Thirty
© carol voccia
for Jesse

All urgent and fresh feathered
Willing agility dancing around
Spike-filled roads
Untouchable
In those days of resilience and naïveté
Highway and rubber meshed speeding forward
As non-stop flight into imagination cradled abyss
Holding court on exposed nerve
Dangling failure as a dare
Cupped in brave
Spinning in blind
Faith held a place for a three point landing

Swollen Grief
Category: Writing and Poetry


I am swollen with grief

Its shadow batters me with ice waves

Finding portals in the cracks of sane

I asked you if it were better to witness my tears before you die

Then the misery would be over and I could bury you

Without sadness

But your blue dramatic slammed into my wails of horror

Marking your days and weak hours holding on to slips of memory

Morphine drip calmed demons scorching brain and gut

And you apologized for your life

In slurred speak offering your devotion in a two finger code

The end came with shallow breaths of warning

And I now stand in the middle of melting sand

My glass brittle

My grief cupped

A coffee stain with sugar cubed grit un-melted

Sifting to the bottom of me

My heart cutting at red


In Memory of Michael J. Mills
my devoted friend and partner

© carol voccia August 3, 2009

How I Spent my 60^th Birthday

© carol voccia

June 3 2009

The valley shimmers softly in erotic warmth

Mounds of heaving earth painted in shades

Of vermilion and dark bark

A sixty foot swing tied us to an oak of grand proportions

And we rode ourselves as children among weightless glee

Defying earth and the gravity of memory

We flew against the swollen sky

Six decades of me stood aside as my hair

And skirt danced in hidden youth

Drinking laughter and glorious joy among the

Birds and smiling forest

We were four

Women of the sun-goddess commune

Feeding to each others fruit dipped in gold

Glowing within our own providence each

Scuffing clouds with every arch of the swing

Touching our wanton toes into the sultry air

We rose and fell from the arm of the oak

Remembering girlhood

charmed and timeless

In an afternoon that beaconed us to play in a moment of now

I Met Your Handsome Face Today
(for Dave Abbott-Smith)
© carol voccia March 7, 2009

I met your handsome face today
It arrived still holding a duffle bag of longing
My heart so heavy it might sink my life
Drowning from the wreckage

I looked into those aquamarines
Blinded by my own sad obsession
Of lost self
This body raged full of tears
Painfully living in between
Each breath you have taken since
We shut the door

I saw your handsome face today
In its sweet grace of aging
You remained to me in prime
Hidden among countless summers
And foggy morning musing
The clear sound of you endlessly vibrated
From the belly of my bell
Tolling in each unfulfilled sigh

I dreamt your handsome face today
You’ve rolled around forever on my tongue
Hard like sour candy
A bitter that is strangely sweet
Your residue climbed up my throat
Drowning my brain melting you out of my eyes

I reflected on your handsome face today
Tracing the soft smile you held
Oh so unaware that
You would ever find me in a future sky
But today you fell as a raindrop on my brow anyway
Filling the color on my canvas
As a pixel of bright that never dimmed

I fell behind the black screen of this confessional
On my bloody knees I crawled to speak
Holding on tightly for just a few more seconds
Wearing Holy Mass and Hail Mary’s
Kissing the beads that circle around your
Handsome face today

Poetry is a Harsh Mistress © carol voccia 2009

Poetry and I fuck on the regular
Sliding into her slick she pours her
Vivid pink into empty hands
Inking her lips in metaphor
Piercing loud anvil hammers
Shatter messages hidden in her iron
She’s an afternoon shell game hiding the pea
She’s a shading oak in a summers park
She coughs a bitter stake inside the minds of mortals
Riding as a slut on every mans tongue
Napping in empty rooms she
Ties the sheets around unsuspecting ankles
She calls your name a necktie and pulls it in like a noose
She is stronger than light and harder than dark
Spitting hot fire flexing her arms flashing Mayday red
She tames mammoths with her rubber heals
Calcium lines her teeth in strange tongues
Roll a joint and smoke a dime with her
Main line her
Eat her froth while she rolls up your
Kingdom tossing it over her shoulder
There ain’t a soul with feet that can land a finger on her
She’s a beast spiting fire
She’s an angel in the center of aquamarine removing her
Garments in a circle of flowers
She is the inevitable test inside a devils contract
She’s double fisted cracking heaven wide open

Death Will Meet Me
© carol voccia 2009

Death will gently meet me in the desert
Offering to quench my last thirst

Holding up a cup of spring to wash away my dry
Let me dive into it like a canyon wind
Sipping the endless drink
I will swallow whole the world and sky
Clinging to the moon in silent

Dress me in a drape of stars
Declare my dust and
Blow my ashes to the sun
Keep me warm in the endless dark
Death will keep me in the dew
Holding tight its arid frost
Marrying me in the ground forever

Until we meet again in the howling desert
I will gently meet you with a cup of spring

Dying is Hard Business

© carol shoot 2008

 

Gravity presses the throat

Each breath labors in shallow gasps

The sky mocks the air sucking in and out

Nailing stained sheets with grey sweat

And clammy brine

Steel eyes stare to the world beyond

Mouth parched and gaping, calling home

Too late for prayers

For they are being answered with

Tapping time slowly measured in

A hollow drum

         A faded beat

A white rain

Suspended silent in its last reflecting drop

The Rock in January

The Rock in January  writen in reference to my days in San Luis Obispo County and Morro Bay California  (c) carol voccia 2007 The spine of the ancient valley All but disintegrated into dust Save the last vertebrate Poking its rugged slate in the sand     Lapping surf edged horizontal to the Morro.   A moss drenched reminder that Once lava flowed to the sea And the earth quaked in spasms Along the San Andréa's and other slips of rock Inching minuscule moments As one continental plate went north     The other traveled south over         Ten million millenniums of time   The valley of sweeping grass feeding bovine, steer Fragile lambs, sheep and herds of goats and other hooves Furrowing sweet roots and thick green blades   As the centuries moved from native brown to Spanish monks Thieves of land squatter, settler, merchant and rogues of commerce Farmers and cattle ranchers prevailed While the rock stood stoic          Silently guarding the gores                 Of fishermen belching and hooking the gills                   Of the seas bounty        The bay lying at its feet took Shape designed by a huge sand bar running north and south Dredged its depths for docks But not deep enough to host monumental ships of enterprise Housing only small craft and sail boats lazily bobbing in the sandy shallows Lapping along the tranquil bay And the rock stood stalwart casting a granite eye                         Over green waters watching, its brooding eroded jetty                         Ragged and seaworthy Glanced to the wide pacific       Peering in fog and some time slanting sun streams                   Over vasts of sea to thin horizon promising                              Exotic places far in its endless west.   And, here I stand along a humble wooden dock              Soaked in briny salt              Grey dappled sweater wrapped around me               Rose cheeks lifting a smile                                        On my lips Contemplating along lines of water tide and crashing wave Small gulls over head cawing against              Water breeze and slapping swells   All history brings to this place       My standing watch, gazing, and thinking Of the others before me and the ones who will follow Tossing the moments of wind and bobbing boats My mind strikes against the Sea leaking its cross against tides  Gashing cliffs chucking up abalone hulls For gulls to pluck and feed from the bounteous pacific   It's the end of another year And the beginning of all that is new and unfolding As the sea and the eye of its grey mineral rock            Casts its arm and lava breast to the west kissing the                                      Angled sun    Hold up the coastline, my friend,                For a trillion more moments                As I turn and start a new January