Tears drops splashed on
my smart phone today
My smart phone remained silent
It didn’t have a word to say.
The thin ice
I walk upon
Has begun to crack
I don’t care. I keep on.
If I am submerged
I won’t float back.
Under the ice
escape will allude me
I will drift away from
The hole I fell through
I will not struggle as
my lungs fill with water
my heart washed of you.
Jeanne Marie
One More Time, Again
Let’s not fight when the sun goes down and the shades are drawn.
Wouldn’t you rather call back the tender fury, the passion that we once wore?
Time was on our side and ever so trusting I gave me to you
only to be lost, a forlorn girl standing on the edge of nevermore.
Drew back the covers, flesh ablaze, unashamed, nothing to hide,
fell in love, lost my head, I was so sure.
Recreate the euphoria of that first night, devouring each other
between the worn cotton sheets on my antique bed.
Use your fingertips to chase away the years of struggling
the hurt and the anger that screams wild as savage beasts inside our heads.
Play make-believe, pretend that it’s yesterday
and the bitter deeds did not destroy the tenderness instead.
Pursue me like there’s no tomorrow because I can not see beyond today
then, when tomorrow comes…
I promise to set you free, stand on my own two feet, find my own way.
Hands could caress, bodies could recreate, satisfy this insane yearning
as you travel back with me, waltz me back through past’s gate.
Touch my soul once more with longing and desire, force the winds of change
to stand stationary while you re-ignite my skin’s desire.
What would I give to travel back and never have been betrayed?
I scarce remember when there were no walls
and I did not know how to be afraid.
Perhaps tonight you could help me to forget to remember if I promise that
I won’t run away when the dawn comes, I won’t run away. No…not yet.
We could try, one more time, again. What could we lose, what could we win?
Cradle me in your arms and recapture me with reckless hunger,
pretend thirty years have not transpired.
It would be so easy because fingertips have no memories and
they don’t know how to hate, they will pursue passion’s flagrant fire
unlike a broken heart which hesitates.
No movement forward from here so we could journey back to then
before the illusions were shattered and we could try, one more time, again.
One more time again, as if you read my mind.
Still, the heat that rises in my loins concedes to grief, collapses beneath regret
too wise to be enchanted, too stupid to forget.
Good-bye. No, wait…not yet. Maybe we could try…one more time, again.
Jeanne Marie
My mother, Grace, wrote this poem for me after she read about fifty of my poems for the first time.
I have a friend who comes to sit with me
She brightens my day, as I sip my tea.
She never frowns at an unwashed dish
Knowing that I’ll clean them when I wish!
The dust on my floor never turns her head
And she just smiles at my unmade bed.
While she’s waiting for me to end my chat
She kisses my neck, she’s a true friend–my cat.
She picked up the book
and placed it back on the shelf
when she saw the price.
But…then she thought of her daughter
to send her this treasure, would be a delight.
She lovingly touched the glossy roses
she’d wanted this kind of book for ages.
She pictured her daughter’s garden, then
she paid the price and mailed the pages.
As she weeded her own, she softly smiled
imagining the distant flowers in full-bloom
and she thought of her daughter all the while.
Little did she see that the greatest gift
she’d sent was the bloom of her love
carried on the petals of a book
delivered by the sliver of a mid-summer’s moon.
To give her child what she herself desired
seemed to be the mother’s greatest pleasure.
God made this woman quite special
and then He doubled it twice over
beyond her daughter’s measure.
by Jeanne Marie
we were young
we were wild
we were free.
We were hippies
we were kids
who didn’t know
our love
would not always be.
We loved
and we fought
then….
we went separate ways
but we had three children
who got lost in our maze.
People can judge
and guess who’s to blame
but it was me and it was you
who held our love in the flames.
Pushing the line
until it was erased.
I stopped running
you no longer chased.
We burnt our love
like a steak forgotton
on a hot charcoal grill.
We said goodbye
but we also said
I love you
I always will.
