Published Poetry
Puddle
(originally published in Particle Magazine, Autumn 2015,
University of Nottingham)
Raging.
Fear. Gray.
Some
call it dreary or drab
despite
the grab, the pull of the roots,
but
it is your story,
your
May Day,
your
birth.
Pit-pat.
Thrush. Gush.
Youth
finds you growing,
stretching
your arms and fingertips
to
reach a new sidewalk,
a new
grass line,
a new
curb.
Billow.
Wisp. Sigh.
Retreat
your Mother Sky,
and
hopes rise.
Face
reflecting people walk,
buses
splash,
canines
trot.
Still.
Sun. Heat.
Father
Time cups your soul
in
his hands
You’re
shrinking,
he’s
drinking.
The sidewalk is dry.
You are but a memory
that reflected
the way
we held hands.
Once.
Small Talk
(originally published in Particle Magazine, Spring 2016,
University of Nottingham)
Nobody wants to bare their heart—a
whitewashed wall,
on which hang the faded memories of
yesterday and the grand sketches of tomorrow
—not when it shows the dirty
fingerprints of children,
the crumbling drywall from the
fight, or the blood droplets from last Tuesday.
Even the loved are not safe from the
cobwebs of time or the settling of dust on a lonely soul.
Society saunters in, sporting a suit
and carrying a pail of touchup paint.
When she asks, “How are you?”, I follow
protocol, dipping my brush
in the pail of cheery, yellow lies,
dabble it over the latest spot of mold
and smile, saying, “I’m doing well.
How are you?”
Heartbeat
(originally published on Spillwords)
she’s the reminder that I need fresh
air—
kiss of sharp needles, stabbing my
feet as
they plunge in this icy green
lakeside shore from
liquefied glaciers where old trunks
sank and
stick up like a cross-stitch quilt;
when you ask
me to listen, rest my head atop your
chest, please don’t ask me to relax,
for still I
feel the avalanche, lifeblood of
this sphere with its
veins of ash and fire pulsing to
drumbeats
in the deep; she first stole my
breath like a
pickpocket, making me double-check
my
back. I can’t grasp hold of fear
when it is
keeping me alive. this earth is my
home—
my heart core in that cavern you
call my
chest—I’ll hold my breath, dreading
the next earth-
quake, because it’s more than shivers
running up
my backside, making my hair stand on
end;
it’s a reminder that this, my wild
heart,
is only one organ in our world of
orchestras, setting the march with
drums now
Most Read Poem of 2018
In memoriam of the siblings I never knew
She creaks
like an
old woman,
pressure
shifting on
her antique bones
as she stoops forward
sits back
and rises on her legs,
joints popping.
Would that I may be so loved
should age settle in
like a silk layer
of dust,
like the sand
sinking in an hourglass.
She first changed her dress
when I was but a child, still
playing hide and seek behind her bosom—
later my mother lost
my sibling—
who
would she or he
have been?
Now I sit and turn the pages
o’er and o’er while the fireplace
sweeps up
the forgotten summer days.
Readers’ Choice Poem
Best Imagery
Have you ever seen a flowerfall?
The way the petal spills down the rocks,
a bouquet of white and purple icicles.
The cherry blossoms unfold like origami—
one day baby buds, the next busty blooms,
then their color drips away like waterlogged paper.
The sky’s painted blue; somebody forgot
to erase the smudges of white and with one stroke
a blur of purple-gray thunder shatters the illusion.
Not even the ground is still—
she crawls with ants, writhes with worms,
cracks from the dry days all too firm.
The tomcat stands petrified in the field;
the hawk swoops down; the dog bites dirt
as the mice wait for the rain to come down.
***
More 2018 Poetry
Silent Words (January)
Haiku Collection: Sibling Trio (February)
Early Spring (April)
Still Life in Spring (May)
The To-Be-Read List (July)
Biking to Work (August)
Waking Up (September)
Autumn (October)
2017 Poetry
Weird Winter Weather (January)
In Season (February)
The Crow and the Heron (March)
Magpie (September)
Snowfell (December)
2016 Poetry
Flour (January)
Starlight (February)
The Muse (August)
The Christmas Market (December)
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