mapping the nest
So excited to embark on this journey once more! Outside my window, April is in full bloom and pouring buckets of rain, but I find the rain soothing; it can't dampen my joy. This year, NaPoWriMo is celebrating its 20th anniversary and I'm beyond happy to have joined its cohort of intrepid travelers in 2017!... Continue Reading →
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash Another poem from my forthcoming collection a woman made entirely of air (Dancing Girl Press, 2023). This is a NaPoWriMo effort! I wrote the first draft on April 13, 2020. It was first published, along with Cargo, in Tinderbox Poetry Journal in the fall of the same year. Forgive Me:... Continue Reading →
Photo by Johannes Plenio via Unsplash Coming out of hibernation with more good news! My chapbook a woman made entirely of air will be coming out by the end of this year with the delightful Dancing Girl Press, "an imprint devoted to publishing innovative writing by women authors in delectable handmade editions"! I'm so happy... Continue Reading →
Photo by Johannes Plenio via Unsplash I have wonderful news! My new poetry collection Temporary Skin (my first one in English!) was accepted for publication by Glass Lyre Press. I couldn't be happier and more excited about working with the Glass Lyre team. I love the authors they publish, the high quality of their books,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Stormseeker via Unsplash Things to Do with Silence The mouth of a well brims with silence.Quench your thirst, carry it forthwherever you go. The pathwill lead back to itsome distant tomorrow.Break your bread in silence.Words scatter like wind.Learn from the tree, its rootsgathering darkness, its branches—a harbor for birdsong and rain.Is silence a... Continue Reading →
Oedipus at Colonus by Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust, 1788 Another Oedipus Story The familiar dream follows himone busy Sunday into the thick of a crowd in a bazaar.Small words roll like pebblesin a pitcher, laughter like quickmoney from a loosened fist.He sees herds of white cows, endlesspastures, a city where the deadoutnumber the living. He sees a man he... Continue Reading →
Photo by Nikolay Loubet via Unsplash The first draft of this poem owes its existence to false alarm. What I initially believed to be a heart attack was soon diagnosed as magnesium deficiency and corrected. What could not be corrected was my mother's absence, whom I had lost the previous year. I was in deep... Continue Reading →
Photo by Cherry Laithang via Unsplash I wrote the first draft of this poem many years ago, when I was a new mother with a full-time teaching job who struggled to find time to write. At the time, my self-respect seemed to be directly correlated with my ability to produce perfectly finished poems, which rarely... Continue Reading →
Photo by Ahmed Zayan via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show... Continue Reading →
Photo by Engin Akyurt via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as... Continue Reading →
Photo by Nathan Dumlao via Unsplash Today's prompt asks us "to write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way... Continue Reading →
Mass graves near Mariupol, April 2022Photograph: Maxar Technologies/AFP/Getty Images Today's prompt challenges us "to write a “duplex.” A “duplex” is a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown. Here’s one of his first “Duplex” poems, and here is a duplex written by the poet I.S. Jones. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has... Continue Reading →
Verzasca Valley, July 27, 2021 Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms. Once you’ve read a few, you’ll see what... Continue Reading →
Old wall in Malá Strana, Prague,April 22, 2022 Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things." (Full NaPoWriMo post available here.) I'm combining two prompts into one, since I was traveling last week and missed... Continue Reading →
Penelope Unraveling Her Web (1783-84) by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) Today's prompt asks us "to write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that... Continue Reading →
Photo by Duncan Kidd via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about. I feel conflicted about Black Forest Cake, for example. It always looks so pretty in a bakery window, and I want... Continue Reading →
Photo by Vincent van Zalinge via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that starts with a command. It could be as uncomplicated as “Look,” as plaintive as “Come back,” or as silly as “Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.” Whatever command you choose, I hope you... Continue Reading →
Photo by Moritz Knöringer via Unsplash Today's prompt is "based on Faisal Mohyuddin’s poem “Five Answers to the Same Question.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is." (Full NaPoWriMo post available here.) Here's my... Continue Reading →
