Ink & Alchemy
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Stones Cry

1/7/2022

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​When I was the forest, 
I thought I’d be young forever.
It was easy to undulate
when the breeze flirted by,
feeling lovely and large.
There is nothing more beautiful 
than green leaves in the spring
and I was drunk with power.

But all things end,
nothing is as it seems,
and now that I am a desert boulder,
rough and grayed with no softness inside,
I have nothing to hold onto
except this graffiti skin
and the bright sun in my eyes.
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Warm Kitchen

1/4/2022

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​Letting her go is impossible
Until I taste the truth of it
Holding her close
Like a dog chained in the back
Barking when the storms come
But not welcome in the house
Has given roots to this grief
I take what I love inside
Sugar sauce seeping down
In the warm kitchen
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love does that

8/24/2021

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Every golden morning, the latch in my fingers
is sticky with orb and optimism.

The spider and I are each either resilient or ignorant,
the line between them gossamer as ever.

In order to leave this peacock place, 
I must carelessly tear through the web,
swing open the gate, and shatter the dappled shade.

Did she work all night building this beauty,
(hook, spin, toss, finish, bind, repeat)
and now lies panting on the adobe?

I know there is a metaphor here - 
rise / shine
create / destroy
open / close 
human / arthropod

- but all I can think is that I want to climb 
the wall, do whatever it takes to leave 
that fragile beauty in place.

I need to do my small part to slow the wreckage
of this world. ​
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no sound at all

5/8/2021

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I love the sound of the ocean crashing. It reminds me that sometimes beautiful is raw and powerful, driving toward the shore with absolute persistence and focus.

When I hear small children laughing, it makes me think of rainbows and a twenty dollar bill found unexpectedly in the pocket of my best worn jeans.

The sigh of a person sleeping make me want to give them safety on a silver platter, makes me wonder how any of us sleep at all with this world so off kilter and unkind.
Silence then crickets. Silence then crickets.

I adore the soft hitch and scratch of book pages turning, a feather slipping into the wind and lifting itself to the very highest places.

That sound that is no sound at all. When everyone you love is at home and asleep and not one of them is striving or struggling. They are each wrapped in sheets and bundled into blankets in their own particular way - a neck snugged atop too many pillows, a foot sticking out with blue nail polish on scuffed toes, dirty laundry in piles on the floor.
​
Sigh and snore, the best sound of all.
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origin story

4/11/2021

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deepdown running, the wildest 
eye, the one that knows what the clematis
is thinking as it makes its way 
up the rusted archway

bluesky nodding, holding court with 
sprouts and buds, drinking loudly 
of sunshine sweets and greengrass love

Sunday morning wheelbarrow hands,
moving rivers of rock between 
gangs of sharp-tongued cactus, weaving
like a drunkard because I’m so tired
of the quiet

broken only by birdsong and chime

then the words come to me on the desert 
wind, blown in rough like tumbleweed,
they say we have been speaking
to you all day, whispering 
your name from the tips of the prickly
pear

what if you listened?
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arroyo

4/5/2021

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bridge, brook, bird

my throat has been clogged
​with dust for so long
that I dream of deluge

icy waters covering me
pouring over my tongue,
loosening my words
and turning them to poetry
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indigo

3/22/2021

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for Lucille Junkere
​

This blue is also 
deep red.
Rich with blood,
the cries of babies
and entire peoples
torn from their home 
places,

bloom of anger,
drop of heartbreak,
music of spirits 
staying strong through
too many dark nights. 

This red-blue is the steady
stroke and beat 
of uprising, 
of holding steady 
and passing love
through blood and bone.  ​
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hospitality

3/14/2021

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As I slept, we lost an hour
and I woke this morning knowing 
that loss is the soft underbelly 
of love, that we can roll it over
to pry out the sweetest parts
but can never pick it clean
from the hollow bones of grief.

I seek solace in the land, 
gather mountains in my arms while
geese float through the thin morning.
The sun fails to properly rise.

Birds still called as if the world
weren't breaking at the seams.

A river running coyote,
gray-white in the iced air,
passes close but doesn’t look my way, 
just steps like majesty through the silent Sunday.

I do not truly belong to this desert place
but the river always welcomes me 
like a cherished guest. ​
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carnival

2/28/2021

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This is for my daughter,
who has always loved to go too fast,
and too high. 

Every summer your shrieks reeled out
from the roller coaster,
in equal parts joy and terror,
charmed by those wild forces.
​
Remember when you cried
because we couldn’t save
that one tiny kitten?
Now it’s you who requires saving.
You, who cannot abide to be alone,
and you, so easily convinced by boys
and men. 

I found you sleeping once,
in a house of trash and graffiti.
Your hair was feathered across your cheek,
and for just one moment,
I could not bear to wake you.

I’d been looking for two days,
and I was overcome by an urge
to shake you

hard.

You were probably dreaming of cotton candy
but the room smelled
like whiskey and old cigarettes
and I realized that I had forgotten
to tell you
that carnivals aren’t as much fun in the light of day.

There are cords to trip over,
stinking cans with circling flies,
and men with spaces for teeth who are happy 
to spend your last dollar.

The carnival is over.
Please come home now. ​
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so long

2/15/2021

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Inside of here, I hold on too tightly
Fisted clenched and toes curled,
I white-knuckle my way through this life.

I cannot wear this skin well,
I don’t know how to rest these bones,
and it is so hard to walk through this world
when nothing lasts long enough for this greedy heart.

Love puts its ear to the ground 
and listens closely. It knows my weaknesses.

I’ve always been worried, secretly,
that love would take me down. 
Sideswipe me out of nowhere,
knock me to the ground,
knees bleeding and tears streaming.
That it would reduce me to something
lesser than.
Desperate and clutching, like my mother.
Broken and spent, like so many others.

I’ll have none of that, thank you very much.

And so I have spent a lifetime practicing
the art of taking leave. 
I have rehearsed goodbyes the way one 
would approach the piano. 
I take out the crumpled sheet music,
flatten it with open palms
and take a deep breathe before I begin.

I say so long over and over again
sort of like when I learned my multiplication tables.
You times me equals 69
and fireworks of the best sort.
 
I know my math is a little creative.

Sweetheart, I thought the scrambled eggs were delicious
just don’t make plans too far into the future

because I’m scratching fondness and farewell 
onto dead leaves, matchbooks, bar napkins, 
and the palms of each one of my lovers. 

I slip out in the quiet hours of the night
leaving notes in eyeliner
that say things like
catch you later
thanks for the French fries and the fuck
you’re awesome. smiley face

One must practice goodbyes. 
Stand in front of the mirror and try them out.
Do this every day for many years.
Part ways with the graffiti and the dirty snow,
with warm lips and kisses in the dark
our clouds of breath spreading like haloes 
in the streetlight. 

Walk away from tulip bulbs warming in the ground
like small furry fists.
Abandon the lover who stroked your cheek 
as if it were a newborn baby 
just placed in her arms. 

Turn your back on that deep sinking black of day 
leeching into night as the ocean laps at your skin.

And in the morning

run. Run like a river raging full in spring
and do your best not to look up 
at the windswept sky
so full of tears and loss signaling the storm to come
which will surely take you away from me. 

So tonight, I will do what I must.
I will wrap my arms around you,
lick my love song into your ear,
and then I will tell you goodbye

before you have a chance to leave me.
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    Who am I?

    I’m a systems engineer and creative coach living in ABQ, NM.  I believe that we can intentionally design our lives to align with our deepest dreams and desires.  

    Grab creative inspiration here! (completely free, of course) 

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  • Home
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