Poetry

Poem: Pools

POOLS

Leucadia

Lemon trees dance in the breeze

A bloom of suns

Hanging from the cyan sky

Backyard summers

Bare feet on warm concrete

I watched over us

As we grew older

In that Pool at the end of the street

Remember

When the Monarchs migrated through

our world like a vision and their orange

and black wings sailed on the Santa Ana’s

You tried to catch them with a butterfly net

You were always so optimistic, even then.

.

My squinting brown eyes

Adore a complicated sky

Spilled jars of cotton balls

                          on the cool blue floor

Wisps of delicate ice crystals

                        stretched by holy hands

Gorgeous gargantuan vessels

carrying charge

                         and rarest of all

                                          rain

Silky serene guardian angels

Passing by every time I need escape

Whisking me to someplace lovelier

Than my mind’s landscape

.

The ocean infatuates everyone

With that break-your-heart blue

Breeze carrying the salty smell

Hypnotic chorus of crashing waves

Overtakes all chaos in space

I’m alone with infinity

Swimming past the break

               I pray to the Water

     How can I ever be good enough

                   in a place like this?

The Water rocks me gently,

                                baptizing me over and over

San Jose

You thought the world was ending when I left

This was true but I was, as ever, strong for you

Concrete smothers this city

    Anywhere you can’t leave

                   Is a cage

Small Pools of solace

   Crimson rose bushes

   A dirt path under the freeway

   Soft sun on a quiet afternoon

The streets were not safe

For anyone with a beating heart

Midnight men weaponed with shadows

And all the wrong people loved me

.

I hid in my room

And felt myself burn

Mostly I screamed

But even then

No one ever felt

The hot in my head

Hundreds of thoughts simmering for hours

Watching the city reach infinitely

                         into the blurred hazel horizon

.

I prayed to the Fire

      Will I ever escape?

She opened her blue heart,

Like an oracle

And shared with me

Visions of friendly foothills

She said

             Don’t you know what happens after a fire?

                                                                    Bloom.

Fort Collins

Necks arched like early humans

Seven wishes before breakfast

In this sacred silent space

Before most monsters blink awake

Stars steal my soul

Into a Pool so deep above

I drink it in and fill my lungs

Drown in the mercy of the beloved

Devote my breath to reaching up

Really reaching in

Fingers touch blood

Wake up and try again

Hopeful people love the morning

Dew dries at pink light

Sun washes away night

The horizon bursts open

Oh, the drama of becoming

.

When you visited me

Awed by all I was building

You fainted with relief

It was no place for you

But everything I could need

.

The Earth remembers everyone

From past lives

Celebrating our return

With fields of delicate Columbine

Assured by ponderosa pine

I’ll be held until the time

Under their guard I soften completely

    I ask

Is it ok if I don’t know who to be?

The Earth’s chorus sings

You are known by a love beyond anything

Like how every weather

Is welcomed through these skies,

I howled with the Summer storms

Found Fall’s elegance in letting go

Winter’s wisdom humbled me slow

By Spring I woke up, gasping in the bloom

The Earth winked and asked me,

Isn’t this everything you’ve ever wanted?

To feel it all

And then burst through?

February 21, 2025

California, Colorado, creative writing, Encinitas, Fort Collins, Leucadia, love, magic, original writing, poem, Poetry
Poem: Heart of Gold

Any jewler can tell you

Gold is the softest metal

Heavy nontheless

I hold out my heart

The children take it

Bite so easily with their baby teeth

“I thought it would be sweet”

