Love Is A Verb ~ SM

Love is a verb
It’s the hoping, the praying, and the waiting
For every day that’s a plus
I act these acts, and love a verb stays

Love is a verb
It’s the rolling of my eyes and smile lopsidedly placed
As I say “yes, you are a rockstar”
You smile back and love a verb stays

Love is a verb
Can I hold you a little closer? Envelope your strife between my thighs?
Your head finds its place on my chest
My heart beats and love a verb stays

Love is a verb
It’s the doing and misdoing, the action and inaction,
Head to head, step by step
Promises are made and love a verb stays

Love is a verb
It’s the buying of the schnapps, the payment of my price
Your knees don’t buckle. My hand holds still
Pen goes to paper and love a verb stays

Unreal ~ SM

I dream of being with you
Of meeting you at the point where hills heel and mountain tops touch the snow
I dream of waking next to you
At the hour past last light and the second between the sun’s rise and its highest crest
I dream of dancing with you
Under stars lit with sodium fire and doused in reflective coal
I dream of touching you, of being touched by you
Skin against the melting hues of all I dreamed and hoped you could be
If only you were real.

She Calls Me Mama ~ SM

I board the shutters and hiss at the cold winds that taunt the night air
On hands and knees I check for threats of nightmares living under bed springs
I kiss warm cheeks and wish sweet sleeps even as my ghosts surround me waist deep

The dawn’s light races with my consciousness and records its daily loss
For my unconscious beat stays ripping through the balm of desired comas hours before lids even open
Unseeing, unfeeling, this is the hour for the gnats and locusts
Gnawing through fields of bounty meant to be stored up for the waking hours
Waking, ours is a cheerful routine of good mornings filled with smiles as I ask
how are you? Did you sleep well?
Her responses ricochet off the walls of my heart speeding up the flow of heat through my very soul
All because she calls me mama

It is f’right that she calls me mama
I strap her heart to mine in a close knit entangled web of poinsettias and roses playing games of love me not
Knotting my throat in wait for the perilous ending that will surely come. Not.
I am half woman half child, no I am quarter woman 3-quarter child, no …
I am one child sawn in 4 bits and thrown to cardinal points that should have pointed me in the right direction yet threw air bombs at me and engulfed me in a triangle that shattered my adult in a quest to catch broken pieces of my child
But she’s mine – whole and complete and utterly loved

~ SM

Photo credit – Jayesh Mehta, as seen on http://desdelarepublicadominicana.blogspot.com/2013/04/madre-batalla-contra-hienas-mas-de-una.html

She ~ SM

She is she
She is he

She is the bough that catches a cradle rocked
Arms splayed and reaching, breaking falls from the highest mountain tops

She is the bridge over the Thames though never falling
Connecting, forgiving, carving paths over troubled waters from winter to spring

She is she
She is he

She is stars spread through blackest skies guiding lost travellers home
Eyes twinkling with the wisdom of known truths barely uttered loud

She sits on walls reaching high
And though she falls she never breaks, nor warrants the king’s mens galloping brigade

She is she
She is he

She builds spouts against tree trunks, hills and broken streets
What’s rain and shine to an eight limbed go-getter?

She leads her blind mice with no butchers knife in sight
Have you ever seen such a thing in your life as three winged mice?

She is she
and She is he

– SM

Wrote and read this at an earlier time for a friend’s mom’s birthday, taking inspiration from my own mother’s life and how she single-handedly raised my sister and me, and now we are both awesome mothers! 🙂

Happy Mother’s Day to all the woman making life worth living for the kids; striving each day to better themselves in any situation they find themselves. Happy Mother’s Day even to the single men raising children and playing dual roles, gradually changing the negative stereotypes around male parenting.

Rocket Ship ~ SM

The percussionist plays a tune on strings cut loose from a sinking line
Who said beats were intended to be even or same
Red hot streams curdle through pathways linked back to pounding sensations
Let him play a tune such as you’ve never heard, read or seen
And when he’s done, summon his gait, his pride rocked firmly between his thighs
Make him tell you no lies even as he rah-tah-tah-tas…
Splays his fingers inside your pride
Don’t hold back the bubble ripening inside
Burst forth
Like a rocket ship, leave nothing behind in your line of fire
No looking back
He’s already ash.

~SM

Image borrowed from Negrawithtumbau.com
She has an interesting post on sexuality linked here.

Hats Of Many Colours ~ SM

Pink hat on
I dance through the fields chasing buttterflies flitting off trees
The wind lifts my pigtails and slaps my ears
My smile wide, spread gleefully across my cheeks

Blue hat on
“People won’t like this thing that you do
The world is small, I keep hearing about you.
Be sensible, be smart.
Quit wearing sleeves that display your heart”

Yellow hat on
“This is who you are
This is who you were meant to be
You can’t do this, it won’t speak well of us
We were born to cut with knives while saving lives”

Orange hat on
“We don’t know who you are
Shouldn’t you be milling with an upper crust squad?
Get out, you don’t fit in here”

Red hat on
“I can’t wait for you”
“I can’t love you as you are”
“I’m not sure about you”
“I can’t” “I won’t” “I tried” “I lied”.

Black hat on
There’s no one to catch you when you fall
Learn to fight beasts, snakes, dragons and more
Keep your battle gear on:
Helmet, check.
Breastplate, check.

White hat on
Let me speak
White hat on
Let me breathe
White hat on
Let me be

~SM

The Bakers’ Girl Pt. 2 ~ SM

The ledge I mount as the crowd roars loud
From underneath me, my stand kicked swiftly
My world should have gone blank before me
As I waited for peace to fall on me
Rope came undone and I fell to the ground
Bewildered I wait, they will surely pounce
Shocked I lift my eyes and they fall in line with a rake’s tine
I should have died…

“Stand up!”
The voice that commanded was smooth as clay
Sharp like cinnamon laced with the comfort of sage
Prodding me along blade now pointing at my nape
Back up the street where my escape failed
I hesitate…

“Move!”
More cinnamon, less sage
A command it was, no time to spare
I wish I could ask “To where?”
I wish I knew where this road would lead
Let me stop here I almost plead
This time, the baker will be nice

“Keep walking…”
Less cinnamon, more sage
I keep walking, building calluses on my feet
So hard they break off against the cobblestone street
Baby fresh skin revealed with each crack and fall
A thunderstorm…

The clouds burst and release their secret store
Like bullets, the pellets hit my open sores
Raising layers of dirt pressed in cotton and skin’s pores
I could have screamed from the pain
I could have run to the baker and kneaded the same
I stayed…
Till the sun sent a ray to light my way
Driving away every drop on my brown nosed face

“This way…”
No cinnamon, all sage.
I smile…
A touch like velvet rests on my bare arm
Friend turned Angel by the will of God
Brought me to a place made with birch and stone
Set with a fire low
And put in place all the things that I had once known
I’m home.

The Bakers’ Girl, Pt. 1 ~ SM

I ran through the streets
Tears streaming down
Working hard to hide my disgrace
I knocked at the Baker’s door
Many a time I had sought help here
He opened the door a crack
Looked at me and dutifully snapped
“I have no space for you here”

Disbelief registered clear
No choice did I have but to implore
“You said you would keep me
Forever be my reprieve
I kneaded the dough till the light was low
Helped you make the bread
Which you proudly put on show
A complaint I never made
Even when the last loaf was given away
Starved I was but slaved all day
You could have been kinder then
‘Then’ was the past beyond the day that is today
Still, I make no complaints
Be kind now and shelter me here
For home no longer grants warmth to my weary bones
It stands empty,
Abandoned in the days I spent by the furnace
I have nowhere to turn
Listen! The cobblestones are crying louder!
Hide me, save me! You promised….”

My words I swallow as I sink low
Sobbing and shaking, hands pressed to my lobes
The slamming of the door still piercing through
A door that was once held wide open…

In the distance I hear the town crier cry
To surrender and die… or to live a lie
Onto the executioner’s stand I climb, head held high
Around my neck a rope they tie
My sin I state, clear and simple as time
“Bread I made in a space not mine,
Such is my crime.”

Sensing Love ~ SM

Teach me love I say
And you say Love is sight
Love is seeing beyond the visible
Deep into the pits of self and soul
Past barricades built from hurts of old
To a person within that’s hardly grown

I’ll teach you Love
Love is the perfection of touch
It’s the hand lightly placed on another
The stroke of a cheek when tears threaten
Passionate kisses that turn earth to heaven

Tell me what you know about love
You smile and whisper, hear my love
For Love never stays silent, it speaks all truth
It is the music of a happy heart’s pound
The laughter that rings from an upturned mouth
It is the healing in the words spoken out loud

Ah yes, I know what Love is
It’s strange but the nose knows Love
A young mother sits curled with a freshly powdered tot
Gently soothed by the comfort of a bosom it barely sees

What more can you teach me?
Your eyes twinkle and gleam as you reveal these truths
My knees weaken when you reach in
Lips move from my collar bone to rest on my quivering chin
Why tell me what love is, when you can show me you whisper?
I moan each time your tongue tastes my lips

~SM~

This Thing ~SM~

This thing

Is mystique, it’s betwixt,
Running up steel-like tabs punching in the temporary permanence of a thing undefined

This thing,

Turned upwards to face the powers beyond the screens and chemistry seeking validity from the most important source

This thing,

Strong, pulsating, driving a conversation – thick, heavy, breaking the concrete foundations that were laid down pre ’embers.

This thing

Gives sight to the unseen thoughts that once heard words that were false but rung true even on clearest nights lit by a full moon, This thing.

Could confuse me, This thing
Could renew me, this thing
Could undo me.