disclaimer: i don’t write poetry

 

Sailing

The easel is my sailing mast

My canvas is the sail

My long brush is the harpoon

I’m praying for the whale

 

The Story

There are days


I wish I’d never met you,


never taste the metal of your words,


the bitter tang of your mood.

There are days


I want to cut off my hand,


knowing that I cannot let go,


yet finding no other way


to rid myself of the ache.

There are days


when words typed 
on a blank screen seem

enough 
to bridge

the massive space between us.

There are days


when it feels

like I’m 
pushing every letter

through 
the pores in my skin


to get to you.

There are days


I would give all I have


to find out how this story ends,


because this

is the one


I’m not writing.

 

amateur experiment with villanelle sonnet structure: untitled

 

a long walk home, another day gone by


my shoulders hunched and joy still far away


one more week down at Johnson Junior High



a dark form on the pavement caught my eye


her shining feathers spread in disarray


upon the burning pavement of July



a bird with broken wings looked to the sky


and gave a warbling chirp that seemed to say


she longed to spread those broken wings and fly



her breast rose and fell with each belabored sigh


and i, afraid to hurt her, kept away


tried again to walk home, but couldn’t pass her by



I sat curbside beside her, sad and shy


and finally her face did turn my way


her breathing slowed, light fading from her eye



she stilled and with a soft and final cry


she died, a common European jay


i looked again toward the sun and bright, blue sky


and heard in ringing silence her goodbye

 

The Doctor

Mother is proud

Eight years later,

a hundred thousand dollars invested in

stents and drugs and scalpels.

 

Long nights working the assembly line for her for

Long weekends at the country club for me.

 

Another mother,

face pressed hard against the glass.

Her daughter,

the operating table,

hand so small— like a

dime in my palm.

 

 

untitled

third drink, maybe fourth

twentieth cigarette I’m grinding out with

nervous fingers

thirty minutes since

you called and told me where to

meet you

second dress I tried on

five inch heels pinching my feet

keeping me aware of

reality