stella dryad by starlight... #NaPoWriMo Day 14

William Mortensen 'A Romany maid' 1935

every Spring 
i am seed inside 
her belly womb cloud 

to ground clover rain 

she whispers 
the beneath of things 
little parasols 
smiles that find 
where bright mushrooms hide 
she makes me laugh 
cheek bones climbing 
i bow to every plant she does 
when she isn't looking 
in me a poet goes  
what kind of shoes 
does she wear 
what are her poem scents 
her map less compass 

what is wear 
she says, pouring herself 
palms to sky and leaves 
can we find fining ourselves 
grape vines and old trees 
can we become these places 
that eat death 
squeeze sugar 
from a reach of dreams 
distilling wants and needs 
to a quaff touch 
can we become honey 
and decay, all 
the sweet milks between 
evening and daylight 
can we be a buried past 
and an old man 
born again a babe 

what are we 
when loved 
she asks 
do our lips stain 
each other in a smile 
does the soul 
turn towards morning 
when ridden so 
of course they do darling 
of course they do 
now kiss me

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

"ooh, that was good"... #NaPoWriMo Day 13

 i told her 

we are close 

to home 

when we feel 

as if we don't 

belong anywhere 

life after all 

strange arrangements 

storage depots 

haunting melodies 

rhythms between 

station after station 

we became 

window come on 

store front display 

what is it we see 

ourselves seen as 

is what it is 

eyes wanting 

our soul 

its hole where 

rain gets in 

do we ever feel 

the elation 

as real estate pull 

does provoking artifice 

as need brings us 

anything other 

than fleeting 

commodities 

things we trade for more 

moments we can keep 

for ourselves... 

ooh, that was good i say 

your wordless privacy 

is a God construct 

much like your pie 

both keep a good 

fork and mouth quiet 

sated to why undone 

is often the home 

to blessed inside with

EJR ©  

https://www.napowrimo.net/

andante to rhapsody: giacoso glissandro pizzicato....... #NaPoWriMo Day 12

we were born a dress of notes 
turning 7ths into 5ths, hacking 
melodies, digestible bitten tonal ores 
we were found music, the greatest language 
we surpassed math as unbreakable code 
quantum entanglement 
observation uncoded 
the bigwigs would say 

we just knew it as 
God's coffee cans 
piano wire between trees 

eyes talk a lot here 
we wear manic monster faces 
smiling angel guises well 

slab tablature 
we wear noted deaths during 
seasonal discontent 

in the wear 

our senses fall away, tadpole telemetries 
our knees on corners, pulpit squeeze boxes 
we collect the rain running off soul 
maple syrup and well versed 
in hole gravity, other slag happy barometers 
why we go death, our gold standard 

most days are dazed days 

early pop up warnings of warming systems 
when everyone wants to be vivaldi in the spring 
most times we send ourselves away 
map and compass 
the nearest suckle milk bar 
we give us instructions 
set and setting  
poems getting late to a finish 
needing a flourish 
to a rested pause 
dishing plucky starlight 
tombstone night 
we wear what we did 
when we played 
light, hearts 
we danced 

in the rain 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

the laying of hands aka dying a thousand deaths... #NaPoWriMo Day 11

what holds you here 

is all you ever were and will be 

and your poem can be felt 

exhale to gasping for more 

inside mirrors and other shine 

collected to halls of stone 

that eat the sounds, love less respects 

if you are done being loved 

hold every single breath 

hold words 

hold the poem 

hold waiting to be felt 

hold an exhale, gasping mores 

hold those whose hands you take 

be held by those roses posed 

holding any hand taking yours 

holding supposed reposed 

and holding this thought too 

we do dine nicely outside when Summer is in 

humpty dumpty 

honey in the mortar 

fun key lung key 

the heart hears dying first 

ears, always lost in tree music 

birds tuning through cracks in the sky 

we sing lamentations for the frogs 

the butterflies too follow through 

pied piper on the road 

every wish climbs 

starlight into mountains 

where it all began 

a hungry rain 

sharp knives 

humanity 

waiting 

song enough  

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

complacency is insatiable spiritual regret................... #NaPoWriMo Day 10

losing hang nails finding lost angels 
hand organ wide band width breadth 
gaming the doors, precept perceptual lulls 
heart breaking aching never dulls 

