Second Thought

I was watching a snail crawl across the mud, and I coughed a little, and I saw its slow movements, the slimy grotesque grey body allocating each inch upon the surface. What are we to it? I kicked a rock out of its way, and wiped a tear from my eye. I hoped it would rain soon. I’d been studying Spanish all night, looking at the verb conjugations, and nouns, my horrible memory like lead tied to my feet drowning me in Lake Michigan.
Today would be a new day. No more lies from me. No more lies like a tongue fluttering in a different language, off into the air like a monarch butterfly about to be caught by a net.
Sammy was my lover, I thought. He was slightly chubby. Pale kid, shorter than me. He had acne, he was in my Spanish class, in college. We took the same observations. We tended to remark upon the same things, joking, laughing at the world, laughing at things as if they were rolling tires with monkeys in it.
We shared tongues, we shares noses. We touched teeth to teeth. We picked eachothers’ belly buttons. We were like two koala bears, or two monkeys, nurturing each other.
He loved throwing me on his back, and pretending he was saving me from a fire. But what he didn’t realize, was that, he was saving me from something. Entropy. He was drawing me out of rooms full of emptiness pulling me out of a void, that was about the devour itself, into the sunshine, where I can be on his comforting back, his laughing, his cheerful, his joking demeanor back I love his brown spikey hair, it reminds me of fresh mowed grass.
But the entropy was slow, sucking, pulling away at everything.
Not adventuresome like us.
“Julianna!” Sammy saw me near a tree, in my backyard.
“Hi Sammy hun.” We approached each other like two swans with necks outstretched. But we aren’t quite as graceful. We kissed, our tongues entwining.
He pulled away with a little of my saliva on his lips, and wiped it off.
“I can’t go with you to the carnival tomorrow.”
“why not? I really wanted you to go hun.” I looked at his diamond blue eyes, cut unevenly in his cornea. His face was like a bronze statue, emanating joyful calm. I was soothed and enthralled by it.
“Well, I’ll tell you why- I’ve got to make a phone call to purchase something special.”
Immediately I knew I would be like the snail, waiting for every moment, to slide across the mud to find out what it was he was going to purchase.
I wanted to unplug my ears- and hold his hands, and dance with him around the merry-go-round. But I knew that would be impossible. A rose was growing inside my brain and I couldn’t stop it. I knew the thorns would make people bleed, if I didn’t put a noose around it. But Sammy said he was going to buy something and I knew that this rose would represent our love, but the thorns, would represent each letter in the alphabet. I would have to decode it. I was seeing the snail, in my head through a microscope, in a tube that suddenly flashed in my mind’s eye.
What language was this? Was I learning Spanish for a reason? Was my mind’s eye connected by a super connector? Was my lover up to something? What was he going to buy?
I needed to know.
But the rose wouldn’t open. It was red and closed. The thorns cut against my memories. I saw my father cry as my memories bled. My dog got run over by a mail truck. I saw the thorns pierce thunder clouds.
But I knew the adventure started with my legs. I knew my Spanish teacher could help me. I could begin there. Because Sammy was keeping a secret from me.
It was growing like a rose, but the sun was shining down on it and something peculiar was happening. The image became clear in my brain- of a lilac blossoming, with a willow tree, and the bright sun shining down through the branches.
The water was still underneath the tree, and I walked over in my mind’s eye to see my reflection. I gasped. I saw a woman covered in vines growing around her head, with white eyes.
I snapped out of it, and woke up from the fantasizing, with Sammy staring at me. We kissed. We held hands walking along the river bank, joking about duct tape, and how the world wasn’t bunnies and rainbows, but those jokes seemed sad, compared to the distress of our lives now.
He walked me home, and I walked up the porch steps.
My mind was twisting with the visions I had just seen. I took my ponytail out, sighed, turned on some Toys Orchestra, and went to go make some coffee. As I approached the counter, I saw a rose, sitting on the counter. It was beginning to blossom.
I wondered how it had gotten there. No one had any keys. I wondered if it had anything to do with my visions. Life seemed so normal now except for that rose.
I made some coffee, drank it, it tasted like Arabian belly dancers.
Sammy and I had met through fencing. He had been watching me learn the steps, and he later told me that he enjoyed watching my clumsy yet determined attempts at mastering the technique.
We faced off often. We would face off, and I would try to hit his shoulder or chest, and he would always fake cut my arm off, then my leg, then my other leg, and then he would put the sword to my chin.
He was incredibly good at fencing. But whenever I tried to teach him guitar, he couldn’t get his stubby fingers to hold down the strings onto the frets.
I got a phonecall. It was my dad. He was drunk. I wanted to know why he drunk so early in the afternoon, and he said he couldn’t resist it anymore now that Mom was gone. I saw the rose out of the corner of my eye.
I wanted to hold him and tell him I was still here and so was she, but she was more here than she’d ever been.
But he was agnostic, like a tree in the winter, fading away and you don’t know if it will come back.
The rose bloomed, as the tree brightened, and I felt an impulse to walk upstairs, and I happened to look up. There was the creak to the attic trap door. There were so many lost memories up there probably. Perhaps I could feed the tree.
I brought the ladder down, and shone the flashlight through the cobwebs, as I poked my head above the hole. A spider ran across my hand.
I went to the corner, and tried on a pink flowered dress my great-grand mother must have used to wear.
I tried on straw hats, mum’s hats. I looked through chests hoping to find treasures. But I found none.
I heard a squeaking sound. It was coming from behind the wall. I thought it could be a mouse, but of course there are mice in attics.
But something about the squeaking sound reminded me of the language of the rose.
I wanted to ignore it, so I started going downstairs, intending to forget this second thought, and be on my way to visit with Sammy.
But I saw a light flicker into a corner. I looked out the window, and I saw a white van, and vines with roses grew all over it. I knew immediately, Sammy was in it.
The light flickered in the corner, and I walked over to the corner, ad heard the squeaking. I felt thorns squeezing my heart. I pulled away boxes and used a hammer to get behind the moldy wall.
Behind the wall, was a little mouse, trapped, by a rose bush, trapped by thorns. The rose, if it had blossomed, would have suffocated him.

