If We Could

talk about orchard red petals on wood tables
plate upon each other
soft eggs whispering to candle wax and I am

just buried in wallpaper
trapped in a past life
guessing on about oil in still life canvas

on a second thought my eyes shift
to roll back
and he slithers up toward my lips

because if he could he wouldn’t exist
yet here we begin
just two pieces of black ice
melting pastels into sunset

and if we could get it back together
from memory – where it is what it was –
we would pluck tiny pellets from
pomegranates in winter
for juicing

individually

without each other

Leave Me With The Echo

Here. I am black echo ash.
Resin. The aftermath.

Always, the beginning is fresh.
Sweet cream masked – naked
baby’s breath awakening
to the first day.

I close my eyes to find it.
Seven minutes –
heaven is just beneath
his collar.

One breath, we melt forever
bonded; a rush, a plunge,
a distance without measure.

Instigator. I break as quick
as silver, my tongue –
an anxious alligator.

He snakes back to a shadow.
Strike a fire, burn
his path to follow.

Catch on flames, catch the blue.
Beginnings start out hollow.
Torch the love, torch the pain
leave me with the echo.

I Saw It First

so the world curves in and folds
over bottomless
alto-cumulus like
a second cloud
thundering over a handful
of broken hearts
I mean for you to find
out first
but it’s always my eyes
that watch storms
rolling in

swiftly from cracks in old
dreams angrily toward
nights that cradle infants
softly

strangling sleep that holds
and heals
I am tethered to heavy
weather on one of those old
Sunday’s watching my body
drift silently into you
I mean for you to taste these
memories trapped but my
heart is pyrite and I
saw it first.

I Am Not The Same Size

To speak up on Sunday
when religion strikes like
the back of a hand

would be a sin. To question
a written truth bound
by message and baggaged with
fear

would be unthinkable.
But I do! But I do!

I let those words of hymn drain
slow down my throat,
digesting each He and Him,

and I am not the same size
as my companions in these walls.
I am unworthy.

I am faithless in my tongue
because I cannot taste it.
But I do! But I do!

I am full of confession, I swallow them
like bone slivers after the fasting.

My prayer is splintered by
knees on the floor.
My Dear God, humble me more!

This Sickness

Sickness comes at interludes, when
light burns brighter than
sun stars, when Anger dashes in
to catch the aftermath.

We battle for the scenery.
Touching base, both reaching for
the flag, for proclamation.

It is mine. This sickness is mine
to water or see to wilt.
I find no fault in either,
both are stars of polar regions,

imploding a billion light years away
from me. I will awake with sweaty palms,
the enemy dripping down my back.

I sit in the night, like a sauna,
saluting the grace of the Gods
for keeping what is meant for the skies
quietly away from these hands.

My medicine will come clockwise, sneaking up
on me, on little twinkling toes.
I never miss this time because there is no
better place to live or to die.

Question For Readers

What would you guys think about a maggiemaeijustsaythis pod cast or live talk radio?? Would you call in?
Would you be interested? Want to chat?

IT WOULD NOT BE POETRY. But could be about poetry, writing, and other topics that this blog explores.

Any and all comments would be awesome!!

Thank you!

XOXOXO

~MM

On The Swallow’s Tail

Wide antic eyes, Salvador, you are your brother
dead, but better. Do you rest on his grave and
tell him about 17th century moustache and
Gala, everything he misses out on.
No need, he sweeps your bones when
they need to grow.
He plants ideas and colors in Spain
where people steal your dreams.

I will give you hopeful fruit
that can be nailed to a wall,
make it my four walls please – a trapezoid leaning in
like egg yolk – protein for my absent
skill. If I had yours,
if only,
I would be she, your catastrophe theory,
feeding you death on a spoon.
I could be your nervous system, taking your wishes
from your guts.
We are not “in fact or intention”
We are surrealism
and I know this because I live inside you,
inside your brother.

Ether

Magnolia’s rattle to the North,
an odor I’ve never known
before now.
I have no lover to scoop
eyes from for warmth,
no body or bones
to mix together and boil for
nourishment.

Silence is a tough fog,
golden; triumphant;
whispers like a noose.
She is a smooth, naked
flamingo waiting in the Ocean.

We will travel together, like apples
ripening throughout the season.
We will be sisters
by blood,
by grace,
by moonlight.

And all the stories I tell you
now will be flat
as skin, my words will prune up
and the golden knife of silence will
slice the truth out.

Mappa Mundi

Mappa mundi. On my back I
sleep without mountains, or oceans,
or broken continents drifting off
in search for more.
Birds turn origami and
I am left with an echo.

Somewhere between maple rain
and God’s sweet thumb I broke
the rules.
Sand has lost all reason.
Sun has lost its meaning.
Direction is meant for the breathing…
So is matter.

Mappa mundi. Inside
I am a universe. The eye of God, on my
back, giving birth to angels with
white wings of clouds.
Thunder claps in approval
while I whistle an old echo
to the vast dark matter

that prays for existence.

Disease

If it was fire, I would be burned across my liver.
If it was water, I would be floating belly-up one hundred miles down stream.
If it was a daydream, I would have plummeted from the heaven’s and crushed by heavy streets below.

I’ve always known the thick romance of being lost, deep in black brain jungles, where tigers eat tigers to build their own stripes.

My birth brought it. It was my placenta. We were strong together and now I am separated from eternity.