my sense of humanity being 
somewhat special eludes me 
so hunt wee 
nostalgia realms 
kept things 
right moods 
lighting seamed 
the wearing a you 
expressed as a 
 vision 
in someone else's  
heart and eyes 
nose and mouth are blind 

an ever hungry dark 
they wait like rain 
gone off to die 
to be born again 
stardust and mountains 
cloud climbs 
the rise of wear 
my spirit went 
milk, honey and soul

EJR ©  

https://www.napowrimo.net/

a heart beat vignette to dance... #NaPoWriMo Day 9

samba mama O mama 
feel me 
you alive 
heart beating lungs 

a bellow chamber full 
pulse star remind me 
close my eyes 
wade the soul 
how many bodies 
how many trees 
how many angels 
how many cells 
are we are we 
can the bells tell 
we've listened to you 
can they remember 
we dance the sky too 

we come a way 
wholly high 
we crawl a way 
forehead to Earth 
send rite pray 
birth tilled journey 
this home 
this poem 
where the rain 
is born 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

mama mooring, the herald ring... #NaPoWriMo Day 8

we never knew not knowing 

was freeing the mind to grow 

more than factual misrepresentation 

emotional turnstile styling 

heart hardening to melting ratios 

our elasticities of reason 

i.e. breaking points 

and it is at these places 

we pinch a soul 

and find the hole 

where rain 

first got in

on the witness stand 

i stood my ground 

dialogue of reason 

i can only say 

listen yourself to your self 

if you honestly thought i was going to react to 

your loaded questioning... would you please roll the video 

and tell me, counselor... what language of insurrection 

can you see being used and by whom 

and then counselor tell me... why ask the way 

you do to me if not to frame said queries 

as a culture inappropriately 

attained by me 

i only sold souls, see 

and only then 

the broken ones 

i tried to curry them 

to find where they can begin again 

to count rain as their friend 

and not something 

to wash away a self in sin 

most poems are interrogations 

writer and consciousness 

the dream letting 

a frenzy Spring mornings bring 

dove coos and tit flits 

we have got to get on with it 

i can feel your mother tapping her foot 

or rapping the wooden spoon 

against the big pot on the stove top 

she would sing or hum 

rhythm come get me 

she would say aloud 

if she knew any of us were listening 

and most times we did 

saying every time you sang 

you would bring the reign 

and whether that was Hope 

instilled or a day to evening filled 

with what it is we do 

yoked in this fiery embrace 

where language, love 

and lucidity all pay tribute 

to how good this smell of possible 

this future tasting You 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

they held my funeral under a kitchen chair............ #NaPoWriMo Day 7

<hymnal starlight, crow narrators, life as roadkill> 

THE BODY PICKED ON 

PULLED TO THE SIDE 

AWAY FROM TRAFFIC 

"tis a cold wet out there" 

