Baiting Hooks with Luke

At 9 years old

it’s funny how

half the bait slips off the hook

before it hits the water.

Plop.

A lonely barely-bit of bait,

not worth a triploid trout’s time, really—

makes it

into Rufus Woods Reservoir.

He shrugs, though, good enough—

just to get it out there,

sits down on the dusty rock

and waits

for a pulse on the line.

He owns this moment

as I watch him

smile a bit,

flick his foot in the water,

and gaze at the opposing hills;

while I wonder

what he’s thinking.

No more than half a minute goes by, and

tug—tug—tug.

‘Got one’ he says, not surprised, at all—

and begins reeling;

the rest of us look at each other,

shake our heads,

and laugh a bit in disbelief.

Something about

the faith of a child

to know you don’t have to

be perfect,

sometimes fish

are just hungry.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

to be linking up with the amazing poets at dVerse Poets Pub this week

Inconsequentially Rotating the Ball

yoga, green tea, SUV

pop culture, church, reality TV

and don’t forget trips to Ha-wa-ii

raining down words

while sitting fat

like Jabba the Hutt

on a throne

of carc-ass-es

children of the same god

Mother Teresa should send us all to our rooms

to think about it

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

i like some of the things i’ve listed here, so this is not meant to offend anyone if they like any of them too…it’s just thoughts about what’s important on this big ball we live on and what we do, and don’t do, on it…

Poetry Jam 

Never Lose the Ability to Get Lost

blonde and brown

heads bobbling

with energy

they, like arrows,

pierce the earth

with exuberance

never losing

their silly, boyish grins

as i watch them

jumping, bouncing

wrestling each other

on the trampoline

where they forget

brotherly offenses

i hope they never lose this

ability to get lost

in the moment

with laughter

and forgiveness

like dollops of rain

drenching the

thirsty onlookers

and me the memory of it

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

my boys and how they work things out, my favorite people to watch…meant to link up to Brian Miller’s people watching poetics prompt, 6 Billion Others at dVerse, but got busy and was too late…so I’ll be linking it to openlinknight

Falling - A Set of Haiku

old country road

blanket of pine needles

your cheeks ruddy

-------------------

my cold hand

in yours

warm

-------------------

smoke rising

flames bursting

scent of leaves

-------------------

sweeping over

shades of dusk

black crow moon

-------------------

cattle lowing

a song

for autumn

-------------------

cider

cinnamon swizzle stick

hints on my lips

-------------------

crème brûlée,

and the salt in your kiss

delicious

-------------------

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

recuerda mi corazon and Poetry Pantry

Newly Fallen White

Her skirt of scarlet pulled

from the ankle;

as she hastened her steps

breath rose in forms of smoky blue.

Stopping cold on broken twigs

frozen in fairy tale,

she peered upward. Snow fell

with no cloud in the sky.

How soon lovers forsake the

faithful whispers of moonlight;

cooing birds shutter, flutter

and blur the lines with tears.

She’d only wanted one to love her,

but tragic oaths of mutilated promise                 

breed an anemic beast hungry for

a burning, scorching bite.

The milky air

washed invisible the copse of antiquity

while her lips turned aubergine

against the newly fallen white of frosty vows.

She squeezed the fruit and

licked the juice of indiscretion

with no pleasure.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

dVerse OpenLinkNight Opening 12pm Pacific Time

9:11 am

Shift ends at 8am

and I look over at the clock

It’s odd to me he often arrives

at 9:11, post commute

I try not to think about

that nightmare

I had struggled to get

out of my mouth

Shaking and choking

as I tried to tell him about it;

The one where I am at his funeral

with our sons beside me

I just enjoy the moment

of being a firefighter’s wife

Enjoy his smile and laugh

full, when he bursts in the door

Sounding like the Ghost of Christmas Present

rich and deep, full of all things good

Today is the day I think about those photographs

with the towers in calamity

The firefighters rushing to, and in

while others are running away, and out

The looks on their faces

telling bravery is not without fear

It is committing to give

in spite of it

Not withdrawing

courage to save someone else’s spouse,

Someone else’s children

while praying someone will remember theirs

And I do

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner 

Posted to dVerse Poets

Russet and Gold

russet dreams

in flax and gold

spun through my fingers

crisp and cool

and bright

the mornings of disappearing mist

crunch of apples

sliced and sprinkled

cinnamon and sugar

little fingers

licked clean

i kiss their cowlicked heads

 

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Autumn Series Haiku 

haiku my heart and dVerse Poetics Autumn

Purple Shoelaces

She is

hiding behind black everything—

hair protruding from a black hoodie,

covering all but one eye.

Headphones are pumping sounds

into the darkly shrouded form;

I see the wires that must lead to an iPod

—hidden somewhere.

