My heart like a raging white-water river flows through emerald crystals 
off my quivering chin and breaks
with me on the floor where I lay 
naked and ashamed, 
hollow pain inside that  part of me,
that place that cries out 
from within,
from right behind my heart,
somewhere in the gaps 
between my ribs, 
that hollow housing of those deepest longings 
pulling, 
squeezing,
twisting. 
My huddled frame mimicking 
the secrets within.
Your icy eyes look down on me 
wondering at my hurt, 
like a scientist poking,
prodding the dissected thing,
clinging to life skin cut clean
through with a scalpel, until 
you are satisfied to think 
you understand my tears,
my tickings, 
what I,  a writhing,
helpless,
despicable,
dissected thing will do.
You will never understand 
in that scientist mind  of yours because 
you simply cannot. 
Will not.
Ever.  
Be able. 
To stretch 
that small  framed rigid mind of yours around the chasms that fill my sight, 
my past, 
my future, and 
the present that I am walking in, 
laying naked in
on the floor.
Frozen and morbid and curiously disgusting.
Now that ache, that one from behind the ribs, that place that 
longs and twists and turns, 
now that place is aching with an impossible ache, a blinding ache 
my eyes locked to the floor seeing nothing.
Numb to the cold.
To my nakedness.
To you as you stand over me 
with your scientist’s stethoscope
feeling my heart beat, 
curiously intrigued that it is in fact
still struggling on, 
and on, 
and on, 
despite my hearts blood still seeping into crystalline pools, 
somehow still not empty.
And I am wondering why 
you will not help me. 
Your experiment 
to poke 
and prod 
and document 
and strain your heartless, 
icy cold 
intense eyes 
observing 
with such keen. 
Mad. Interest. 
At your specimen 
trying desperately to quench the loneliness, the longing inside that comes from 
that place, that hole eating me inside out, and you.
Note casually. 
How I tried. 
Valiantly.
But yet.
Now lie. 
Still.
Bare.
Cold.
Drenched in the pool of tears. 
The soul’s crystalline blood.
Clean and pure.
And I shudder.

Crucifix

Staring at the fleshy pink scar shaped cross my soul burns with my moist brown eyes,
their forceful waters overcoming the inner strength in me,
a sacred symbol 
forever bound
to a memory so vividly unrighteous.  
A symbol of life, 
and now of hate.
A new scar scorched deep within my mind.
A picture of my savior’s death and blessed resurrection,
unfit to mingle with its symbolic reminder 
of the night you tore my flesh with yours,
and burned my righteous cross 
into your own
pink skin,
your own symbol 
of virility
and strength,
fertility
and power.
I wept in drunken confusion.

Mother 

A heart to soften all hearts, even mine,
words to smooth sharp bitterness 
every single time,
hands to catch each single tear 
falling might I cry,
eyes to pierce through every doubt and fear of every lie,
ears to hear each tone of voice 
I have fought to hide,
arms to hold and comfort me 
and make me feel all right.
All this I feel
Through hope and fear
Through distance, day, and night.

Retreat

Half mended broken heart, too eager to cling,
too ready to release with
echoing “why’s” and “how’s”
reverberating,
repeating, doubting and reflecting.
Curiosity mounts in me; 
“will he really?”
“does he mean it?”
I feel you reaching out to me, your stretch so far, 
focus deep in me and I,
arms curved up half-heartedly with hope,
half unsure, heart protected, half reserved I
half unwillingly tempt your all out reach 
till fingertip to fingertip 
and ready to grab hold you wait, patient, 
for permission to proceed, 
to capture me.
I nod.
Yet then at that climactic moment,
I yet in fear retreat.

Forgiven

An unconcealable smile breaks upon my face
Looking up to you-
My God,
My savior,
My all-in-all Sustainer,
As I remember to forget
All the faults in me,
That you remember not.

Herb Meyer
(1998)

Empty heavy air, where is your soul? 
Your precious twinkling eyes?
Why this thick blanket of mourning cloud 
and tears stifling your sparkle?
Who stole away with your warm
heart’s glow leaving cold this spiteful shell?
It’s you but you are not there  
in that shallow, 
pallid, 
lifeless form.
No.  You, the real you released from that 
cracked, 
broken, 
earthly form resides now preserved 
somewhere higher,
somewhere better, 
but I long to have you back.

Must I be seized by death’s cold grip
and wait
for heaven’s healing 
before I can again
be blessed by the light you
always shed through 
those twinkling eyes now closed,
and warm hearts love,
freshly gone
above?

Bright bumbling sunbeam
reflecting
unstilled fragments of prismic light.
Vibrant.
Polar.
Divided
			and pulled together again at the
			seams.
Holding unity in it’s delicate. seams. to
break.
apart again into.
	Brilliant. Shards. of
	Vibrant. Polar. Light.
Bright.
Bumbling.
Crumbling.
			Reflections of a distant
			sunbeam.