i tell my dog 

curled fiddlehead 

beneath a fleece blanket 

benched bay window 

she looks easy free 

eyes painted scenes 

when you leave 

who will spoil 

canine me 

i laugh 

look out an old window 

at an old city 

old roads 

old ideas 

old shells 

old skins 

all of them 

begging 

a hen's tooth

stave marrow mushrooms 

undertow swept bough pines 

smell-o-honey-n-death held rain 

my eyes held the ocean the womb holds time 

so many ways living is dying here without a last breath 

you request a time when, it didn't feel so swept and 

understood not to know but to feel the old man 

on his death bed 

<inside his exit wounds> 

we always parked 

shadows away from streetlights 

side walks and alleys 

where we waited drops 

buys, places and got highs 

we wouldn't want to be misleading 

only fit right in, blended sin 

couldn't get health insurance otherwise 

we'd be squeezed light organelles 

held lantern, trees felled 

we already smelled of decay 

salt sweet water  

broken dead, fed 

womb rebirths 

how many Earths 

how many berths 

here when passing 

we dream in arks 

what carries us 

seeds, walking roots 

literature uses, fictions 

dispel dark untrues 

how loving You 

never cost me a thing 

save my fear 

of doing so 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

tongues, rungs and daughter seasons in the rain... #NaPoWriMo Day 6

 "and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out." 

(last line in 'Infinite Jest')

there was nothing to stop the bleeding 

all i could do was watch my life spill out 

in some vignette-if-i-cat-ion 

"vin/yet/tif/ick/kay/shun" 

i could see the passersby 

mouthing the running LED display poem-ed me

my empowerments my vulnerabilities 

at least i could be 

a tawdry disposable 

to passing fancy hat 

put on while mobbing 

consumption's mab maudlin madness 

a scrolling top margin lifeguarded prodded world 

was every action and thoughtlessness stuck 

and when outside the home, the loam 

everything was a store 

and every window, a plasma receiver 

and all one had to do was believe it 

to see it come alive on screens 

strolling the boulevard for bones 

and what once was and must 

be kept sacred in ritual adherences 

or lest we become too scared, scarred 

gone where dreams went when we could 

no longer control our impulses to hoard 

all the possibles 

see baby, i said 

as the night wound down 

the world needs your knickers 

rumpled into ancient cities 

at the foot of my bed 

Persephone nodded 

smiled me a come home 

i couldn't agree more 

getting up from behind 

the projector 

i turned the lights down 

and said goodnight to the machine 

until morning my friend 

i am walking home 

in love again 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/1942-2/

on a street of witches, She arose ... #NaPoWriMo Day 5

Queen flash and dip 

Goddess curry 

hurried little birds 

early morning 

sunlight reach 

arms out bare leaf 

to Spring flowering fruit tree

they sing excitedly

warm themselves

as undone 

as the bulb angels too 

clung muffles 

held against 

Winter leaving 

tiny trumpets 

reaching where violins live 

{inner movement outer movement encapsulated 

by chopping the metaphor into meted twos and 

calling it a love seat or more aptly love's beat} 

she said it most certainly does 

i spun myself into her miller's daughter's wheel 

eyes found gold, illusory 

given value beyond a smile 

the rain said to the tree 

wait awhile then shade 

the mosses and keep 

the frogs alive 

she went to write 

grimoires, armoires 

and endeavors 

and i went wile 

wild smile  

tending fire inside 

an earthen hearth 

eons waded 

cradled again 

here we are 

a book being written 

bitten with Winter 

a window tide 

pressed against it 

time, is felt fibers 

meshed a coming dawn 

still asleep 

while i sip coffee 

black as hair 

before sunlight 

catches me enough 

to be combed in too

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

found poems .................................. #NaPoWriMo Day 4

found poems 
drying lines 
clothes pinned 
diamond twirled 
zephyrs and eddies 
geometric maypoles 

toys and roles 

we dirtied like angel faces 
laundry moist warm days 

when Winter begins breaking 
eyes seeking refuge 
every wear a heart 

cannot bleed out for 
everywhere it cannot bleed to 

my nose has lost count 
how many times 
my heart has stopped 
how many times 
how many times 
poem finds me blue 
broken in two 
blind cup handle begging 
to see the words 
one more time 
as a scent or song 
that feels like you do 
surrendered to

