Froggie Poem

(Theme: What will you do to save the frogs? or bees?)

Advocate for water quality.
Make sure others know waterways
are not anyone’s personal
garbage dump.
Encourage all- from Ph.D’s
to school children- to care
about creatures that go ribbit
other than Kemit.

Come Over

(inspired by this awesome Kenny Chesney song of the same name)

You were
the wrong sort person
for me to adore.

Knew that from day,
if not hour,
one.

Think we both
made the correct choice
when we decided not
to reengage in the on again
off again behavior that’s been
us for longer than we care to admit,
even to ourselves.

Sometimes, however, I miss
you exquisiteness,
even though it came
with almost unbearable agony.

Second Thrsdays

(dedicated to the members of the Florence Poets' Society)

At my monthly poet party
We debate line length
and exact meaning,
over and over again,
frequently changing opinions.

We decipher
the difference between
floe and flow.

Someone teaches us
about the Sopwith Camel
another disseminates knowledge of
the autonomous character.

Although we laugh
like inebriated midshipmen
on the last night of shore leave,
we depart with minds expanded
rather than pickled.

Adequacy

(The theme was "It was not an emotion I knew by heart". Sadly, this one still isn’t.)

Survivor’s guilt for accepting money
and not simply doing what needs done,
even if someone else tells me
it’s no real strain to their budget
and my mom reminds me often
I need to start paying more bills,
myself

Every moment aware of others' sacrifices
that allow me to have the life I adore.
Eat, sleep, and breathe Spiderman’s cliché.
and feel much shame for deciding I deserve
even one day off, every 21.

Various Ignitions

When I was just 13
I sat around my first fire
holding hands with my first-
and at the time I thought only ever- boy.
Feeling this strange new thing called found.

No one here mistook my always
seated posture for stupidity,
thought that my no make up policy made me
any less the typical teenage girl ,
or glared at me when even I Knew I
was eating too many s’mores.

I would value that
come to be considered holy
to me space,
until I turned 17
and opted to attend elite, auditioned for
arts camp after acceptance.

But my essence
would ache for its return
until I turned 19
and found a new place to belong.

This Writer's Mistakes

Consistently wrong
to process pretty journals,
but never write in them
because I deem spastic penmanship
inadequate.

Consistently wrong
to buy pictures
representing minor characters
in a story I’ve planned
to write for upwards
of a month and a half.
In fact,
after searching the computer-
methodically and repeatedly-
I can’t find the scene
my mind remembers the rhythm
of the typing, though exact
words of story escape.

Consistently wrong
to write columns
in my head,
but never actually
transfer words into required website
even after I’ve attended the event
and taken the pictures.

Consistently wrong
not to edit either
3-Day novels, half-finished poetry manuscripts,
or grad school applications.

The sickness in recovery

Formerly wayward
rumbly in my tumbly
has resided at my waking
and the breeze flowing
into bedroom
soft and cool
lifts the thing
I refer to as soul.