Poems for the Other Half of April

Ok, this month was WAY harder than last year.  So yes, 30, was finally written, although I've been writing it in my head and heart for a few weeks. 

Poems for the other half of April

18.Moonshine

Sometimes we all look at the moon

And wonder

And remind ourselves of all we do not yet know

19. Beach

New suit new flip-flops

Packing car with what will be

Mostly unused stuff

20. Beach 2

Parking lot night mare

Rage against tourist filled cars

Spot found near Egypt.

21. Beach 3

No fire pits left

Mini hibatchi saves day

Marshmallows later

22. Beach 4

Spread out beach blanket

Lasts thirty seconds before

Sand encrustation

23. Beach 5

Sunscreen applied thick

Dreams of sun-kissed golden skin

Water calls, laughing.

24. Beach 6

Salty water up

Nose forced by nature isn’t

A good neti pot.

25.  Beach 7

Wave walking only

occurs when your feet fly up

Head under water

26.  Beach 9

SPF thirty

Never works against suns lips

Stained red kisses

27. Beach 10

Sun creeps down blue sky

Rays hit water flashing green

Bye red lips lover

28.  Beach 10

Heated skin cool night

Air chilled but not enough to

Stop marshmallow death

29.  Beach 11

Good bye sun and sand

Left red and sandy trudging

Moon lit beach sweet dreams 

30.  Home

When you said you were going home

It did not come as a surprise

But sadness crept into my heart

Knowing you would be far away.

Far away has been where you have been for a long time

And no one can blame you for being there

Especially when your puppy has been kept in a cage

By caretakers who refused to let you feed or water yourself

Kicked you every time you came near

And kept moving so you wouldn’t find them

So you gave it up when you had no other choices

We will all reach that point

Where aging parent s need the care

They freely gave to us as infants

You just didn’t have the opportunity.

So when he gave you something no one else could

A safe place to land

The choice was never a choice

And when you spoke your truth

About what you were returning to

And getting another puppy

That was really when I knew

So go home

Home to the place you once lived

Let those walls you daydreamed behind

Feed the fire that’s been tending in your soul

Let the carpets be the trampoline from which you launch

Grow the grass

Cut it with a lawnmower

Build a dog house

Make plans over beer and barbecue

And go get your puppy

Let him run in the grass

Feed him and water him well

Let him lick your face

We all know he’ll poop in the house and it will smell sometimes

But you’ll never regret letting him in the house to love you

The caretakers will come and try to tell you what to do with him

Some will be kinder and you’ll take what they have to say to heart

You’ll have to let him play with other dogs

It’s how they learn, sometimes the hard way

But know that ultimately, it’s your puppy,

That can grow into a dog

That stays loyal to you even when others walk away

Because you know who you are

And that was never a choice.

@2013 Jennie Olson Six

National Poetry Month 16 and 17

Inspiration

Inspiration lost
still putting pen to paper
hoping for the words.

Long time in the head

fracture spin think think think what did oh really not a chance to change mind spin splinter why how no no no and again repeat spin fracture think think ponder reality disconnect disconnected alone what no one likes me repeat spiral fracture think think react spin what again wait breathe pause spiral pause spiral think interrupt pause breathe past no now yes pause fracture interrupt breathe out let out not here not now think now feet ground root now breathe now think legs now head up breathe out let out not now now here breathe now let go now today good today breathe break a pattern breathe think breathe live breathe inhale now inhale yes exhale yesterday think yes breath yes now yes today yes everything yes life yes breathe yes.  now. 

5 stupid poems

Writing Fail

Writer's Block
leads to pounding head on keyboard
insane debates between the voices in my head
and full fetal position

yeah.....let's keep doin' that.


Turtle

What is most unfortunate
is that I was not born with a shell
to pull my head and body into
to hide from that which threatens me.
Instead, I was born with soft skin
thin in places and bruises easily
my knees are permanently scared.
But I can move slowly
deliberately and with purpose
and remind myself I don't need
a shell to hide from the world
I just need too slow down and take it all in.

5 7 5

Adds to seventeen
Sometimes pure frustration leads
To a clear moment.  

Kevin Six's Famous Last Words

I would only have sex with her once just to say that I did.
You are to obey me in a Christian Household.
We live in a Christian household and you as a good Christian wife are to do that for me.
Pretty much anything that starts with "Christian Household."
In case anyone wonders why....

When the World Blows Up

When the world blows up
will anything need to be said
or remembered or done
other than to grab each other
and go....