I am the opposite of cotton candy

Give me your neck

And I’ll weigh you down

but never turn you green

I can last forever

Even when you break me

It’s just two pieces

Of a shiny thing

October 28, 2023

creative writing, growth, kids, love, magic, poem, Poetry

Poem: Just Love Him

Just Love Him

Hiding under his desk
	Seven years old, slowest to grow in his whole class
				On a lucky day he shows why he’s so bored in math
				When others count on fingers, he’s breezing past
Gray eyes staring into nothing/everything
Does his mom know he needs a haircut
Unsafe at recess, everyday
Twisted shit, like titty twists
Pushing, pinching, choking
Melts in my lap like a baby, I forget he’s so small
Breathing slow, eyes closed
Heartbeat in the hollow of his neck
Stroke his forehead slicked with sweat
His teacher will try anything
On her knees like she’s praying
Sacrificing the momentum of the class
To coax a single student back to his desk
Doesn’t work, she calls support
Its me and the psychologist
She knew him back in kindergarten
When grandpa belted him to bruises
And twin sister scratched when no one was looking
Which was often, because it was apparent at the first conference
That his mother carried no sentiment.
School blamed it all on her apathy 
Condemned them to CPS and court ordered therapy 
I ask what I’m supposed to do with this kid
And the team says, “Just love him.”
.
Expert work avoider
One mistake and he’s in the corner
Worksheet crumpled on the floor
He can’t hear what we’re saying anymore
					Different kid soon as we’re outside
					Not much of a consequence 
					For his violent disruption
					It can’t hurt to let him have a good time		
Every reaction is a firecracker
No logic lizard brain
His teacher preaches patience
Out of the few ideas, this ones the best
As he does anything he can to escape
This classroom is his cage
I block the door
He punches and screams,
Tears up the room, comes apart at his seams
					He softens in the wake of his hurricane
Cleans up his mess without me saying a thing
Organizes the books he threw on the floor
When ready, he meets me quietly at the door.
.
Pushed over a desk, almost hit someone
				In the hall, he wants to hug everyone
Headbutted me in the hip in front of his class
                                 Kindergarten teacher’s sadness with him in her lap
Screamed so loud I almost cried
				We sit together in the hallway, silent and tired
Banged his head on his desk on the last day of school
                                  Gap toothed smile and eyes like pools
Threw a rock, it hit me in the head
Said he didn’t remember doing it
				We have to believe him, but he could be lying
				This is his primal key to surviving
All of it interpreted as a misunderstanding of right and wrong
Being abused by all the people you love can do that to someone
I know he’s special because to be so broken 
Requires an incredible depth of emotion
He doesn’t have words for the things he feels
Just the dark blue vein in his forehead
And a vacant look he wears like a shield
The school doesn’t know how to sustain him
They have to send him away
Despite it being necessary
My heart will break on his last day
Because I carved out a space
For a boy alone in the world
And at the same time, I was finally cured
Of this heart I carry around like a ball and chain
He gave it a home within his own pain 
All the grace I’ve been cultivating
Was relieved to a weary soul wholly deserving

June 1, 2023

creative writing, educator, elementary education, kids, original writing, poem, Poetry, special ed

Poem: Spring

Spring

Growing is less like

Newborn leaves and flowering fruit

More like

Cutting off dead limbs

To protect houses from collapsing

And standing in shock

At your vulnerability

May 7, 2023

growth, poem, Poetry
Poem: Bug in a Jar

Bug in a Jar

Antennas above my eyes

Sense every feeling nearby

Without even wanting to,

I empathize.

There is a path through the grass

I fall in love with everything I pass

A barrier falls between us

I can still see the thing I want

But can’t get close enough to keep it

Beating fists against the glass

Fogging up the view with my breath

Convinced my desire will bring my death

Screaming as I slide away

From the shining thing

That made me feel okay.

So obviously out of my reach

Can’t believe it’s not meant for me

The cosmos command I be

Pure from all things unholy

Now I sit on display in a cage

Unable to remember

If I put myself here

Or did a hand from the sky

                                           deliver my fate?

Is everyone far away

because of something I did

Like when I felt everything as my own?

There’s room to think when I’m

                                                     alone

I’m starting to get things done

Remember who I was before all the distraction

Decompose

                      and

                                metamorphosize

Accept the sharp truths I’ve come to realize

About the length of other people’s love

                                                          never being quite enough

     Light breaks in

Not a cage but a chrysalis

A feeling in my chest

Like I just cried but all the time

Brings me closer to myself

Bright wings unlike anything I’ve ever seen

They’re carrying me

To the person I’ve always wanted to be

Soaring towards clouds

I forget everything on the ground

April 25, 2023

Poetry

Poem: Pools

Poem: Heart of Gold

Poem: Just Love Him

Poem: Spring

Poem: Bug in a Jar