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In The Sanctuary Of My Head

The Broken-Winged Birds and People (re-edited 4/5/2323 3:03PM PST) (re-edited 11:14am PST 2/23/2023)

The Hell Of Winter (re-edited 4:27pm PST 3/9/2023)

My Grey Haired Love...La La Lullaby , La La Lullaby My Love

THE HEART IS AN ORGAN ON FIRE



When Mr. Bemish Lost His Last Good Pair of Glasses

Kathy Brown Kathy Brown

Something Not Quite Right About Here (Vortex) re-edited 1/26/2023

THE COOL TILES BENEATH MY FEET REMIND ME

The Way Of The Crow

DO YOU TURN THE LIGHTS SO YOU CAN SLEEP?

The Springtime Shadows Play Games Upon The Wall

CHRONICLER OF DREAMS

YET ANOTHER ANTI-POETRY POEM ( re-edited 11/2/2022)

You Do As You Please 8/17/2005 found poem, readjusted 6/20/22

HERE WE SIT AT OUR TABLE 2/19/2022

Much Better Than This ( A Conversation With The Universe)

The Straight Story (What Happens When The Writer Inserts You Into Her Story)

THE TIDE CALLED LONELINESS

A Girl Always Leaning Forward Looking for A Breeze

Entanglements

Have You Ever... (DECEMBER 4/2021)

Appetites

How I Still Love You

The Smile Which Eludes @

He Says To Me, I Think Too Much (and hence dream too much as well)

When You Learn Who You Really Are And What Is...

Anti-Poem Number Three 8/2/2022 Or, A Poem Your Proper Mother Wouldn't Write

Breathing On My Own

A Girl Is More Than a Beautiful Box re-edited 10:15pm PST 1/31/22

I LOVE YOU ALWAYS ANYWAY AND INSTEAD

Talk To Me In The Dark 7/8/2022

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Laughing Maid  (They Called Me)


they called me
Laughing Maid
but I did not laugh

I used my calloused hands to hide
my mouth
from view
I would not laugh
at the name of their choosing

a girl can live in a thousand skies
I tried to live in mine
the best I could

I was
the small tuft of cumulus
calibrating far away
from the others
near the remote mountains

I was leery of joining others
of becoming part of the larger gathering of clouds
which indicated the possibility of bad weather
clashes
avoidable controversy

I wanted solitariness
separateness
silence
I did not thrive
among other clouds
they weighted me down
so I could not rise

I mistook their rumbles
of laughter as derision
I heard the peals of their thunder
and it foretold of impending
anger

I grew small
deliberately
so I couldn't be detected...
nearly becoming vapor
the kind that eventually gathers
and then falls earthward
as rain
it was my new way of hiding

I was no Laughing Maid
it was just their joke
a name
they gave me

they didn't know me
or maybe didn't wish to know
my circumstances
so very awkward and different from their own

I wished to be
orphaned
left to my own
devices and machinations
and not to those of others

I wanted to be a child
without a Mother
without a Father
and only one brother
whose fate was the same as my own

we might have been better off
odd how children can smell fear
and discontent
even worse
how it compels them to take you down
at every opportunity
the way
a wolf would down a deer when it senses it is
weak and limping
completely
out of breath

they never saw me laugh
or smile







LEGAL COPYRIGHT FOR THIS POEM/WORK
6:09 PM PST NOVEMBER 16TH 2017
AND ALSO FOR THIS WRITER/AUTHOR
MELISSA A HOWELLS AND ALSO FOR THIS
LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE--
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD






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