Delta Breeze

One more poem of mine to finish up National Poetry Month Tonight you sit on the front steps facing south beckoning me with your dry lips your moist fingers. I am already here but I am still and you do not recognize me. I press against your skin, a sweaty companion: I am hot and … Continue reading Delta Breeze

The Flint Girls Go To A Fire

This is a poem I wrote a few years back for my mother and her sisters. It's a bit of a ramble, but they all seemed to like it. My aunt Eleanore had a muskrat fur coat. My aunt Ruth had a skirt that revealed her knees. She wore it with platform shoes. They went … Continue reading The Flint Girls Go To A Fire

Easter Broom

Another poem for National Poetry Month The fabric of night unwinds like a bolt of dark blue velvet across a clean white sheet of daylight. At Equinox the corners of the blankets meet the Sun and the Earth stretch together and the moon is swept with rangy branches of Easter Broom. Yellow blossoms scatter across … Continue reading Easter Broom

Prayer for Peace

Continuing to celebrate poetry in April. . . One hundred dark-haired ladies in red silk kimonos twirl in the foggy sky between wakefulness and sleep, Swinging from each finger: one thousand origami cranes, a rainbow on each hand. In the cool silk moment they float before the sun burns through the mist. Delicate as balloons, … Continue reading Prayer for Peace

My Insomnia Gossips About Me Behind My Back

To finish off our National Poetry Month celebration, I offer a more recent creation of mine. Thanks for reading! I made that girl, but is she grateful? No.   True, I drove her to the edge  of consciousness dumped her on a shore peopled with past failures and traumas, to the lip of a river … Continue reading My Insomnia Gossips About Me Behind My Back

Life on the Flood Plain

Another original poem for National Poetry Month! This week's offering is a tale of my California childhood, back when the rain was plentiful enough that we'd often watch the winter river rising against the side of the levee. Life on the Flood Plain   Nestled in the south elbow of the levee we are sheltered … Continue reading Life on the Flood Plain

Flow

Another classic poem of mine for National Poetry Month. Flow   She rises through silt and sand seeps through cracks in asphalt to suckle fox tails and dandelions sprouting wild on levee roads. Her power courses through me like moon  pulling water to sea rushing by pear orchards carving jagged leaf veins in my belly … Continue reading Flow

For My Mother and Other Collectors of Strays

April is National Poetry Month! I've dug down deep for this one, written for my Mom at least 30 years ago when she was the age that I am now. For My Mother and Other Collectors of Strays   I want you to contradict me. When I shiver in my cavernous apartment complaining that autumn … Continue reading For My Mother and Other Collectors of Strays

Velvet Dress

Hi, there!!  In case you haven't heard, April is National Poetry Month, so all month I've been posting original poems.  Times being what they are, I've wanted to post poems that are fun and/or funny!  This week's offering fits both categories well.  Enjoy!   The music is salty like dry roasted peanuts. I come downstairs … Continue reading Velvet Dress