I get you Baby, you know I do.

I was born the day you kissed me.

I died inside the night you left me.

But I lived,

Oh, how I lived

while you loved me.



Anon.

The heart of a Phoenix

When we lie together
on that sacrificial bed
wet with the evidence
of your love I sometimes wonder
if the sheets are charred
underneath my body.

Almost everytime
a fire kindles
in that deep place
I hide from the others
when your hands go there
and your lips
are here and you push
your heart toward me.

The air I breath
in that
almost every time moment
fans the kindled
flame into blazing
fire and I lift my hips
and try to escape
it's burn.

Keeping my eyes closed,
(I can see you better that way)
as my temperature rises
and my breasts fall into
your hands the layers
of who I pretend to be
incinerate,
become ash and I scream
to feel the loss
of what I present,
the smoldering corpse,
the shame of being me,
if only
because your eyes are open.

Holding my breath
I fear those charred remains,
so I laugh
to hide the fire inside.
Giggles grow a new veil
thighs tremble and ache
for more of you
than I can afford.

Inquiring minds...

Okay, if you don't mind me asking,

Who's from Schaumburg, Il. ?

Somedays this is just how I feel

Longing for Home

Does the butterfly
long in his heart
for the cocoon
that held him
tightly bound?

As he flies free
and sits in the sun
on the flower
in my grandmother's garden,

is he overwhelmed
by the greatness of the world
and the vast opportunities
that await him?

Does he wrestle
with his fear
of failure
or the anxiety
of deppression?

Does he resent
growing old
day by day
as he glides
on the dewy youth
of the spring morning?

Does he long
in his heart
for that cocoon
that held him
tightly bound?

The Blah, blah, blah.

Okay so here's the deal.

If you come to me and say, "You know, I love you and everything but I really don't appreciate the way you blah, blah, blah."

And then after thinking about it I respond with, "Yeah. I see your point, of course that would bother you. I'm happy we are on the same page."

And I smile and do the kissy kissy face and all the time you're thinking, "Great. That's settled." Only as time goes by you realize I'm still doing the blah, blah, blah in the same way as before.

"Hmm." You think to yourself. Maybe I didn't explain myself well enough or maybe I wasn't serious enough in my tone to be understood fully. There by determining you should probably bring the subject up for further, more in depth review in the hopes that both parties will come to some sort of agreement amicably.

Coming to me a second time, you say, "You know, I don't think you realize how serious this is for me. I know you think of things differently than I do and that's okay, but I've got to know you get where I'm coming from. This is quite serious. I really, REALLY don't appreciate the way you blah, blah, blah."

After some quiet reflection, a serious narrowing to my brow and a gentle but firm gaze in your direction I say quite emphaticaly, "I agree whith you wholeheartedly Baby. " I even grab your hand in mine and squeeze gently for emphasis. "I understand you perfectly and yes you are very right, very right. I love you even more for bringing this up to me again and being so honest and open about your feelings. I love that about you. I want you to feel that you can tell me anything."

Now going about your bussiness, it would seem of course to you that the matter has been settled. You have stated clearly and purposefully your issue and recieved in return a thoughtful, loving reaction to your complaint. Being an adult with a level of maturity behind you it seems that there has been an agreement reached.

However, in the course of your life the blah, blah, blah continues and you start to understand that even though the issue has been clearly stated and an affirmative aknowledgement has been given on the part of the offender, there was no plan put into action and no resolution to cure the blah, blah, blah infraction. The mere fact that there was agreement about the dissatisfaction left you, on your part, feeling that that in itself was resolution.

It evidently was not.


So, where to go from here? You are left scratching your head in wonderment, regretting your assumptions of the implications of the affirmative and trying to imagine what course of action should be taken next, only to understand within yourself that the blah, blah, blah will most likely continue because a line has been drawn in the sand. It's a subtle, camoflaged line that's as solid as any underground foundation stone.

So, is the relationship worth losing to the blah, blah, blah?

Is the pain inflicted and the knowledge of the party causing infliction and subsequent ignoring of said pain worth the love and affection given and recieved?

"It just says a whole lot about priorities." You conclude silently. All the while, watching and waiting and hurting.

A Temple of Sorts

How blessed I am to be roaming
these halls lined with the works
of the masters.
Priests and Priesteses from
long ago and now.

I sit on a bench in awe
of that Monet, the one I
long for everytime I come.
The feelings that stir remind me of the old woman
at the Catholic Church downtown
who kneels and lights a candle
and prays.

This is a Sanctuary of the Spirit
you know, the inspiration
the passion of the lovers
as they kiss, the sadness
of the face of Salome holding
the head of John the Babtist.

So I wonder to myself
about the children running through
the halls and the teenager
gossiping on her cell phone.
They look and do not see.
They hear but do not listen
to the voices of the past.

I move from the Monet full
and satisfied to languidly wander
around the bronze lovers
entwined in my thoughts and reverent
my heart finds rest and sweet
repose, never tiring
of a rosey-hued apple sitting
in the morning light never
forgetting the power of a strategicaly
placed orchid.

One of Many

I use the empty foil condom packet
for a bookmark, a memento of
the way he tears it open with his teeth
when he’s poised over me, and the heat
wavers between us
like the air above desert blacktop.
When rasping crows wake me early,
I watch him—long hair in disarray
and arms around the folded pillow—
as if his sleeping were entertainment enough.
I won’t erase his phone message from a year ago,
the one that says he needs me,
so, at any hour, I can listen to his voice.
At my bedside, I’ve hung his blown-up photo;
when he comes to see me, I take it down
and hide it in my dresser drawer.
He entered me like a thief who knew
exactly where the good silver was kept.
I fell—no, leapt—into pleasure. The first time,
in the middle of our loving, I asked him
“what’s your name?” and he had to say it twice.
Now, I know precisely the angle of his jaw,
how it meets the side of his neck at that place
I lathered and pulled the razor through.
As an animal rolls over to surrender its throat,
he let me sink my teeth.
For months I’ve gone on, kissing with open eyes,
knowing I am one of many. If I measure the risk,
by the price of the reward, some days I break even:
wanting and not wanting.


Jennie Orvino

"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.

Meantime, within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE.
And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.

We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Making decisions and coming to conclusions

I know it can sound silly for someone my age but I can lose track of what it is I'm after.

Like an ADD child with too many distractions in their surroundings.

Today I happened upon the quads and it resonated with my heart and spirit intensly. In a way I hadn't expected. It was synergy. It was a deep soulful reminder of what it is that I truly want.

I'm sorry if it's going to be painful, I'm more sorry than anyone will ever know.

I'm not stopping until I get what I want.

Untitled and unashamed... sort of

I'm sitting with one foot crossed behind the other
at a pot luck where I have been rewarded with potato salad
and a paper cup with those little paper handles that look like circles
but never have the strength to hold anything.

It's the perfect pose you know,
as long as I sit still
you see, when I move I find that my plate has leaked through the bottom
and stained my dress,
the one my grandmother has given me.

So, still as a photograph I sit
watching the other people wander about
with their potato salad and paper cups
and I think to myself, the wisdom I have learned
seems to be leaking out the bottom of the cup
I've put it in
and now is dripping conspicuously down my arm.

So, I'm constantly having to relearn
what I think I've already learned
long ago. Or maybe it's that I refuse to learn
what I should have learned
long ago.

In any case I delicately stand
with the stain on my lap and liquid dripping
down the course of my arm
to my elbow
and no napkin to save me.