The last time
I saw you
Our lips touched
with sadness
not passion.
One last time
I held your familiar
body close.
You said,
you’ll always be mine.
I shook my head no
but my tears said yes.
Tears fell from our eyes
as I walked out the door.
I want to be a storybook mother
With model children who never cry.
I want to sew and read them stories
Then cook and clean until it’s done.
But I can only be myself
And let my babies be too
Beautiful sweet lovely brats
I couldn’t live without.
I start to cook but have to stop
To wipe a runny nose.
I take a bath and the baby falls in
While supper burns on the stove.
Out for a night I should be glad
But can anyone take my place?
Will they be safe till I get home?
They are in my heart wherever I go.
Jeanne Marie, 1979
Try to stop the
Hands of time,
Hold this moment
For it is mine.
Try to stop the
Silver in my hair,
Stop time’s ravage
Silent as a tear.
The fat that rests
Upon my thighs,
The damned mirror
With reflective lies.
Why don’t I feel
As old as my face?
Of the child inside
I see not a trace.
I cannot stop the
Hands of time,
With each day
Its damages I find.
But time cannot steal
The child inside
It shall not claim
The girl I hide.
by Jeanne Marie
Have you seen this child?
She was lost sixty-one years ago
She simply disappeared.
Her present status, I don’t know.
Should we put her on a milk carton
Or leave her to find herself?
Perhaps she is dead and buried or
Baking cookies with the Keebler elves.
Perhaps she dances with wild gypsies
Wild swirling dances that cover her defeat.
Are they bewitched by her radiance
Delighted by her naked madness,
Struck speechless by her insane
Howling beneath a winter’s moon?
The years have surely taken her
I don’t know where she went.
She used to live in my closet
Curled under the heater vent.
She was such a frightened girl
She seldom ventured out.
Could it be that she still exists
Although hidden from clear view?
You might catch a glimpse of her
When I smile at you.
Call her softly, do not shout.
She might dare to laugh or love
Unfolding the lost child inside out.
Wounded child
Can you hear the
Gentle flap
Of angel’s wings?
Lost in your closet
Of endless memories
Come out of the dark
Don’t be afraid.
The screaming has stopped.
The voices you hear
Exist only in your mind
The storage trunk of the past.
Come, open the present.
He will protect you, this
Angel of the Wounded Child.
You want to die
Lost in your pain
Yet, you have not lived.
Open the door
Take down the walls
Let the healing begin.
Angel of the Wounded Child
A light peering into your closet.
He wants you to
Come out and play
The nightmare is over.
Wake up! Wake up!
Sleep is not a cure.
Come out of the darkness
The light does heal
The secrets, the fears, the past.
by Jeanne Marie
I had no action in my body today
Just tears
I couldn’t stay.
I had no desire to get dressed
Just tears
I couldn’t repress.
I had no blood left in my veins
Just tears
That I know will stain.
I had no action in my body today
I could not leave
I could not stay.
by Jeanne Marie
I AM SHE
There was a time when my mother was middle-aged and me?
I was young and naive, not a care in the world; the arrogance of youth was on my side
I was a footloose hippie girl and I thought love was free.
Her skin was firm and tanned, black waves of hair fell to her shoulders
softly surrounding her fair face, bosom quite generous,
legs as fine as any model, she was my mother,
but with flower child simplicity, I used to call her Grace.
She was spirited back then, although she seemed quite old to me,
and how did I become imprisoned while she has learned to fly–a butterfly set free?
Tonight, as I glance into the mirror, my middle-aged face stares back.
Have I become her, and she, the child I used to be?
At seventy-three she’s still a beauty, but time’s fire has burned its’ trail
and when she had a stroke last year,
I realized how deeply she had aged; yet, become so childlike, so frail.
My firm skin, my shapely legs, will soon bow down to time,
much as my bell-bottoms and tie-up tops gave way
to blue jeans and then on to stretch pants and a baggy tee.
