The bees are rushing to their honey ponds
And you are still
Dirt in your mouth
No cries now

The birds make the sundown race to their nests
And you are still
Bricks placed above dirt
Lest you become carrion.

The squirrels bury their nuts for winter
Forgetfulness creating trees
And you are still
No breath to feel the breeze.
Arms outstretched start to freeze
And you became still.

My greatest four legged friend
I was with you from beginning till end
Your eyes looked to me as if I could save you from the pain
But I could not rise you like Lazarus
And you are still

By Malinda Meadows

There was something different about her

Like a tuning fork in her brain

So many ways it did and did not

Continue to make her sane.

Sending out the signals

And receiving them

Knowing the many ways that exist

To say and mean amen

“So be it” echoed in many tongues

Singing a song by their bed at night

makes the soul arise and take flight

Into the web of connection

That pulses with history

The invisible webs connecting us;

The divine mystery

That pale like the moon yonder breaks

And heals and breaks again

With a fear overtaken

With a portion approaching zen.

And so she rises again

To face another day

To sing like the daffodils

In the month of May.

By Malinda Meadows

A Primordial sound in time does echo
Whether Pathos was the creator of art
Or if art was the midwife of Pathos-
Or was Pathos always around
And just jumped from jaws to javelins to Pens?
Speech so blatant a head doth detach
So written word created a latch
To open the doors of secrecy
Just enter the passkey
It is Poetry.

The spark alit

To a fiery glow

To a conflagration

Burning with it

Thoughts of indignation.

Until there was no more to burn

And with water there was stagnation

The spark once in my heart

Now turned cold as stone

Pierced with fear

By thoughts of him drawing near

Alive and beating but hardened so

Just as Pharaoh’s heart was hardened long ago.

The burden of proof escapes me

I have no witness to arson

But ladders from fire

And running footprints

Scattered amidst desire.

He is portioned apart from me

For the sake of justice

But maybe only temporary

Beneath the stone arises

A ubiquitous unrest

My eyes don’t want to see.

I want to do something wild and impulsive
Like a feral animal
Who makes a sudden and desperate escape from certain death
I want to rip my clothes or tear my hair
Make several little stitches there
And I wonder where
My sanity has gone
Why I seek to King and then dethrone
To scramble into arms
And then want to be alone.
All or these things
remnants of the tree from which I was a seed
Who can no longer speak to me
speak reassurance and distraction
And swear love endlessly.
The line has been disconnected
And in my heart a fraction
A portion of it missing
Buried with him and my picture
In eternal sleep.

The wind wraps around me
Like a lover
Pirouetting around my pubic parts
Drawing invisible fractals
As though it were an art
Speaking of things distant
And close but distant still
Like a wave on the wind
Ushering by the tale

of me and him
Wanting to, but daring not
To seek solace in his skin
Craving the feel of male ribs upon mine
Whose image I was envisioned in
So says the supple spine
Who would pine
For years on end
For a cease to the decay
That little by little
takes each breath away.

He broke my spine, my will
And I died until
I found the freedom from within
To rise again

The proverbial phoenix
Dashing plumes upon the black night
Wanting things to balance and realign
Wanting somewhere between the peak
And the Meadows down below.
Somewhere in-between
To rest, and to grow.

Watching the smoke of my fire dance
I pause, I blow
And the wind carries my breath
To the living down below.

I feel my next tears
Waiting there behind my eyes
In their eye wells
That were almost awoken by his words
The clash of verbal swords
As sword meets mortal flesh
The shape of your eyes as you digress
You are a mountain
I am piss.

My fingers interlace
Around the pink can of mace
The keychain my new wedding band
While vows sink into quicksand.

I am grateful
To life and death
To love and Strife
To the final breath
To the pain of death, birth, and rebirth,

I am grateful to souls seeking the beyond
To those who guard towers of knowledge
Where the maidens are trapped by mothers

I am grateful to the Spaces
Where mortal engines do not roar continually
And places where my fear can’t find me

I am grateful to doctors returning my calls
And the times I’ve seen where ring bearers Have no fatal flaws

I’m grateful to truth and beauty
Guiding me to the path of infinity.
Where death and the darkness Have no hold on me.

By Malinda Meadows

A once stalwart tree

That had the job of raising me

Wanted sunshine and rain

Not constant misery

He sought solace in the south

In the comfort of her mouth

If you replace mouth with men

You’ll see where the branches end

and begin

The men visiting

but never meant to stay

Never meant to put roots down anyway

And now my mind whispers

is this the way

always to be the vehicle of love

And not the passenger?

I thought so until i met a man so kind

Who traversed my entire soul and mind

Who actually sought and seeks to find

The above and the below

With a love sublime

that doesn’t seem conditional or temporary

With arms that love to hold me

And provide sanctity.

From the cradle to the present

My heart has longed for you

For the union of the one that is two.