My voice is a tiny grain
in his skull to be devoured
by vultures or fertilized by madness.
Evey morning as I rise I
pay homage to his stony
face. I read novels into
his stature that never moves
He never remembers anything
beyond his well preened shoes
I type with one eye open well
into the day. In stillness,
he stares narratives through me
Frantically , I write nightmares
in bold font until I am spent.
At midnight I place him back under glass.
My eggs firmly stored in his basket.
They said, “I bet they’ll never make it.”
But just look at us holding on
We’re still together, still going strong
(you’re still the one)
You’re still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You’re still the one I want for life
(you’re still the one)
You’re still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You’re still the one I kiss good night
-Shania Twain lyrics
My cover for The Lonely Author and his wife Allie, Anthony and Jersey girl, John and Terry
When I get tired.
I sometimes wonder
what’s this poetry
thing all about?
What am I writing for?
During these times
I’m usually stuck
in a creative muck,
I still don’t dare
call it a rut.
There’s no food
in the picnic basket
so I eat drudgery instead.
My mouth full of lost time.
I’m so hungry for words
that have run off
with my silk dresses.
I dream of nouns, adjectives,
and verbs, sinking
in a sea of syntax.
I try to dive in
but get stuck in the sand.
I sit along the shore
I wait. As seagulls fly
from under my bed,
my silk dresses hanging
from up above.
I reach for them
while I still can.
-Tosha Michelle
For David and Jen and Tony and Jersey girl
Tonight I feel more alone than the moon
overthrown by the clouds.
I take solace in the rain, the sway of the trees
being shaken out like a well loved blanket by the wind.
I know you are out there under the horizon. We’re on the same Earth.
The moon plays peekaboo with you too.
I understand how time zones float like helium balloons across the globe.
But the sky and this poem know how much I want you here.
I want to look at you
and mark how time changes you,
as it changes us.
I want to love you up close.
It’s true as you say, distance doesn’t define love, we do.
We always find each other. I look up at the sky,
just in time to see the moon sneak through the clouds.
It whispers to me in sibilance.
For a moment you come closer. Comforted by the knowledge of you,
I speak to you in trees and air.
The gray eyes of the night translates my love diction,
as the Milky Way pours itself over two lovers
swept up on a star yet to be named.
-Tosha Michelle
Here under the tent, we say
our final goodbye. Soon your
coffin will be lowered into the ground.
The crowd folds like fall foliage,
with promises that it will get better
and death is not the end.
What will they remember of you?
Your smile? The broach you always wore?
The photo of you on the beach
in your Sunday best, with sunglasses
as stylish as Jackie O’s.
Please send me a sign,
a popcorn kernel of hope
that your spirit lives on.
That your soul is in a peaceful
place. That days and years
from now, we’ll find you again.
I question the sky. It reflects
back light then dark. No
definitive answers there.
Yet still I search eternity,
for you. This depth of feeling
keeps me pondering infinity.
This anguish spurs me on.
-Tosha Michelle
I’ve inhaled tbe spell of honeysuckles
I’ve invented my own fortune,
spinning them into the fabric of my skin.
I leave poems behind for you to read
I sing you songs made of
moonshine and starlight.
The keening of my heart
in every note.
I no longer believe in stories with no endings
but I do believe we create
our own beginnings.
-Tosha Michelle
“Say something, I’m giving up on you
I’ll be the one, if you want me to
Anywhere, I would’ve followed you
Say something, I’m giving up on you”
My vocal cover of “Say Something” by A Great Big World
Last night I dreamed I was
a blackbird and you didn’t get
my song
I was a wild flower but you
couldn’t see my beauty, only
the cracks in the sidewalk
I tried to shimmer, to show you
my grace
But you see through me
dissolving my bones
Again and again I come back
to you in some form
You look at me but
do not know me
I keep hoping that one day
you’ll remember my name
Tonight, I’d rather be home
getting lost in antique spines.
Craving the casual, yoga pants
and T-shirt. .Ditching this party
and dress. I can’t relate to
razzle dazzle, hoity toity
The desire for loud. My
symphony has always
been quiet.
These people
are a splinter in my isolated
hope chest for one. They
are a complex Allegory of
celebratory nothingness
Outward they glimmer
Inward, just a flicker.
I’m my own mistress of
distraction, mapping out
a poem in my head,
as some fool
in a too tight corset
tells me stories
about her latest boyfriend
who has a love for the
voluptuous and shallow.
The latter is just
an assumption on my
part.
As the clock ticks
inside my head,
sounding more
like bedtime, bedtime,
than tick tock. I note
the exit, I must reach
it before I’m tempted
to try hemlock.
I escape into wallpaper
border and sit down by
a napping cat. I stencil
my name on a gravestone
of banality and toss my
party dress off a bridge
I dissolve into particles
of light and reemerge in
bathwater of blessed
tranquility. I find kismet
with my bath mate, the
one I love-Solitude
We celebrate lavender and
quiet things. Afterwards,
I put on a night gown
of silence and
climb under a blue
comforter, under the
bluest of moon.
Finding serenity
in the stillness
-Tosha Michelle
You’re always fluttering around.
I watch you, scared you might fall.
I want to lead you to the right song, to the right flowerbed.
Instead I spin in the air. My form lost among the pines.
The light I had to lead us home, long since gone.
Should we follow the glow of the moon?
Sing to the wind? Give it a few days to answer.
Perhaps I should leave my heart in a wicker basket.
Cover myself in morning dew.
Abandon the very thought of you.
-Tosha Michelle
Everything I Never Told You 