Category: poem

• blank

  drawing a blank. nothing blank nothingness………

  How it Feels to Lose Creativity
  http://www.presssendpoetry.com/2011/11/how-it-feels-to-lose-creativity.html

  June 26, 2012

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• a return to flight

  Over and over,
  I’ve been that
  (wilted flowers in hand)
  silhouette to a setting sun
  on a dried-out hill
  saying stoic goodbyes.

  But when I close my eyes,
  (from my earliest
  slippery seconds),
  I have always seen
  a return to flight,
  my remains scattered by the aching hands
  of my family back to the
  soft wet arms 
  of a briny sea.

  how I’ll fly then —
  as gently as cresting waves in
  warmly breaking sunlight.

  June 20, 2012

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• burn-out (revisited)

  hey Monday, here’s an old poem. i miss this one (and this time of life).

  Burn-out
  http://www.presssendpoetry.com/2010/02/burn-out.html

  June 18, 2012

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• in honor of St. Mary’s – Pieces (revisited)

  Pieces (In Point Lookout)
  http://www.presssendpoetry.com/2010/03/pieces-in-point-lookout.html 

  enjoy, and I’m off to alumni weekend! woo!

  June 8, 2012

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• je ne sais quoi

  Dreams like

  Shadowy walk
  ways – dreams
  like slipping
  quietly through
  a glass mirror.

  On the other
  side, this small
  fugacious life
  reflects a certain
  je ne sais quoi.

  Watch your body

  like your lover does,
  watch your mind
  obsess over
  smallest things like
  dirt under nails.

  Recognize yourself at
  your soul’s oldest age –
  we all have this ability
  if we choose it.

  June 5, 2012

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• we live in geothermal conditions

  crystallization, the formation of solids in the melt, is igneous:

  where colors shift shapes;
  what is solid is no longer so;
  what is considered stable suddenly
  changes its mind with a crash.

  June 4, 2012

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• "i don’t like to stop and think"

  “I don’t like to stop and think”

  Says my shadow as it slides

  Off the wall and dashes across the ground
  (She’s testing her fullest length of rope again)

  “Cause if I did stop and really think

  I would be so incredibly sad” sighs

  My shadow, trapped forever chained,
  And shackled to my capricious ankles.

  June 1, 2012

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• untitled (good intentions)

  her, dressed in good intentions,
  nails brightly matching
  push a plate across a table dusty with neglect
  “eat”
  her, the confronted, as empty as a shell,
  slides off a chair,
  breaks into pieces,
  a quiet end of days.

  May 31, 2012

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• Revisiting: "coming home from the beach (impossible)"

  Coming home from the beach (impossible)
  http://www.presssendpoetry.com/2010/08/coming-home-from-beach-impossible.html

  *this poem couldn’t be more appropriate for today as my sun burnt body is having trouble adjusting to this office chair… enjoy……

  May 29, 2012

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• Guest Post: "I still can’t get it right"

  What a last line by poet Kathryn Stripling Byer. Check it out~

  American Life in Poetry: Column 374
  BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

  The following poem by Kathryn Stripling Byer is the second in a series of related poems called
  Southern Fictions. Despite all the protective barriers we put up between us and the world, there’s
  always a man with a wink that can rip right through. Byer has served as North Carolina’s Poet
  Laureate.
  
  I still can’t get it right

  I don’t know. I still can’t get it right,
  the way those dirt roads cut across the flats
  and led to shacks where hounds and muddy shoats
  skulked roundabouts. Describing it sounds trite
  as hell, the good old South I love to hate.
  The truth? What’s that? How should I know?
  I stayed inside too much. I learned to boast
  of stupid things. I kept my ears shut tight,
  as we kept doors locked, windows locked,
  the curtains drawn. Now I know why.
  The dark could hide things from us. Dark could see
  what we could not. Sometimes those dirt roads shocked
  me, where they ended up: I watched a dog die
  in the ditch. The man who shot him winked at me.

  American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
  publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
  Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2001 by Kathryn Stripling Byer from her most recent book of poems,
  Southern Fictions, Jacar Press, 2011. Descent, her new collection, is forthcoming from LSU Press.
  Reprinted by permission of Kathryn Stripling Byer and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2012 by The
  Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
  Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
  manuscripts.
  
  American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation
  Contact: alp@poetryfoundation.org
  This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

  May 21, 2012

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