Poetry Series - Wild Sweet Bird

~Wild Sweet Bird~

Liz Fink-Davenport

I am glad I hit the ground.

I am glad I falter.

I’m glad my flight is flawed.

And I am glad that you see it.

My sweet bird, who watches at the cusp of the nest as the wind pulls the edges of your round hearth and home, small dry straw and bright pieces of yarn I gathered with diligence, are now on the breeze. You are stretching your neck to see me try to navigate the strong press and lift of the air. You shiver against the brisk upturn of downy feathers. And two bright eyes take in my every move. You are learning to fly and fall through my wings. Coast the up current and turn and dip through the sea of wind waves.

I will lose my way, wild sweet bird. I will turn right when left was the answer. I will search for a warm lift and find a cold press and try to bolster through. And I will sometimes fall completely to the earth and lay stunned for a moment. And you will watch. I am glad. Because I would take a thousand hurricanes of terrifying dark and cold solo flights for you. I will show you that the fall can stun but not stop. And I’ll look up with eyes full of relentless strength to feed your eyes.

My child. My bird. You are watching from the nest. But soon you will test timid wings. I’m here. You can rest in my fall. You can take comfort in my harm. I’ll take on the brutal wind and storms for you. But know this, I am glad. Glad that you see my stumble. Glad that you watch me struggle. I’m imperfect, sweet bird. But my love is enough to shelter us both. To give you strength to learn from my failures. And to bolster your flight from the nest that is falling apart.

You are strong.

You can fly.

I’m here to see it.

Poetry Series: Joey and Jesus

~

Joey and Jesus

Liz Fink-Davenport

What small smile starts in your heart when you hear your child’s name?
I’m sitting cross legged and running my fingers through hair that is as familiar as mine. DNA being redistributed through a small electric current that is solely yours and theirs. The smell of this smaller being is a hard earned fist clinched. That moment you held a blanket that was breathing and you took in the scent of them and you fell madly in love. How can a tiny angry boiled looking pink wiggling thing elicit love? Because this is a piece of your heart walking around on this earth outside of your chest. Independent footprints in mud. Dirty fingernails on chubby fingers. Drool on your shoulder that smells like milk and you both adore it and cry over it. And you will always smell like Goldfish crackers and spit. But this is what you should know, it changes. The clock in the hall moves faster than you. It speeds up and the nap turns into the walk to school turns into the sleepovers turns into the cat’s cradle turns into the can I drive turns into the mom I’m in love turns into the hold your grandbaby turns into I will care for you mom turns into don’t go yet turns into my baby is holding me.

Sweet little one who wants braids tonight, I’ll braid. I’ll hum. I’ll say the goodnight prayer. The one that asks Jesus to take your soul if you don’t wake. But I won’t mean it. I’ll ask Jesus to take me long before you, my growing up angel. Because I have one purpose on this Earth and it’s to be here until you are strong enough not to need me. And tonight you need braids. So this night is not it. The small smile starts at the corners of my mouth and rolls up and around your name.

Poetry Series: a Winter Morning Haiku

~A Winter Morning Haiku~ 

Liz Fink-Davenport


Come back to bed
The world is frosted for us
Hibernate with me.

Poetry Series:Flags

~Flags~

Liz Fink-Davenport

Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. Turned inside out. It’s all the love you want to give but there is no receiver. Sorrow is a battle flag. You can wave to say that you paid it all. You were in the trenches. You risked. Proudly holding high the tattered piece of your pride. You loved.

We all ache. Losing love is like a window to the soul. And my sweet, you have every right to live deep in this hurt for a time. And then, come out. This was a lesson. And so if you must, crawl through the lesson and then into the light. To find love without the grief. Without the bite. To leave it turned right side out. Wait and then find the one that will gather you up in their arms and give you your last first kiss. And wave a new flag. Hope.

