This dandelion This daffodil clump This dying maple This brittle skin Empty mouth This humorless day This And not much play In me Days you want to quit The thing This thing And can’t even Make fun of Yourself or Take a ribbing Find a future In fuscia Look for a clue In the color … Continue reading Empty Mouth
Goliath; Knock Knock Who’s There?
This world is full of big men of ill intent and all us little guys unsure of ways to change our relationship, nonviolently. I say send each one to a large mirror. Place a neon yellow Post-it note on the glass. It’ll read: Hey Goliath (Goliath Who? He’ll say) Go lyeth down You looketh sick
Oh Dear, Poetry
What is it anyway? The faith that whatever occurs is as reasonable a thought as what does not. The looping lilt the loopy smile, a heavy lift on less inspired days. This, get-out-of-the-way but- stay- nearby- push and pull of lines that so want to be included but don’t quite belong. This tendency to storify … Continue reading Oh Dear, Poetry
Albeit
It was years ago, albeit (yucky frog word!) could have been yesterday your peer edit in the margins of his Joseph Conrad paper made me laugh out loud but I don’t think I’ve used the word ever in anything til now. And frankly, nobody uses it much these days. Or then. Come to think of … Continue reading Albeit
Road Trip Shanty
We rose with the sun, ate a honey bun for the fair morning was a beckoning one and the purple fields and greening leaves ‘gainst a great blue sky above Yo Ho the open road Cups a-brim with our cups-a Joe Hi Ho press the pedal low Where the center line don’t show Road up … Continue reading Road Trip Shanty
Sonnet Seeking Sun
When I consider darker days I’m tempted sore against the light My Quaker forebearers clear of sight Might shake their heads, avert their gaze There is such sin as slothful laze Of inner gifts that languish while Powers that be ingest their bile a sad refrain, our wretched ways are amplified against the dark and … Continue reading Sonnet Seeking Sun
Saturday Poem
Saturdays are promises to myself I cannot keep. The barge in my backyard carries coal and candy. Spring violet sweetflower scents the air as your tears, audible over the airwaves, show a dreadful face of grief. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle of the week, Kate, and I’ll hoist Cleveland and all your homeless children … Continue reading Saturday Poem
Her Mantra is a List
Bays English muffins 3 green bananas Strawberry yogurt Half and half Coffee Cocktail nuts White wine I remember her grocery list for her now and the way home on a slim-laned road while she says again “This road is the same as it ever was” and I say “uh huh” again. And again she remembers … Continue reading Her Mantra is a List
Make Of It
Life, word-glazed, what-knot, and blind-note, we cry in our houses, eat bread, and go on. With arms outstretched we sleepwalk, stealing light in our white night shirts. In the middle of forgetting we remember oddly, small dream snips, other selves abandoned. Between wake and sleep we are sailing with limbs and lips wide open, braced … Continue reading Make Of It
O Holy Night
We mustn’t laugh. O Holy Night, when year after year the unholy octave looms, then tanks as a warbling soloist, who has only just rushed to the church after setting out soup and Christmas Eve charcuterie, with a long night of wrapping still ahead, straightens her robe smooths her hair, steps forward with the organist … Continue reading O Holy Night
Early Morning Poems 