Photo by Alvan Nee via Unsplash Today's prompt was "developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, and it asks you to think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you." (Full NaPoWriMo post available here.) I've been on the road for the past... Continue Reading →
Photo by Zdeněk Macháček via Unsplash Today's prompt asks us to "write a poem about a very small thing. Whether it’s an atom, a button, a hummingbird’s egg, dollhouse furniture, or the mythical world’s smallest violin, I hope you enjoy your poetic adventures into the microscopic." (Full NaPoWriMo post available here.) Like yesterday, I picked an... Continue Reading →
Homage to Apollinaire by Mark Chagall (1911-1912) Today's prompt "is pretty simple – a love poem! If you’re having trouble getting into the right mood for a love poem, maybe you’ll find inspiration in one of my favorites, June Jordan’s “Poem for Haruko.”' (Full NaPoWriMo post available here.) I have two responses to this prompt,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Adrián Valverde via Unsplash Today's prompt "comes to us from this list of “all-time favorite writing prompts.” It asks you to name your alter-ego, and then describe him/her in detail. Then write in your alter-ego’s voice. Maybe your alter-ego is a streetwise detective, or a superhero, or a very small goldfinch. Whoever or whatever your... Continue Reading →
Photo by Joshua Hoehne via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying. They say that “all cats are black at midnight,” but really? Surely some of them remain striped. And maybe there is an ill wind that blows some good. Perhaps that wind just has... Continue Reading →
Photo by Diana Parkhouse via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, I’d like you to write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first words of each line. Perhaps you could write a... Continue Reading →
Spring snow (April 1, Pully, Switzerland) Slowly coming out of hibernation, but will try to catch up with the missed prompts throughout the month. Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem . . . in the form of a poetry prompt. If that sounds silly, well, maybe it is! But it’s not without precedent.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Joanne Francis via Unsplash Passage First published in The Hunger, Issue 8, Spring 2020
Photo by Lora Ninova via Unsplash The first draft of this poem was written in the spring of 2018, during NaPoWriMo. Grateful to Maureen Thorson for her Day 18 prompt (and all the other prompts). Nothing Left to Do You must forget what came before,how really there was no cloudof mosquitos that night, only a... Continue Reading →
Photo by Jakob Owens via Unsplash Today's prompt asks us to "write a poem in the form of a “to-do list.” The fun of this prompt is to make it the “to-do list” of an unusual person or character. For example, what’s on the Tooth Fairy’s to-do list? Or on the to-do list of Genghis... Continue Reading →
Photo by Johannes Plenio via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us to "read a few poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write your own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead. Not a famous person, necessarily – perhaps a remembered acquaintance from your childhood, like the gentleman who ran the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Kirstin Drew via Unsplash Today' prompt, "which comes from Holly Lyn Walrath, is pretty simple. As she explains it here: "Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title... Continue Reading →
Diner, possibly located in Liminality, IN Today's prompt challenges us to "select a photograph from the perpetually disconcerting @SpaceLiminalBot, and write a poem inspired by one of these odd, in-transition spaces. Will you pick the empty mall food court? The vending machine near the back entrance to the high school gym? The swimming pool at what seems to be... Continue Reading →
Photo by Frances Gunn via Unsplash Mandala I am glued to the interior of my thoughts. A shredded ballerina figurine dipped in gold. Trees, water, sky. Autumn. Spring. Autumn. ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Romana Iorga some things to watch out for in a poem something big something small something with wings something hungry or sated something that doesn’t know what it wants to die to... Continue Reading →
Photo by Fallon Michael via Unsplash This poem was written when my children were very young and my fear of losing them, all-consuming. Over the years, this fear has morphed into something I can live with. Sometimes it's a mere worry, a claw of unease scratching between my shoulder blades. Other times, it becomes deep... Continue Reading →