Poetry Series: To All Our Heartbreaks This Year

~To All Our Hearbreaks This Year~

Liz Fink Davenport

 (Last poem of the year)

Screw you. 

The poem could end here, Love. It could. We could tell all our clawed up heartaches to bugger off and never talk to them again. But there is a problem. They are all right there in your hands. So I suggest something different. Here is how we mend and learn and open our clenched fists for the first time since clenching them and hiding away the little demons. Take a deep breath. Unclench for me. Just a bit. You have got this. We are going to let out some things from that fist. 

Roll call: 

Heartache from love unrequited. Heartbreak from a mother’s loss. Heartdeath from “you are wonderful, just not what I want”. Heartdrowning from finding the last talk was the last and they are gone. Heartwrenching from all that you want is just at your fingertips and then the rug is ripped out. Heartsmodering from unforgiveness. Heartsmashing from hearing “I hate you, dad.” through a slammed door. Heartbleeding from trying. God, trying so hard and yet it’s always one more thing. Hearthardening from love placed in the wrong hands. Again. Heartmurder from self sabotage. Heartinceneration from who you never ever ever thought would ever betray you. 

All accounted for. Can you feel them all wriggling in your fist? Angry. Biting. Sulking. Wailing at the wind. They are pissed and you have kept them in your sweaty palm for 365 suns. Now, open up and look at them and thank them. Yes. I said thank them. Thank them for lessons learned, life lived, promises kept, tears that reminded you why we are alive, new chapters, and for sweet baby Jesus’ sake...for the very fact you were here on this earth to have them. Look at them and say thank you as they each fly off like small sparks from a campfire in the cold black night. They will fly. They don’t want to be in your fist anymore. 

Maybe you whisper, screw you to one or two as they take wing. But, my sweet and beautiful dirty human, you have lived this year. You have seen the best of others and the ugliest. You have breathed in and out and moved forward and that is commendable. So, as you close your eyes for the last time in this year and open again in the new...unclench your fists. Be gratitude and light. And say thank you. The little shits sure did make this year interesting. 

Now fly away. We have a new year of love to put in these now freed hands.

Poetry Series: ME TOO

~#Metoo~

Liz Fink-Davenport

This poem is going to hurt. It's going to feel like you just had it happen. Like...just now. Not days ago, weeks, yellowed years. Dusty decades. Not under quilts of lies you tell yourself. And others. Under secrets and in the shed. Burrowed into layers of dark earth. Sleeping. But it just. Happened.

So brace yourself. Grip the counter. Hold tight to the floor with your toes. Clench your teeth. It's going to hit hard like the back of a hand.

Poetry Series: Not a Love Poem

~Not A Love Poem~

Liz Fink-Davenport

This poem is going to make you think.
And when you think, I want you to stop and reassess your world. Because, my love, this is not a poem for the meak.

Here is my assessment of this universe in my 42 years being a presence. Hurt. Pain. Joy. Ecstasy. Strength. Solidarity. Freaking fear so much like a steak raw that it will make you stop and clench your teeth and not breath.

But this is a thinking poem. So I'll not give you flowery words. I'll not light a fireplace warm for your heart. I'm going to give you cold. Hard. Truth.

You need to change. Change what you whine about. Change your wardrobe. Change your location. You need change your job, grocery store, screw buddy. Something else. Something new and brilliant and bright.

I once read an article called "Not This". And I think all lives should be fashioned on a "not this" principle. I know what I don't want. Not this. You know what you don't want. Not this.

Take the Not This and move. Forward. My sweet friend, you are in limbo. It's time that fate smashed your fingers in the door enough that you let go. Let. Go.

This is a poem to make you think. I wish I had words about hillsides and romance. But I have words of movement. And of fingers smashed.

Poetry Series: SLOW

"Slow"

Liz Fink-Davenport

Sometimes, I can't keep up. With the world and how quickly it turns on its axis and how soon red lights become green. Social media tweets when I am romance novels in the hidden corner of forgotten bookstores. I am slow. So slow. And a delicate palette is needed for what I bring. 

