyes and your smooth talk that was
s’posed to be for my ears but ended
up in everybody elses. You can nimble
your fingers in other women’s honey
pot all you want but one day you’ll need
your muse again and it’ll be just too
damn bad.

________________________________

Shared with dVerse Poets Pub.

It’s another balmy day in paradise.
I push down the plunger in the French
Press, inhaling the earthy aroma of
the blackest of coffees called Community.
The morning paper lies on the coffee table
waiting for its unfolding, opening and
adjusting shake. “Sneaking Sally Through
The Alley” is dancing out of the Boze, WWOZ
accommodating its listeners with the
best music in the country, bar none.

Noise from the street wafts through the
open French doors: the rummmm-rummmm
of the city bus, the high-pitched laughter
of kids on Christmas break, the artificially
cheerful greeting of “order when you’re ready!”
coming from McD’s drive-through so often
that it’s become just another sound like
the bus or the cat’s meow.

The newspaper serves up last night’s murder
du jour as well as the professionally whitened smiles
of the uppercrust partiers of the Social Scene –
Not on the same page, of course.

I get up from the couch, look out the front window
and marvel how the bad and the good
co-exist in the same city on the same
day and how complacent we all are that
it is so.

______________

Shared on dVerse Poet’s Pub.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Shared on dVerse Poets Pub.

Photo via Examiner.com

Two brown eyes peer
through a back seat window,
gazing at the sparkling white
powder on the city sidewalks.
A small mittened hand swipes
a red runny nose then dips
quickly back into the pocket
of the threadbare rumpled jacket
from which it emerged.

Festive shoppers with bulging
bags walk gaily down the street
as the two brown eyes watch
in wonder. The family in the
old red Chevy is but a part
of the background of busy
streets and merry anticipation,

waiting at a red light as
the sputtering heater blows hot then
cold and the children sniffle and cough
the carol of the hungry and homeless.

Down the snowy street it chugs
straining on its last fumes to reach
the shelter where warmth and food
and one cold night off the streets
awaits if the line isn’t too long or
the shelter too full.
Belief is a word pregnant with hope.

~~~~~~~~~

Shared on Three Word Wednesday and on dVerse Poets Pub.