Womenstruation

What if women invented religion?
Would menstruation still be a source of shame
Or of pride?

Would it still signify the loss of an unconceived child,
A vile symptom of uncleanliness,
A sin…?

Or would it be seen as holy:
A sign of a woman’s power over death
To bear life…?

Would women still be shunned from the temple,
Forbidden to touch or interact with others
And taught to be ashamed?

Or would we be revered,
Seen as closer to the Goddess,
Celebrated & sought out?

Let’s reinvent religion,
Knowing now why our bodies do what they do,
So that none will be shunned for their natural functions.

Why There Are No Birds in Winter

I know
why there are no birds
in the winter.
They migrate
just because they hate
the snow
and ice
and cold
and slush
and wind
and rain
and ice
and mush
and leafless trees
and winter clothes
and frozen ears
and runny nose
and long, long nights
and short days
and cloudy skies
and foggy haze
and itchy sweaters
and sliding on the sidewalk
and shoveling the driveway
and snowballs dripping down your neck
and you know something?
I don’t blame them,
I’d leave too.
Except I’d miss
the cocoa
and carolers
and sitting by the fire
and snow forts
and school vacation
and sledding
and snow angels
and ice skating
and snowmen
and Daddy kicking the front tire
because the car won’t start
and hopping around on one foot.

Heartbreak

Heartbreak
Found object assemblage

More Princesses

More Princesses
Glitter nail polish on pre-printed Disney canvasses

Misty Morning

Misty Morning
Watercolor & oil paint pen

Let's Go Slushmucking

Let's Go Slushmucking
Cover illustration for Let's Go Slushmucking

Found Photographs

Favorite found photographs

Pieces of Jennifer Weigel

Pieces of Jennifer Weigel
Toenail clippings (of myself) with certificates of authenticity, as included in FluxJob

Morning Gull

Morning Gull
Watercolor & oil paint pen

The Katydids Play Hopscotch

The busybuzzing bumblebees
circle silver dandelion clouds.
The millipedes shuffle their feet
to the tune of the Jitterbug.
The ladybugs wear polka dots
the gentlemen wear ties and hats.
The crickets form a string quartet
and give concerts in the summer.
The grasshoppers jump rope and sing
and the katydids play hopscotch.

Paranoia

Paranoia
Digital collage

Gifts

Gifts
Illustration for childrens poem Gifts

Figure Drawing

Figure Drawing
Marker on paper

Please Recycle

Please Recycle
Digital photograph displayed in plastic bottles found on a 2-mile walk from the house

Surprise

Surprise!  For Cranky Yellow
Post It Notes left in CDs at music resale stores all over St. Louis before a one-night event inspired by a Craig's list post about a Post It Note found in a Death Cab for Cutie CD

Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision (Keeping Dry on the Katy Trail While Plein Air Painting)
Acrylic on canvas board, displayed with statement & painting palette

Corporate America

The Trouble with Corporate America
Marker on paper

Girlhood Friends

Girlhood Friends
Acrylic & oil paint pen on canvas board, displayed with doll subjects from my childhood

Fire Sitting

I like sitting by the fire in the winter
and drinking cocoa
while my mother reads the paper
and my daddy watches football on TV,
as long as his team’s winning.

Contemplation

I was caught in contemplation,
the kind of thought you can only do
when you’re riding someplace, a passenger,
passing nondescript scenery as the corn fields sweep by
in their mid-July rifts of green and beige.
First, I would close my left eye,
and then would reopen it and close my right,
searching for a sign of my perception of color
in the painterly gestures of the cornfields alongside the highway
as they cascaded through my vision.
It seemed that my right eye saw more vivid colors:
olives, taupes, brightly decadent trumpet vine oranges.
An enormous array of colors glistened before me.
And my left eye seemed to seek out details,
for it knew a far wider range of clarity,
transforming almost everything
into dull, muted earth tones and shades of gray.
It was my left eye that noticed, for instance,
a monarch with wings outstretched,
sunning on the Queen Anne’s Lace that adorned the highway.
It was in this contemplation that I lost my sense of time and place.

Ocean Waves

Ocean Waves
Watercolor & oil paint pen

The Snow's Gone

The Snow's Gone
Illustration for The Snow's Gone childrens poem

Let's Go Slushmucking

Let's Go Slushmucking
Illustration for Let's Go Slushmucking children's poem

At Ease

At Ease
Watercolor & oil paint pen

The Incident

The Incident
Glove, ring, rat trap

The Mourners

The Mourners
Pencil on paper

Porn

Porn
Visualize with singing of Monty Python's Spam song, but replace the word "Spam" with "Porn"

Unselfie

Unselfie
I-phone photograph with found object from Jonathan Stangroom

Bay View

Bay View
Watercolor & oil paint pen

I've never been much of a poet

My tongue trips over words
with an awkward uncertainty
and my deciphering of context
is more than a shade awry.

Yet the ebb and flow of my life’s own observations
boil and roil and toil within me, yearning to be known;
like a rush hour traffic jam on a Monday morning,
my thoughts often race to a halt before speeding on.

Words that best express me
wax and wane and stop and go;
lost to the traffic of my mind,
my musings become congested.

In this strange habit I have of thinking silently aloud,
I seem to have rambled my thoughts into a corner
and, having tripped over an awkward pause in conversation,
I ponder navigating a new course of words through the jam.

But the words that I search for
are always miles ahead or behind
and I come to realize once again -
I’ve never been much of a poet.