I'm a southern song strummed out on an untuned guitar sitting on your lap on a rain wet porch. 

I am going back to bed on Saturday just to wallow in the sun warmed sheets. 

I am waffles on Sunday when there isn't time to make them and the extra cup of coffee on Monday. Because there is less time. 

I am the breath sucked in between your teeth when you are in awe. 

I am patience when patience is used up. 

I am a roll of thunder so far off and smell of lightening anticipation. 

I halt the clock on the wall just to put time in its place. 

I am the sigh that comes after the first kiss. 

I can't keep up with with this world. And it's spin and the feverish pace that love is set to. Slow down. Take time in your hands. And feel the sand drip between your fingers. Don't you want love that works more like a pocket watch barely wound? Don't you want to lengthen the moments between the words, 

I 

and 

Love 

and 

You?

Poetry Series: A BIRTHDAY POEM

~A Birthday Poem~

Liz Fink Davenport

God has a great sense of humor. He seldom gives you what you asked for and generously gives you what you begged not for. My darling, there are years that will ask you why you rowed so far ahead. And years that cry over your turned cold shoulder. And years that you will always try to say "I did my best". But your best failed. Life is funny like that. You fail. Life bites.

But here's what I know, when you hear the rush of love or waterfalls. Paddle towards them. With all your might. Love and waterfalls are always worth it. You will tumble. And you will come up with water in your ears and your nose and your mouth. Sputtering. But you will also learn the rush and the wake. You will feel more alive.

I once heard said that instead of counting towards our days we should count away. I have less than 40 summers coming to me. If I am blessed. I have spent 40 summers frivolously. May I revel in these next 40 like they are softly turned earth.

I'm gonna row. Hard. Toward the spray of the fall. Toward stupid doomed love. Towards destiny. Towards my word. Serendipity. Toward 40 warm and leafy summers.

I row. God and His sense of humor gives me the giggles. And I row. The spray of the water is on my lips.

Poetry Series: My Love Poem And Yours

~My Love Poem And Yours~

Liz Fink Davenport

This is not a love poem,

for a man.

This is a love poem...for me.
And you, sweet girl. Bird. Wild bird. Beautiful broken open heart.

I once spent my waterfall of words on loves that took it and drank it and then turned the shot glass upside down and left the bar. A promise at a taxi. No call. Not in 3 days. Not at all. My milk drunk from the gallon in front of the fridge and put back empty. Fingerprints smudged on my mirrors. Smell of stale cologne in my car. My sheets left untucked. Toothpaste stains in the sink. Key left with the crumbs on the counter. Cigarettes pressed in the ashtray. Ghosts. Shadows.

This is a love poem to my own damn heart. To MY hands. Strong. That have felt slip other fingers through. But still grip. My ribs that opened. And closed. To release and take back in. Over and over. My arms that ached with weight. But still held strong. My mind that searched the whole of desert and dark city and wide wide blue world for him. Still searching. My lips that held tight the last imprint of his. So tight they formed a drawn line. And in that line they stopped breath. They just refused to open again. To not lose that kiss. Breath again!

This is yours. This is your poem too. My darling girl. You are phenomenal. I love you with all the amount of air in this room. And the whole of the earth. I love you with my most treasured gift placed in your keeping. Maybe my grandmother's quilt or a rock I collected when I was 7 that looks like an arrow. I love you in the deep and in the shallows. I love you to the reaches of the sunrise that touch your brow and the closing of the sunset across your lap. I love you with choices. All the choices. Everyday, I choose you. I love you because your laugh is a bicycle bell. I love you because you vibrantly and constantly bewitch me. I love you in your best moments and I love you most at your worst. I love that you fail. Sometimes horribly. And falter. Because that makes you loveABLE. ReachABLE. They are not worthy otherwise. I love your feathery eyelashes that remind me of each tiny thing that brushes your cheek, is blessed to be able to be there. The stars in the black are jealous of those lashes. God, that you had any idea how magnificent you are!

