Have I been asleep? Just hitting the snooze alarm? Over and over and over. For years? I see my girls passionately being activists. Where did I go? Things I rallied for as a young woman were obtained. Not everything. Not perfection. By far. But so much so that maybe I sat down. Maybe I went to... Continue Reading →
An Anti-Trump Poetry Reading It begins with listening. As writers resist I hear ridicule of the ridiculous. I hear more, again, no! Hands and penises and size... No. Like eating ice cream with my ears brain freeze I stop listening. It begins with listening. A dozen synonyms for orange. Tangerine. Cantaloupe. No! All fruit all... Continue Reading →
Years ago when we lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in a wonderful little adobe house with two rosebushes, a pomegranate tree, and an apricot tree that hung over the neighbor's fence into our yard (and with fruit, location is ownership, right?), many of the neighbors had suns hanging on the porches or on the... Continue Reading →
I had a boss once who, when I knocked on her door to wish her well on her vacation, looked up, and said, "Anne Marie, unless you are dying, I do not have time for you." Well, what else could I do after that but write a poem? So I did. Unless You're Dying* for... Continue Reading →
I believe it is a woman thing. Choking. We choke up. We choke when we laugh too hard. Or cry. We choke on our food. Or I do. Laughing and eating has led to food or drink flying straight across the table from my mouth to the face of my date. I remember this happening... Continue Reading →
With the movie Barbie making changes in people's minds, their understanding of feminism/sexism/racism etc., and their understanding of who can make great movies (Congrats, Greta Gerwig), I thought I'd pull out a piece posted seven years ago, dust it off, and post it again. Here's to Barbie! Some 20 years ago when it first showed... Continue Reading →
The first winter storm rolled in yesterday. It rained all evening, and into the night. Storms like this warm the air a bit, and I slept with my window open, listening to the rain all night long. My high desert mountain life takes me, every day, away from the wet lake life I lived in... Continue Reading →
Has the world always been in overfire? Like my wood stove after I stoke it with well-seasoned cedar and pine, hefty logs on top of crisp sheaths of aspen kindling. I pile those atop a foundation of twigs that I obsessively collect from my yard throughout the year. The girls hated when I shouted 'pine... Continue Reading →
The girls were asked this question quite often by their once estranged father. And often, for someone who disappeared to the far corners of the earth, of depression, or both, and surfaced randomly every several months, I suppose, means a few times. And a few times, in the course of the years in which the... Continue Reading →
Pockets. The forest is replete with secrets, the pockets that protect them. Dark hollows full of mystery and intrigue hidden codes, stories. Veracities. Boo Radley gave them great fame. As did Perry Como. Falling stars and all. We love pockets (or is it the secrets)? To carry a surprise. A little bomb of the unknown.... Continue Reading →
pocket poet 