The Twisted Trip to here......

We tripped over tree roots....Their sprawling, snaking, climbing age old fingers pointing into  the woods...
and stumbled one step, two steps deeper into the peace...
Just the sound of water bubbling, running, falling...
and sticks breaking under our steps....


I breathe differently now....deep...and slow and on purpose....

Because every moment matters....

And in the midst of insane chaos....
my body a war field...
my mind on fire....

I feel the presence of the reason.... I can't name it, touch it, explain it....but I know somehow, I was meant to come here...
to fall,...
to tumble....
blindly
into this crazy 
wrecking ball...

It must be the butterflies....

Spirit Finder

I rode my bike in dusty circles,
sliding on loose gravel,
watching the pebbles fly and skip,
imagining them to be butterflies....
plunking,
hopping,
little winged frogs...... waiting to be free....
And
I listened to you ramble on.....and on...

"Do you want to go Blues Night?,
to a steakhouse?,
on a supply run?,
to the Beach?,
do you want to go anywhere anyone has ever named?"
And
I don't.....

I slammed on the brakes
and twisted just far enough to the left
to show off....
and slide...
and slip off...
and almost crash
until I laughed....

And started to ride again...
into the wind...
and around the corner,
and almost to the river
and back again....

And I grabbed my little pink fishing pole,
and a beer and some velveeta cheese
and
plopped down at the River....
to hook a lilly pad,
a pile of drunken peace signs and waves from a passing pontoon,
and a nod from the captain of a cigarette boat on idle....

Because this is why I came here...

For peace....

and my spirit....

And I've found it...

Coffee with one sugar and all my Dreams

It's early morning....
and the sky sits low,
crawling just above the ground...
gray and damp,
wheezing like an old dog
curled on his muddy backdoor  rug....

And yet, it's delightful.  Something about it is Old Soul.  Comfortable.  Familiar.

The Blue skies of tomorrow are being painted in a secret room above the clouds, and the wild winds of yesterday are parked in the corner....hung over from their willful misbehaviour last night.

Today is Peace.

I park my crickety old self on the park bench and sip coffee in the quiet just outside my door.  I breathe better here....

Under the simple skies....

Words and artwork (c) Singleton 2013 Coffee table courtesty of Merle, green and splattered in machine oil.... just waiting for me to tattoo the spirit of the river smack on it's ruddy surface:)  Thank you, new friend!

Urban Myths and Mich Lights

She told me dozens of times, the colored yarn twined between her fingers, crochet hook zipping up and down...."How you bring in the New Year is how you spend the year"....fingers flying, eyes down.

I laughed.

Smudged out another cigarette, and told more stories.

She meant it.

I brought it in upside down, sideways, sound asleep. I burned up the old year, sent it ashes to ashes into the wind in the middle of the tiny paved street. I buried it in the back yard, stuffed it in a suitcase and set it out for the garbage man. I danced to Stones. Danced with fossils. Danced by myself. I made resolutions, promises, threats to an empty sky. I cha-chinged it, cheered it, clinked it, feared it. I tried it everyway but right.

And then I put on my cowboy boots and that damned dress I had to have and sashayed it right in through the kitchen door...

Sometimes you've gotta put on your kickers to get that dust off of your petticoat....

Hitchin' a ride....

I believe in Peace and Love...
Everything in between is just a roadtrip....

I would have sent postcards.
I swear.
But I didn't take stamps, and
after a while,
I was sure if I just whispered to the wind....
scribbled breadcrumbs on lonely dirt roads,
left love beads in unexpected places....

You'd know....


It feels good to be home again...

To unpack my imagination
and toss it wildly on the floor,
next to crumpled blue jeans and empty cigarette packs.
To wake up to it the next morning....

Yeah, It feels good to be home again....

Let the Peace and Love begin....

At the Matinee

The last time I was going to be a ballerina, I clunked through all the closets, dug through the drawers, pilfered through old suitcases and found one....just one...tattered pink shoe. I pirouetted out into the living room, spinning madly to Jethro Tull, and my daughter, eyes barely lifting off the book she was reading, muttered..."Ma, you can't do that anymore, you'll break your foot". I never quit twirling.

And of course, I was in surgery, three days later. And still in a cast three months later.

Today, I was a ballerina again. On my own private stage, the heavily wooded curtains hiding me from the audience in the red velvet chairs. The wind an orchestra....the sun a spotlight shining only on me...

Sometimes we just have to believe....

And keep on dancing....

Rock my Peace

She was so excited. Her chubby little 10 year old cheeks exploding in the "Mimi" grin...



Tiny chicklet "I'm gonna need braces" teeth on parade...
She was smiling....
This was what she picked out...
wrapped in newspaper....
A rusty ole word...

Peace....

She couldn't have been prouder....

And her smile was infectious. And I knew then what peace was. My blonde haired grandaughter with the hippie soul....whispering in my cobwebbed hair....."It's for you, Mimi! Peace......"

On the day after New Year's I came home to the front door wide open. The door we haven't opened in 17 years. Strangers ring that bell.

And the rusty little letters on my porch... splayed in half...

"Must have been the wind" they told me....

But I knew....

It's the year of ghosts....
And they've barged right in....
rocking my peace and rearranging it....

Sometimes we have to remember,
even in chaos....

Peace is spelled the same....

"You can't preach peace...."

he said. Pacing across my living floor. Soft shoes padding over the dirty leopard skin rug.

Arms up, he did a 180 and turned, sighing, Counselor at law, giving up on his client.... Muttering under his breath...

"and live like this?"

Arms waving now, casting a shadow over my world....

Cats on the bartop, disco light flickering, chewed up flip flops on the floor.....

Cellphone chiming....1-800 messages waiting...

Dirty clothes spilling out of the bathroom closet, the sunshine only shines when I'm not home....

And then he rested his case with Perry Mason words...

"Chaos is not a peaceful place"......





"Choose your peace, friend" I whispered to his shadow.....