National Poetry Month - 9 and ten

Nine
You had blonde hair
buck teeth with a huge gap
big round thick glasses that welfare would pay for
and the development of self-consciousness
this would not go away for decades
and leave you with self-destructive tendancies
and deep shame of simply being alive
coming from the man who abandoned you
but was never really there to begin with
the one who would fail to pay for your braces
so your mother had them scraped off
and you watched them spread back apart
and grow crooked again.
But what this left you with
besides the scar you'd heal yourself
is a memory of you and your best friend
in the bathroom
trying to get her retainer to fit into your mouth
connecting paperclips with failed attempts
to keep your pretty together
and a reminder of when you were young
you were kind to each other
looked out for one another
and kept each others secrets
if only to give each other comfort
and show you what love really is.


Early

Still dark still sleepy

Too soon for night to say bye
yet here calls the day.

@2013 Jennie O6

NPM 7 of 30 8 of 30

To A New Terrain

This shifting speechless
tearing new path left behind
all I didn't need.

Chicken Bones

The reminder of
there was a living being
you tore through and ate.

National Poetry Month 5....maybe 6....

Denial

Denial isn't
A river in Eypgt if
you're swimming it....

The Zombie Apocalypse Came

You and I were not supposed to be friends
It was through our broken we stitched up bandages
made of marijuana, alcohol, methamphatamine and anything
else someone could offer us in exchange for things
teen-aged girls shouldn't be selling.

After intolerable, I started to get out
you had two birds in your nest born from neglect of the world
not giving their mother refuge from the horror she was born into
but you finally found your way out
and back to nesting
but it would not last.

Before I left for sunnier pastures
you started telling the truth again
letting the sweat and the shakes pour out
in my spare bedroom
I encouraged you to keep coming back
it isn't easy but it is the only way
but you chose your own option.

You've had a few last words:
"Your sister wasn't very tough, she couldn't handle the drugs."
"I heard her youngest was adopted by foster parents."


Then your picture
Identical to your mother at the age we met:
Dead, vacant eyes,
Swollen alcholic skin
Nothing left of the beauty once there
Just a mimographed copy of a woman
whose choices led to your abuse
who never got different
who never left you better
so you watched it all happen
her stumble-down drunk dance
with the poison which eventually took everything
and in spite of the breadcrumbs and interventions
chose to put on her shoes and walk right in them
Until you've stopped walking
consciously
anymore.

National Poetry Month 4

Morning Meditation

Sitting for peaceful purposes,
I am flooded by the pain
of what we do to each other
and what we do to ourselves.

I am reminded of the idea
that evil is just the absense of good
and that we have forgotten
that we are the ones we are looking for.

If God is a reflection of the eyes I am looking at
then what happens when God forgets
who they are and what they are here for
so I remind myself, again, to remember.

@JennieO6

National Poetry Month Take 2 and 3

So I'm kind of using nature so far to create.  This poem was inspired  by this video

Once, we didn't fly.
We looked up and saw birds
and wondered how they got there.
We dreamed of flying,
knowing things went up into the air and fell back down to the earth
sometimes harshly.
Our curious natures kept us wondering
until we starting noticing
thinking, believing, and experimenting
until the day came that we learned we could fly too
a seemingly impossible task
left to our wonder and amazement
until the day came when we learned how to do it
like all of the other things
we came to believe in the impossible
until it became probable
into reality and being
which leads us all to wonder
what is next.


Black Crow
You wander in the woods of our culverts
pecking at your treasure, our trash
curious as to it's reliability as food
wondering who else might steal it.
Shiny black, eyes peering,
not really looking at me but aware
coveting your 7-Eleven slurpee cup
hopping to it's movement in the grass
protecting your find.
When we are all gone
will you be better off without us?

National Poetry Month begins Today!

And so it begins....enjoy

Outside my door
the fragrance of flowers
the buzzing of small bees enjoying their nectar
the chirps of birds
the signs of spring.
Noticing these I am content
with what the world is offering:
this moment.

#POETRY 21

Twenty-One

I just got started:

Community college class-load

Part-time employed

Starving student vegetable rice dinners

Cheap tennis-shoes

Growing out dyed hair

Retro-fied hippy wardrobe

Minimum payment on maxed out credit cards

Running slippery rain hills

Boyfriend at the 4-year university

Push start Volkswagon Super-beetle.

I went on to waste my time in various ways,

70's disco themed parties,

Hippy to office appropriate to yoga culture

Moving states,

Changing boyfriends and bedroom furniture

and jobs and careers,

Having choices.