Staring down, so as not to

greet the oft-dismissing world, she walks

with slow purpose, counting the steps,

within the walls

where she keeps her fear of rejection.

She looks at me, despite herself,

as if she doesn’t want to be seen, but does—

and she can’t hide it

soon enough

that she is happy

to be noticed.

Hers eyes are pools of wounded gray,

deep, and soulful.

And I keep looking—eyes tell stories,

and dreams,

and everyone should have one.

Then I spot them—her black Converse shoes

have purple shoelaces,

and this bespeaks

the truth.

She doesn’t want to be disregarded.

Hiding

is just waiting

until it’s safe

to be seen.

I smile, at them, at her;

and she grins, lifts her chin,

and walks on.

While it occurs to me

we’re all

wearing purple shoelaces.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

dVerse OpenLinkNight. Some of the best poets on the web. 

Abuse of Power, Power of Abuse

Leave me to solve riddles,

in the dark ruminations

puzzling with pieces

slipping through my fingers.

They have long legs and,

until now, ran faster than I could;

but I have sprouted legs of my own, and

the caramel is dripping

from your polluted apple

revealing a leprous underbelly

and the twists of your myths.

Since released

I write my farewell to arms,

though I know it will not pierce your heart.

I have learned the impossible

remain impossible, impervious,

and must rule

without question,

without consequence.

I write to pierce my own

and release your venom

to drip, to flow,

to collect in puddles at my feet.

While ash and toxicity

paint bleak the petrified forest

where once hearts of

children tried to play,

before you caught them, taught them,

deftly smothered them in your decay.

I have escaped, but intermittently I

perchance upon your minions,

try as I may, when near,

I cannot blind the stench from my nostrils

from the blood

on their hands.

My blood

mind you, cries out for justice,

and like Abel’s,

is heard.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Linked to dVerse Poets OpenLinkNight

75

I see them

most every week

when I’m driving.

The little man

with his little wife

going for their afternoon stroll

on the sidewalk

in our neighborhood,

holding hands.

They must be 75

years old, at least, and

his leg is bad—

the knee, I think.

His other hand

holds a cane,

but he doesn’t use it—holds it

parallel to the ground. 

Just in case.

And she,

with her opposing hand,

carries an umbrella,

unopened. 

It is Seattle, you know,

better to be prepared. 

Just in case.

I love this scene,

supporting each other,

ready in case of stumbling,

ready in case the rain comes.

They’ve been blessed

to have weathered

life together—so long.

I imagine that will be us.

I know one day

I will see only one of them

going on that walk…

Then I picture you,

tomorrow, in your bunker gear,

and rush home

to kiss you

until we’re 75, 

at least.

Just in case.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

dVerse: Characters  Nonfiction

Laughing Hills

Hills

in August rise frozen

against the setting sun

a glass of chardonnay

perspiring at the table

of summers

she doesn’t drink

anymore.

In her laughter, a reminder

of the best medicine,

and the lesson she lived—

no one can beat you

when you’ve learned

how to laugh

at yourself.

R.I.P. Phyllis Diller, Comedic Genius (July 17, 1917 – August 20, 2012) 

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

dVerse Poets

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

Linked to haiku my heart forever

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

Three Word Wednesday  Poetry Jam  dVerse Poets  

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

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

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 

Paper Dolls, 1950’s Single Mother

butter she

mixed with sugar

and fed to us

on saltine crackers

we washed it down

with powdered milk

we were poor

we were rich

we didn’t know either

until we

went to school

and our dolls of paper,

worthless

to friends whose had

vinyl and mohair

and real clothes,

became priceless

because

she’d made

them all

by hand

for Mom and for Grandma (Elaine Rogers, 1926 – 2010)

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

added to The Poetry Pantry

Noonday Jackals

Her thoughts took a dark turn

like jackals in the threadbare sun

ripping, ripping until she couldn’t see

herself, now a carcass of once-sought dreams;

a bone-hollow skeleton

stripped of all marrow by which future is made,

where the ink dried within.

Blood, first red then black, gathered in pools

around her head

until the ears spilled no more.

She’d done it to drown out the howling—

for who can bear the noise

of a broken heart?

The muting of syndicate

mocking and whimpering replete,

she worked the metallic taste of hate off her tongue.

It lingered though and became bitter

so she used her teeth to bite into its flesh

for nothing other than to taste a mellowing of salt.

A waft of perfume lingered in the cloying rot,

the remnant of her identity laying in the dust

while the air spilled with the scent of her decay;

a lone paper, yellowed and curled at the corners,

rattled in a wisp of wind.

A cloud began to form on the horizon,

a growing mist of dry, kicked-up earth,

swirling and choking the throat of tortuous barbs.

The cyclonic reclamation filled the desert of scars and loneliness,

returned sinew and marrow, blood and ink

to the supine form of the battered giant

of a dream so big the rabid enemy of her soul

was lost for strategy to bring down.

