APRPAD 2024

Why I’m Still Living

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

April 26, 2024 0

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

form, anti-form

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

April 17, 2024 0

stained glass

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

April 17, 2024 0

middle

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

April 15, 2024 0

essential angel

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

April 15, 2024 0

Nine wounds of Frida

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

April 15, 2024 0

encounter, never should have been

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