TAKING ROOT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A field of snow before the first footprint.
My hand hovers, a hesitant bird
above the frozen ground.
What seeds to scatter here?
What thaw to coax from the barren space?
A word takes root.
Another follows, tentative, green shoots
pushing through the icy crust.
It unfurls, tentative,
a fragile bloom pushing through concrete,
nourished by doubt and desire.
The pen, a conduit,
trembling at first, then finding its rhythm,
a dance between intention and impulse.
The page surrenders,
accepting the ink's embrace,
the birth of something new,
A poem emerges, breathing,
where only emptiness resided before.
Bountiful starlight reverbs with echoes
that fade but hold a bit of that drumfire.
Raising that whimsical smile even higher,
electric shadows cast a glow on your toes.
A sound you can’t place in the real world,
music that was bestowed from the Fey.
You wake and long to be whisked away
on a comet’s tail both pearled and curled.
High dollar melody delicately bouncing
like a wrist wrapped in celestial jewelry.
With a gaze at the sky’s rippling gallery,
three coin tossed wishes and counting.
Diamonds are on a roll hard as a rock,
playing your high hopes with sure strokes.
As if you really need any kind of a coax,
forever a girl in love with sidewalk chalk.
The maple trees red tinge sounds the alarm
Begins a blushing curtsy, bowing slow
For Autumn’s but a fleeting warmth’s farewell
The heat of passions peak prepared to go
Weep not as lover’s petals slowly fall
For lust was never meant to linger long
Nor lingering somehow sustain the bees
Or from a frozen beak coax loving’s song
Yet in their passing beauty waves her wand
Exposing in their season life’s parade
The guessing game of Winter, Summer, Fall
Unfolding in the game of Time’s charade
So, let us not weep for the sun and moon
But marvel at the Butterflies cocoon
We climb the veils of woven mist,
Where time dissolves and stars persist,
Our hands coax flames from shadowed thread,
And light the paths the lost have tread.
We herd the fog on silver brooms,
Awake the night with whispered tunes,
We teach the snow to hum its prayer,
And fold the wind through tangled air.
We sail in cups that catch the light,
Pour dawn from hours stitched in night,
Our shadows rise like restless rye,
And scale the quiet ladders high.
We trap the dark with seeds of flame,
Nameless in dusk, we feed the flame,
We bind the tides with threads of hair,
And float the sky on breathless air.
We are the last lamplighters here,
Who guard the hush when stars appear,
With trembling hands, we cradle night,
And rock the moon till morning’s light.
Now there once was a man called Obama
who did more grievous harm than Osama.
At Hillary’s coax
they conspired a hoax
so coming your way is some bad karma!
Written: August 2025
Hear me, blonde tressed bonnie-lassie!
Kill me not by thine raunchy eyes.
Never could ye imprison me
By thy voluptuous coax
Thou can't get blood out of a stone
Akin to it, tranquility from my heart
I'll never get drowned to your fathomless sea of love
As I fell in love with nature
Rose, indeed, art thou be depicted by bards
Lacks they, to ponder spine thee beneath it
Trust I on a hissing snake
Than an enticing Circe
Virile juvenile may thou admire
Realize they not in thy love quagmire.
"As the greatest of all poets and musicians,
tho' you may call me 'liar',
Hermes may have invented it
but I perfected the lyre
and with my music and singing
if only I could see
the forest for the trees
I would coax the woods to dance for me
but, on the other hand
from where I stand,
it appears to be,
looking at it from all angles,
nothing but nettles, brambles
and both
briars and tangles,"
quoth he, Orpheus in the undergrowth.
sun touches
coax blossoms to open ....
snow-white crepe myrtle
To take a thought and shape a poem
Takes patience, and a clue –
The patience for the diligence
Required of a muse
The clue for clever subtleties
Engaging poets use
To form connections yet unformed
Reveal with clarity
The mysteries that men have known
Throughout the centuries
Unraveled with apparent ease
In fonts of industry –
To trace the riddle of a thought
Decrypt it as it bends
To find epistles in a phrase
And coax it from a pen
One finds a poet at his craft
Plying, with keen intent
The words with which to move the earth
And all the universe
Raccoons are in the ceiling having a whale of a time
They raided the kitchen and stole molasses and thyme
We cannot get up there, it is an enormous climb
If they were glitzy-loving crows, we could coax them down with a dime.
Before the first moonlight spilled down upon us like winged doves from the sky
we were fettered together like lovers were,
In passion not yet transmuted into devotion to one another.
Above us rose a virgin sky void of stars
of constellations that would map out our cosmic future.
You, son of Adonis in my wide eyes, me, an idol of Inanna,
Convincing the future to never let this die,
Not knowing as of yet that Amphitrite and Poseidon’s coercive alliance
would coax us down the coast where we would seek refuge
in the surf and away from the trappings of winter’s swirling snows
and snarling winds.
Many years into a union of rings of gold and diamonds,
tumultuous at times but mostly heaven falling with her
heaviness upon us.
We fight side by side for a peace that seems so easily bestowed
upon others
And yet, like the ashes of Kilauea we rise without choking
At night we listen for the songs of our children
Born and unborn
reminding us we are wrapped in the protection of cashmere Carolina twilight.
Cat refused to enter my bedroom
He usually slept in here
Tried to coax him
He growled and stalked off, angry
I thought he was being silly
He was being sensitive
He knew something was off
I was up and down all night
My sleep was anything but restful
At 1:30 a.m. I felt like I was being watched
At 2:29 I retreated to the living room
And slept with the cat
My dog smells like sewer
He runs toward me like a freight train
Jumps into my recliner and lollygags all over me
Now we both smell like sewer
I coax him into the bathroom
He is stronger than I am
No way I am getting him into the tub
my husband is yelling not to let him stay in the house
help I do not need
The puppy is on the roof
The puppy is on the roof
He is a little goof, he is a little goof
How did he ever get up there so high?
He lifts his paw and can touch the sky
Do we make a big deal of this clown?
Or do we try to coax this puppy down?
The puppy is a clown
The puppy is a clown
A goof on a roof, who never wears a frown.
Unrealities and realities
grind together in mortar’s mouth,
spilling, pulverizing, volatile perfumes—
succumbing scents of citrus, crushed copper,
musks of bruised lightning,
threshing thunderous throbs.
Instability incarnate sings her reveling wails,
fragrances of something
Beyond Name.
I guide existences into black curve,
severing them against sharp, obsidian walls,
letting them rupture—letting them bleed
—syrups and statics—
messy marrows of forgotten equations.
Their shapelessness mutable,
pliant pages to pulp in the plunge
of the merciless pestle.
How many combinations will one
blend and crucify—
to crush, to coax, into coherence?
Rasps of bone bend against sanguine salts,
sheens of opulent oil merge with ember embryo—
iron filings licked into life by tempests reigned.
Anything of matter becomes
moisture—mass—mold—
hunger pooling at my basin’s heart,
seething for impending strike,
for sudden and unforgiving
birth.
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