need

Wishes made
Promises untold
But when rain falls
My arms unfold

I am guarded
Desert cloud I bid thee
Forsake the Sun
And bring me the sea

Love Song

When my heart would need
A little company your loving arms
Wouldn't comfort me              

Baby ive been set aside
To wander my own starry skies
Days are gone my heart
Would sing our little lie

Bring me a dream
Wont turn its back on me
Make me a promise  
Wont cost all of me 

Baby ive been alone
Seen the other side
Of nevermind 
         
Bring me a dream
Wont turn its back on me
Make me a promise  
Wont cost all of me

Sing me a love song
Make me believe
What home can be

MOON RISE

Stop looking. Stop. Close your eyes.

Turn your face to the dying sun like a flower.

Let the breeze keep time in the wisps of your hair
with the shadows at play upon the mountains.

The elders stand large and forever along the waters edge
grey and brittle in their high winter garb, their backs
the strength of the ages

Let them bear your heart's weight and breathe in a new day done.

The moon will rise the heart will heal.

Memory will change.

Morning will bring a new song.

Kachina Doll

The clouds they rise and spread

Across this Anasazi sky

Fresh paint upon this ancient place

New life to breathe into my wooden face

High upon a mountain top now I live

I and my like, each with a mystery,

Perhaps from a star, or many stars

or a mystical crack in Mother Earth

Born of water and battered by wind

I found my way to this place

Led by a desert Sun past my labors

Time's threaded weave I put to rest

Skillful hands craft an image

Ink and Paint and Feather, holy bound

Blade to wood and water to stone,

Blood to fetish. I dance and sing

From nowhere and for no one

And I never find a mist in the desert,

The heat and cold so hard at work

And here, mist and Time be one

No one to know from whence I come

A wayward woman, a kindred soul

My spirit nourished by the heat of the Sun

And I now to learn the mystery of me

As I craft and weave and begin to Believe

So Far Away

Once I accept that
you are where your heart
really wants to be then

well, then you can be free

Until then, I plead
for the return of the days
when you made me feel

you wanted nothing more

than me

darkness falls

Wantless - not wanting at all
Damned, Wandering

Wishless - not wishing at all
Daunted, Contemplating

it all

move us forward into the brighter days
i want out of Everyone's back seat

just to feel cared for, just to care

i promise i'll try to deserve it

A Walk in Time

Stone by

wet stone

The path is laid

before us

The trickle and flow

like soft windchimes

in our ears

The breeze cool

against our skin

across our faces

Here we squint

our eyes at the sun

the brightest days

to come

Holding hands

matching our steps

alongside

in time

finally

Smiling

The Cold Fire

(written many many years ago)

If only I could,
but I can't

If only I would
but you won't

If only
But you must not
Even think of it.

Someday?
Maybe,
But maybe isn't
Always

And now
Is not Forever

Just the same
We will be here

And the world will
Always burn
Like the sun

With Love

Rain

I feel the rain

Shining on my neck

Shimmering on my breasts

Wetting my hair

Clinging cool, Sultry

Rain is relentless as it falls
its power scattered and yet unified
Tiny silver music, ordered chaos

I hear the rain

Delicate poundings

Puddles with patterns

Rattling the panes

Its the only way the vast sea spray
Manages its visit
To my little desert hideaway
But it finds me
It finds me all the same

Perhaps the distance

Between you and I

Is measured now

Only in the space between

The lightning and the thunder

I know the rain

It echoes from your ears

To mine

From miles away

Sweet, unexpected rain

Mingus Moon

Tucked up against this old grey mountain
Perched on the rolling hills before it
This house holds warmth, space, safety
I perch within it, knees up to my chest, arms squeezing
Like a teenager up in a tree, hoping not to be found
Pouting, growing against my will, dreaming a dream
I can never fully understand but yearn for all the same
Looking to the moon for my reflection

