Category: poems

Your life here #napowrimo14

Life

you’re not here long enough

to spend enough days laughing

playing

eating watermelon and icecream

see birds flying

blue skies

rain clouds emptying their bounty

raw enough to feel each moment

slip by knowing

you do not get out alive

and neither does anyone else

these moments

slips of time

we spend with each other

holding hands

sometimes clenched teeth

bruised hearts

it will all end someday

and we’ll miss the moments

we spent in furious rage

lamenting over something so painful

and yet now so insignifant

do we get to take another breath

do we get to wake tomorrow

do we get one more chance to make it right

do we get to say good-bye

the way we want to

and most of the time no

it burns in hearts

makes it seem like we could almost bleed to death

from tears lumped in throats

we do not get to escape this pain of living

but we get to choose

what we lean into

in our moments we have left

here.

A Poem for the Hungry #NAPOWRIMO14

Make it simple

delicious, tasty

something you have in your cupboard

mix things together

don’t be afraid to try

flavor them

add more

taste it

taste some more

allow yourself to savor it

each flavor

each moment

each bite

you’ll forget you were hungry

you’ll forget about everything

if the spice is right

and the moment is relished

it’ll feel like

plenty.

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. 

Awake (Wednesday morning poetry)


Awake
Awake:
Perchance to not dream.
What if what appears is
An illusion created?
Fear molded complicity
Fables taught as facts
Perceptions as reality
All lies.
Waking up to dream:
As, what is appearance,
Creation of false reality,
Sparks the light inside
Emerging to awaken the flame
Of our collective consciousness
And set our souls on fire.
@2012 Jennie Olson Six

#POETRY 21

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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.