I will lose this interval named youth and as I look into her face,
I see my future and
I am she.
by Jeanne Marie
My mom went to play with the angels in 2009.
For Jodie Lynne
Tangled in bonds forged by
Genetic matter blended
Knitted in the womb
Knots that cannot be untied
Ropes that were braided
On our creator’s loom
Lines that are unclear
Boundaries do not exist
Pain ultimately is shared
Young woman becomes
Woman with child
Child turned teen mother
Grandmother with babies
In her arms once more
Two women now
On opposite sides of
An open door
Her little girl only exists
In the mother’s mind
Bound by knotted love
Tangled in her
Daughter’s addictions
Living her own lies
The truth
Worse than fiction
Hearts ripped apart
By love that destroys
Always with the
Best intention.
The mother steps back
From the tornado
Of wrath and pain
Gut wrenching past
Today can’t restrain
Accused of coldness
As she slams the door
While in reality
She is burning with
Her daughter’s pain
Trying to
Avoid the disaster
Detangle shredded ties
Attempts to close the door
Between her soul and
Her daughter’s mind
by Jeanne Marie
What do I say now, when there’s nothing left?
When I’m gone what will you remember about me?
Will you remember all of my mistakes?
Or will you remember the things I tried to be?
Will you remember the times I held you close?
Or just the times I failed to make the grade?
Will you remember the times our world turned upside down
Allowing black clouds to fog my brain?
Oh God, for love, the price I’ve paid.
Will you remember when I danced in the rain
My arms spread wide up to the clouds or
Will you be left with the times
our love brought you pain?
Looking back across the years
I recall the smiles, but I taste the tears.
So many wrong choices, how could I know
That the pain would go on forever
And that the dying would be so slow?
I see loved ones who have passed on
And I wonder what they think of me.
Do I disappoint them?
Or are they waiting arms open wide?
They say God doesn’t give you more than you can handle
So where did this crushing mountain of grief come from?
And who the f… are they, the invisible ones who say?
How do I start over when there’s nothing left
But regret, remorse, pain, pain, pain and more pain?
Surely, I will die soon enough. I know we all do.
But can I last that long?
How, when I can’t even breathe
With this mountain of pain crushing me, burying me alive?
Will you remember how you always corrected me
As if I were a child who didn’t know her own mind
Until it became true?
Will you remember me loving you?
by Jeanne Marie
First you are young
And then you are not
The life that you own is
The life that you bought.
You can’t return it
Like a dress that’s too small
You own it, you wear it, that’s all.
You have to make it fit
My, oh my, what a mess!
It’s torn and it’s tattered
Like an old favorite dress.
Repair the torn out seam
Sew on a missing button
Because once it mattered
It’s an easy decision.
It’s your life, it’s your dress
You own it, you wear it, that’s all.
by Jeanne Marie
Jennifer Jean
They never tied the cord when
they tore you from my womb.
We are flesh woven together
like yarn on the weaver’s loom.
I’ve never cut you loose
connected by bloody strands,
I hide them deep in my soul
as you push away my hands.
A separate fragment of myself
removed and set apart.
Could it be that a piece of you
was left inside my heart?
by Jeanne Marie
Eighteen hundred miles from here there’s a place that she calls home, but it isn’t.
She left it behind long ago, this gypsy’s child who could not deny her urge to roam.
On the distant shore she still calls home there’s ocean air she longs to breathe…
the endless blue she aches to see, winds that howl all the way to her heart,
”Come home to me.”
When her longing for the ocean overwhelms her senses, she goes.
Sand castles that take so long to build; yet, never meant to last.
Waves that crash ice cold, slap against her legs, deliver burning blows, sting away her past.
As she tries to absorb the ocean through her skin the surf takes her pain and
batters it away, beats it senseless against her shins cleansing the memories from her head.
The salt in the air, the sun on her face must go straight to her head, drive her half insane
because what sort of woman lifts her body off the sand but lets her soul remain?
