On the
outside
looking
inside
are these
eyes
that cannot
see
through the
clouded
isolation
from
external
reverie.
Brenda Warren 2017
Recent Road Kill
A flattened brown tabby marks the parking turnout
near the nature preserve, where morning’s breeze
animates wisps of hair across its lifeless form.
I park V Otis Walter* as a kettle of turkey vultures
considers that recently smacked down cat,
circling blackness,
red heads tilting to meet my eye.
One, two, three of them land.
Commencing this feline feast,
the largest vulture hisses,then rips
into the belly of the road killed beast.
The other two dance,
leg-to-leg,wings spread wide,
while the kettle circles.
Red heads tilting, they hiss messages
like tears through heavy fabric
swaddling the dead,
dressing them for the belly of hell.
Brenda Warren 2017
*V Otis Walter is my trusty Volvo wagon.
Fractured
As if boons were bruises
Keep watching dreams peel delusions
With fists like the gnashing teeth of beasts
Brimming with fairy tale ferocity
Flashing chunks of revenge
Through this story of
So many women
Who keep eating bananas
When all they really want
Is cheese
Lost in the blanks of emptiness
This space between breaths
Brimming with fairy tale ferocity
Flashing once upon a fractured time
Where little peas of Gorgonzola
Dig into their back
As if boons were bruises
Brenda Warren 2017
An Elegy for America
Truth recoils
beneath a tweeter-in-chief.
A prevaricating bully.
A derisive philistine.
He taints the nation ludicrous
and shits down the throat
of her dreams.
Indivisibility vanishes
as spending is cut
for Planned Parenthood
Meals on Wheels
Before and after school programs
Food Stamps
and the Arts.
Liberty fears
the loss of net neutrality,
jails for profit,
silenced reporters,
and dismantled schools.
Justice for all weeps
when good old boy judges slap
the wrists of rapists.
And when the people elect
a predator,
allegiance falters.
Quick,
do something.
America is dying; she gasps beneath an orange sky.
Brenda Warren 2017
Recipe for Ruination
Spread fake news to
elect a petulant leader.
A pussy grabbing narcissist.
Impulsive and self-righteous.
A cacophonous fibber.
A bully supreme.
Stoke the flames
of the leader’s pants
with media coverage of tweet accusations
to divert the followers
who feast
on his fraudulent crumbs.
Add to this an assembled body of
conservative, indignant, power hungry,
mean-spirited, rich white men
wanting to right imaginary wrongs,
wanting to whitewash government,
wanting to cleanse the stench that blackness
left lingering in the hallowed halls
of this fresh hell.
Imbue with authority to legislate.
Bring to a rapid boil.
Remove from heat and stir in a heaping mound of self-interest.
Recipe serves: 1%
Brenda Warren 2017
Ruination’s Sway
Saying what you mean
is not meaning what you say.
You shake loose fake news
like feathers as you preen
strutting your stuff across this sinking
ship, bolstered and emboldened
by invisible masses
that feed upon words you
break, bruise, and
misuse.
Saying what you mean
not meaning what you say.
Brenda Warren 2017
not yet now
Into the couch of your grave I fly,
never questioning why to your eye.
I watch you die.
Day by day
machine play
in never-lounge cushions.
Cards against humanity.
A symbol-grinding ending to the groove of who we were.
Echoes of flies
fill time’s windows.
A volume of buzzing collides
with words set fire.
You are almost gone,
like syllables stoked to ash.
Brenda Warren 2016
Visit the Sunday Whirl
Finding Meaning
and so I sit
They hide in the house of my soul,
these stones—
ragged and heavy and thrown.
Igneous monsters
churning their grit
thick with inevitability’s spit,
they become increasingly intimate,
and so I sit.
Practicing maitri, polishing stone,
befriending my body,
befriending my home,
with its stones of anger,
its stones of shame,
its stones of loss, betrayal, and gain,
breathing in, I sit.
Becoming intimate with stones—
ragged and heavy and thrown,
bringing my monsters closer to home
raw with energy seething
befriending my spirit
befriending my soul
in an intimate act of breathing.
Breathing out, I sit.
Exhaling self-acceptance,
possibility opens—
shining and spacious and free.
Brenda Warren 2016
Arlee 2015 b.warren
Elizabeth’s Creativity Challenge Day 3 asked us to explore the word acceptance. After reading one of Elizabeth’s pieces, I decided to explore acceptance through the Buddhist lens of maitri. Maitri can be defined as loving kindness towards oneself. It takes practice. To really love yourself, you have to face your demons. When I turned my monsters into stones, this piece resulted. The ending feels abrupt to me. I may play with it later.
Berkeley
Reclining,
the curve of me
savors the weight of your
warm beagle self
nudging breath beneath
my neck,
filling my body’s nest
with you.
Brenda Warren 2016
For Elizabeth’s Creativity Challenge Day 2, where the word is “love.”
Len & Berkeley b.warren
undercaws 