Minneconjou

In the scramblefusion I run away
Directionlost and scared 
To death for my life.
Weren’t we peacefulflying
A flag of truce and
Warlessness with the
whitemen? And yet we 
runningdie in dissilussionment
away from their angryiron
bullets.

Ralph Ellison was not the only Invisible Man.
Though he was lost between the cracks
of the cold hard lines
of black and white,
I am here in a very different world
In a new kind of invisibility.
If there were crevices to fall through, I would.
But there are no lines
No solid thing to be, or not.
It’s to each her own
where the quiet voices drown
amid vivid brand name color schemes
and contrived confidences
half masking tear stains and 
baggy. sleepless eyes.
“All the world’s a stage,”
and the worlds best actors and actresses compete
in the Cracked Smile Grammy joke
because we think we have found the antidote
for the darkness inside
our black hearts and empty, 
invisible souls.
I slip into the cracks of this invisibility,
into trends and smiles and crowds
who never dare to rock the boat.
Ralph Ellison was not the only invisible man,
but few can claim as he
that they broke the rules and beat the odds
and rocked the boat alone.
Invisible and strong. 

Slippery, shivering, 
Shrinking girl,
The hole in her heart,
Magnified.

The hole is hunger,
The hunger engulfs her until
She is defined by it;
Invisible.

She stumbles in invisibility
Through the sharp world,
Bumping and scraping,
Thin skin always bruised by it
Despite her invisibility.

She chooses death by default,
Morbid, terrified,
She is determined blindly down
Its path,
Petrified by the largeness of life.

“The world is fooled,” she says.
“Thinness glows, radiating life, happiness.”
Yet hollow cheeks and eyes cry out,
A dead give away of the emptiness inside.

She has her shrinking frame,
Her growing fear,
Shredded knuckles, brittle hair,
And pitying stares.

She translates “poor fat girl,”
Slinking again
Into the hole of her heart
To disappear.
To shrivel and shrink away.

I suppose 
many starving girls have dogs
who eat quite well
enjoying more midnight cookery
than most men dream of.
POUNDS of perfect pastry
never more than dabbled
on dry and dreaming tongues
allowed only the first
milli-CALORIE
to taste…
and nothing more.
The rest, rest in
playful puppy POUNDS
as starving girls watch them 
Devour.
Each.
Wonderful.
Luscious.
Lavish.
Crumb of palate-pleasing
POUNDS
and feared
FAT.
Now I suppose 
most starving girls
are out there burning CALORIES
rather than dreaming them up,
pacing off more than they
pretend to consume.
I better get started
burning.
I suppose
imagination could be
FATTENING.

Never so lost for words, I try to find the perfect ones.  
Maybe they don’t exist.  What do I say 
to the one who has been my smile, 
my renewed faith, 
and my first real love?  
Even those words fall short, yet I lack more.  
I cannot grasp or understand why I must let you go, 
for now.  
Why do I tear my own heart, and maybe yours, 
in order to find truth?  
Maybe I can love you again. 
perhaps you’ll take me back.  
But now I cannot stay 
or love 
until I find my own heart.  
For how can I share it with you 
if I have lost it somewhere along the way?

After Sleeping Under the Stars

The jackfrost air brushes over me
Like a fine tooth comb.
Goose bumps grate my senses
As my skin reminds me of the coolness
Of crystal Kansas mornings;
Clear and calm.
Sleepy lids squint past the sun
To the baby blue sky, draped
Like a thick soft blanket, over me;
Tucked neatly in at the corners
Of my velvety brown bed of supple soil
And you, my sweet,
Still sleep sound beside me.

I Had To

because
if I didn’t my
pain would still
be no more than
plastic pieces of
childish nothing 
kicked

aside
again only clutter
on the perverbial
sidewalk of your 
otherwise perfect life
crushed, like
ugly

unrecycled
aluminum cans rusted,
perpetually in your
way.  I have to
because I am fearful 
of being 
forgotten,

disposed 
of like plastic pieces 
of nothing;  garbage, 
pushed away 
out of your 
otherwise perfect 
life.

Emptiness.
Untranslatable. A.
Marble.
Rattling. Aimless.
Alone. In. A. 
Big. Clear. Glass.
Jar.

As you threaten me 
with the fire in your stare 
you try to convince me
to by wise and beware.
Don’t want me too close
to your sharp edged blade.

I can’t help but wonder
through your lightning and thunder
isn’t it you who’s afraid?

Jump-start, 
ice-box heart.
Practice a smile
lips cracking apart.

There’s a little more of the world
in my tired eyes tonight,
cuz it kills me to see
all the empty insides
of robots performing
the duties of a happy life.

Always believe in butterflies
and romance.
Believe in fairytales.
Have faith in change.