And me. Listen here, me. You are loved too. By me. I'm going to tell me a secret...so I better listen close...I loved me from the moment I was me. You are all I could hope for. You are magic. You are my girl. I think you have done a fan-damn-tastic job of being me. You keep picking yourself up and kissing your own bruised knees and heart and you keep loving. Even when I tell you to stop. You do it again. Boldly. You make me so proud. You are the one I choose. I choose my own heart.

So this isn't a love poem for a man. This is a love poem for me. And you. These are the words I will read and reread to myself in the middle of the night. And sometimes, in the middle of the day. Tuck them in your coat pocket. Bring them out crumpled. Tell yourself you are adored. Treasured.

Because

everyone deserves a love poem.
And this is mine.
And yours.
And the shadows can write their own.

Poetry Series: RISE SISTER

~Rise Sister~

Liz Fink-Davenport

Rise up, sister. Rise up.

Because the mountain's jagged starts are the rocky soles of your shoes. Because the pump and pulse of the oil beneath the ground is your dark drum beat. Because your sleep is that of the fog tangled web in deep forests. Your sigh breathes Spring's warmth resuscitating the cold crusted earth. Steam rising. Lazarus the world. Your hands orchestrate the waltz of leaves on the wind and the stars in their falling from the heavens. Because when you rise, you rise the nations! The very depth and breadth of the planet feels your intake of breath, your setting shoulders square, your jaw clench and lift, your eyes flash white lightening electric determination. Your movement. Your forward steps.

So rise up. Move the world with you. Move the people with you. You hear the rush of the waterfall ahead? Row. Row to it. Like your very life depended on it. Be not afraid because you are made of that very wonder! Row to the sound of the roar and roar with it! Rise up and do that which you were made to do. 

Rise up.

 

editor's note - the original public post contained this preface:

"My play on Still I Rise (the gorgeous Maya Angelou poem that I adore) for Rachel Crabtree. Her birthday poem! Because she is going to do big things. I can just feel it."

Poetry Series: FIST SIZED HEART

~Fist Sized Heart~

Liz Fink-Davenport

I can tell you that when I say I love you that I wish for more than words that form round sounds in my mouth, rolled around, tumbled out on the ground and wash away in dirty salt water streams. I want to gather sands from cold dark ocean pools in my pockets until I am heavy, white stars splattered across skies dragged close by the aching armful, the feathers of infinite cotton down blown in fields of milkweed warmed in my clenched fists, and all the lovers thoughts of all the hearts they may never fully hold pulled tight to me like a shawl. And because I can't say the words; they aren't even in a language that can be spoken from my lips to your ears. I put my hand on your chest and allow your heartbeat to pulse into my open palm. The rhythm moving up my arm and into my ribs and changing me. Electric stop of my heart. Restart to your beat. You are hearth and fire and home. And this familiar rhythm. It is the song my heart has always longed to sing. It only needed the metronome of you. In the soft milkweed nest of a fist. The size of a heart.

Poetry Series: PAPER WORDS

Paper Words

Liz Fink-Davenport

Don't ever underestimate the power of your lips forming a few select words that are tailor made for one soul. Cut and etched and delicately laid out. Like intricate paper dolls holding hands to form a thought. So unique. So rare. That the receiver holds them tenderly between trembling fingers and retouches. Rehears. Rereads. Until the joints are thin and start to tear. Those lace-sewn syllables made a quickened heart. A fast paced breath. A sigh. Eyes closed. Relished thoughts like the last roll of honey on the tongue. The sun as it warmly sets on the face. Leaving heat. Don't stop saying the words they need to hear. Don't stop sewing. Don't stop handing over paper dolls. It is with these small things that you hold a heart. They tie. Little. Paper. Hands holding.