The Fast Inch

Ralph looked up at the sky. A meteor the size of a pea flaming blazed down and hit the ground ten feet from him.
“Wow.” he said, “that was cool.”
The cows mooed, the pigs oinked. Some chickens laid some eggs.
A chicken named Kee walked a little bit towards the meteor site, but then changed its mind, and walked back to the house.
“Ma, something crashed into the ground, lets get a shovel and stuff.”
“Ralphie! I don’t want to go near those things! There could be worms, or maggots, or cheese pie!”
“Mom, it’s just a meteor, I’m sure there’s only snails in it.” He paused, put his finger to his forehead like the famous thinking statue.
“Remember the time we went fishing and caught the lochnas monster, only it was disguised as a catfish, because it didn’t want none one knowing it was real?”
“Yes dear Ralphie my sweetie pie.”
“Well, this here meteorite wants us to think there are worms and maggots and all kinds of gross things, when in reality, there’s just snails waiting to join our community. Maybe even teach us a few lessons or two.”
“Oh Ralphie, I’m so proud of you. I don’t think there’s none lesson you could learn.”
“Your right mama, I done all my lesson learning right in your stomach. You fed me the best applesauce, honey, wine, porkchops, and love making with Dad that made me who I am now.”
“Ralphie, now don’t go mentioning our love making, the snails in the meteorite might be offended.”
“Yes, you’re right. Oh, there’s a slug.”
A slug inched its way in the grass, ten feet from the meotorite.
“We should put it in a card board box, with a dangling sun. How many moons should we give it?”
“Roll the dice, Ralphie, you know that’s how we make all the decisions on the farm!”
And they combed Ralphie’s hair to the side.
But the slug wasn’t happy in the cardboard box, he crawled out, into the kictchen sink, into the garbage disposal. But first he walked over a piece of paper, and left a trail of slime.
So Ralphie;s Mom turned the garbage disposal on, and the slug, they named it “Chug”, went on her face, the walls, the ceiling. Ma read the “suicide note”, and gasped. She told Ralphie, and they gathered the remains of “Chug”, and made a headstone for him, paid $200 bucks for it, and it read: “We didn’t know how many moons, but we knew how much heart.”
They loved him for one week.

