Thursday, March 24, 2016

March 20


Everything I saw that day
reminded me of another.

Two daisies in a glass bowl.
A discarded coffee cup (Starbucks).
Red spray paint, lipstick, a little bit of blood.

Never mind the window
speckled with mint green rain.

I wanted to lick it
but that would have been inappropriate.
Undignified. Quite.

But, since I've already
lost my mind a time or two. . .
more than that even. . .

What of it?
A mind is an easy thing to lose.
Don't even get me started on hearts.
That's another poem.

This one is about
my tongue licking mint green rain
and never you mind
I saw pumpkins and gourds on a March day,
orange and round, warty and yellow.

There's nothing to it.
I see what I want to see these days.

And afterwards I started jumping
because I determined
that's what you do.

And then you eat yellow daisies
or daffodils, if that's what you can find,
and you can, because it's March
and the Ides have passed.

You made it.
No one sticking it to you
this time, Caesar.

And death,
she's your friend,
but not today.

No, not today.



© 2016 Jennifer Wagner


OK, I went a bit wacky maybe, but I've been reading Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. So yeah, Happy Spring! :-)

Daffodils are poisonous, though daisies are edible, so please, don't actually eat!

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Memorial Stones


Image URI: http://mrg.bz/URIXxH

He's gathering up,
one by one, and placing,
the memorial stones.
I can hear it
all through the house.

I press my palm
to the door,
feel his heartbeat
in sobs calling out
from the other side--

ruins beautiful
for the remembering,

and whisper
a mother's prayer
for grief too big
for these hands alone.


© 2016 Jennifer Wagner