Late Reflection

    This seems like the closing of another chapter in my life. Perhaps one that started around the time I parted ways with Mike. Perhaps it is the same chapter and it started much earlier. I suppose its useless to examine that closely. The point is that this is the end of the road for part of me. I can feel that. I know that I am slowly dying inside. I checked back into my dusty memory to see what I was doing during other phases like this, when someone in my life was lost, close or otherwise. I wanted to say this was the first time I'd had to endure something like this alone. But that would be a lie.
    When Daddy died, I was very much alone. Robbie had gone. Garland was overseas and not yet a real player on the stage. I had my poetry, my music, my solitude. I didn't know what it was then to have a partner. It was beyond me then to wish for the things I wish for now, a hand to hold, a shoulder to nuzzle or cry on; a warm body to lie next to all day and stare out the window at nothing and chat about nothing. Someone who would bring me a cup of tea and say nothing at all, they would just know that I needed it.

    When Garland died, I was living with a roommate who double-crossed me. Hawk was there for me, but I didn't show him everything, in fact I remember trying to hide my grief. I felt ashamed. Shamed about being engaged in the first place. Shamed about knowing that it was not the path for me but trying to take it anyway. It was an easy path at the time. It was something like a bad TV show, and I knew better.  Again, I had my poetry, my music.

    When Hawk died, I had things to do. I had to be there to collect and distribute his things. I had to deal with Hawk's remains, and his roommate, who needed to get a life. The sense of purpose I had at such a young age, doing such important things, took some of the sting away for the moment. I had Freeway, so to speak but he found his way to the door. Russ, well, Russ was my way of avoiding the whole drama. It felt so much better to be made love to, to be ravished and ached for, physically or psychically, didn't matter. For so many months I pretended not to be grieving. I pretended not to grieve at all, not for Daddy or Garland or Hawk. Through the years I've paid a high price for this avoidance. My will seems broken and my mind is not as strong as it used to be. I don't feel like the “force of nature” I've been accused of .

    As Mark dies this slow, painful, wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy kind of death, I felt this part of me dying too. I can wrangle with the anger and disappointment all day. We can discuss, my therapist and I, how I was abused by him as a child, as a sister, as a human being. But the bottom line is that Mark, much like Daddy, Hawk and Garland, have not lived to see a day when Melanie can be all that they wished for me to be. They will not meet my lifemate, my children, if any of those are to ever be. I tried to make him Uncle Mark to David and Christopher, but that just didn't take. You can't force family on people. You can't make people love you. And if they do love you, you can't make them do right by you.

    So, now, for all intents and purposes, its just Mom and I. This will separate what's left of my relationship with my mom.  She will bottle her grief and act out like a teenager. I for one do not have that kind of energy. I only have this sense, this profound, unwaking nightmare, of feeling absolutely and completely alone.  For now, this loneliness stings and is the only thing I can think about. My empty bed is my only safe haven. As I hide from the world and feel this hollow, hollow emptiness, I am constantly reminded of the vacant space next to me. Somewhere along the line, someone showed me what it was to have a companion, to have constant support and kinship. But I am left with secrets and memories of those who would shape me forever. For better or for worse.

Would I be missed this way

My pale and painted fingertips
Caress the white sheet about my
tender skin
pull it tight around my shoulders
about my waist, remembering your arms
strong and warm

Loose the sheet let it drape across my
naked back
my hair dark against the white pillow
bury my face and breathe in the smell
of your chest

The dream is forever, for now you are just
a whisper
I clench my fists tearing at the sheets
brace myself for the night I'll navigate
without you

Inspiration

The emptiness of a soul
Is measured by
The vastness of the world
Outside of it


The strength of a soul
Is measured by
The level of pain heaped
Upon it


The life of a soul
Is measured by
Nothing yet grasped
 and

In that simple lacking
and despite man's best efforts

Beauty lives on

Ashes to ashes

Muse beside me
I sit in a bar
The stars in the night sky
So much brighter than I

The air in here
doesn’t taste the same
except for the beer
I miss the smokey haze
that I could disappear into

I don’t want the poison here
Booze makes me want to smoke
I remember smoke like a fantasy
I remember it much more fondly
than it remembers me

Now smoke makes me sick

or is it the fantasy
It's been so long now
that I can’t really have what I want
and not pay such a heavy price for It

