Break

You accuse me of being an iceberg.

An emotional iceberg.

Ha! If I’m an iceberg,

I am fresh and independent

Broken away from the stagnant ice.

You have pushed me away from the

ancient glacier that cannot be sustained.

I choose to float on the sea.

Stop sending ships after me.

Stop being surprised that there is

More beneath the surface

That you never saw.

Only the explorers capable of reaching

greater depths

have seen these parts

of me.

But you . . .

You accuse me of being an iceberg

I touch everything that comes

too close.

I tear into the depth of everything

in my path.

Only the well built will survive

my inquiry.

You are a puddle.

I only touch you when I can’t avoid you.

and I avoid you at a distance.

You show all of yourself right away.

I see your entirety instantly.

You can only reflect the surface

of other things,

even when they pass through

you.

But I can see through you.

You

have never seen

me.

Easter

"Rockin' Robin"
We teased her like
Only sisters do . . .
To that of a popular song.
We placed a coin in the jukebox
and giggled over
our greasy diner eggs
 -Robin's eggs
Lower middle class
Treats and memories
This was our identity.

Irene
The name printed bluntly
Like a mugshot sign
on a black and white photo.
A Mona Lisa woman
In traditional Native American dress
With a Penobscot feather
Sitting for a Maine portrait
 -ungentrified, unaffected

I stare at the photo of a photo.
My father's family tracing
The tortuous paths of the past
To reveal our ancesters
Slept with anyone who asked.
We weren't the "stick to your own kind" type;
Only wild and windy
With our wiles.  

The woman in the photo . . .
A time traveled reflection
Of my sister - "Rockin' Robin"
The robin in the grass come springtime.
My sister who lost her teeth, her ambitions, 
 -her identity
Her Mona Lisa smirk
Hiding something,
As if asking
Who am I?
Where do I belong?
Biding time until
The egg hatches.
And we all know
Who comes first.

Island

Pronouncing the word is
Running hot spring over glacier lagoon.
It disappears if you don’t know where you are.

Hot and cold orbits around
our confused flesh
And evaporates into the
mouths of surrounding sheep.


The rain drops forget 
Where they land
And we forget it is raining.

A Vulcan volcano
Heats the land and water
With the occasional eruption.
But it doesn’t
Not this time.

The multi-edged 
Sworded glaciers
That fill the lagoon
Ship our boat,
Diving deep in
The darkness.

We venture vertically
Up the molten mountain
I could slip and
fulfill my dream
Of falling for
The wind untethered
And without
Hope.

But you follow
And catch me
Without gloves
Or rope.

Our wool is washed
Off to reveal
Weary wide-eyed wolves
Arriving in summer
Prepared for winter
And expecting forever
To run the northern lights.

 

                     

 

     

Clean

Pasted on past
With thick clown paint
Continuously outlasts
A dark day's saint.

Crooked cocky smiles
And empty lovers
Stretch for miles,
While sins uncover

A man filled marsh
Of foggy failures
And outcomes so harsh,
Singed desert pours
Over mountainous minds.

Dry dreams drown.
memories soak and bind
To the face 
Of a clown

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