Imagination - Pure and Simple

I spin galaxies.
create black holes and rip apart stars.
I shaped the thighs of Orion,
sculptured the Earth and its sky,
and gave its brawny creatures soul.
I am the cold daunting face of life.
out of me grew the saucy summer day.

when man came I tricked him.
teased him. cajoled him. pared his eyes for beauty.
with me he made machines.
I gave him golden swords to rule
and with them he flew around the world.
saw what he never thought possible.
did what he thought impossible.
I am his loud, embittered breath
and his new morning delight.
with me he engineered his excellence,
built cities and highways with superhuman tools.
wore a rich business suit and battled with hard pain.
I made him emperor of his waking.

I am the sky plucked clean of stars,
the wind and the handiwork of wild seas,
the strange eyes of night,
and a youngster's cry.
I am the cosmos, its street lights,
its mystical mixture and calamitous ways.
long sought human satisfactions come from me,
I am the space between. I say catch me if you can.
but I am matter of fact too. I could care less.
things die. so what.  I am the daughter of treachery.  
too much of me brings ruin.
I am the graceful Eagle, its brethren and E=MC2.
I am the moon's own little eye among stars.
I slip through man's fingers like
water slips between rocks. I am everywhere.
the orchard of life grows within me.
as clouds seek swift passage,
I wander through the throngs,
a wayfarer by day and night.
I am nothing but a whisper.

In The Backyards Of Bull Run
(Manassas)

in war there are a hundred reasons to live,
one to die.
they knew they must kill. they marched
and sang hymns beneath a savage sun.
the enemy they never knew
were just bodies in the way,
bodies they could drink and laugh with
if guns weren't in the way.
and so they wrote their last letters.
they were not groomed for battle.
the spread of death came quick.

yet they became hometown heroes.
filled picture books.
were subjects of bedtime stories,
sweet memories,
and spacious museum exhibits.

we stroll these old slopes
where they floundered and fell.
smoke, pain and cries are lodged in the air.
the ground knows what they all saw.
we ponder. pause. listen.
move with clarity.

soon we pass the Unfinished Railroad.*
finally a picnic spot.
honey,
pass the cheese please.

 

*The Unfinished Railroad is the name of a location
in the Bull Run fields where a battle took place. 

 

 

she's no Cinderella nor Disney doll.
bows to no one.
but born female she knows that she's on unequal ground.
reflects upon her Ex
when he last stepped through the door.
\when she stopped buying his pretense.
he reached for her.
his delicate fingers stroked her locks.
she stood still.
he became featureless.

tonight she's feeling the muscle to meet a man.
she's on nobody's guest list but her own.
whomever she meets must know
she's no feathered up doll.
right now she's at the intersection of feminism and love.
she knows the only safe place is within her.
when she lays down dreaming, reminiscing,
she knows she can be a no limit badass lady,
relentless when she reaches for it all.
but tonight she's not here to be on a man's grocery list,
or to be seen as an abstract body of flesh,
to end up as burnt ash.
but she can be lovely candles in his cake.
her warm hands can renew,
so can her midnight lips.
her wit is always in motion.
she's fine poetry in the heart's realm.
when you watch her you know,
she's does her own dance.