Poem Series: Sea Water Heart

~Sea Water Heart~

Liz Fink-Davenport

Gravity pulls tears down to the heart
that soaks them up like a sea sponge
<because this is where the boat capsized>
sucks it through the chest
gets drunk on it
greedily draws it up
fills it to weightiness
oh it's too hard to carry
ribs breaking cracking open
drops to knees
salt water heavy heart pours out hits against the floor
struggling to even beat
like a fish breathing out of water
watch it
slowing down
to a struggled, please stop this pain, death
but never
fully
released to a peaceful anything
nothing finished
because it's never finished
please count the death heaves, they are brutal
Like drowning on solid ground.
This is what heartbreak feels like.

Poem Series: Why

~Why~

Liz Fink-Davenport

Why? Tell me. Why would your sticky fingers reach into the dark and try to find shapes and pieces to fit when it's not your puzzle to play with? Why do you feel entitled to plunge depths that are dark for a reason? Why would your eyes pry to see in a heart when you are an interloper and have no business there? Why would you be so ego filled to sap into something like love? Why don't you know that you are stealing?

You are a thief. You are not to be trusted. You take what is not yours. If you aren't going to be the man that stakes claim and promises souls entwined as centuries slide away...take your damn hands off someone else's future. She does not belong to you. She is not a mountain to conquer, she is not a feather blown onto your path, she is not a penny found in a parking lot. She is not your boredom or your place filler. Or a shiny thing to brighten your shitty days. She is not to be told rattling tin cans of promises. She is Someone's. Someone's forever. Someone's promises. Someone's keeps. Someone's sleepy kisses and sock feet tickles on Sunday morning. She will go to war with Someone. She is not to be owned...but rather promised. A promise. She will promise too. She will. If he is worthy. Don't damage her.

You play, little boy. And you have no idea of the broken toys you have left behind you. So stop. Just stop. And quit leaving your heart-messes for big boys to clean up. You are flippant with love. Please. Stop. Let them go. Let Someone find them. Don't leave them with sticky fingerprints and crow bar opened heart doors. They never close the same again.

Why? Why don't you wait. Wait. Sit down and wait. Leave her. Leave her alone. Leave her for Someone. Unless you are ready to be Someone. Wait. And wash your hands.
You may be
Someone's too.

Poem Series: Sister, Listen

~Sister, Listen~

Liz Fink-Davenport

Let me say to you this thing. Because I don't believe you have heard it before. Oh, the words have crossed your ears. But you never drank them in. You gently shook your head. So listen now.

You are a poem. You are a symphony. You are honey dripped warm on a tongue tip in the first summer sun. You are the roll of the ocean's deep tide miles below. You are jazz on a rainy Sunday morning. You are a geographical miracle. Your body is mountain peaks and plateaus and the basin of the sea and the tips of the peninsulas and rounded hips and fingertips and eyebrows that set off earthquakes. Your skin is a tapestry of tiny scars that are a timeline and freckles that form constellations and...velvet. Your eyes light the room and the world and my God you don't know their sway. You are who sets wars in motion. Ships to sea. Warriors to battle. You are a mystery wrapped in quiet strength and 2am never seen heartbreak. You have the thoughts that change the universe and send new moons to orbit. Your laugh. Damn. Your laugh is the lighting of the day and every bell ever rung. Walk for me. Because your stride is the length of your priorities and aspirations. Your song is sung in every radio and swaying church piano and cup holding street violinist. You are sunrises. A peek at what's to come. You are not done. You are a start.

My sister. Go now and look in the mirror. If you don't see what I see, smash that mirror and focus on my voice. You are. You. Are.

My love, you are all that could ever be desired. So make the metronome heel click of your day be the drums to which you launch a fleet.

Poem Series: LESS

"Less"

Liz Fink-Davenport

"I wish I loved you less..."

