April is National Poetry Month, so I’ll be posting a few poems this season. Currently I spend more time writing prose stories instead of poems, so it’s been fun for me to look back at poems I wrote in past decades. This poem is from a period when I was experimenting with classic forms. … Continue reading The Bear, a sestina
This poem was created from a favorite prompt from Two Sylvia's Press, where you imagine a famous person, living or dead, comes to your door and gives you a gift. Virginia Woolf arrivedlate yesterday afternoonto bring methe complete collectionof novels and poemsthat were createdby women too busyto write them down.Quite a quandary, she said,randomly opening … Continue reading River Book
I was walking on top of the river levee one morning in early December, before the solstice. The river was looking healthy and full despite our years of drought, but we had had so much rain last winter, so much snow, so much water: it was a bounty and we were grateful. The Army … Continue reading I am out with lanterns, looking for myself
When Fawny walks alone, and she walks alone often, she keeps the river on her left and the levee on her right, so she won’t get lost. But on this day when the levee curves at the bend near the university, she wanders into a stand of cottonwood trees and passes through an invisible curtain … Continue reading Blue Danube
Written with the prompts: a former student, who is the dreamer and where is the dream, a quick call, a red balloon landed next to him, a river, lived a few doors down, man orchids, naked ladies, maybe next year, oddly familiar, deja vu, or am I?, pain lives in my pocket, Randall Tiller is … Continue reading Maybe Next Year
Written with my the prompts: talker, best kept secret, last night I dreamed, reference to the front, the king’s dogs, has less to do with pain, the fence is not a barrier Last night I dreamed that the river breached its levee and crept on tiny feet step by step like a kit fox into … Continue reading Waiting
Written with my Thursday night writing group with the prompts: empty journal, her lips tasted like wine, no one ever noticed her, she was just there, 16 years gone to hell, I have good memories of that house, there’s nothing quite like, until the sun smiles, write me a litter and tell me about It, complicated … Continue reading In the Wine Garden
Written with my Thursday night writing group with the prompts: the gray cat stared at him, enjoy the ultimate, cockroaches and ghosts shared the space, we are awed by our nine-hour innocence, began five years ago, after the equinox, pete/peat, imagine, landed on my blanket, the day after yesterday, I am from America, I never thought, … Continue reading The Day After Yesterday
Written with my Thursday night group with the prompts: in a clearing by a river, driving to San Francisco in the rain, under the bleachers, out of touch with the child I was, she is the only one who knew me, chased by a large creature The first thing I remember is being chased by … Continue reading Malleable Memory
April is National Poetry Month, so I'll be posting a few poems this season. Currently I spend more time writing prose stories instead of poems, so it's been fun for me to look back at poems I wrote in past decades. This poem is from a period when I was experimenting with classic forms. … Continue reading The Bear, a sestina