You no longer have choices:

Ended in dirty lands

Filthy wounds

Too soon is a fucking understatement and a crime to say.

As I saw your name and age

Amongst the list

Of 33, 31, and places like Idaho

Hunting, Simi Valley

Families never getting their prayers answered

Hopes smashed

Dreams of college education

Gone.

What happens to that money that should have gone

To community college class-loads

Vegetable rice dinners

And cheap tennis-shoes to run in

Slippery rain hills?

Your names now on a list

That is far too long

And too often forgotten

When we can’t be pulled away long enough

From being entertained

To recognize the sacrifice

The loss of dreams

The elimination of choice

So we can still think we have one. 

#POETRY "To the Maidens"

To the Maidens;
You less than skinny,
stockings runned, pock-marked, less than perfect beauties
You who can not compete with airbrushed lies
But live full out in your speckled skin wonder
Worsened by the unknown chemicals in food
Supposed to feed but poisoning us.
Those earned feathery eyes
Sparkling behind oceans of tears,
Shed in moments of pain or joy
They do not compare
To the soft weather of your hands
Worked to keep mouths full
Of sunshine and hope
Tired, oh yes,
 but in those moments of wondering,
 Whether to ball into rage or comfort, you make choices
To laugh,
To breath,
in spite of polluted air and better beauty products
made only to consume what has already been consumed
hips made to sway
lips made to smile
cracked open you are and you run anyway
on feet bounding through blistered dreams
cause this, girls, is what it is to dance
and this, is what it means to live
in a world that doesn’t believe you’re worth saving
Hair, wild, burning through forests of
Doctors making surgical options
To make a better you,
And politicians making god-like decisions
That they were never hired to do,
And believers so lost in their own pollution
They forgot the holy words left by their savior’s blood.
But these are stitched into your fingernails
Hollowed into your marrow
Gray mattered gospel it can’t be broken
They try to erase you and yet the angels sing praises in your name,
The vibration of their voices shake them all awake
Crumbling institutions that can not save,
Because we knew that already.
Holding onto pieces doesn’t put them back together
It just makes us stronger.
These tree-trunk legs were made to work
And dance and hold ourselves up when no one else did.
This, you fire-dancer, keeper of the down-trodden, lover of the beast, speaker of the truth, shoulder-crier, breathless rebounder, giver of all you have got and then some more,
you are what makes this world bearable. 

#Poetry so far behind I don't know where today will land

Sixteen
We've been here before
and yet we repeat the same words
hoping they'll mean something else
but their truth holds stronger
than those items on the old crazy glue commercials.

And all those needs for normal
all those holes trying to fill
with cigarette smoke and clairol hair dye
short skirts and big hair
only further pollutes the environment,
kills the fish and the river and even the trees.

It's never going to be enough for them,
there's no one coming
there is only hard work, painful stories and wasted days
drink the coffee and put down the hair gel
put down the cape and pick up the reigns
you're gonna ride right out of here
but you have to find the horse first.

Seventeen
You will bandaid the broken
Wipe away tears along with the makeup
And hold onto tokens of achievement
they will get you where you need to go.

Eighteen
Legally responsible
Rented Room
Receptionist
Working Upward
One Day at a Time.

Nineteen
OOOOOOOPPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSSS
seemed like a wonderful idea
but this is really not a wise
or wonderful decision
but boy you will learn
and you never have to return if you don't want to
but 19 and 31
young and healthy
and practicing junkie
do not mix
but this is a lesson
that some of us have to learn the hard way.

#POETRY 15 of 30

Frosting
Birthday party
Friends
Bouncing Baby Boy
French onion dip deliciousness
Birthday candles never lit
Freezing in Southern California


Water
Badminton
Wandering mallards
Bocce balls
Women talking
Brilliant Ideas
Words of Wisdom
Barbecue
Wind

No one lit themselves on fire
No one shot their eye out
No one got food poisoning
No, it was a good day.

#POETRY co-written by Tiffany Tang

I'd post a link to her blog but I can't find it!
We wrote this on text messages back and forth.
We may add more later.


Death

Death sits on the couch,
doesn't like the drapes,
hates the furniture,
and wonders when his time will come.


Death sits on the couch,
contemplating suicide and thinking,
"Well, that's just redundant."

Death sits on the couch,
realizes that so many wait for him,
but never get beyond that thought,
and then it's their turn.

