Love will come again

Driving in rural Midwest Winter

Between snowfalls

The skies gray and trees bare

Abandoned nests

Appear unexpectedly

Trees bare abandoned nests unexpectedly

Abandoned nests suspended at the ends of thin branches

The tree is a body

The branches ribs

The unexpected nests, empty

It's hard to imagine Spring

It's hard to imagine the nests among the leaves

It's hard to imagine the nests 

expecting

Because I couldn't march

I think some women realize that something isn’t right with the world. 

I think some women realize that we’ve made progress.

I think some women never knew otherwise.

I think some women feel all of these things and become confused.

I think some women feel all of these things and become angry.

I think some women feel all of these things and become enlightened.

I dress up in suits and meet with gentlemen CEOs and CFOs and all those titles

that command respect for their position and their ability to inspire fear in those below

And sometimes I feel like they view me as an equal

And I become positive and hopeful and it allows me to focus on bigger things like how to make the world a better place with my efforts and abilities

And then I see how they look below my eyes to that place that reminds me I am not equal

I am something less than

I am an object

I am something not to be taken seriously

Or they call me honey

Or they say something that implies I must seek approval of my male counterpart 

To justify my existence

I must justify my existence

They must justify my existence

And the good people of the world think I must be crazy to think and say these things

To bring light to these things that are said

To bring light to these things that do happen

Because surely in our just version of this world these things are not happening

These things are of the stone ages

These things are exaggerations

And I feel shame

And I feel sadness

And I feel impotence

And I feel apathy

From others and from myself

But mostly from myself

And that feeds my shame

And it feeds my anger

And it feeds my hatred

And it makes me think of them as objects

And it makes me one of them

And it makes me no better than them.

Despite all of this

I am hopeful.

These backward things drift away with the ages.

The sadness I feel is that I will drift away along with it.

I will not be around to see how young men grow into decent men

who look women in their eyes.

Who look women in their eyes.

Who look women in their eyes.

In Memoriam

Do you remember when there was nothing to hear
When silence was silent
Not even the hum of some distant thing
. . .

Synapses speeding
Up in time fleeting they say
You gotta hit the ground bleeding
Before your heart stops beating in your chest
You give it your best or give it a rest
Is this a test or is this our story
To reach for glory before in memoriam
. . .

The world can't go back to the way it was
It never could
It never does
. . .

Cats in Purrrsuit

Kitties on edge

On the ledge

Want to invest in hedge funds

But they got no real funds

So they dress up in suits

In pursuit of jobs in the classifieds

Bonafide cats with street smarts

But no education that’s ok gonna let it slide

Rockin’ the interview

Expandin’ the purrrview

For the recruiter

To hire cats to work on computers

And now they’re commuters

But cats don’t like riding on wheels

They hate how it feels

It makes them hisssterical

It’s a miracle

They make it to work without going berserk

And work forty hours

For the powers that be 

Payin’ their paycheck on payday 

Today is the day they race to the bank 

Cha-ching they be bringing the bling bling

Callin’ up the broker asking her to broker

A deal to ‘steal’ some capital 

It makes no sense at all

That cats are picking up the pace

About face are joining the rat race

To do something else it seems

Sick of being in memes

They can haz more meaning

Being in purrrsuit of their dreams.

When the light is low

I swear when the light is low
I can see noise in the air
The air is the noise
And the noise is the air
Indistinguishable, I breathe it in
And I imagine the static filling my lungs
And what was outside is now inside
Indistinguishable, nothing has changed
In the air, in the character of the air
Except I imagine it has
Changed on an atomic level
The essence of the air, of the noise
Of the movement, of the flow
Of the atoms imaginary and real
When the light is low

In Anticipation of Awe

It's been awhile since I walked aimlessly

through the house silent.

I feel so big next to all of these things

the table the chairs.

They barely respond when I touch them so

and I get so sad.

I booked a trip to the redwood forest

to feel small again.

To touch the living.

Spines

It Is Daylight.
My Eyes Are Black Holes
blinking with fists.

A Draft Of Shadows,
The Essence of Truth
If You Ask Me

NaPoWriMo Prompt: http://www.napowrimo.net/day-ten-4/

Emptiness is Fullness (a ghazal)

I'm alone and wandering through Nepal tonight

The dry, incense-infused air fills the streets tonight

Temples appear unexpectedly left and right
I thank random Buddha for no rainfall tonight

I become, lost and found, a fool and a teacher
Each step through the night is a page I scrawl tonight

This is the breaking dawn and finale sunset
Existence is within total enthrall tonight

And I, शुन्यता, shout in silence to no one--

I am ready for sleep, once and for all tonight.

A Flower Haiku or maybe a Death Haiku

To think of dying

Is to think of the flower

Plucked for our pleasure

NaPoWriMo Prompt: http://www.napowrimo.net/day-eight-3/

To Define Ourselves Free

What does it mean to be free.

Is it something the whole can define, 

Or something each of us must define for ourselves.

And in examining ourselves

To search out what makes us feel free, 

is it even possible to put into words the feeling, let alone define.

But if this we don’t define

Again and again for ourselves

And still give the power to others to keep us free, 

How unfree can we be made before we redefine ourselves.

NaPoWriMo Prompt: http://www.napowrimo.net/day-seven-3/ — a tritina