Poem Series: Spaces

Spaces

Liz Fink-Davenport

"I never gave it all away....."

Poem Series: IF

~If~

Liz Fink-Davenport

If I'm going to love again, 

I'll love a man with so much ocean in his veins that when his hand strokes the side of my jaw I smell the bite of reef inside his wrist pulse. Sand gritting the hairs of his chest. And I hear the rush of a new wave forming from the inside of his palm like a shell. His hair washed white tipped from the sun, pulling color from him...and to him. If I'm going to love again, he will have the moon's powerful tow, like a rope tied to the edge of the waves. His stars and planets will be my net and I'll rest in it like a woven bed. Eyes that shine out of dark cold places. Explosions of mass. Fireballs thrown across the black. Cosmos walking.

There are things we don't tell anyone. Even our closest that we say we tell all to. No. We keep some secrets deep and dark and salt water heavy. Locked. In the murk. I once loved a man with a fish hook burned on his right eye so that the sea would never forsake him. Right there in the depth of the bluest blue was a white hook to remind me of my heart. Rip tied down. Locked in him. I once loved a man with Orion's Belt freckled on his chest that I could trace it like a connect the dots. I would go up and back down. And never find a universe in the brown dots but just a pattern.

A fish hook and a constellation. The same man. A shell of a palm. Empty. And the briny brush of lips over again. A night sky in his eyes and stars
and promises.
Moons rolling from his laugh. And wave. Upon wave. Crashing.

Secrets. And the roar of tides. That ebb. And flow. Of gravity and the moon and...
your ability to love.
You were never able.

A tidal pool. Versus the ocean.
A candle lit. Versus the sun.
If I'm going to love...I want ocean deep and solar system wide. Because I deserve
all the expanse of the heavens
and the pitched fathoms of the sea. My loves, you do too.
I want it all. All of him.

If I'm going to love again.

Poem Series: LOVE A WOMAN

~Love a Woman~ 

Liz Fink-Davenport

Darling, you want love? To know whom to love? It's a hard lesson learned. You have been so wrong before that your heart is raw. But here is what I know. Love a woman with eyes that burn with intellect and passion. She will hone you like iron on anvil. Someone that reaches for you in the conversations that should divide. She will be the bridge to connect. Love a woman with eyebrowsthat tell you the wrong path is ahead long before you know it. One furrowed brow can save legions from war. Love a woman with lips that purse when you do wrong, and soften when you do right. A woman's lips will tell you much. Love a woman with darkness and hidden truths and catacombs. She is secret treasures and long sunken truths. Dig. Dig deep. Beg to dig more. Then safeguard what you find, it is more valuable than rubies. Love a woman with a swing in her stride and hips that make music. Your life will be lyrical and her rolling jaunt will carry you on days you have no legs. Love a woman who can whistle. There is music there when you can't bring yourself to sing. Love a woman who's deep laugh washes warm over you. And you hear it often. Love a woman with bite and challenge and tenacity. Days get tough, she can hold on. Love a woman who can not cry. And love a woman who cries. This is the same woman...trying to be strong. Love a woman that challenges you and asks hard questions, she wants deep parts of you. Love a jealous woman. You are worthy of a flag. A banner. No halvies. No shares. You are someone's whole universe. Claimed. Love a woman who has been brought to her knees but has risen with her own strength. She can do it again. Love a woman, not because what she lets everyone see...but for her very nuances that the rest of the world will never know. The way she touches her mouth with the tips of her fingers when she wants to hide her words. The soft butterfly flutter of her lashes as she sleeps on your chest in trust. The curve of her throat. The pulse in her wrist. The arch in her back. The delicate round of her belly. The poem that she is. The song that she is. The thunder roll and lightening white that she is. The anchor that she is. The loosed kite that she is.

Love the woman that frightens you the most. And then leap into her like jumping off into the abyss. That's the One. Because only when it is scary, is it worthy. Love was never meant to be tepid or safe.