  

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11

added to dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight , Poets United Poetry Pantry
and imaginary garden with real toads

Summer Crickets

we held them

in an empty jar

holes popped into the lid

trickling grasses

and bits of dirt

to make their new home

they were always gone

by morning

set free as we slept

by grandpa

saving them

for tomorrow’s hunt

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

The Telling

she carpeted her windswept fears with conversational banality

every time he chanced upon her truths

when those raw elements exuded from her blood to her tissues

she could hold them back no longer

she had no more strength to restrain

those flooding fibers,

the secret self, less understood but more familiar even

than the blouse of self-belittlements she had grown accustomed to

with tremulous hand she peeled back the covers of her deathbed

confession

when the things she could never say

began to drip, horrifyingly, from her lips

she knew she’d been dying to tell him

it was death not to

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner 
Linked in the 1st Anniversary Edition of dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight

Unsung Rain

I held you in my hands,

cupped you to my face,

drenched myself in your flood,

and hid tears in your presence

                        as a secret we shared.

Your music put me to sleep

and drowned the echo of sorrows

in long nights you rocked me,

showering drops against the pane

—were you begging to be let in?

When you stayed until the morning

washing and making things new,

I’d wake and sing my insensitive song,

frowning, I’d begin…

“Rain, rain go away…"

Even then you would sigh,

contentedly, from heaven;

peering sheepishly from behind clouds

as I wiped the sugars off my mouth

from the fruits that were your labor.

Never did you seek applause of me,

always willing to play sidekick, straight man, to our comedic sun

while I laughed among flowered mornings

that without you

                        would never have been quite so sweet.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

in Carry on Tuesday and Poets United Poetry Pantry

Reconciling the Sea - a series haiku

watching driftwood

roll in                   

silently                  

slow sea breeze

blowing salt

into old wounds

the undercurrent

an ocean

between them

the tide

rinsing away

bitter roots

fingers

like seaweed

intertwine

their kiss

on the beach

even seagulls speechless

tongues make

slow laps

home

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

added to dVerse Poetics: Whatever the Weather and Poets United Poetry Pantry 

Crumbs

the crumbs of midnight

still hang on the eaves of disappointment

while she longs for tenderness

from an empty bottle

of hope

it stares back, blankly

wordlessly reminding her

unfittingly placed

it does not spring eternal

nor can it button

the suit of outgrown

reasons she pulls the cork

to suck from its desiccated dregs again 

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner
added to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night

Old Tan Oldsmobile

I could practically smell the cigarettes

Though the windows were rolled up

In the aging tan-colored Oldsmobile

It is the first thing I noticed, strangely

A sun-shriveled old face

Peered above the steering wheel

Crowned by a large straw hat

We were united he and I

Two travelers, strangers

Our only common ground the numbing freeway

I began to wonder about his life

And wonder if he wondered about mine

I imagined him an artist

A widower, missing his children

Who again forgot to send a card

I could see him on the old dock

On the summer lake at dusk

Sitting cross-legged, casting his line

Thinking of the malignancy

That took them all from him

That steady current in his own veins

I craved to know his stories

A little girl version of Manolin

And suddenly he was The Old Man and the Sea

As I made my exit

My eyes lingered on the aged auto, aged hat, aged man

Continuing together to amble the road

I silently wished him farewell

And for his final battle, one

Not so bitter-sweet as Santiago’s

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner 
Added to The Poetry Pantry

Spring Canzonet

The peonies danced perfectly;

with each windshake

perfumed heads

sprinkled sweet dew to the soil.

For a moment she longed to be them;

to listen,

to draw the lyric breath,

and contribute her song.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner 
Shared in imaginary garden

Eight

     

     spitting watermelon seeds

          proudly

     through the new hole in his teeth

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Eleven at Tulalip

Me, the flightless bird

Soaring in your wildblue

Filled

With mysteries

 

Bathing in moonlight as

The fingers of night

Brushed

Through ribbons of me

 

Sweet, your mouth,

My tears on your lips,

Tasted

So much so I wished to never end them

 

Me, the flightless bird

Now securely

Perched

In the cove on the mountain I didn’t think I could climb

 

 

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Seattle Spring

all day long

  violets in the rain

  bleed hello

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Contagious

my sick sister

her contagious

laugh

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Grazie, Sue Bell

bluesy jazz singer

amid the bar chatter

i drink the notes

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

You Always Pick the Worst Apples

You always pick the worst apples, 

she chided him, all bruised!

They are still sweet in some spots—

sweeter even than others without them, he said.

And then she wondered if that’s why he’d picked her.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Rediscovered

misplaced jewels—

that little restaurant we found,

and why we loved each other

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner