To Sharon Olds and Pablo Neruda (RIP): Thank you for making odes amazing She lives inside me still, after all these yearsas quiet as a drop of blood sliding down a swollencanal. She wasn’t always so noiseless, so white, she waslush and screaming vermillion like a flycatcher caughtin a uterus. She’d stain anything that happy,... Continue Reading →
I Am a Lithium Atom Always on the verge of instability, unreliability my isotopes embrace energetically although it is with low bindability. No wonder I can’t keep a man forever. They hover around me like my electrons hitching a fast ride to the furthest flight out. They play the shell game with my unstable heart.... Continue Reading →
for Flo Hart Arthritis I remember watching my dear friend Jimmy’s mother, Flo, scoot, literally, or squiggle, like a fish out of water, across the kitchen floor to travel from one cabinet to the next gathering what she needed to put dinner together. I offered to help, and she thanked me with her always... Continue Reading →
1-20-20 I cannot escape who I am, or forget -- Patti Griffin A best friend of mine completed 60 never-done-before things the year she turned 60. It was a pretty cool celebration. She didn't do 60 amazing bucket list things like climbing mountain peaks or deep sea diving or forging raging rivers. Instead, she ordered... Continue Reading →
Soup is truth. Soup is simple. Soup is not pot roast. Or scrambled eggs. Soup is honest. Soup keeps our oldest stories. Sings them in the choir. Soup has an open mind. Soup does not mind all the leftovers in the fridge. Soup loves all things fresh from the garden. Kill the bugs first,... Continue Reading →
Eat Taxes for Dinner Ten years of 1040s nibbled by the tiniest of tiny teeth like zippers that traveled back and forth across the top of my marital status my earnings, my dependents, my citizenry and found home. My cold cabinet in the gray garage made warm in even the harshest of mountain winters by pipsqueaks who... Continue Reading →
Every kiss adventure begins with one kiss. The first one. First kisses, as in the first time you kiss a person whom you have never kissed, as in a kiss kiss--not a grandma’s peck or baby’s burble, although those are pretty wonderful--but the first kiss with your crush. First kiss with your date. Your... Continue Reading →
Plight of the Introvert Balled up like an armadillo fisted claws below my chin I stare straight at my belly it’s empty again hollow as my foraged nest my view until breakfast Coyote struts away, pillager he spilled my cache What’s he want with ants or grasshopper stew? Mere appetizers lucky you. Curled up and... Continue Reading →
Or Rules for Cools How could I have forgotten about this? This thing? This heat? As in living in it. As in the bulk of my waking hours, and some of my sleeping hours, being focused on it? Actually, focused on staying cool. Avoiding sweat. How can sweat surprise me? Perhaps I did not remember... Continue Reading →
Poetry Month, Poem A Day, No. 12 An Ode to My Mom's Scones Not quite a cake, much less investment not nearly as ordinary or typical as toast. Doesn't matter if you do, or if you don't dress it guarantees pleasure for hand, mouth and nose. The Irish claim it, the British take credit, but... Continue Reading →
pocket poet 