Photo by Kalle Kortelainen via Unsplash The Shape of Her Body in the Snow Do I exist if I doubt? How do my newly-shaped limbs come into being? I must be here, anchoredin the movement . of falling snow. Doubts float over my liquid . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by George Hiles via Unsplash Thief This morningI steal awaya moment.I hold it tight in my palm,as it stretchesits limbs into my flesh —a sleepy rabbit.I watch itskip across the thresholdinto fresh snow,leave no marks on the page, exceptfor the shadowof a slightlysmallertruth. First published in Moria, Issue 5, Spring 2020
Photo by Tomas Robertson via Unsplash The Meadow Is Filled with Stones White stones, flat or round. Some of them boulders, some small enoughto fit in my fist—the instrument of a perfect murder. Blunt, faceless. If I kill and let the stone fallin this field, who’d ever find it? …There’s a farmhouse at the edgeof a Romanian village, lonely and thickwith shadows... Continue Reading →
Photo by Dawid Łabno via Unsplash Sharp Dawn All night long, black moths shattered my bed with their bodies. I see your shape in the hallwaygrowing from my gnawed fingernails, bowing toward the earth. Who am I to honor you, Mother?Bring in your dog, sit by the fire. I have wine cooling in the bucket, bread and cheese on the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash . Birth . For my grandmother She walked to the door: small, viscous steps. The apron tightened over her swollen belly. She called the virgin’s tender name and it came... Continue Reading →
A few weeks ago, I discovered the beautiful poem "Delivery Rhyme" by Dora Malech and was inspired to use it for a whimsical art project during an online workshop with my soul sister--and fellow poet and artist--Marga Fripp. Marga's gorgeous artwork, entitled "Willow Dreams, a magical sisters' adventure," can be found here. Mine is below... Continue Reading →
Photo by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver via Unsplash . Today’s prompt challenges us to “write a poem about something that returns. For, just as the swallows come back to Capistrano each year, NaPoWriMo and GloPoWriMo will ride again!” ~ NaPoWriMo, Day 30 Once again, NaPoWriMo has been a wild, exuberant, insanely rewarding experience! I'm beyond grateful to Maureen Thorson for... Continue Reading →
Photo by Christian Søgaard via Unsplash . Today’s prompt challenges us to “write a poem in the form of a review. But not a review of a book or a movie of a restaurant. Instead, I challenge you to write a poetic review of something that isn’t normally reviewed. For example, your mother-in-law, the moon, or the year... Continue Reading →
Photo by Ingo Doerrie via Unsplash . Today’s prompt asks us to “write about a particular fruit – your choice. But I’d like you to describe this fruit as closely as possible. Perhaps your poem could attempt to tell the reader some (or all!) of the following about your chosen fruit: What does it look like, how does... Continue Reading →
Photo by Wendy Scofield via Unsplash . Our daily prompt asks us to “make use of today’s resource. Find a poem in a language that you don’t know, and perform a “homophonic translation” on it. What does that mean? Well, it means to try to translate the poem simply based on how it sounds. You may not wind... Continue Reading →
Today’s prompt asks us to manifest our gratitude for having made it to Day 20 by writing “a poem about a handmade or homemade gift that you have received. It could be a friendship bracelet made for you by a grade-school classmate, an itchy sweater from your Aunt Louisa, a plateful of cinnamon toast from... Continue Reading →
Photo by Josh Sorenson via Unsplash . Today’s prompt challenges us to “write an ode to life’s small pleasures. Perhaps it’s the first sip of your morning coffee. Or finding some money in the pockets of an old jacket. Discovering a bird’s nest in a lilac bush or just looking up at the sky and watching the clouds... Continue Reading →
Photo by Chris Sabor via Unsplash . Today’s prompt challenges us to “write a poem of over-the-top compliments. Pick a person, place, or thing you love, and praise it in the most effusive way you can. Go for broke with metaphors, similes, and more. Need a little inspiration? Perhaps you’ll find it in the lyrics of Cole Porter’s... Continue Reading →
Photo by Matthew T. Rader via Unsplash . Today's prompt invites us “to think about your own inspirations and forebears (whether literary or otherwise). Specifically, I challenge you today to write a poem that deals with the poems, poets, and other people who inspired you to write poems. These could be poems/poets/people that you strive to be like,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Carl Newton via Unsplash . “There’s a pithy phrase attributed to T.S. Eliot: “Good poets borrow; great poets steal.” (He actually said something a bit different, and phrased it a bit more pompously – after all, this is T.S. Eliot we’re talking about). Nonetheless, our optional prompt for today (developed by Rachel McKibbens, who is well-known for her imaginative and... Continue Reading →
