Revisiting
Now thoughts of you are rare,
a distraction not afforded me.
Life has gotten too perilous
when you are near,
too much a luxury.
Is this how love begins to end?
I am too busy keeping all the lights on,
it demands too much attention;
they fade as I stop thinking of you.
Thoughts of you began to be
forgot, how my heart rapidly beat.
Beloved, is this how? It ends.
And the fire is going, roaring,
tinged with the taste of sour gone sweet.
I have aged
to hunt tigers, to pursue you.
Ariel
Revisiting
Now thoughts of you are rare,
a distraction not afforded me.
Life has gotten too perilous
when you are near,
too much a luxury.
Is this how love begins to end?
I am too busy keeping all the lights on,
it demands too much attention;
they fade as I stop thinking of you.
Thoughts of you began to be
forgot, how my heart rapidly beat.
Beloved, is this how? It ends.
And the fire is going, roaring,
tinged with the taste of sour gone sweet.
I have aged
to hunt tigers, to pursue you.
Ariel
Impatient
My patience is a guttered out candle,
the wax spilled out of everything I wrote.
I despair the only heat I will ever wrap
around me is from my sweater,
or from a heater, not a burning fire.
I don’t want to own your heart
but may I again be its companion?
I sit alone on a long couch,
walk a lonely carpet;
even my cat tires of me.
I long to wear white lace again,
sit on your porch,
feel my heart leap at the sight of you.
Oh, I want to burn this house down!
Ariel
the void
my muscles are heavy with need.
i whisper into the void
still too quiet for you to avoid
all i want is for you
to walk into my poem
let to swirl and whirl around you
perhaps sneak into your ear
work its way into your subconscious
then one day you will start to randomly
think about me
and love
then connect the two
and with a thundering shout
you will run back to me
your muscles heavy with need.
Ariel
life
Life is broken,
like kindling stacked and ready for the match
Have I wasted my life, my home
just waiting for you?
I have gotten too used to
living in the dark
and the cold,
like tundra nights.
I am a cork, waterlogged, in the vast ocean;
We measure our time by our spinning.
I got you to tremble with lust.
Doves, all around us.
Ariel
earth
let me plant my feet deep and send out roots
let me grow yellow-green leaves this spring
and soak up the warming sun
we are living in this liminal time
before humans burn our mother up
let me disavow them, step away
and nuzzle back into the earth
be her child once again.
Ariel
last six words
You say you’re a bear but I think a boar
a cowboy looking to collar “a filly”
using a bit of flair.
Dude,
women don’t care how many greenbacks
you pull; this isn’t The Wild West.
they want self-determination and respect.
Ariel
draft
Why I’m Still Living
1: I would do anything to spend
time with my witty son. Even endure
sickness and a body of pain.
to hear his  voice laugh and tease
give him two rooms, one for sleeping, one for waking
I live to see him stride across the local stage
and I must live to protect him from the snake who attacks without warning,
I must ensure his survival
2: and of course there are my furry cats
3: siblings
4: there is art. and bubbles. trees. grass. daffodils. lilacs. plums. soft fabrics. hot baths. scented candles. there is electricity. piped water. toilets and toilet paper. phones, computers and internet. instant communication. mail that comes. i have purple sheets and blankets. pillows. scented candles. wood fire. a curved couch. money. food. poet friends. art friends, music friends. theater friends. movies. a pool.
last: there’s an infinitesimal chance
you may show up at my door
(you remember where that is)
and give in to your desire.
Ariel
draft
panic
there are invisible bugs crawling on my skin
phantom boa constrictor around chest
my mind in a thousand dank caves all at once
how can I find myself
my hands slither over each other like a clutch of worms
my hair falls, trying to shield my eyes from seeing, well, everything
my arms reach out, come back empty
how can I live like this
Ariel
draft
haunted
You’re either a poet or a poem.
I’m a poet
and you my poem.
you hunt my hours.
the ticking of the clock is your breaths,
they echo in my heavy breast.
your hunting whispers to me
a seductive heavy exhale.
oh, merman, you murmur a hunting siren
the ocean amplifies it until it is a foghorn
and the only safe shore is the rocks
your hunting are waves that drown me
then raises me to air and words.
I am a fish and you a monger
I am a poet and you my fish
I am your poem and you are hunting.
Ariel
draft
The Devil And Me
(after Ira Wolf)
I’m not a superhero, though I wish to be.
It’s weird when you wake up to The Others just under that first layer of skinand they are claw, clawing to get out, and you hope that your skin is metal like Colossus to keep them from escaping and adamantium bones to keep them from breaking you inside. But you know you’re no superhero, just a child grown who had to raise herself. Certainly not a Jean Gray. Well, maybe a weather witch. For you make the gray clouds roll in and you hear the thunder roll with all the voices in it shouting over each other. Or maybe it’s the fighting fiddles. The flavor of blood-stained brimstone on the tongue.
And you can’t think.
My mother thought me lost to The Devil. Evil she must purge.
I know what it’s like to be dead.
You know part of it is in your genes. The ones you got from Her mother. But then if I was stuck on an isolated Arkansas farm, I would give in to the voices too, embrace them, escape with them to run away from the fields and crops. At least I think that was her origin story. I think anyone would go mad with the isolation of a farm.
