remember me summer

remember me summer (as
you fade into fall)
and how i let your hot
fingers curl my hair and
your heat dew my skin as
i moved slowly through you
with wine-soaked music and
percolating laughter

remember the nights when i
screamed my secrets and
whispered my dreams to your
bending ear and how you
answered my cries with a 
river of stars and made
me believe those secrets
are safe and those dreams
will come true

summer you are not steady (as
seasons always change)
and i am here not wanting
to see you go but in my
surrender i trust you will
remember and return 
to simmer my senses again

daughter

the one that got away was never

meant for me to hold

though i stand barefoot and

firm in silt at the cool water's

edge hands poised to trap the

silver beauty and bring her to

my atmosphere

though she glides into the space

between my palms and our vibrations

intercourse

though i deftly close my hands

around her facile form the grasp only

serves as a warning and propels her into 

deeper waters

she is gone before i can exhale

though my hands are far from empty

as her opalescent scales bedazzle

my palms

Join us this week over at Tweetspeak for more poems on "the one who got away" by clicking on the link below

http://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2014/08/25/poetry-prompt-one-got-away/

dragon

slumber dragon shedding her

calloused scaly skincoat

the days toil worries

wondering writhing 

scratching twisting flipping 

     breaking free 

arising at dawn no 

memory of the struggle

only a damp tangle of 

bedding cast aside to 

     launder

hands free

sea calm hot sun cool breeze  

empty late September beach morning

a rare day hands free no weight

no tending to any someones need

the space between us quiet and without

blame separate/together mom and i

comb the sandy trail of treasures

left by the mornings receding tide

she searching bounty in perfection

me searching beauty in the broken

we breathing in deep of the deep

hands free to seek what we need

shells

i stop seeking

perfection in

the delicacy of

fragments on

the shoreline 

it is freedom to

surrender the 

(futile) mending of

the fractured 

together

and instead to

feel with 

my feet the

sharp edges  of

breaking

in the relentless 

steady coming 

forth of

the surf 

on the sand

and to seek 

not expected shapes 

(a constancy in

form) but the inner 

colors and curves 

unique to what

is made from

just one piece of

shattered

i stop seeking

perfection in 

the delicacy of

fragments on

the shoreline

This poem is in response to Tweetspeak Poetry's Monday prompt.  Click the link below for more original work and to listen to a great summer playlist!

http://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2014/07/07/sand-shells-sea-glass-poetry-prompt-playlist/#comment-106178

surreal

shhhhhhhhhhhhppppppppppbluhbluhbluhbluh

shhhhhhhhhhhhppppppppppbluhbluhbluhbluh

shhhhhhhhhhhhppppppppppbluhbluhbluhbluh

A drag off my regulator brings oxygen to my blood.  With each exhalation, bubbles percuss toward the surface of the sea, via the curve of my face and through the wet curls on my scalp.  I sense the excitation of tiny hairs on my skin raising in this rush, a contrast to the constant pressure of the ocean and its wombish support of my existence.  I remember laying my head in my mother's lap as she stroked my face and hair.  Although it is not dark in this underwater playground, the sun high and refracting above this soothing bluish hue, and although my body is not constricted into an egg of flexion, I remember an ancient, sacred space and long to be enveloped by my own mother's voice, to have my heart's cadence set by hers.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?  The terror of ceasing to exist always interrupts the serenity of my solitude, so perhaps my answer to that unanswerable question is "yes".  I try to catch another diver's attention but forget to use hand signals.  Without thinking I speak into the mouthpiece I am clenching with my teeth, and lose my words and vision simultaneously as my thoughts explode before me.  I am still learning how to rest in the encapsulation of my own atmosphere.

The coral at this reef grows upward in popcorn-shaped structures because here, the current is weak and does not wear it into smoother shapes. Tang, butterflies and angels graze the surface, like birds and insects in a field of wildflowers.

Hovering just past the reef, a puffer gazes at me, as if to extend an invitation.  IS this a dream?  No matter, for now in my solitude, I am no longer alone.  My presence does not threaten, and she keeps her poisonous weapons concealed.

I follow the exotic beauty over peaks and through crevasses in the live rock, losing myself in this dance of surreality.  She swims upward and I follow.  She turns to confirm my presence every minute or so, then continues her tour.  We dance a few movements of tide, and then she is gone where I cannot follow.

I reluctantly return to the ease of my natural environment on the deck of the boat and head back to shore.

conchoidal fracture

This term, conchoidal fracture, stuck in my head for days after it appeared in my stacked poem from the Tweetspeak Poetry Meet-Up workshop, then wove its way into the verse below. 

Jealousy Poem Stacks

(click the link for more)

in the absence of a

natural plane of separation

     (no inherent weakness

      to the structure)

obsidian heart

swELLs

at the point of impact


(either as the intended target

or a random landing 

force)


shock waves splay

from the bulb of percussion


radiating ripples over

the once-glassy

stone