NEW STUFF
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1979
Childhood sleeps; duck-fluff hair Lifting with the rhythm of a window fan – Peach cheeks, sun-ripened Timid pout, tree frog lullabies Kitchen clamor and backdoor chatter Ice popping under sweet sun tea The shadow of morning Whispers “awaken and come” I am forever bending dancer Weeping willows, tears of laughter Dandelion tattoos – warpaint on cheeks Strung together in crowns of favor Velvet grass under chubby toes And sprinkler dances Summer a bubble in sun Reflecting back a prism of past Tell me, Mama, the mile markers of time… when a slat-board porch feels the same under bare feet at 38 as it did at 38 minus 32? Gingham check tablecloths, Antiqued with love - Linger in the whine of a porch swing. You told me truths - Fly-swatter proverbs Switches from the climbing tree And hours, head to head on a blanket Watching the cloud parade Summers - small eternities - Perfect in the construct That softens memory with time I think of you, Soapy hands on green stamp plates I feel your hand Closing over mine You live in my summers Clothesline as scrim Your shadow behind the dancing sheets There and gone |
A Million Tiny Truths
Perfection in fingers so tiny I wonder if they even bear a print… Malleable little human, heavy with the honeyed aroma of Heaven I am your universe of contentment, For the time being, And so I will breathe my bit of knowledge Onto your blank paper of nerves and neurons. We two, at this moment, are a snow globe in a skillet. Outside of this hand-hold whirling dervish Woven with my love and your instinctual need Masquerading as love with such reverent silence, There are things you need to know: The world is water clinging to a sphere, refracted; Land, only fingerprints of a great Creator, Mind like a timeline, each of us a minute cleft. Knitting us together, the delicate intricacies Tatting and pearling a being Of which pattern there is only one. To know yourself, to recognize the reality of you, Is the quest, not a question. Learn this young, wonder at strange things, Let life dance for you, a firefly with a missing wing, To be captured by tender hands and eyes wide with joy. There will come a day, a new sun that rises on departure. And you will pack yourself into compartments of memories Sealed with misunderstood farewells, and harkening hello’s. Roads are wondrous, horrible things, Leading home, leading away - Capillaries in the anatomy of living. There is a universe of distinction Between following a road and traveling a path; Roads remind that first, there is a choice And second, that choice is the firefly in your tender hands. Love, a conundrum of a commodity, Give it freely, accept it with caution For love is a sinewy stallion, plodding and bucking Pulling bushels of juice-burdened fruit Whose seeds, when planted, birth beauty But when crushed, make poison. Battles, microscopic wars within and without - Learn to wait for them, a matted-haired shield maiden, First, the sword, then the shield, then the sword. Craft that war sword of molten pain, and the shield crest of forgiveness. Compassion and voracity are born of the same mother. Peace is a four-legged wisp of an animal Passing through your life, making itself known Only when you tire of chasing other things Peace, never knocking or calling out, unbeckoned Will crawl into your lap and curl up Dip your feet in an ocean or two and understand, Better to be the rock than to be the ripple. Dig your toes into the sand, a million tiny truths, Roughing against one another, against you. Never be so overcome with the ocean that you forget the sand Both are just one strike away from becoming glass, The ocean with cold, the sand with fire, Remember the sand; be like the sand For life is a dark diamond of an ocean But no matter how many days it beats against the shore The sand remains. |
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH
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DAILY RANDOMNESSParadox
by Jami Williams I have been evil
And good In the same breath Forward and Completely backward In the same step Answering Questioning Same sentence Loved Hated By the same man Daughter of no one Mother of sorrow Still same man My contradictions Make me beautiful And horrendous. On the Approaching Storm
by Jami Williams It is already here You can hear it whine against the ground Pushback from hell No one likes to be cold Sky and sun hold hands Belying nothing And it is hard to remember That my sky ends somewhere A warning has been spoken by man But nature gives up nothing It holds its secrets Like a dead child in feather-down tomb At the wall of the storm They must cling to each other Sky and sun, Mother Clouds will shred them both As trees bend to the ground Reaching for the last bit of heat I am reminded That warmth is better than cold Even if it comes from the fire of hell Clan
