I Had A Lover Once

I had a lover once
A long time ago
She stalked me
She haunts me
I remember
I had forgotten
I was making love to myself.

Ingrid
TheRuneWoman.com

She Is The Woman Who Wears Black

She is the woman who wears a black dress to her father's funeral.  She wasn't there when he died.
She is the woman who wears black leather jackets and chaps when she rides.  She isn't worried if they see her at night.  Who cares.  She feels ugly.
When she was young and thin and popular she was the girl who made black dresses from clothes she bought at Goodwill.  She was proud to be smart enough to fool the girls who lived in the big houses her grandmother cleaned.
She is the woman people look at and say, "She's in her black phase or rebellious phase or angry or negative phase." She thinks her life must be a phase.
She is the woman who wears black so no one knows if there are stains on her clothing.
She is the woman who wears black so no one sees the dog hairs.  She doesn't have a dog.
She remembers once meeting a stylish woman in Amsterdam.  The woman only wore black but she embellished it with bright red or royal blue.  She thought it looked good on someone else but not on her.
She is the woman who wears black whose sister says perhaps she should dye her gray hair black so it won't show on her clothes.
She used to be blonde.  It wasn't a problem then.
All her books are black.  Her wallets, her purses, her journals.
She can't see the black on black or in the black sometimes.
Sometimes she just can't see.
She is the woman who wears black who thinks she'll be buried in black, or maybe white.
She isn't dead yet.

Ingrid Kincaid
The Rune Woman

My Dream Deferred

My dream deferred sits in front of the TV staring and drinking, until it falls over in a stupor.  It wakes up with a headache the next day.
My dream deferred has stayed in the closet so long it has become a moth eaten, fur coat that is shedding unsightly hairs all over the dust covered shoes lined up below it.
It never lets me rest at night.  It fools me.  It is a dripping faucet, a broken shudder that bangs in the wind.  It is a door that rattles and a floor that creaks.
My dream deferred is the chicken that always manages to find a hole in the fence and gets eaten by the fox the moment it is free.
My dream deferred will keep me awake in my grave.

Ingrid Kincaid, the Rune Woman
(in the style of Langston Hughes)

Like A River

The river.   It changes every day just like life. My friend said she met a man on the train who said his name was Truth. They had a long conversation about the river.   So many questions one can ask if they think of life as a river.
Are you the falls?
Are you rapids, eddies, under currents, the source, the mouth, the delta?
Are your waters muddy or clear, cold from melting ice or snow pack?
Are you a steamy jungle river full of danger, dark with mystery and strange, large creatures?
Truth said he came from the bottom of the river and stood up.
And when you stand up in the river, it changes the course.

Sometimes, When A Bird Cries Out

Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.
My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.
My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?
Herman Hesse