Death sits on the couch
He watches me as I move in and out of her room
We eye each other
As I pass into the hallway
Is he here to comfort me?
He can't
He's too bony
Not a good hugger, Death.

a blog post a little #POETRY

My thoughts for the day:  I still stick my foot in my mouth, I just have learned not to chew on it.  This pretty much applies every day.  And it's a little atrocious sometimes.  But I've also learned to keep my mouth shut and THAT actually helps.  A LOT.    Now here's the Poetry, I'm behind 2 days so it's 2 days worth:

Update on the Psychosis

I didn’t feel like

Writing shitty poetry

so here’s to crappy….

Almost

51 degrees

Light rain

Bus stop

No umbrella

Useless shoes

Ruined hair

Sopping wet

Bad cell reception

Missed call

Cancelled date

Wasted bus fare

Thunder claps

Lightening flash

Seek cover

Puddle rivers

Storm drain tsunamis

Lost shoe

Frigid toes

Coffee comfort

Card declined

No shoes

No service

Bus early

Tears

Sobs

Kind eyes

Deep breaths

Kind offers

Wiped tears

Warm cup of tea

Grateful hands

Phone Frenzy

Sympathetic ears

Rescuer coming

Many thanks

Cold wait

Warm car

Comfort heat

Safety net

Homeward bound

#POETRY Day 11 of 30

To the Self-Proclaimed Wine Steals Whore:

You may make out with them in the parking lot,

Share wine and tales in the same room as some of your former consorts,

But unless they see you for the diamond you are

Tell them to pay their own damned cork fee!

#POETRY 9 and 10

Tuesday Morning Blues
Going for that big long drive
Might be the wrong town....



Ants

I guess you thought that
Occupying my kitchen
Wouldn't make me mad...

#POETRY Happy Easter

Easter

Baskets.

Candy-filled, hollow chocolate bunny, peeps, rabbit-poop jelly beans.

Easter outfit. 

New shoes.  Dress. Usually floral.  Sometimes white.

Church.

Easter Hats.  New outfits.  Long sermons.  Boredom. 

Maybe sun.

Maybe rain.

Easter Egg Hunt.  Pretty hard boiled yuck.  Plastic-filled goodness.

Flowers.

Japanese Cherry-Blossoms.  Daffodils.  Pansies.  Easter-Lily.

Dinner.

Ham.  Potatoes.  Salad.  Easter candy dessert.

Memories.

Childhood. Family. Rituals.

Resurrection.

Liberation.  Freedom. Relief.

Re-born.

Forgiveness.  Release.  Absolve.

Ascension.

Into Something Else.

Phone Calls

I am not sure about you.

Nor sure why you are really calling.

But it is good to hear your voice.

But I hesitate. 

Blood relations are complicated.

And non-blood history makes it ever so twisted. 

But still, it is good to hear your voice.

Phone calls make it convienient for those who

Do not wish to traverse miles to see one another

And for those who can’t really bring themselves

Face to Face with their failings. 

#POETRY 6 of 30

Obstacles

In a strange mix of common numbers and fondness for all things verbose we intertwined.

You started showing me the shards early on.

A blanket of ocean sized love could not put out the fireworks that light up and burned the ground of a rational human being when the flint accidentally got ignited. 

These are the scars that don’t heal right.

This is the place where creativity and positive thinking collide with the reality of brain trauma and broken love that turns nuclear and lays waste to three hundred and fifty thousand miles of hope.

I, unfortunately, am not known as a quitter.

I, actually, know how to surrender. 

To put up a white flag and hope that someone else is watching.  Even when that someone else can’t be defined as an actual person or existence because, lord knows, no one can agree on anything including defeat. 

Surrender is not releasing the idea of hope

but rather leaving the idea of your definition of hope behind for someone to replace it with something better. 

This is not an easy task for the controlmonger.

Don’t let that idea sink in for a moment.

This is called claw marks scraping the sides of anything I let go of,

This is called taking a forty-thousand pound chest breath,

This is pulling eye-lids back and understanding that they may never grow back.

But for you, you broken-winged demon, determined to get back to hell, fire-breathing, raging ogre showing your best ugly,

All of which are also contained inside of me,

I see rain coming.

Sprinkling at first, then moving to showers.

Covering wetness to put out fires of unrequited pleas for mercy

soothing flares of sadness

putting to bed all of your unholiness that never were your truth.

I can’t promise you that you’ll forget hell,

But I can promise that you don’t have to live there.

POETRY 4&5/30

Emergency #1

They say don't try this
at home but some can't resist
the need for stitches!


Emergency #2

Noodles falling down
over clean floors please don't feed
ant infestation.