I was lost yesterday, today I ground (grind?) myself with music. Hope the fiddles make sense and hope the devils work with me. I hope to walk through everything, phase, merge. Run away to the forest. It a Pac NW thing. Find a river running red as whiskey. Talk to plants like Poison Ivy. Dance with two left feet around a campfire. Wrap the devils in my webs.
I’m no superhero. I’m no villain either.
Ariel
draft
form, anti-form
breeze sends white
blossoms drifting down
like winter.
the sky is
blue, clouds let in the sun. yet
cats huddle inside.
with a hot mug to sip from
i long for summer’s warmth,
to lay in the sun and let it bake me.
live wearing as few layers
as possible.
Ariel
draft
stained glass
weighted down base, rippling.
tall art novoeu stalk
holds up a reverse tulip.
multi-colored glass formed
into a bell, lilies thin as skin.
protecting the delicate light
bulb. when it’s on it, it glows,
sending vibrant rainbows everywhere.
wooden chair sits three feet from the television.
Ariel
draft
middle
passion month
and the pink moon
is halved in the ink of it.
my honey breast is going places
looking for its north star,
hoping against hope it never moves.
this spring rhythm; again it shimmies
through my skin like a creature
emerging from thawed hibernation;
i wake, i breathe, i write.
i long for your embrace
the silliness of it, like minor falls
and major lifts.
Ariel
draft
essential angel
a gentle love of a familiar, ache
after him almost another day.
a drunk, who hungers
between blaze and ground,
soak there your heart –
an imagined bouquet
kept sacred between a season of snow
& winter, a lesser nature of air.
oh beautiful woman, he inspires
a freeze of river, whispers during night.
Ariel
Draft
Nine wounds of Frida
from The Wounded Deer by Frida Kalho
Was she the woodland creature
or the fallen branch we overlook
Same difference,
she was lost among the trees
And could only follow the water line
back towards herself,
horns and all.
Ariel
draft
habits
My prayers take on the form learned in childhood.
Ariel
draft
fuck up better
on a day like today, when you fuck up
even before you wake up
you hope to at least fall forward
and miss getting it in the face
on a day when the morning alarms
weren't loud enough to rouse
you tell yourself that you are human
and this is likely fixable, with hat in hand
and so you go to take it on the chin
confess that it was all your fault
and "what can I do to rectify this?"
needs to fall from your mouth
often and repeatedly.
Ariel
draft
headlines
detective stories are most often stolen from New York library
I never return the luscious art books I've check out
It's okay, in December I bring in canned food to pay my debt
is this charity? I don't know
when the wind blows my loose hair,
it is never as alluring as novels say
neither are dresses.
Sneakers the thing; best footwear
for the woods on account of comfort
still, i got furious when a friend
asked me to stand on my head.
I will not; however,
I would sit on a burglar,
and teach him, like a naughty bird,
cuss words until he returns to his den
I'm a queer bird that looks part monkey,
part eagle, and a little bit dove.
Truth be told my young pheasants are
ashamed of their dowdy old mother.
I don't care; I will buy the Eiffel Tower
and paint the cats that come,
feed the queer ones; they are such cheeky fellows.
lightni,cng will scatter pastry across the graveyards,
ghosts and dogs will sit right down
eat pie and cakes, drink a kettle of coffee,
ice cream? For breakfast? So Ezra Pound said,.
Ariel
draft
instructions on how to love me
bring me home rose bushes
complete with thorns
so i may plant them near my windows.
surprise me with kittens
and full grown cats
name them something ridiculous
take me to bookstores
and let me bring home my bounty
and read to you
drive me to the seashore
and build me a bonfire
watch me dance to old gods
lay near me quietly at night
touch me as you will
listen to my heart beat.
Ariel
draft
twofer tuesday
it rained and didn't rain
and i sat on the couch and paced
again i didn't want and desperately needed
you and me
two is supposed to be my lucky number
but now I am only one
or zero
i want to be two,
two for you and me.
Ariel
draft
ode to a lottery
hope
it's easier to feel it with a slip
of paper in your hand
knowing however slim
there's one chance that is all yours
numbers that, as a group, belong to you
when the roof leaks
and the electricity is iffy
that little paper keeps you dry.
Ariel
draft
encounter, never should have been
Someone introduced my computer to McAfee
and McAfee moved right in
rearranging files and moving in new furniture
Did they not know I had already 86'ed that guy
that guy with the cutoff vest and roaring Harley
he punches out walls, brings in trash everywhere.
Now I must start the eviction process
go to court and see the sheriff's deputy.
This will not end well.
Ariel
draft
with luck
why tell stories
if there'll be no one left to tell
why write you poems
if you won't read them
why love you
if you're not here
perhaps
because we may not end.
we may be live again in another life
and find each other
then all I'll have to do
is remember the words
or maybe our souls will
find each other after death
and I'll have eternity to recite them
as I spoon-feed you ambrosia
angels setting my words to music
because love lasts forever.
maybe archeologists will discover them
translating our prehistoric scribblings
and the Future will find out
I loved you so deeply and completely
and more stories will be written
my love for you continuing.
Ariel
draft
wish you were here
tide is coming in
why have I built a sandcastle?
I wanted something for you to enter
a home, a place to belong
walls to hold you, a floor
our time was more temporary
than I had planned it to be
you know, even stars eventually die
with a bang, and then suck everything in
I want to suck you into my black hole
spend eternity with you together.
you went out with the tide,
will you come back in?
Ariel
nwpoetariel
Ariel, Pacific NW poet 