So Muse beside me
I sit in a bar
The stars in the night sky
So much brighter than I

Softer now

Use your velvet voice
Tread lightly with the sounds you make
Speak as if there was no phone, no miles
Between us, but as if you could feel the
Tiny hairs on my soft creamy skin with your lips
Let the space between us evaporate
If only for a treasured moment
I will hear you

So imagine, a well of pain.  Deep, boiling, roiling pain that seemingly has no end, no bottom, no relief.  No clear source even.  Imagine it percolates, bubbles, sweats to the surface like huge pools of lava.  Crews are working constantly, and metaphorically, as sand fills the space left by the hot magma, dry cool sand that shores up the outer shell, mimics a solid form again.  But magma remains.  In other vast gaping holes.  Constantly on the move.  Well meaning souls with clumsy feet come along to explore.  Wear their best hiking boots, steel toe maybe.  Strong enough...when they trip - to launch that steel toe right through the outer cooling crust.  Oops.  So didn't mean to do that!  But now the hole from the bottom to the top is wide open.  Now the magma has an escape route.  Now there is an explosion of grief, of pain.  Manifesting as a tearful thundering rain.  The monsoons are indeed here again.  I wonder if they bring Compassion.

"are you still writing?"
"writing what?"
"anything?  anything at all?"
"i wrote something the other day.  (pause for thought) i don't think it was very good."
"and who are you to judge exactly?"
"well, i wrote it!"
"that doesn't mean anything"
"really?"
"really."
"why not?"
"because you wrote it.  you're too close to it.  once it's written you've lost your perspective on it."
"is that so?"
"it is."
"are you teaching Creative Writing now?  is that how you know so much?"
"no."
"well, then."
"i'm serious."
"i don't care."
"why not?"
"because i don't write for your approval.  or any one else's for that matter."
"is that so?"
"yes, it is.  thanks anyway."
"well, good for you."
"thank you"
"i'm serious."
"you said that."
"well, i'm saying it again."
"fine."
"fine."

Alone and at peace with me

Tonite I need no one to validate me.  Tonite I feel a glimmer of what I think it might feel like to have more of my soul back in my possession, more in tact and healing.  The shamans believe the soul can be stolen, I believe the soul can and will leave for survival when bad things happen.  We dream through our lives stripping pieces of ourselves away, dying a little with every stumble, every tear.  But tonite, maybe I shine a little more than last nite.   Maybe I'm just a little more alive, as the moon waxes, the heat rises, my pulse is steady and my resolve is firm.  To celebrate, I prepared myself a meal.  A tall glass of milk; carefully selected grain bread, sliced turkey, fresh spinach and a bright red tomato sliced by my own hand.  I cut the sandwich in half to be sure its dignity was preserved.  And for the first time in many moons, my hunger is sated.  Not because I chose the right food, the right portion, no - because I chose the right person.  I prepared it for me with love.  The dead me doesn't cook for me.  The dying me would never divert the energy from it's daily run of doubt and disappointment.  It tastes like heaven.  It feels like I am worth the effort.  If this excitement lasts through the night, in the morning I'll perform my new daily ritual, gathering the first rays of the morning sun for the most delicious tea to be made for such a weary soul.

Phoenix rising?

In the dark in the quiet
I sound out the walls of my cell
I think about what's out there
outside of me, outside of time

High the dry desert mountains rise
beneath a blanket anasazi sky
all apart the pieces lie one by one
again i try to redefine who am I?

The Gift

I am a girl.

and what I remember

about Love...

It has always been

more important than

air itself.

I've chased it

bathed and wandered

aimlessly in it.

Until I forget

more about Love

than I remember...

It will burn me

to the very core

Can I still believe?

I've been discovered,

lost, found,
but never savored.

My girlish years

crafting such perfect

Love, the happy ever after.

The brass ring

not so golden or

not the right fit.

And now a woman,

still all I'm ever

going to want

Is to be the gift.

the one, the Love

of someone else's Life.

If I can't believe it so,
this mystery is little
more than myth.