Always believe in rainbows
with pots of gleaming gold.
Believe in mystery.
Have faith in God.

Always wish on falling stars
and yellow stop lights.
Believe in freedom.
Have faith in love.

Always look for unicorns
and first loves.
Believe in dreams come true.
Have faith in you.

This morning I awoke
Tossing,
time ticking,
poetry writhing within
a heart stilled so long.
This new stirring
much like white-tipped,
frostbit fingers
with the first flashes 
of painful warmth
so much needed
from a December fire.

Please excuse me for
Walking out at a time like this,
I cannot take the friendship
In your eyes- when all I want
Is more
Than you can give.

Pardon me while I find
Some more food to swallow
To fill the hole that you 
can’t,
That you won’t.

Just leave me be tonight
While all the ugliness in me
Explode from my mouth
So that maybe I’ll be 
Clean
Touchable again.

Who Would Cherish This?

“To have and to hold,
to love and to cherish,”
but who would cherish this mess?
I’ll never be pretty,
never cute,
never dainty,
never fragile,
never sweet,
never seen.
I’ll never be strong.
Never admirable,
never confident,
never flighty,
never rich,
never elegant,
never beautiful.
I’ll never catch an eye.
Never turn a head,
never be perfect,
and who can cherish that?
Clumsy, 
but not in that adorable way.
Creative, 
but not talented.
Athletic,
and never the star.
Sad,
but no one comes
to wipe the tears
and kiss me sweetly
at the perfect moment.
I wait, but for who?
Who would touch this face?
Who would cherish this?
Had but never held.
A lover never loved.
For who could cherish this broken mess?

You,
small, sweet,
pouty-lipped and sad-hearted
carelessly snatch
my love
to satisfy your loneliness
if only for a day
until some new one comes
only to drop
my love’s heart
listless on the floor
unusable 
to me.
And you,
small, sweet,
pouty-lipped and sad-hearted
knowing all along,
smile inside
behind protruding lips
to say
seductively,
“so sorry.” 

stumblewalk
through jumblelife
directionlost
like tumbleweed
complexion paled
amid confusion
crawlalong
until I crumble

Splinter me, fire within,
and break apart that
which would grow, from
the weakness that curls
lifeless down in defeat
amidst the orange flame
leaving but a charred and
brittle shell.
Prune my bones, 
that the strong would survive and
the dying fall away.
O core of me that survives
persevere again to grow
like the forest after an
all-consuming, cleansing
blaze, making room
for new prouts of life
green like fresh apples
dripping with dew,
eager to thrive;
so much more alive than 
the old bark- so recently deceased
now feeding the soil,
the desire within,
greedy to grow and
flourish anew.
Splinter me, fire within,
and burn away my 
weak limbs.

Today I saw my eyes and they were dead,
Nothing more than darkened caves inside my head,
They held a blackness void of soil:
No smile, no sparkle or tears to roll.
Startled at first I searched inside to find a speck of me,
I lost it though,  somewhere down too deep to see.

A tempid storm inside of me
Stirs up the waters viciously
Raging uncontrollably
Until He said “Be still.”

With water calmed
My wounds are balmed
My spirit now refilled.

You,
A daisy in my day,
Shining bright,
Reflecting the light
Of the Son above,
Radiant with His love,
And I cannot pass
Unnoticing
The hope you sing 
Or the souls you inspire
As they stop to admire,
You,
A daisy in my day.

Bright, shining, radiant daisy;
Child of God.

Consuming as the liquid wind
My love is here
Blossoming in me
A wild glass tendril
Slender and secret
Only to put
A burning song
In some soul
Like a summer morning
Awakening
In a garden bouquet.

Silence and stillness,
Minutes to hours,
All the time 
In the world to devour
The hurts of this heart
Running wild,
Through silence and stillness
In this quiet room
Where tears are my time,
And emptyiness doom,
And each little thing’s
Given miles to bloom.
I’ve created this patch
Of impenetrable briar,
A place I can hide
In silence and stillness
In the midst of
My pitiful mire.

Open my eyes, Lord
To those all around
Perk my ears
To more than the sound
Of my poor heart
And my sad cries;
They’ve all got their start
From my selfish tries
At gaining pride
And passing the test
Ignoring the ties
With all of God’s blessed.

What for?
Who the hell am I to you
That I must,
though painful, smile
as if it mattered?

I love to see you smile
Back.
Making mine real.

Why me?
What is this game I must play
Entertaining your mask
That you might brighten mine
So dark beneath?

It is good for us to play, they say,
Pretend.
Real or make believe.

Who are you?
Why am I so drawn
Each time I leave for good,
To return,
For good?

I fight to live and heal for you
In love
Since I can’t bear to see you hurt like me.

What have I?
How can I repay you,
My life, my hope, my heart.
You masked and make believe
Pretenders that I love?

I can bare my scars for you 
So hidden,
And we can heal as one.