Wildfire LAL6 @basicallybarbmeier - Tumblr Blog

Tornado

When white sunlight

hits hail, scatters

the narrow beams

of light,

they plank the sky

in hues of eerie yellow.

Ping-

ponging

off each other-

a game of pinball,

igniting lights

with each slam.

In that engulfing gloom,

the bruised sky,

full of broken veins

of light,

pool

into violently spinning air.

The fat finger of death

curls its way to dirt-

wedging itself downward.

Mesmerized

By power flashes,

I strain to glimpse

The finger of God.

In that frozen

moment-

thoughts on internet

waves,

Doppler Radar

pinging velocity

across the plains,

I see where the blue turns to black,

and roars to silence.

The neutrality of Space,

inert,

a vacuum

that is you.

I am gravity,

spiraling earthward-

an ice ball,

burning up

in atmospheric divergence.

Face planted to fears,

grounded in a crater

of my own making.

In your silence I stand…

watching the approaching supercell.

It surges forward in darkness,

wrapped in rain,

cloaked

from sight.

I await the ending-

the surrender,

debris swirling

to the West,

My pieces-

scattered-

landing in someone’s front yard…

First published in Cacti Fur March 2 2016

I A bar in Gold Beach, OR. Best ocean view in town. Sunsets were amazing. The food was fresh and homemade. The owner was a hoot and my frien

Hookskanaden Slide #4

Rejection is a part of life. How we react to it is what makes the difference in our lives. #creativenibble #creativethinking #creativity #

#collegebuddy

https://basicallybarbmeier.wordpress.com/2019/12/28/diamond-dungeness-2/

Carnage above the sea dresses with an aluminum crab gauge in hand and a backhand toss to the holds flooded with crustaceans.

The cold had chapped my chubby thighs. I could feel the rash through my white tights matching the scratchy lace on the Christmas dress mom

Raynauds

Hate replaces the blood

running from the heart to head.

It lingers in my toes,

compromised by my Raynaud's.

It settles in my fingertips;

and the hand warmers can't do their job.

Hate hovers on my tongue, a communion wafer

gone sour. A litany, a chant, a mantra,

I repeat over and over again:

"I hate you."

Hate surges vermillion, coalesces to blue,

of words frozen like hard green peas

in plastic freezer bags on swollen joints.

The hate sears my veins:a myocardial infarction.

I can't move past the feeling, and it strips

the oxygen from my brain: Cerebral anoxia killing cells.

Hate murders the muscle memory,

pumps cyanide to the very end of capillaries,

robbing life from heart cells.

The dead is alive in me.

First published in The Wild Word, 2018

A couple of years ago I attended a children’s Christmas program at church. As I sat and watched these middle class children sing “Away in th

Advent

Wiry phalanges with fingerprints in clay,

a copper sheet mangled in storage, nail-punched OJ lids,

sweet gumballs dipped in glitter and the babe of Bethlehem.

an acorn wrapped in rabbit fur, glued to a pinecone body.

Ornaments tied with red-frayed yarn

a hangman's noose strung across the branches.

They are memories tinseled and strangled,

buried among the silver-tipped foliage.

Silent Night is hummed in soft weeping

while I light the Advent candles with a mother's rage,

watch the hurt burn down the wick and melt the wax

preparing my heart.

This year my children lurk in plastic storage boxes,

encased in ziplock freezer bags. As if in hiding

I can only die a bit each day, shedding tears

like needles at the base of my Christmas tree.

An Outsider Talks With a Lutheran Theologian (What do Lutherans Believe?)

https://basicallybarbmeier.wordpress.com/2019/11/16/albatross-anxiety/

On the surface wind, I howl my curses: imprecatory psalms, My throat an open grave of anger, shoulder-locked, rising vertically into the

     Albatross Anxiety    The panic of running to escape the predator, with the knowledge, I’m not making it “home free”, could set wings on my feet.    I would be the extant species, safe from the baited hook of the long line, with a 12-foot wingspan, dynamic soaring for distance over time.   On the surface wind, I howl my curses: imprecatory psalms, My throat an open grave of anger, shoulder-locked, rising vertically into the wind gradient. Fear in the planetary boundary layer.    If He is everywhere what comfort is that to me now?   The albatross of sin hangs from my chest,  slightly sweet rubbish: skubalon*, a choker of transgressions, laying on a tawdry tunic, flopping and spilling my offal.    Yet the onus is not mine to wear.   It takes only Word to fray. The Water calms, ends the panic. The Blood spills on sharked waters, feathers float downward,  ashy in the Breath of the wind.   Where is He? Where He promised. Where He may be found. In Word. Water. Bread. Wine. His everywhere in me, covering my anxiety.    First published in Highland Park Poetry 2017  