Photo by Kym MacKinnon via Unsplash . Today’s prompt “ was first suggested to us by long-time Na/GloPoWriMo participant Vince Gotera. It’s the hay(na)ku). Created by the poet Eileen Tabios and named by Vince, the hay(na)ku is a variant on the haiku. A hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two... Continue Reading →
Photo by Max Kukurudziak via Unsplash . Today’s prompt challenges us to “write a “concrete” poem – a poem in which the lines and words are organized to take a shape that reflects in some way the theme of the poem. This might seem like a very modernist idea, but poets have been writing concrete poems since the... Continue Reading →
Gas giant WASP 76b . Today's prompt encourages us to write a poem based on a news article. I chose one of the suggested articles: “Researchers Discover Faraway Planet Where the Rain is Made of Iron.” Despite the stark beauty of gas giant WASP 76b and its fascinating molten-iron rain, the resulting poem is a... Continue Reading →
Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch . Today's prompt challenges us to “write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. Whether you take the position of a twelve-legged clam, a narwhal with a cocktail olive... Continue Reading →
Photo by Matt Hoffman via Unsplash . Today’s prompt asks us "to make use of our resource for the day. First, make a list of ten words. You can generate this list however you’d like – pull a book off the shelf and find ten words you like, name ten things you can see from where you’re sitting,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Walter Sturn via Unsplash . Today’s prompt asks us to "write a poem about a specific place—a particular house or store or school or office. Try to incorporate concrete details, like street names, distances (“three and a half blocks from the post office”), the types of trees or flowers, the color of the... Continue Reading →
Loss, a sculpture by Jane Mortimer Photo by K. Mitch Hodge via Unsplash . Five Stages 1. Denial It has no room in this house, she said. Leave it at the door. Tie it to the fence. Let it whimper and slobber away from my table. I cannot feed one more hunger. When night... Continue Reading →
Photo by Juan Davila via Unsplash : Silence at Dawn : The lake wasn’t deep. We pushed the boat out and watched it take on water. You drank and drank and drank. The taste, you said, an afterthought, a bruise. I wish you had let me drink, too. Later, the upended flask. The snake... Continue Reading →
Photo by Hannah Tims via Unsplash : morning : fitful sleep and the echo . of footfall down the hall the scarf of a dream lingers . in the room wafts off as the eyes open to see what happened behind closed . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Julian Lozano via Unsplash : On the Bus : I wait to get home. The bus keeps on its route. Shadow buildings bow in the rain. The driver recites in staccato names of streets, names of people, years of passengers’ births and deaths. Each street grows its people. They ripen and wait to... Continue Reading →
Photo by Christopher via Unsplash : Rain in March : 1. It’s always the same every year: rescue teams fight the current, pick up the oddballs who wished for excitement and got plenty. Those who thrash about in the shallows, certain they’ll make the headlines, are left to their own devices. Why do I wish... Continue Reading →
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash : Midnight Jasmine : I blame myself. The years that keep going by, the countries between us, the many hands that have touched you since, the many lips. You, who were so new. They say you love what you’ve lost. My loss is a desert of books, furniture, people.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Jeremy Bishop via Unsplash : The Fig Tree : We walk down the path with our children. Dust rises behind us like smoke. The ground is littered with figs: small purple bodies burst open to show their red seeds. Foreignness blooms quietly inside their wounds. All these years I wished to be whole,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Randy Tarampi via Unsplash : The Riddle : A book is a set of dead symbols. And then, the right reader comes along and the words—or rather the poetry behind the words—spring into life and we have a resurrection of the word. ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Alexander Sinn via Unsplash : Portrait with Crows : This evening turned the day’s blaze into rain. Crows beside the window, harsh caws carving a space in my stomach. The bright spot of orange hue in front of me stays. My daughter’s painting, untouched yet by artifice, nor willed into shape. So abstract... Continue Reading →