by Jami Williams for Allison We dance around the same fire You, young and brazen And I, old and wizened Our heads were plunged into the same river And they took us into their houses of bone and mud And they branded us Low and small where none would see And mourn the clan They dressed us in thorns and reeds Shamed us and set us outside To warn But we, We made wind chimes of their bones Sun catchers of their eyes And canopies of their skin And then we lived With the dirt of their fingernails Embedded in our arms And the threads of their filth Embedded in our hair We lived We lived This is the song of our clan. Mukbang
by Jami Williams Mukbang, muk-bang or meokbang (/ˈmʌkbæŋ, ˈmʊkbæŋ/; Korean: [mʌk̚.p͈aŋ] ( listen)) is a live online audiovisual broadcast in which a host eats large amounts of foods while interacting with their audience. Blank eyes Mouths agape They stare at me Disbelief dripping Mukbang I am old Because I do not Understand the idea Behind a Mukbang Sounds dirty but it isn't... Sounds illegal... isn't Sounds painful... well You watch people devour Plates full of food On YouTube Kind of like being social But with the anti upped They don't like people They don't like being out They don't need friends They can watch anonymous strangers Devour plates of hotdog spaghetti And be more fulfilled at 15 than I am at 47 I shake my head Splatter confusion on their walls I am still winning LIFE is my mukbang Delete Key
by Jami Williams I miss pencils
The cedar-like smell Yellow paint Tribal pattern Wood grain Graphite I miss pencils Sharpen Lessen Erase Smudge Reminders of work Of creativity burned down Of running out of words I miss pencils Half tool Half weapon Impossible To impale one's self On a delete key. Rooted
by Jami Williams I hear you baying at the night
Shaking the windows Jarring the sugar bowl Beckoning to the parts of me That have died I hear her screaming in delight Shaking my heart Jarring the barren brain And I remember my feet on the path To the roots That ground you My saving grace Those roots Imprisoned there Where first you shed my blood To fertilize your grow You bay, they come to you To uproot To own you I prefer you where you are Stuck in the ground Rooted in the blood of my thorns Fiery Arrows
by Jami Williams I ponder
The idea Of fiery arrows It seems to be a bit of overkill... Or is that just me? To shoot someone with a fiery arrow I question this portion of history Heavy with doubt and disbelief The fire would burn the wood, right? The arrow is wood, the arrow head is... What? What burns but does not consume? Fiery arrows were the conundrum of my life Until you. You burn but do not consume Leaving blisters where you kiss my skin And holes where you plunge in. Desire. Fiery arrows are made of desire. Millisecond
by Jami Williams I am the dust
Kicked off of boots On a dirt road Floating into the air Like steam on a hot lake In a cold sunrise I am the scratch On a wood floor Beautiful only when the light Hits me and I disappear I am feedback As you put your mouth Treacherous, and terrifying To the part of me That amplifies you I am scar tissue Under the skin And radio waves bounce To warn of my presence Vaporous and infinite I beg to be considered More than a passing thought A travelling light Shot from here There is no there Anywhere I am the memory Tangible and passed on Once on your fingertips To your brain Where I evaporate Into the smell of your breath. The Sound of the Frozen
by Jami Williams Everyone is mistaken: the snow does not crunch It moans, twisted and pained, I walk Those are the sounds the frozen Ghost Tree
by Jami Williams I saw the Ghost Tree, white and bare Hiding but rooted Going nowhere The more we try to disappear, The more that we are here. Threadbare
by Jami Williams I put on the coat of many colors And I follow after my brothers And scream for you from inside the pit I am the grand marshal of the blood parade Watching my own embers fade And you are there to embrace me when I quit I holler to the atmosphere Tell me, tell me why I’m here! And the silence echoes back with gentle love And I muddy myself and claw and dig And I run off the cliff, the evil-grasped pig Only to find that you still lift me above How am I, your tapestry Example of your mastery Worth so much of the grace that you freely share You smile and lift my weeping head And bring to life what once was dead And remind me that this cross is not mine to bear The dirty hands are clean in you The lying lips now speak what’s true It isn’t just, it isn’t logic and it’s never fair You tie the knot and pull me in Forgiving me of my doubt and sin For there’s still a tie that binds when I’m threadbare. Auld Lang Syne...
by Jami Williams Whether I'm healed or whether I'm broken The silence I kept when I should have spoken The letting go and the holding on to it The apprehension instead of the going through it The laughter that came in and fell out as tears The seconds more fragile than millions of years The end's a beginning that will end just same And I cannot find fault and I cannot place blame It took what it took and it gave what I let it I'll forgive the year and I will never forget it |
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