Lips of Cake

Clever ladies
With lips of cake
Drown their thoughts
In wine and sweets,
Tossing away
Wilted night.

Rain Is My Faith

Rain is my faith,
Downpour my dogma.
I preach puddles
And meditate on mist.

Rain is my faith.
I'm the shaman of showers,
The prophet of clouds,
The theologian of thunder.

Rain is my faith.
I am blessed by the deluge,
Baptized in floods,
Penitent to rainbows.

Rain is my faith.
Doxologies drizzle in my downspouts

And sweet spring drops fall like the sacrament
On my tongue.

Rain is my faith
And, while all pilgrims doubt,
The enemy of my faith
Is drought.

My Grandmother's Face

At last I understand
My grandmother's face -
The pinched-brow frown,
The sour lemon expression,
Even at rest.
Life is more than laughter.
Five decades have pinched my brow, too.

The Big D

A dark horseman's silhouette
Against a dull steel sky,
Cruel piranhas nibbling
At my identity,
A thick bog through which I wade,
Leaden shackles on my wrists,
A shadow self,
A rain-drenched heart,
A smoke-filled soul,
A fog-blocked mind,
My hard, weighty companion
Wrapped in an inky cloak,
Lurking, leaping,
Stalking, seeping,
Taunting, beating,
Down my doors.
A long season of rockslides,
A battering by boulders,
A gray-gowned spectre
Who watches at windows.
A stop.
A halt.
A marrow-deep exhaustion.
A dove-colored shroud
Whose stingy threads
Strain paltry remnants of sunlit life.
This is the Big D.
All
Bow
Down.

Childish Eyes

When I was a child I saw
Space ships in dust motes
Crossing sunbeam asteroid belts.

I saw
Lost pearls in sea foam -
Pirate treasures washed ashore.

I saw
The Sahara in a sandbox
Cathedrals in campfires
Battlefields in bedspreads.

When I was a child I made
The Amazon out of broccoli
Alpine slopes from mashed potatoes
And butter islands in warm milk.

I followed fairies through the woods
And drank potions made of air.

When I was a child I saw
Monsters in the shadows
Witches on the wind
Sharks in the bathtub
Vampires in the cupboard
And Frankenstein in the laundry room.

When I was a child
 My world was bound by sidewalks
And limitless as dreams.

When I was a child,
I saw like a child.
When did I put childish eyes
Away?

Waxing Poetic

When I am overtly poetic
I sport million-dollar words
and wear purple prose that draws undue attention
             to my meter.

I count syllables like coins
and calculate figures of speech
spending their value as a miser
        and a mayor.

I drive metaphor
and plead my case with simile.
Art is my co-counsel.

I waltz Con-stanza down the street
and suffer bouts of word play.
I stutter sonic symbolism
     and wallow in imagery.

When I am overtly poetic
I overindulge linguistically
All
Day
Long.

Hallowed

Fall melancholy pushes past
The beaded curtain of the soul.
Incense-burning
       crystal-gazing
            palm-reading
                  gray-sky blessings
Watch with deep eyes and open hands
As home-starved spirits venture forth
From the long shadows of a harvest moon.

- by Cynthia J. McGean