Photo by Stanislava Stanchy via Unsplash : Out of Eden : Eve What is the meaning . of this love . loaded with words? Doesn’t he know . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Erik Mclean via Unsplash : Finger-wagging : Do it in pairs. If there’s no one left in the world, wag at yourself. The rules are simple: find something to wag about. Reading too much. Cheating. Bad eating habits. Lack of exercise. Exorcisms. Out of body experiences. Politics, money, religion. Seriousness or frivolity. Sleeping.... Continue Reading →
Photo by David Cohen via Unsplash : Minotaur : Somewhere on the outskirts of the body the gulls are trying their wings . on gusts of wind. Somewhere... Continue Reading →
Photo by Cathaleen Curtiss : Spring : The water ran black in the mornings. . The soil had plenty to say . after being silent for so long. . It wasn’t even... Continue Reading →
Photo by Laurence Demaison : That Poem You Wrote : : is only half of something unsaid hold it next to the mirror : so that it looks whole do you... Continue Reading →
Photo by Laurence Demaison : A Woman Made Entirely of Air : these days I worry about percentages : who knows how much fear is enough to inflict irreversible : damage who knows if merely by passing through someone’s life : ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Federico Bottos via Unsplash : The Photograph : It doesn’t matter what we should have argued about. Talking was something we couldn’t or wouldn’t do. We walked through a meadow instead, you slightly ahead and I taking pictures of things I wanted to remember, including that bloody sunset. The flowers parted before... Continue Reading →
Photo by Harry Quan via Unsplash : Alter Ego : I didn’t know what she was: that brittle, reed-like, human-like riddle. A paper whisper. A burn. She made an ark for a language the color of loneliness. Words rushed to her. So did the clouds. It was hard to watch her drown in... Continue Reading →
Photo by Denys Argyriou via Unsplash : This bruised shadow of a promise : This bruised shadow . of a promise. I made it. It was meant . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tertia van Rensburg via Unsplash : The Snare : A mind like a ring Sliding shut on some quick thing. ~ Sylvia Plath, “The Rabbit-Catcher” Had it been you, all along. Had it been you. Or my fear of telling the truth. Of telling the fear. How do I know. ... Continue Reading →
Photo by v2osk via Unsplash : Falling Asleep with Carpenter Bees : The walls are thin, transparent. Angels stand at right angles. I close my eyes to see the bees breaking and entering. Honeycomb dipped in sorrow. Eyeballs rolling like grapes on my palm. I see a handful of pennies fallen through the grate. Shallow... Continue Reading →
Leonora Carrington Self-Portrait: The Inn of the Dawn Horse : Family Lore : 1. Wrath During lightning storms, my father rows out to sea. The villagers hide behind closed shutters, while the man they once hated lures the thunderclouds away from the shore. From the hill tower, my siblings and I watch the fireworks:... Continue Reading →
Vincent Van Gogh Enclosed Field in the Rain : Conversation : It’s frivolous, this rain, with its . unreasonable claims . on our silence. You stalk the hallway, I crush . tears in my fist.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tersius van Rhyn via Unsplash : : Four Nightmares : It choked her path in the first one, tall as a wall, wide as the sea at night. It spewed darkness, waves of it clogging the shore of her sleep. She was somewhere near it, but couldn’t see herself. Beyond, was the world... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of Alien Covenant : Fine, Then : No one wants to touch the skin of this poem, its unhatched enigma. The words sit in rows like alien pods, oozing deceit. Truth is rarely the destination to begin with, but it helps to know where you’re going. Or so I’ve been told. Perhaps there’s... Continue Reading →
Photo by Anton Scherbakov via Unsplash : : Spring Inspection : She lies on the couch, legs crossed, eyes staring into the ceiling. A day comes when she’ll have to do something: go out and shuffle through the snow, fall on the ground, stand up and run, smell the bushes for a sign of spring or dog... Continue Reading →
Photo by Jo Wroten via Unsplash : : alteration : don’t look at my fingers : bluish ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Neslihan Gunaydin via Unsplash : The Rose : This hand that holds the trowel, a rubber glove to hide thick-knuckled, restless fingers— you know it’s yours. Yours, also, the knobby knees, the narrow feet in muddy crocs, the loosened skin holding it all together—who knows however long? You are a waterfall of flesh and... Continue Reading →
Photo by Christin Hume via Unsplash : Salt Marsh : Someday she will start writing, leaving her fear behind— a coat on the doorstep. Words, rusty in their hinges, will blow against the old barn, will whistle in the thin rain. She’ll hear a door close with a bang, a dog howl at... Continue Reading →
