_
when I dreamed down
from the sparkling sky
over palms and
bright gateways
a fingernail at my
throat warned I was about
to be rapt away
I saw, mile after mile,
baskets of
pumice and jasper in
sand, even mud
from the Maker's
clay, and wondered
if this was some new dawn
of an icy museum
stuffed with mummies
and scarabs
I am daughter
of the sun and fly bold -
I soar on pollen
and silk - but felt
a hard sawing of fangs
on my quivering
heart, and in the upward
flaring spark, was
made new, burnt
to ashes
--Jo VonBargen 2012
_
Kisses, my lovely child,
for loving me in spite
of my limitations,
my absence,
my preoccupation,
my lack
We have adored
one another from afar,
inwardly, in silence,
in secret, when really
it should have been
otherwise, like my
childhood when we were all
one giant teeming mass
of humanity who could never
seem to escape each
other on holidays
Who knows why or how
it came to be the way it is
in spite of our wishing
and wanting; I have never
loved you any less
or let a day go by
without thinking of you
Perhaps this is the ideal;
you are perfect in my
opinion of you, not
ridden with faults
gleaned from too much
togetherness,
though I often feel
I don't know you the way
my heart wishes
to know you,
living so far apart
as we do
That our visits are
rare is a family imperfection
and my lifelong regret,
and I am humbled that
you hold me in high
esteem in spite of it
You are so loved...
beyond words
-- Jo VonBargen 2011
Happy Birthday, my lovely daughter, Charity Noelle!!
_
CAROLING IN THE COLD
Ah, the evening tastes
like Christmas...wonder
and awe settling on the face
like dew
Through shadowy trees
a dying fleck of sunlight winks
and cold air tweaks
the cheeks
Shivering, puffs of breath
surround, coats and muffs
pulled tight, feet numb
in the powdery snow
Yes! Caroling in the cold,
sniffing woodsmoke on
the drift while joys to the world
spill heartily into the night
~~~
May that singular joy be yours
this beautiful holiday season...
Peace and love to all of you
and safe journeys always....Jo
--Jo VonBargen 2011
_I'm disgusted with my
hands, my non-earning
poverty level hands
When at dinner
they ask, "How
did your work go today?" I'll
be thinking, "Oh, I just
pissed into the wind.
How was yours?"
When people ask what
I do, "What is it
you do?"
I should say "I'm
a poetbird. Being a damned
bird is my job.
Superbird."
If there's a
window I'll fly
into it. If there's a
head I'll crap
on it.
I'll zoom in and clip close
to the pathetic forest of human
heads and whisper aeronautic
secrets
Yeah, I'm on a whole different
planet from these people, I'll
be thinking.
They can't classify me, I'm
an airborne fright!
I'll terrorize cats and old men in
ugly pants
At parties I'll say
I'm a poetbird and see
how men react.
"What do you do?" they'll ask.
"Nothing worth a red cent" I'll say
"and it's really, really
hard because
I'm so damned
good at it"
It's a real job, having no
poet job. Even a poet's dog
has a job, for god's sake,
licking faces and
his balls, whacking his
tail twice and
running off
in the damned yellow
dust
--Jo VonBargen 2011
"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
_
all the usual stuff at a fair,
blue ribbon jars of everything good
tho' slightly less good with odor
of cows and their dung
pervading
a longhouse of the latest in
sleek, new cars, where
Daddy got the idea for
a bright red Plymouth station
wagon that could hold six
kids and a dog
the massive sow in repose
on a smelly bed of
straw, ten precious piglets
jostling, elbowing,
to reach the best
teat
best show of the day
was after we left, Dad
stopping at Furr's for a quick
load of groceries to fill
a pantry quick-emptied by
that many young'uns
In the parking lot,
Glen Campbell and his
Sandia Mountain Boys singing
down love from high on
the back of a long-bed
trailer, that boy sure
was fine
--Jo VonBargen 2011
"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
In the rose garden,
protecting the faucets
from freezing, I spy
in the beam
of the flashlight a
skittering trail
`;`;`;`;`; of mole paws
Garden tools ((glisten)) with
cold, cautious beads
Blazing among the barren canes
are puffed, hard hips,
swollen red with promise of
Spring and new roses
Rapt, I listen, holding my
breath as kindred souls {fuse} with
mine in the dark
The idea of connection, of
some vast oneness,
descends
♪ ♫ ♬ music surrounds ♪ ♫ ♬
poets *whisper* cherubic odes,
writers expound
puffs of lone heart songs
~ wafting ~
beckoning me to
share
begging me to hear
yearning only to give and receive
small comforts
and I feel
the warm mist of Spirit
~ hovering ~
blanketing me, us,
the roses
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
no more shade from the skeletal
red buds in the yard, no tree frogs,
no trills of the poor
short-lived cicada
no longer the Spring of your
life, no longer time for
the heat-seeking satyrs who
devour up the lonely grasping
hard at some breath of heaven
you, deep-rooted, yet consumed
by the sun, are fragile, lost...
you, to whom zenith, nadir,
and zodiac are all one big blur,
have changed...turned with the
leaves
eventually all faun gods save one
returned to their
unbounded heaven that transmutes
all, but your breath
still catches, fastening onto
those youthful images and words
the war was inside you, only
child's play at first, but from then
on, with the faun you chose,
the going was harder; now your
friends are all tired of your tears
and who more than you hates whining
you have made your peace, but
what lies beyond the horizon
lures you still, and you will
eventually hurl yourself up, up
out of the mire at the glimpse
of a whole, orange moon rising,
beckoning tide
and love like the Sirens
to lap, lap away at
your heart
--Jo VonBargen 2011"POWERFUL" "I cannot escape the tearing crash, scrape and rustle of your blind gropings & janglings" YOUR THIN BONES: Letters I Never Sent You http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LKBR6A
not carnal, it is more than
primal, not of
this realm
finessed beyond flesh,
beyond a veil of sizzle
and smolder
softly spilled onto
a smooth plane
of shimmer...silken,
serene, textured of
starlight, enfolded
tenderly in my
forever dreams
it is hidden
here, in infinite secret,
because you are
innocent
of even knowing
my name
this dreaming of a normal life is still mine
and that streak lifting from the sea into clouds,
wounding heaven, is mine also
you could lead me by the hand if you made
believe you're with me, if I were fool enough
to follow after, and if what held me,
if what you said, rang true and lay in
your power
I wish what held me here at the threshold
was our true selves, and I could lend you
a face, conjure up your form. But it's not,
it's not like that
The sea horse hiding between rocks and sliding
between mates knows how to use us. We
belong to him but don't know it
No. We are him and we think we're us
--Jo VonBargen 2011
"POWERFUL" "I cannot escape the tearing crash, scrape and rustle of your blind gropings & janglings" YOUR THIN BONES http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LKBR6A
In the prison of my youth
there was no telling dawn from night
Crows flew over
the watchtower, my
only wings
Comfort? A thread of cold air
Guard's eye at
the peephole my only
companion
The sentence unending, no
reasons given
Pricking hands with sharp stones
to simply feel alive,
I sniffed the burning pyre
and fused with a soaring moth
diving to flame
I stood unrepentant
At daybreak, shimmering
silks of light teased my walls
and I rose, only to fall back
to blackness
There, a second was a century,
a long wait for the dream of
freedom to be over
What got me to this place?
My words
Words swept with calm rage
Words straight in their coil
Words old in young age
They said my words would
make heaven roil, plunging
us all straight to
Hell
Shoot her at dawn, they said,
but my muse bound
their intent in
primordial ooze
Their twisted lies, their
bitter eyes, bore me
terror and fear, the gloom
of a slave
But I stood unrepentant
Break her spirit, they said,
then the sky carried
me to sanctuary of
holy stars
I climbed til the blackness
fell away like a scab
and I reached my spirit elders
on the old sky road
Taking my pen in hand
they blessed it,
kissed my raw wounds,
emboldened my resolve
Risen and healed, I committed
new lines to trust, as I do now:
Holy words, lasting words,
to baptize in slobber,
offer up like a lamb
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut writing! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
of course
we're not equally guilty
but we're damned equally
responsible
we talk the talk
don't walk the walk
so how do we get to work
and leave out the lame
gestures, the empty
effin rhetoric
and...oh, this ridiculous,
ridiculous
eggshell-walking
pantomime
humility
I'm lookin' for humility
here, and dreamers
need the dreamers back, people,
unafraid to be saints,
not merely
holy shyte good
can we:
speak honestly
hear with sympathy
act humbly
I am sorrowful
someone please leave
crumbs for the lost
to follow the path
to Kindness
we seem to
only circle back
to square zero
we do dialogue,
we do dialogue to
freaking death
and have zero point crap
to show for it
when we find
what is actually required
to serve the hurting,
it's too high a price
and beautiful excuses are
available, darlings,
in such ugly
abundance
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
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