Friday, August 17, 2012

Composing


through table legs
painted toenails coquet
the edge of denim


lemon, sea salt
and baby arugula
eaten with fingertips


candlelight flutter
a catch in her breath
traced in his own


sicilian jazz
the subtle intensity
composing their story



Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Judging Game



watching them with her orange eyes
looking through their glass house
she opens the window
for fresh air          

her clipped wings
grow with the lilting song
“Don’t listen,” they say,
“…the luring…”  with that head-shake and tsk-tsk
of controlling, condescending tone

but she is sick with love
from their poisoned, pressure well
too eager to drink
when she’d been wilting

holding the beat of
their ridiculous freudisms
in her head on bloodied neck
she whispers “jung may have more substance for me
anyway,” so—

from the place where stained glass
is beautiful again
she waves goodbye
with tar-dipped feathers in her teeth  


Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Quenched

Stepping with bare toes across
meadows of balsamroot
I glide swiftly on grasses
soft from last night’s rain.

Quietly slipping between rocks
I meet the gush of spray;
with full pupils down,
tiny rivulets cascade my bare shoulders.

Droplets form and cling precariously
to my hair, responding as I shiver;
a flirty audience of aquilegia formosa
quivers with the steady rush.

The voice of the waterfall
is a mighty quenching of everything;
a gushing spray of explosion and tranquility, reverberating
like the sound of a mother’s heart in a growing womb.

I didn’t come here to grieve, only to soak
in the majesty of a paradisiacal place;
but my heart remembers and wishes I could have buried you here,
instead of where you ended up, in pieces, on porcelain.

I feel embryonic in the moment, wholly enveloped, naked, treasured.
Coming alive in the lusty boom, I scream, and moan,
and grieve, leaving everything here on these ancient stones—
laboring with the violent echo of women’s loss before mine.

I hold hands with the knowing barren wombs
and weep the deficit that will never feel your sigh at my breast,
your pink mouth to my skin, see the shine of accomplishment in your eyes.
They know how I feel—you were brief, but you were mine.

I let you go, but still carry you with me as I push through;
emerging back into the sun of life, weaker and stronger,
spent, and refreshed, sprinkled with pure minerals,
with lilac and wild lavender, and just a hint of baby’s breath.


Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

found in The Beautiful Sadness, dVerse and Poets United: Poetry Pantry

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Tide Pools


basalt,
discordant and black,
scattered the hillside of late warmth,
a cadaver benumbed of cherishment.

defeated, we wondered
what happened to us—
and how we had viciously squandered
our landscape in chimerical hue.

laying down our weapons,
prisoners of our own war;
in the tide pools of aftermath,
we beheld it together.

in harmony
we choked back the sobs of rue,
gathering the tiniest,
brightest, glimmer of tomorrows unwritten.


Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner
linked to Vice Versa and dVerse

Friday, August 3, 2012

Chelan Haiku


sunrise
on the vineyard
the bees smell sweet


blue dragonflies
tango above
the lake in sea green


white birch night
the heady scent of you
in bent ryegrass
  

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner  

Linked to Poets United #109 Poetry Pantry