Félix Vallotton La Valse : Death As a New Language : You learn to speak it sooner or later. Sooner or later you succumb to its charm, ready to waltz as it leads you across dimly lit floors. Slender flutes of champagne flash their similes from darkened mirrors. People are gathered by the walls,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Hilthart Pedersen via Unsplash : Compromise : A flask empty of wine on the table. The table wanting for food in a house missing its people. Things are meant to be filled with other things. The sky, empty of birds, has clouds, at least. They carry no rain. Far below, the earth... Continue Reading →
Photo by Taylor Ann Wright via Unsplash : Count Your Blessings : Sneer, counting the moments touched by joy, the ones currently marching like mad across your front lawn. You clearly see them for what they are—frauds, counterfeit, foolish impostors, because, let’s be real, no way in hell do you deserve what brushed by with... Continue Reading →
Photo by Gaelle Marcel via Unsplash :: Amnesia : 1. We’re alone on the brink of this tabletop. . We rub air between our palms, sweat . between our bellies. . Our voices drop like ripe fruit.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Bruno Nascimento via Unsplash : Time Capsule We dug a hole at the back of grandma’s garden, where we had laid bodies to rest in matchstick boxes, each grave with its makeshift cross of twigs and brambles, as if beetles, too, had a god, or a church, or a soul. It was the pull of... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of the historical archive AGERPRESS : Bread : My father stands with his back to the wall, clutching his fists. The boys are tall. They lower their shaved heads. Show us your hands, they say. If you're not hiding anything. My father knows he'll cry soon. He calls grandma, but she can't hear... Continue Reading →
Photo by Fabrizio Conti via Unsplash Rites of Passage : I The rock was thrown as a joke, a sleight of hand. Then, the bursting eye, the entrails- like stuff pouring out. I knew it was an eye, but it looked like an unhatched egg, the embryo throbbing with its own hunger for life. It... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tom Barett via Unsplash : Room with a View : All I can see out the window is your absence trimming the landscape. : First published in One Sentence Poems, September 2018
Photo by Martino Pietropoli via Unsplash : The Guest : My house grows small waiting for her to leave. Today I opened the door to the cellar and it wasn’t there. I climbed the staircase to the attic— it ended in a dead wall. The bathroom I’ve been so proud of shrank to the size... Continue Reading →
Photo by Janco Ferlich via Unsplash : Body Not Hers : For my children, when they grow up 1. The darkness within me, it’s all- engulfing, viscous, and real, the mystery of its black rose still blooming. Dark objects fall in and out like planets. Mars glides by glowing red, a fascinating eye into hell.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Fabrice Villard via Unsplash : Winter : A woman writes a line in the snow and leaves. Nothing else is new in that quiet field. Large snowflakes seal in her words, an envelope, closing. Next summer, she won't remember what she has written, or why. In the wake of retreating steps, silence keeps the... Continue Reading →
Keith Haring's wolves : The Wolves and the Crucifix : Based on Keith Haring’s “Suite of Five Prints,”—(“Two Animal Images Falling/Jumping”; “Two Figures with Crucifix”), screenprint on paper, 1982. : The wolves keep coming to my door, they keep coming. Today they hold a cross like a trophy. Ink drips from their paws onto the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Dan Rowden via Unsplash : Small Truths, You Said : We never have enough of them. Open your palm, hold this one. See how fragile it is? Even your breath could kill it. Don't breathe. The light on the water drew back, the tide came in. Your voice was a litany of shadows.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Steinar Engeland via Unsplash : Out of the Labyrinth : In the morning the girl sits by the window, pulling dried husks of flies off the spider web. The brown spider drops from its corner on a glistening, tremulous thread, hauls itself up to inspect the damage, hairpin legs climbing the air on invisible... Continue Reading →
Greg Spalenka Divinus : Tentative Futures : You try to forgive words their push and pull. In the garden, the cherry tree has sprouted buds, each one enveloping a heartbeat. You lean against the trunk, listening to the hum under its bark, remembering what it was like to carry that same echo deep in the... Continue Reading →
Rene Magritte Explanation : Poem for a Green Bottle and a Candle Held Together with Tape : Who has ever seen darkness glowing from inside? Glass giving in to flame? Who has ever seen my reflection in the green waves? Wax drips on cold, sinuous curves. This is not one of Magritte’s bottles, lined up for execution.... Continue Reading →
clayandbranches 