Teach your children well. Let them know when to protest, when to pray. If sink or swim are the options, tell them to swim. Always. Teach your children well. Make mistakes, but own them. Make cookies. Lots of them. Make rules, and bend them carefully and only if necessary. Teach your children well. Trust them.... 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 →
Having someone's hands in your mouth is one of the most unfortunate, and memorable, experiences of a lifetime. Whether it frightens you to death, or simply reminds you of but another tedium of modern medicine, when that practitioner dons those nightmare blue latex gloves, wiggles their fingers into them tightly, and casually says 'open wide,'... Continue Reading →
We stitch together what we can from our lives, avidly trying to make sense of it all. Yesterday's subtle sunset in the west, a simple display of gray swathes with a few thin golden lines, lovely and soft, essential but not memorable. Lo and behold, turn around and that same simple daily decsent has indeed... Continue Reading →
Yesterday's hike revealed crashing waterfalls. Okay, not like Niagara, but nonetheless wonderful flows charging down the boulders. As I neared the mountain, or better said, as I left houses and neighborhoods behind--we're all on the mountain after all--I spotted several happy rivulets flowing near the trail, and sometimes across the trail. I followed the largest... Continue Reading →
I hate snot. Thick wet gray green globs at the edge of, or protruding from, a nose will make me gag or heave far before poop or blood or bad beans in the fridge. If there is a tongue inching toward said globs, or making contact, I will, without a doubt, lose my groceries. Granted,... 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 →
It's rare here on the mountain. Fog. Not like Detroit. So many foggy days, foggy walks to school. Foggy drives. In 1979 my best friend Bridget and I drove in a fog so dense and large and lasted so long that we came to know it, and we named it; Fred.We were on a road... Continue Reading →
pocket poet 