Change

This post isn't going to be  poetry it's just going to be talking.  My thoughts are really jumbled right now.  Why is my poetry so melancholy?   Could you see some way that my poetry could be improved?  I don't know how to improve my poetry I took a poetry class and my poetry is usually confusing but I'm sure no one is really concerned with t hat right now.  Catharsis is what people need really.  Some way to feel an emotion, express an emotion, and feel an emotion through other people's words, and I guess my poetry doesn't do that for people, because I really don't go many visitors. 
I like writing poetry because it gets my jumbled thoughts down into one area, like a three dimensional space.  It is good.   I don't really enjoy reading poetry, but I love writing it.   I have been working on some folk art, which is cloth sewed on cloth.  My cats seemed to enjoy me doing that.   I cut up some clothes I didn't like, (eek), but that's ok.  I made a really peaceful thing, and I really enjoyed doing it.  I think that I really like doing artistic things, as well as writing.   I get  bored doing the same things over and over again. 
I need to buy some more clay, and make some sculptures.  I am becoming better at it.   I have about 10 sculptures I made which I didn't burn or whatever you call it, and I want to paint them.
I'm learning a lot, I had a moment that was like it hit me like a jack in the box.  I was reading a book my sister gave me, called "Today I will"  by Eileen and Jerry Spinelli and one of the passages is about changing your mind moderately some of the ti mes, and it was funny because as I was reading the passage, I changed my mind about changing my mind.  So it was weird.  So I decided- I will only read one passage at a time.  And it worked.  It was weird.   But it was progressive.  Sometimes progress is weird, sometimes its fast, sometimes its slow.  Sometimes its happy, sometimes its sad.  I am all done for now.  Peace.

A lonely flower waits for the sunshine,
bitter and empty, for the birds have stolen all the bees
The petals are yellow and drooping like anchors
are pulling them down, like a dentist tugging at a truth.
Mirrors float above the flower showing memories
of yellow love, that once was hers
She bites down, and chews on rainbows, she can't stand the orange
zig zagging back and forth like  a confused train.
But she can't close, not for the life of her, or else her
seeds will trickle down, like waterfalls lifting up, in handshakes
waving to mini daisies, with crooked zipper smiles
on their faces.  Like ocean waves, the flowers sway,
the broken mirrors blow in the wind
above her, not liking c old refirgerators,
because the flowers fear the dying process
With the rotten tomatoes, the mold,
the laughing eggs rotting.  She sucks herself
into a root and becomes quicksand.

Bees and Clouds

You are like a bee around my head buzzing I can't hear you
your words are like poison ivy growing around a cactus that
is beginning to shrivel and attack me, because I can clearly
see the blue sky it is starting to rain in this desert, but you are
trying to squeeze nectar out of this flower and I won't let
you  near me because you are poison, disgusting.
Chocolate pudding won't fix this no coffee no tea won't
soothe the scars from the bee that buzzes around this
cactus soaking roots into the bottom of the abyss I will
have to drink a  bunch of the tonic that says you're gone
underneath an ant's forever playground.
I'm whispering to the clouds that are blowing in this
desert I am blowing red kisses in the wind
(None to you) I see through goggle glasses the blurred
spaceship you've set up to wake up the moon.
But I won't let you take over, never let you take over.
The clouds you try to strangle, you won't gain control of.
The nectar you try to gargle, you won't poison.
The rivers  you try to taint, you won't color.
The butterflies who's wings you try to clip, they will fly.
Everything is going smoothly, you are smoking your cigar,
and the ants are carrying their food, and your nose is shrinking
shrinking, blowing smoke out of your stubbornness.
I can't hold up your idiocy anymore, I can't lift your bizarre cloud
shapes anymore.  So, I turn the clock back, and the clouds
fall, on top of you, and you turn into a dog, just like
the cloud shape, and you stop being a bee
and stop bugging me.  Because you're gone.