EJR ©   

https://www.napowrimo.net/

waylaid by neon, night skin and pretty women ................................ (home and habitual resonances ) #NaPoWriMo Day 3

poem to music 

wolf mother up north 

whorls 

a calculus 

unseen, purely felt 

where rain gets in 

i always wander her wonder 

but not to a what if 

but rather how she knows 

the notes wind plays 

when certainty rests 

under the Boreals 

wind wears our pleas 

our bones to squeeze 

light to soul to shadow 

tempest rite test em path 

some order is needed she smiles 

no words come forth but a poem 

must be painted on the inside of my expression 

she laughs, starts the next one

who is she the call to answer 

any moment bends us to it 

a step met tire tied to ride 

chaos, her lovely architecture 

and winged hospitality 

it has become an industry 

serving connective strands 

between human thoughts 

and how glow kites bones 

into all those places 

a soul slides between 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

doing everything in order not to feel ...................................... the basket in the reeds routine #NaPoWriMo Day 2

terror eyes a self 

hard binged in flow 
orb mat ion 
automated loveless future 
shine game show priests 
en vogue pogues, night hawks 
quiet burl days, living hollows 
thirsting rain a more trees 
feeling to not, can an any thing do 
is not to know not to know 
a born again beyond a body 
does breeding empty as feeling 
make you a ghost to yourself too

pulling into the Malthus station 
we see peddled body parts and organs 
just outside the biometric gates 
an augmented age ushered in horrific 
crimes against humanity 
hailed ironically by those 
who are said 
to want all humans 
to remain 
purely pets 
the blind creator creating creators 
each successive one 
less bent on vision 
and more bent into 
the market frenzy world 
a sub frequency
traversed now 

that summer in Potsdam 
when stuckness became 
father son holy ghost 
of stuckness 
a madman too 
leaned over an edge 
waving his taped wrists 
railing at a world's indifference 
apathy he screams 
kills more insidiously 
than any bullets and ballots 
we can imagine, being 
fired off 
righteous 
indignation 
brigades life 
veneer wear 
a ware too 
wears us 
decaying half lives 
batteries to some 

feelings 

left for 
poems 
born abstractions 
still happening 
everywhere too

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-two-8/

born a poem to an Owl Goddess #NaPoWriMo Day One

what it was is 
the image there 
before words 
idea door or window 
my eyes, how they do begin 
a beg of in, wanting to be nose 
do they know to lie back 
pick up wear, scent 

Lakshmi born, purity of rain 
a sway birth 
stole back 
ill gotten gain 
adharmic geometries 

prey blind selves 

wisdom, she said 
the purest immutable 
though seldom traded enough 
to salve the ways we stay apart 
stay humble, have heart 

Mother Lakshmi 
Earth owl Mama wolf 
ant hills and ravines 
clung under hoof 
root wearing 
quiet ferocity 
vigil night fed 
milk in need 
keeping watch She prays  
for those who choose 

love less 
despite born 
being a heart full of it 
'love as apathy was'
another of her favorite restaurants 
She would 
say with my name too 
bitten on your lips 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-one-3/

all we needed was a brainy heart #NaPoWriMo (test run)

stipple tipple octopus 

brain, a loose purse 

house social credit 

she'd crawl 

through 

your anything 

often did 

when and where 

you didn't want 

but once did 

you became acutely aware 

bipedal wear 

was an experiment 

considering 

how much Earth 

is covered by ocean 

dived down 

her rabbit hole eyes 

feeling alive 

in her mind ride 

a ride 

she says 

are eyes between fixed tempests 

and a rolling laugh 

can i smell to see 

what i am bleeding feel 

light to darkly imagined 

what is versus what it is 

we are, when ever hungry 

for more of this 

EJR © 

https://www.napowrimo.net/

even poem says fuck it (WIP)

 

This work is in progress and in no way constitutes a finished piece...

"...eye cannot Love without the howl of surrender 

so why pretend i am here enough 

to regard my life as loving 

enough for anyone else 

save me pleas 

me me me 

so much 

an operatic narcissist 

a royal fecality 

and that's only 

my heaven scent 

my heart and lungs hurt
near broken, filled with dirt
am not dead might as well be
my heart and lungs hurt
absolution raven black fed thee
am not dead just what hell sees..."




