Senescence sounds like floating face down your hair fanning from your headwandering but attachedthen you come up for breathhair strands stuck to your face Senescence seems like wafting lilacs with silken stringspulling you the paceso dense it feels ambiguousSenescence––slow, wooly, vagueit belongs to clockmakers who careno more for gears, springs, pendulums,or escapement wheelsSenescence means the howling and chugging is doneno growingdividingno seeking survivalthe essence of absenceMary Strong Jackson

I Thinking of living with fewer nouns I’ll keep the man, dog, and catDivide the rest by what is precious, what is not I’ll ask, what crowds,what clutters with false fronts, fabricated desires, contrived shininess Home holds familiars––plants pose on sunny sills, books uphold walls with words, brick floors take the weight without complaint, windows own dog-nosed smudges and choose views of trees…

they comewith layers of clothing and dirty fingernailsuntil they wash dishes and warm their bodiesmopping floors slim handsome smartAbercrombie and Fitch jeansI Padquality cowboy bootsnow in the overfill shelter for the homelessthey come from far awayfrom unplanned unforeseen joltsColumbia schooled Harvard graduate Cornell geniusbetween brief moments when the eyes…

A paint brush held prisoner in closet freed by artist who peeled her eyes awayfrom nonsense and began painting a raven looking both ways beforehopping from curb. The artist realized what she already knew–– freedom is art wanting hands all over it––the lush feel of brush, the stacking of striated woodthe desiring of detritusthe offerings offered from barbered dog hair to birds…

I plant sedum at the overlooked corner where 2 fences meet and hope dog doesn’t decide to digHope holds me but I don’t know where it resides and if I ama good enough host to keep it close, or if I over invite and it avoids hanging out with meFor now, I’ll squat with the chickens hoping to become better friends…

I consider degrees of separation, how RFK SR’s possible coupled connection to Marilyn Monroe, like his brother John’s, makes me 2 degrees from her, and JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Christopher Pretty Boy whose hand RFK held for hours after meeting the 10 year-old Lakota boy at Wounded Knee Monument. His parents, dead, in an auto accident the week befor…

Extra bits, ordinary add-ons, continuing lists, etc.some known to others, some only to you.Untold scraps and snippets, things about you known only to dead people, faded birthmarks, shiny scars, etc.How many people have held your hand––children at recessplaying, “Red Rover, Red Rover send Donita right over”?How fierce the squeeze not to break with hand held!

if only they come tiny beaked bodies a sugared springnot more creases in our furrowed browsbringing salt in split skin from a dis eased soiled White Housepoison seeps creeps showing colors of hate–smelly, puke-colors Anyone else dreaming of snipers? My parents worried of making it to month’s end not of Hitler’s playbookin this America Mom––born on same day and year as Anne Frank same dark hair and eyes Mom gave me a copy of Anne’s diary…

What might kill begins with lies, so many lies believed by so many ears,repeated by so many mouths to infest the masses. No masks protect against this pandemic.Routinely, Klemperer was questioned, mistreated, and humiliated by the Gestapo and Hitler Youth, and Dresden citizens. Because of Klemperer’s "Aryan" German wife, Eva, they were able to avoid deportation to concentration camps.

Public education in this country is under attack. And Trump has already made clear his intentions to undermine public education even further at every turn—including the extreme proposal to completely ...

Like lice in hair one cannot help but hang on want to cling to this hairy world.Lucky odds for lice when 2 second-graders trade stocking caps for fun––licefind thicker hair to burrow but mother combs luscious hairtreats little lice into non-existence into impermanence. Impermanence aka death––an end to guilt because your kid had lice, depression, cancer.Worry-free as death unlooses pain’s variety-packs held in curves of consciousness, …

Oh, Elon, if only you might see the grandiosity of a meadow,with deer lifting there heads at your presence Maybe if you had not been beaten or bulliedyour eyes may have opened to panoramas of virtuenot needing to prove anything, without dollar signs in yourwidening pupils able to see glorious wealth of a healthy whole universe…

Enough Today Written in 2016 1. There is something I should be doingI lean towards the cat she smells my breathMaybe this is enough for todayShe runs her rough tongue across my noseHer eyes so close to mine they appear almost frightfulTwo orbs on ancient amber canvasBlending to muted greens surroundingPupils of blackest black…

FLP BOOK OF THE DAY: A Pear-Shaped World by Mary Strong Jackson On SALE: The title of Mary Strong Jackson’s book A Pear-Shaped World, originates from the English term, “It’s gone pear-shaped” used when something goes awry. This book addresses today’s concerns of political division, #climate change, and artificial intelligence. The book focuses attention on today’s issues with the hope of a paradigm shift away from the focus on wealth and productivity, and towards less harm to our #environment.

Amn’t I Alive on Inauguation Day January 2025My Irish immigrant great-grandmother said, Amn’t I the lucky one! I say, Amn’t I the one not meant to be noticed, but to be a noticer.Noticer of seconds, of each listing step of another, each stressed note in a voice,each unfolding of minuscule to make record of the smallest jeweled bits…