Category: poem

• West Virginia Man Dreams

  Yellow corvette take me around
  those American
  curves, hug those
  hills on Rt 901 and
  find me a woman
  with diesel-stained eyes.

  September 7, 2011

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• airport blues (if it was you)

  drinking real chocolate milk and it settles into my bones with
  a sweet sigh.

  everyone around me is in such a hurry; they race to another day,
  like its just another flight.

  i thought i just saw your face but it was another in a hat in an airport
  far from home.

  if it was you,
  you were booking another flight without saying hello or goodbye.
  If it was you,
  i guess i would let you go and prepare for another restless sleep…

  i would be the one
  you’d watch who constantly searches, trying to figure out why everyone is in
  such a hurry.

  if it was you,
  you’re finally out of sight and i can stop straining my neck to see the face
  that isn’t you.

  decadent memories rot teeth. here we go now. hurry up and leave.

  (circa 2002 in sketch journal form)

  September 2, 2011

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• untitled (on elk neck road)

  on elk neck road
  those lonely
  or pretending otherwise
  men
  watch the
  naked
  woman
  addicted to eyes
  play pool

  September 1, 2011

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• great grandmother (written by my great grandmother Alice B Johnson)

  This poem was written by my great grandmother Alice B. Johnson and is taken from her book, Where Children Live (1958). While not the style I write in, I think it’s beautiful and sweet, and I’m happy to post it here. For more from Alice B. Johnson, click on her name under categories.

  Great Grandmother

  The years rest like a diadem
  Upon your silver hair —
  Serenity is like a cloak
  That you gently wear.

  Years of loving kindness show
  Upon your furrowed brow,
  Like promised harvest that has known
  The earth, the sun, the plow.

  Life’s burdens have not passed you by,
  Nor sorrow’s parting loss —
  Yours the constant faith that sees
  The crown beyond the cross.

  No bitterness or fear has left
  Upon your heart its trace —
  Love is the mirrored beauty seen
  Reflected in your face.

  Tenderly and lovingly
  With your arms you hold
  Your precious great-grandaughter,
  Less than one year old.

  She doesn’t see the marks of time,
  Where age has sifted through —
  She only knows the comfort and
  The blessedness of you.

  August 31, 2011

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• baby eyes peekaboo (on a plane)

  baby eyes
  peekaboo
  white clear
  intensely blue
  peering over
  the seat in
  front, all eyes
  searching,
  finding mine
  plunged into a
  bluest sky
  floating oh so
  casually by.

  August 26, 2011

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• what it feels to write

  mine is the underbelly
  soft
  vulnerable
  i can rake
  my broken fingernails
  light at first
  then…
  strike a line
  clear across and
  spill
  those guts.

  August 25, 2011

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• earthquake: the end is near

  what if there is
  no human around
  to see the
  glasses shake
  right off their
  neglected shelves
  no one
  living to
  witness the walls
  shiver up
  from their drunken legs
  what if there is
  only the quietest
  sounds
  of destruction
  –
  is the end the end
  if no one
  notices?

  August 24, 2011

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• nomads

  if love
  means
  taking a pause
  still in the arms
  quiet with another

  nomads
  like us
  will surely
  suffer

  August 23, 2011

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• the pressure of a modern girl’s life

  prick a finger
  watch the blood flow
  everywhere but there
  oh treacherous game
  fall swift into a liminal
  state: here or not?

  oh the pressure of
  a modern girl’s life
  the vixen, the vulpine,
  lick your bloody paw
  absently
  till a virgin weeps –

  none can know
  till they wake.

  August 18, 2011

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• untitled (fifty years go by)

  the quiet takes form,
  slips by unannounced, settles,
  fifty years go by.

  August 17, 2011

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