Happy 100th Birthday, Mom (Dedicated to Halin Pryves Leighton)

She painted in the attic

Never complained about it

Instead she hated politics

People deliberately being dramatic.

 

Imagine the journeys of women

From time’s beginning

They listened too much to parents

beliefs in subjection

 

“Girls don’t want to be single

You don’t want big muscles

Get married, don’t go to school

Take it easy, you don’t need to hustle

 

I’ve messages from my ancestors

‘cause there were fighters out there

Not those against one another

but not treating others like sisters.

 

Time we learned enlightening

Together what can we bring

Teaching about love, not fighting

It takes a tiny bit of thinking

 

I’m standing on the shoulders

Of my mother, my grandmothers,

and all my ancestors

overcoming man-created disasters

 

I got my DNA tested

I’m a mutt -- 100 percent

combination of world history

Indus Valley people had services

 

Women leading the women

In ancient Vietnam  

Fighting against oppression

Of poor people as their mission.

 

Talk about Esther -- my Jewish roots

Helping afflicted a virtue  

Teaching us to find our superpowers

Comes with connecting with our truths

 

I know I’m not the first to fight back

European cat lovers and the worst attacks

horrid generational flashbacks

Don’t call them witches or crazy asses

 

I never wanted to have children

Just loving my cats and kittens

and living with my own creations

means speaking up is divine intervention.

 

Spider Poems

The Thrive Tribe

 I have a relationship with my spiders 

and do my best to keep them alive.

I learn parables from my spiders

they do great good to help me survive. 

Roommates

(Spiders At Peace) 

Writer the Spider

and Rider the Spider

sat down beside 

one so playful

with intentions

that flowed stomps.

Writer the Spider

And Rider the Spider

jagged their fright

in flight forced

them to die.

  

 

“I Don’t Want to be Your Narcissist

(To Rider, Writer, and the Rest of the Spiders in 1A)

First, I came for the roaches,

with mint leaves and ruthless baking soda,

swatting armies on daily patrol

that paintballed walls in shit-colored splat   

snacked on by tan spiders’ domesticated webs   

 

Who knew they’d connect jagged

movements to twist and knit the final curtain

Heralding my own healing crossroads

In harmony of spiders work on wood

Like an evolved shade of hair on my head

 

I find if I blow soft and tender

They shake their legs working spinners

Long may they live and may they stay

Collaboration these spiders all day

Writer and Rider the Spiders they play

 

Unpatterned weaves matching Whitman’s hair,

If they moved, I’d change my color

There’s no food for them anymore

They did their job, now will they leave

As that ruthless soda turns them to gold  

 

The Beatles sang an octopus pad

Who’d scare my 18-pound cat

Making me his easy treat attacking bugs

I play both sides I love my cats

Chase the spiders See how they run—attack!  

 

All my roaches cleaned out of the kitchen

They were yesterday’s lesson

I remember the dirty crass wall

But I learned I don’t need them

Clean dishes showing me dirt deletion’s win

 

My Spiders are in Crisis with no roaches

Stan Lee would tell me I’m cruel  

to Writer, Rider the Spiders 

heroes trusting me must fight to survive    

They killed the roaches and heard my battle cry, "die, cobweb makers, die."  

-July 2024