Category: poetry

• untitled ("black magic" haiku)

  it seems i summoned
  the devil and oh how he
  gently holds my hand.

  December 8, 2010

  ---

• verisimilitude (time to put away)

  it is time
  to put away
  the ache.

  time to
  make him dinner
  and care about things
  we women must —
  it is time to
  smile from somewhere
  far away,
  to carry the child
  and leave not a hair
  settled out of place.

  December 7, 2010

  ---

• the night before i died

  before I left work
  the temperature dropped
  a good twenty degrees
  in a fit and frenzy of a storm.

  one hand smiled content in
  a pocket while
  the other called “home”
  on speed dial.

  walking, kicking leaves
  blown down nonchalant
  restless corners
  yellow brown and dying

  my mom talked about Christmas
  and I talked about my cat
  and with a “say hi to dad”
  I hung up.

  December 4, 2010

  ---

• denise

  doll face leathered brown
  with rosy streaks of blush
  so jarring
  yet
  as she holds her coffee
  absent hand to smooth hair
  pulled back
  harsh
  i hear her say to me –
  fifteen years on the street
  and in january
  maybe

  she smiles, sips,
  feeling warm.

  December 3, 2010

  ---

• ineluctable

  you will hang up the phone
  without saying
  i love you.
  and while you’ll not feel it,
  one day your bones
  will be dust.

  December 2, 2010

  ---

• Ripples (i dreamt i saw you drown)

  she shook him hard in his blankets
  “i was dreaming –
  i saw you drown”
  she breathed hard, continued,

  “the haze blurred
  our overgrown backyard
  the humidity oppressing
  the few purple wildflowers and
  the strange cat beneath the willow
  we walked to the river.
  you yelled for a swim but i couldn’t–
  leaving fast for the fire
  burning our old family photographs
  our memories, our life,
  so i blew out the flames and
  i … i couldn’t see you
  the sky was thundering dark
  the waves devoured the shore
  it was then i saw your eyes
  you didn’t smile as you sank –
  i was trapped on the shore – then i woke.
  i… i had to tell you.”

  she took a deep breath, waiting
  but he had rolled over
  snoring waves beneath ripples of
  a blue-green quilt.

  [circa 2002, maybe]

  December 1, 2010

  ---

• the future is just beyond the page (haiku)

  visionary sees
  nothing, a blank canvas. tell
  more my prescient child —

  please.

  November 30, 2010

  ---

• blessing of the hounds (fox hunt haiku)

  hound dogs and bloody
  marys. red riding coats verse
  an elusive fox.

  November 26, 2010

  ---

• night crawler (the moon and people like me)

  where darkness
  leads a whiskey shot
  with no chaser
  claw the burn and the dizzy

  where alone
  with moans of an E minor
  strokes my thin camisole
  that dews see through with sweat

  even the moon
  is submissive on a Tuesday
  settles for the blackout
  spills out ‘cross the street

  where the devil says
  i am your sweet tooth baby
  i am your lizard king
  waste your days, feel whole again —

  that’s
  where
  I
  wait.

  November 24, 2010

  ---

• i refuse to cut my hair

  i refuse
  to cut my hair
  like Crosby Stills & Nash

  i refuse
  to bend and twist and
  let the scissors close

  leave it be-
  this tangled nest, a waving
  mass curled up by the sea

  it is a
  culmination of days,
  of a lost youth splitting ends

  November 23, 2010

  ---