curbed appeal...

houses that pass me in my car
along the side of the road
peeling in their appeal
too close to the shoulder
to be lived in, to be loved
have me thinking about a day
the day that someone dreamed
and decided to build them
with a long sloping lawn
where now their cobbled path
eaten by the highway used to be
about the day that they were finished
and where that someone stood
hands on hips exclaiming "I love it!,
"I really, really love it"
and how for some houses
that very first "I love you"
needs to last a lifetime
because it is the last one
that they will ever hear...
lucy meskill

inspiration...

I breathe for my grandmother
cotton-dust in her lungs
I breathe for her husband
who lost her too young
I breathe for my father
who never knew a mother's love
I breathe for my grandfather
eyes blinded from the sun
I breathe for his wife
who never saw his face
I breathe for my mother
whom time can't erase
I breathe for five sisters
who left this earth too soon
I breathe for them all
'neath the sun and the moon



Lucy Meskill

just breathe

what ladder do we build
that will bear us up
from the unreasoned pit
of our primitive rage
what caution do we construct
at its margin to prevent us
from tumbling back
into the seething soup

we, each and every one of us,
are branded with the bucket
that fills with anger in a flash
we are martyred to carry it
and yet called to do no harm
to be thirsty for it’s drama
and still not to partake

step one, breathe in rogue emotion,
sense its awesome power; 
step two, feel the sensations
as they settle and move through our body; 
step three, breathe out self-love
repeat and watch the spring uncoil; 

too far from being animal
for animal reason, rules,
and inborn constraint,
we define ourselves as human
and yet so often
we fail to be humane



lucy meskill

phantoms in our opera...

sometimes it takes
a lifetime
to stop running
from the nightmares
that pursue us,
the mostly small contrivances
of our childhood imaginations;
which like bad B movies
are still running on TV’s
that we in our haste
forget to turn off
they are like kites
whose strings
we hold and run with,
their only power is 
the wind that we provide
even the real bogeymen
become larger by degree
the longer we flee from them;
if we were to stop running
and turn to face them,
I think we might find
the paven street littered
with small and broken kites
and tired, aging demons
that we could reason with
and who perhaps
would prefer to retire
to some more useful shore…
lucy meskill

remembering Mary...

When our sister Mary passed away, the men who removed her trash each week wept at her funeral. Everyone from her neighborhood was there, and they all put personal tokens in the box beside her. The Fransciscan Monk who spoke her eulogy through his tears called her his soul mate, she was that kind of gal, our Mary... Missing you beloved sister, missing you...

whoa, man...

I am no rib
from your waistline
but an ocean;
no frail, hollow,
whistling bone
but a nail;
rusting, I open
fiercely into voids
expanding and holding
deeply, elemental;
a fearsome silent howl
in the funnel
of a force five wind;
you may tack around
but never through me
fear and never ford
the river of blood red wine
bubbling, like molten lava
just beneath my mantle; 
knowledge of me
will surely burn you,
so beware… 

tincture and spill...

waves of light across the breach
phantom footfalls play the open floor
the music of intent attenuated
slathers slick across the plane

seeds seceding embryonic
transcend petal, root and stem
piercing the open sound of O
into Ah and comprehension

the shadows of furious furlings
nimbly fluctuate lambent sails
from the recapitulated sheets
tucked between my knees

words fly cherubim, seraphim
from one shaded womb to another
palpitating thoughts, from ear to mouth,
jete the flickering colophon
as ciphers they negotiate the page…

lucy meskill

fructified...

is everything in love,
or is it my imagination;
the way an insect
eats a heart shaped hole
in a leaf covering a flower
that reaching up her petals
gently acknowledges shelter
as the silver cloud lidded setting sun
blinking golden floods the garden
with lucent amber honey,
if I am dreaming
please don't wake me...
lucy meskill

molecular...

broken things in waves
along the shore strewn
align puzzling
sidling cozily
cuddling topographically
interlocking chemicals
littered like flavor on the lip
tongue and palate
glistening and bubbly
of sand and rock and shore…