my dog and his new jones

A young man at the drug store saw me looking over the pet treats, and he recommended Oinkies bacon-wrapped chews. He said his dog gets one every night and loves them. I was hesitant, cos rawhide doesn't always digest so well, but he convinced me and so I brought some home. 

Well, Bosco LOVES them! No digestive issues, either. So now my dog has an Oinkies problem! It's really pretty cute how much he enjoys them, and the name cracks me up.

art from wire hangers

I wasn't the kind of girl you wanted;
didn't want a girl at all, I guess.
Still, here I am--
a pretty smart, pretty funny, pretty different, pretty mess.
Gin didn't kill me;
I lived to tell.
Learned from thin air
to care for others and myself.

I'm my own kind of girl.
Your loss. 
_________

a day late for Fireblossom Friday and  G Man's Friday 55 

Nothing to worry about !

Go Tigers!

Contemplating the Divine

The locust trees have turned yellow,
and the sunset comes early in the evening.

Living across the street from Saint T's,
and feeling my own seasons shift,
I take to contemplating the Divine.

All that I am and am not
swirls in my imagination like leaves down the sidewalk.

How I love these poems,
and all the days and years distilled within them;

If you should see me looking half-lidded and sleepy in the wicker chair,
it is just this poet contemplating the Divine--

all the miraculous things
that I am
and am not.
_________

For you, love

For you, love,
I have made my whole body a morning.
Birds rise from me,
a murder of crows gone soft as black lace
and as light as the tender intentions of my fingertips.

For you, love,
I know the wait has been long.
I know that you are a tangled garden
with a dark rose at its heart,
so I have spun a cocoon
and sleep next to you,
blessing the stem, your body, which called me.

For you, love,
I have clothed each clock with filament and incense.
Never mind them honey,
nor the things that seem to keep us apart--
you think you are waiting, but you are already arrived
In the shelter of my new wet display--
the one I bore and wear
always and only
for you, love.
___________

for magpie tales #89

forgive like god

I love.
God loves.
Though God does not have a body,
which could get frustrating.

I loved you.
God did, too.
Then again, God loves everybody--
She spreads it around, that's what I've heard.

I knelt right here
to win Her ear,
and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed
my little heart out for you

that the most awful painful things
would smack you where it stings
and if
these wishes failed, why then,
I might have to consider
to forgive.

So I forgive
like God forgives,
though we both hold back flood and plague
just in case--

which could get messy,
Missy.
Just you wait.
_________

Conquistadors

Across my back yard, trampling my hybrids and leaving divots in the lawn,
come Conquistadors.

They are a tired, yet arrogant, bunch.

They are unshaven and appear to have run out of soap and polish.
They have been wandering for a long time,
and they frankly stink.

My neighbors in all directions declared them gods,
and were dealt with at the point of a lance.
A few coughed themselves to death deep in the trees,
and their pets have gone feral.

I am the last to spit at mention of their name,
and now they have come for me;
I was waiting. 
My skin is rich with dark tattoos no Spanish lady would ever allow,
but do you see them here?
Watch, and I will summon them.

The Conquistadors laugh at the locals,
and have exterminated us for profit and simply because they could.
They have lice and diseases unnamed.

As they approach my door, I lift my hair.
I kiss the Catholic cross on its leather string,
and slip it over my head.
It rests between my breasts, where they can't miss it.

Do you suppose that men who no longer fear God
might still fear the trappings of God,
the ones they learned at their mother's knee back in Granada or Seville?

I conjure these women, sisters and sweethearts too,
each of them devout and pure, at least around family.
"Watch where you're walking!" I call.
The Conquistadors look up.
"Have respect!" 

I am dressed all in black, 
like the funeral of all they once had faith in.
I tell them it is Sunday--
they have been in the wilderness or at sea for so long, they have no idea.
I have tied a rope to one of my mules,
and he chooses this moment to take a few steps, ringing the bells.

The tarnished helmets come off,
and the Conquistadors make the sign of the cross,
stiffly, as if their fingers had forgotten the motions.
They may rape me tomorrow.
They may slit my throat and burn my house,
but for today
I have them in the palm of my hand.

I silently pray to my pagan American goddess
to inspire me with a way to close my fingers and snuff these Grandee bastards
while they mill in my yard
like rams who have, for a moment, forgotten their quarrels and horns.
_______