Future Selves

Strung, as crystalline beads
On a fine gold thread
Our days
One by one together
We charted a more kind pattern
Planned

Colors, something beautiful
All our own
To be complete
Tied with an unbreakable knot
This time
Worn boldly and proud

But for the masked marauder
Disguised as difficult conversation
Arriving in broad daylight
Ripping this treasure from us
A new family heirloom
We’d have created

Webster Defined

I know this night

Allow me to define

Temperature just right
Songbirds dancing in the dusk
A perfect ambiance

I know this night well, I say!

Yet still unready to admit
The aloneness of it
The how I see clearly
The what that she has that I should have

Trepidation as stars begin their show
Is all the what that I have

My big, demure eyes
My young, smooth skin
I’d trade her for her treasure
Then maybe in the mirror see
Somebody you love

Patriot

Were I God, I’d think to define, “win”
When creatures, injured, question lover’s sin

“Do hollow smiles somehow qualify?
Or emptiness so plain behind those eyes?”

“A hardened heart, absent a joy-filled beat
Make clear to me he re-mains incomplete”

“Your love, be sure it lingers on his soul
He dreads the days without you he grows old”

“He tallies daily losing you again
Discarded Darling, You were his sole “win””

(America has a birthday coming up.

I’m never one to want to miss a birthday — but how to offer celebratory wishes, given our current state of disunity?

The child of God in me has the utmost hope that Our Nation will heal and become unified. And, the child of God in me sees, too, that what America is holding right now is an over-rated, wrinkly, old flag.

But, Happy Birthday, America.

I love you.

-Lisa Mae

Photo Credit: Lisa Rosier;

American flag flying aboard the USS Lexington when Japan surrendered in 1945; On display at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Alabama)

Fix-it Man

I tried, I swear I tried
To stop loving the Blue Mountains you swept me away to
To stop seeing them through your grey-green eyes

I prayed endlessly
Extend your hand once more to me down those towered hiking trails
Let me see heaven in your saunter again

I allowed foreign kisses
Fill this Orion-shaped wound, I vowed — still I stand, hollow
Waiting for your fix, for our paths to merge as you promised

Moment Lovers

Step one, get weird with it. This belongs to you all, after all.

Step two, present yourselves all ways, every day, at the same time.

Step five, step five?! Yes, step five — there’s nothing linear or logical of this.

Step five, show the canvas of man what these years of kinship mean.

Step six, dip your brush in cool, cool water, then choose the color violet. Or orchid, because you are bold, or you want to be.

Step three, make a space in advance, or in the moment, or not at all. The whole Earth was prepared for you.

Step four, never end before you’ve finished, or for forever, whichever comes first. Last.

Step seven, relay your love for The All of them. Take responsibility and fight again tomorrow with the sunrise.

Hot Breath

Canine king, find me, follow me

Whether dinnertime or downtime
Hot breath on my heels
Chops pressed ‘gainst my calf

Clickety-clacking claws, be unwilling to leave me be

Guard my steps, as I’m prone to frolic with frogs
Looking in wrong places for princes

No sixth-sense nonsense, your love