Still, home is just a word she doesn’t care much to define and her soul knows where it belongs.
In the early morning hours, one last plunge, she shares the waves with a wayward dog.
Their eyes meet, sentiment is shared, “This ocean it is mine, for this moment, it is mine!”
Dried kelp, empty crab shells, seaweed, rocks, she gathers with a fury she can’t explain
because what sort of woman flies to the ocean and attempts to carry it back home on a plane?
She hauls back a suitcase filled with rocks, stones of every shape and hue.
Still her ocean slips away, not even this gypsy woman can possess the bewitching blue.
She flies away, minus her soul, maybe she’ll return to stay, maybe when she is old.
Painted by many, photographed by even more, none have ever captured
the Lady’s true essence nor managed to carry home the sandy shore.
“I want to live at the ocean,” she tells him when she walks off the plane.
He mourns for the longing in her eyes, her lust for oceanfront property undisguised.
She knows the answer before he speaks, money stands between the ocean and her door.
She’ll have to settle for a visit each summer.
Meanwhile she’s returned to frozen lobster, dirty dishes and unwashed floors.
She gently arranges her cache of shells, goes back to work not quite resigned.
“If I ever sell a book,” she whispers, “I know which cottage I’ll call mine.”
The truth escapes me
Sifting down through
The cracks in the floor boards
To live beneath our home.
The walls absorb reality
Which never was quite clear
Facts taunt and tease
Sneak in when I’m alone.
Yesterday’s unwashed dishes
Fester in the sink
Mold grows in the cellar
Moving boxes still unpacked.
The truth lies under the house
It awakens me at night
It waits for me in my dreams
When I’m vulnerable to attack.
Behind the bathroom mirror
Demons guard the walls
The truth is not what it seems
Deceit covers reality like paint.
by Jeanne Marie
I want a motorcycle. James Dean had an Enduro. There are far more practical motorcycles in the world. But James Dean had a Enduro.
There are lots of motorcycles in my town to buy.
There are fast ones.
There is the Lime Green Streetfighter from my young dreams.
There are new ones. The latest flat black killer.
There is a hip little Japanese Motorcycles made back when the Japanese didn’t build cars yet, just Motorcycles. I want a motorcycle. James Dean had and Enduro.
I am told they won’t ride nice. They will be rough. And although its seems fun to dream about riding down the trail on your Enduro, you are trapped in the pavement jungle, and that’s all the bike will ride on, and it will be rough.
So much for daydreaming of riding to the riverbank for a picnic.
Enduros are not practical.
I want a motorcycle. James Dean had a Enduro.
Her hands make love to his shoulders
Caress the tension from his neck
Fingers entwined in his soft curls
Her face buried in silver and brown strands.
Inhaling the heady scent that is him
She allows her tightness to slip away
Falling, falling into a dark warm mist
A vapor of safety created by his love.
Absence of pain, regret, loss or sorrow
Blankets of tenderness and devotion
Washed worn by life’s bleaching storms
More precious than diamonds and gold.
His devotion surrounds her flesh and her bones.
Thus, sleep is a cocoon which shelters her
Pillows of passions released time after time
Cradle the woman and her fragile dreams
Rocking her to sleep in his gently flowing river
Drifting on billows of unconditional love.
Floating to euphoria, wrapped around his back
She wonders, how is it possible that her love
Could increase beyond description, young and free
When time has removed the freedoms of flesh and bone?
She loves him beyond explanation, a rare dilemma
For a woman who was born to dance with words.
She loves, she loves and as his love enfolds her, she is sheltered.
She sleeps and she is secure because he is there beside her.
by Jeanne Marie, 2013
You can’t keep a fairy angel
on the ground
You can imprison her
Take away her ability to fly
Hold her down, for a while.
But as soon as the light hits her face
She will shake herself free.
She will fly
She will laugh
She will love
She will leave her addictions in the dust
Cause you can’t keep a fairy angel on the ground.
by Jeanne Marie
Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie 
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