Clouds and Pianos

Clouds and Pianos

Holding an empty cup electric hot wire tap dancing 

on a fenceShake the red haired grand ma twirl her

great Grand father clock didya know im a neon sign that’s

tamed and I am also Llama brained aimed,

this archeology site is Exumed and they found 

tornados that were once extinct  I want To just explore

the moon a little further to find stones that were not

Scattered to the pink sunset with jagged teeth just oatmeal grits that are

Firey burn I cant scoop to escape the fire of the Titanic sinking

The blue mechanical fish in the bathtub trying to swim 

with bubbles of dreams it will see the tops of the waves

Sifting through flour though Ants have destroyed their ant farm.

Aunt Margarat wants to call you But you don’t care, she’ll raise

just a hair, off your arm, and you’ll Pinch the quartet’s

high note off the ceiling fan of The opera hall.  Cave men

swinging from ropes, mermaid’s falling Off slippery rocks. 

Sheeps stumbling over electric wire, now My Cup is full of guts, 

guts from all the factories, all the chaos, my head is smothered

in white noise- thoughts I shouldn’t be embedded in.

Maybe all the animals could be Noah’s, from The slaughterhouses.

Chickens, I eat their  eggs because my sneakers are worn,

but what ink on the ground Do I leave behind that leaves words

Written on the pavement, could be changed into new words,

That would change that pathway of these animals, and write 

calligraphy Into a new book for our lives?

A new life for our spirits to richochet in dance with 

one another that is sweet as honey

 in the marmalade clouds with the yellow sun 

and the red purple rainbow with

elephants and blue ink forever? What polka beat

do I dance to make this happen?

 Am I offbeat?  Or am I on beat.  I try, I hit

the black key on the piano, and I listen for

the right key.  I certainly don’t smoke a cigar and fart out a tune.

 But I’m also not over the piano like a grandma driver 

hunched over the car wheel.  I’m a lackadasacal

driver at the piano,Driving with a cool attitude, in my 

mind, in my mind.  Windshield wipers in my

head tired of clearing the soot.  Things growing clear, then foggy, then clear.

 It rains sometimes, then snows.  Traffic sometimes, then

orange cones warning of construction. I play this 

tune and the bird dips down to hand

me a note to play, I wonder  how can I make

the sun shine happily for each person,

and make each person look toward the sky

and wish it would form a new cloud shape

 in new forms, spreading out across the sky

like a bubble in the water Make each person long to 

climb up a tree, with jubilant delight, because

Their heart is rising like a stone up their chest,

Because their needs are satisfied But they’re lost somewhere on Pluto.

Some gravity’s pulled our priorities and 

they’ve turned into some asteroid hitting other

people in the back.  Can’t I stop being a banana

hitting people in the shoulder.  I want to be Belinda

from the Wizard of Oz, and tell Dorothy to click 

her heels and return home.  Really.

---

Welcome to this Green Planet

Welcome to this green planet.
Roads drifting along surface, cars like bugs carrying
The tenticles of the trees that reach up into the sky,
With birds as friends hopping from branch to branch. The clouds tie the blue
Together like a knotted rainbow forever uniting the horizon together. Planted here we wander the
surface of this sphere until God decides that
Our hands break apart and we run away from each other and we throw Dodge balls at each other, Tell
me why we cannot be like dolphins in the ocean with
Small smiles on our faces Cooing to each other just riding the crests of Earth’s riches
Wheat in the fields, snow, bird’s song, God’s gift, dance to the beat of the drum, and swim. Why Can’t
we do that for once? That would throw the flowers into a frenzy of delighted panick.
Send black holes into a dizzying joy. The house shutters frown in front of me, the bugs
Of cars zip by, with passengers to their destinations, I don’t know what they’re doing,
Probably something good. But we are a planet wandering
The universe lets plant our feet into it and explore like a sanxbox and not panickk like Lost voyagers.
We’ve certainly arrived so lets be Tom Sawyer, build onto the tunnels
Of o ur ancestors love and act with kindness and admire flowers on our way.
Respect the resources treat our bodies well. Follow a tradition loyally that leads
You to a good path of righteousness and kindness to others and the Earth.
So everyday the Earth grows like a tree winding up towards the yellow sun,
And our mind empties out like a piggy bank, and we swallow our tears, that
Could have watered the plants that could have fed our happiness, forever.