Virginia Woolf’s Pockets Full Of Stones

Wading into the River Ouse

The rushing water consumed you

As much as your words

Consume readers today

Your pockets full of stones

And your walk into the river

Were shocking

To a world

That doesn’t understand madness

Your shattered glass thinking

Your broken wheel rolling

Into a downhill tumble of tumbles

Was much

Too much

For anyone to bear

Delicate eggshell stepping

Never stopped the voices from waking

Each day

Voices speaking constantly

Rambling at only a mutter

Never becoming quiet

Never ceasing to silent!

Trying to survive with these echoes

These whispers in your mind

Slowly took everything

Slowly took it all!

So, sleep sweet Virginia

Rest in the heavens

Up there

Out there

Wherever eternal rest might be?

More than likely it’s somewhere over there

Where the butterflies disappear

Into the shadows of the trees

At any rate

Rest!

Your words are still read

Your work lives on

Alive on the screens of computers

On phones

Inside dust covered hardbacks

On a shelf

In someone’s collection 

So, sleep sweet Virginia

Sleep!

Kite In The Sky

There’s an animal

In the bushes this morning

Its eyes glow a slightly dull yellow

As it watches me from the darkness

As I watch the kite in the sky!

This kite made of shining stars

Glittering above me

Is one of my first memories

A sight I hold in my mind

Like a Polaroid picture

Pulled from a

Shoebox lying in the shadows of storage

I had a migraine yesterday

The pain was unbearable

It was like my brain was in a vise

Slowly being squeezed

Beyond its limits

Light

Sound

The slightest of anything was

Seemingly too much to take

Tipping me towards totally turning to tears!

Another first memory for me

Like the kite

Was my mother suffering from migraines

She cried for long periods

Wishing it would just be over

Disappearing into her room for hours

As a child

It has a great impact on your mind

To see your mother weep

It’s unsettling at best

It’s incomprehensible when your young mind

Is trying to comprehend

This strange new world you’re growing up in

Where seeing, tasting, hearing, and feeling

Is your primal education 

Your basic beginnings

So, being told someone is having a migraine

Is hard to understand

But seeing them cry day after day

Makes all the understanding of it 

Race like a speeding car

Into your intellect

Yesterday, I finally found my way home

After work

I downed three ibuprofens

Then tried to eat, but couldn’t

The room felt like it was spinning

As I laid down

I wished for sleep

To come fast

Then I awoke hours later

And walked outside

To watch the kite made of stars

And pray my headache never returns

Medusa’s Smile

Medusa once had

A smile so beautiful

Her gaze was as

Addictive as Blues

Yet

The men that swallowed that pill

Are still standing in stone

They drown each night

As the tide rises and falls

On the beach that surrounds her home

Their first few steps began

Their eternal stay with her

Old age can also be

A lot like Athena’s curse

Inward beauty

Is the only beauty that lasts

I’ve seen this

The ones that age with grace

Beam bright with happiness

In the end

For they’ve lived

With love in their heart

Not having to possess the world

Or profit from its possessing  

I’ve seen the other side as well

The ones incapable of love

They age with hate

With bitterness

Never letting go of their grudges

In time, their aura will be much like Medusa’s 

Their hair, slithering serpents

Their mouth full of needle tip teeth

With a slippery forked tongue

Tasting the air

Claws as sharp as barbwire

Maybe they’re as blind as Medusa?

For, she still sees herself as beautiful

Never understanding why

She turns men to stone

Maybe part of her curse was only

Seeing perfection in her refection?

Maybe, just maybe

That’s why she still smiles

With her scaly grin

Like the ones with hate in their heart

Having to own everything

Even the approval of others

Windswept

The windswept

Sweeping of wind chimes

Hanging above me

Is the best

Melodic morning music

Water is in the air

It smells so sweet

After the heat of yesterday

A day the sun rays

Blazed its beginning

As I sat in its rise

I watched a hawk

Carry off

A snake for breakfast

Then a hooker climb a chain-link fence

Maneuvering with skill

While holding her heels

I guess it was too much effort

To walk around

Or maybe, too much need

To get back to forgetting

The night before

Disappearing into her high

The pimp, the hooker, the crook

The liar, the con, the addict 

All were once newborns

Bringing joy to families

Squirming around in a onesie

For some people

Their parachute will twist and tangle

On the free fall of life

For some

There’s no happily ever after

There’s just

Resolve, and the next morning’s sunlight

And the dollar that’s so dearly coveted

By our world

Is the same tucked into the hooker’s bra

Pushed into the pocket of the pimp

Stolen by the thief

Giving meaning to the liar’s lies

Relief to the addict’s addictions 

So take refuge in the small gifts given

Each day

Not everything can be bought

The shade of a tree on a blistering afternoon

Or the cool wind sweeping your face

With the sweet smell of water

When you can’t remember the last time it rained

Is priceless

Afterlife Of Dreams

Dreams

Are as close as we’ll

Ever know of

The afterlife, in this life!!!

Dreams

Locked within the body

Skin stretched over skeleton frames

Manikins of blood and bone we are

The skull cradles

These dreams as

Synapses fire

The electricity of thoughts

The movie projector in our mind

Begins rolling

Days of the past

Present

Future

All the desires we push away

From in the day

Break and crack the ground of night

For

What we desire

In our dreams is undeniable

What we fear

Has a key to our locked doors 

For, it’s our mind that

Locked it away in the first place

Our self-conscious

Blooms into the world of the unconscious

My eyes dart back and forth

Back and forth, forth and back

Under their lids they roll

Casting imagery in my mind

I watch Vitruvian Man

Spin on his paper ink wheel

As Vitruvian Woman looks on

Crying with laughter

For

She is the one

Who’s spun him out of control

She lays down beside me

Now clothed, I almost don’t recognize her

A skirt, dark hose, and button up blouse

I put my arm around her

Smelling her beauty in the darkness

I fall asleep, within my sleep

And awake the next morning 

To walk amongst the awakened

Dog-eared

Dog-eared pages of poetry

I flip

I

Discover and rediscover

I mark and highlight treasures

I’ve found

Within these pages bound

By red cover and string

Poets of the past

Pouring their lives out

For others to read

And understand them

To

Walk with them with words of their world

To see what they saw

So long ago and realize

Not much has changed

War is still war

Greed is still greed

No value in any of it to the poet

I wonder who will flip through

These same pages years from now?

When I’m no longer here to turn them

Who will read these words that have

Warmed my heart and awakened my mind?

With

The opening flower of imagination

Who will discover the beauty

Of being lost in a land of words?

Will my child one day?

Will a dear friend?

A family member?

Or

Will it end up in a yard sale

Marked at 50 cents?

Or will it go to the landfill?

Picked up by a garbage man

Read on his lunch break

Then tossed in his locker

With his other found reads

Time

Playboy

Rolling Stone