EJR ©

a goddess in big hoop earrings

she said being Jung on the road 

journeys unknown, Life a bread 

if you find or fear 

Love lay dying 

put your hands 

on my wheels instead 

she reached over to me 

as i drove 

put her finger 

in my mouth

and her feet on the dash 

said drive your self 

like the Sun 

pours against the Moon at night

crows no longer  

pick what remains 

they sit a wire, watch 

entire worlds pass by 

cars whirring tempest pours 

loud music tinted doors 

miles pass 

road blurred humanity

i lean in, another cigarette 

and muse 

what of us fades from roar 

why this world 

an empty nature 

do not cry, she said 

hunger is a womb 

and lives inside 

like now 

when Winter 

or Hope 

needs refuge 

we must find where 

your lips dance 

those songs 

rain makes 

pull over here 

kiss me darling 

she says somewhere 

between the frost 

and the dew 

EJR  ©

#GloPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo Day 30 ................................. pies, cakes and ale

image found here
https://68patchworkris.tumblr.com/

pies, cakes and ale 

we went so far as to say 
this year 
this Beltane 
we would tame the shrew again 
we shoot into the dark 
hoping poke holes became a sky 
that lies with its pretty diamond insides 
falling, ever falling past this deigned disguise 

death is a light 
what inside you never leaves 

the kindly crone 
with an apple 
another newborn 
another determinate reason 
season after season 
we plant apple seeds only to see 
different crusts, varieties arise 

when autumn comes 
we spy the best stands 
demand nothing of our eyes 
we let our noses 
know we are 
willing to surrender 
for how memory 
returns, wafting 
odiferously 
from maypole 
twining hopes, 
what joys do 

cakes and ale 
pies too, all  
on a window sill 
the return light 
filled 


EJR © 

#GloPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo Day 29 .............................. who rescued who

who rescued who 


(in a disclaimer before the poem 
i pray tell am very much a sinner 
though buoyed by Brie enough 
to still hope a better me) 

i tell her she knows every language 
any human has ever spoken 
that she is 
an ancient one
trailing on 
soul glow 
doe eyes 
piranha intent 
a canine this time 
round the eons 
ghost cried 
wind and rain 
lap stuck 
when thunder strikes 
nose out the study window 
sentry, sentinel, sentient 
sure she was meant as such 
to scent paint the night air 
keeping watch 
of memory 
and where 
we go low regard 
it's not hard to see 
or feel rather 
how a rescue 
can rescue thee 


EJR © 

#GloPoWriMo #NaPoWriMo Day 28 ................................... dreams deferred, another raisin in the Sun

dreams deferred, another raisin in the Sun

beneatha don't you mess around here any more 
the cake had laces 
and the poem these paces 
where we wear wares, 
where aware of wear, 
we wear a ware 
worn by ancestors, 
aware each of us have 
a smile, turned towards morning 

we danced as if we knew no language 
charmed into another goodbye, an ease of delivery 
as if meant to always be as close to parting as one 
could be 
when at home 
never being 

beneath us was 
worry, and how 
it wore us too 
thin as one ply 
alone in the loo 
worry worry 
don't keep it 
inside you 

the checks never came quick enough 
nor lasted as long we needed 
we would sit out when cool enough 
in the shade, around tables 
we'd play cards 
and the remember when game 
trying to figure out 
when we didn't dress the world 
as we wanted to see it 
as opposed to how it really is 

mama said never mind the guff 
it was like dust 
everywhere the dancing 
and singing wasn't 
she would say 
quiet, wise 
take a chance 
love hurts worse 
when you don't try 
unlike passersby 
not paying any mind 
love until it hurts 
and you want to die 
this gives life 
more than reason 
why we strive
to thrive 
elegantly 
sugared wise 
another raisin 
in the sun 
another dandelion 
in concrete 


EJR ©