Still Standing

 

"Montezuma Castle" Photo © Jennifer Wagner

 

Neither castle, nor Aztec,

not even Sinaguan.

I don’t crumble

 

beneath what you think of me,

nor what you’ve labeled me

with your tiny tongue.

 

Called something

I never was—

I outlast your angry names.

 

I survive by the hands

that built me, and survivors know

the power in their own true names.

 

You call me

ruined.

Yet, I remain.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Montezuma Castle is a misnomer.  It was neither a castle nor built by nor for the Aztec emperor Montezuma.  Those who did build it are referred to as “Sinagua” people, meaning “without water” in Spanish.  Despite being called “Sinagua” they actually had plenty of water.  Montezuma means “lord frowns in anger.”

To all my other survivors out there.

For What’s Going On?  Ruins

Also, after posting poems for years without process notes, I seem to be on a kick of doing it these days. 

 

Desert Whippersnapper

 

The whip snake came

looking for black-throated sparrows

in the cholla,

twisting her braided scales

around the palo verdes

and catclaws.

She was nervous, though, and hungry,

and it was nearing night.

 

She didn’t notice

the minor shift on the limb

of a grandaddy saguaro,

so busy was she hissing and striking

at anything that moved,

mouth gaping like a blood red tulip.

 

A quick and seasoned cactus wren,

with irises glittering and peeled on the scrub below,

shuttled her brood

into their own sleepy hollow

in the arm of the saguaro—

and tipclawed out again

to watch the night feast.

 

Silent horseman of the desert,

the great horned owl, swooped

and gripped that whip

like a coachman

severing the spine in his talon.

 

Mrs. Wren Marple thought to herself,

I didn’t even have to miss Fallon!

I’m always in the wrong place at the right time—

I saw all this before Law & Order at nine!

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

For Shay’s Word Garden Word List

And that’s a wrap, folks!  Thirty poems in 30 days for National Poetry Month were sometimes a heavy task, even for an armchair detective, so today I had to go light!  

 

Stevie and Vincent (the Gold Dust Woman and the Redheaded Madman)

 

The Poet’s Garden

is lit with black fire, melancholy,

and a brushstroke break

turning lover’s faces to ash.

 

Just ask le fou roux

or the gold dust woman.

 

Remember Rumours?

Maybe we love it because in our own ways

we’ve lived it, too—as if our own heartwrecks

had been written like birdsong

 

sounding so good

we want to cut off our own ear

to keep it

 

safe from another’s melody—

or to present it,

bound and bloody, to a lover as a reminder

 

never to forget the whispering

of blue firs

hanging like shadows—

and fleeting, like the holding of hands,

 

before we stopped dreaming

of tomorrow.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

NaPoWriMo Day 29:  write a poem inspired by the life of a musician, poet, or other artist.  I’ve written a mash-up inspired by Stevie Nicks and Vincent Van Gogh.

dVerse Poetics:  Getting Hooked on Opening Lines

 

The Poet’s Garden (Public Garden with Couple and Blue Fir Tree) was painted by Van Gogh in 1888.  Photo © Jennifer Wagner from my copy of Essential Van Gogh.

In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album number seven of the 500 greatest of all time.

“Le Fou Roux” (The Redheaded Madman) was a nickname given to Vincent Van Gogh by the townspeople of Arles.

“Gold Dust Woman” is the title of a song from the Rumours album as well as the title of a biography of Stevie Nicks.