sanctuary
settling into sleep
with thin sheets
this hot night
sanctuary is the cold
brick to my back
Ever wonder why, lately, every single thing
reminds you of that one time you swam
halfway across Stillwater Reservoir
in the Adirondacks: Blade by blade,
your hands and feet shaving sapphire
marbles of water from your path, both
shores of safety so far from where you froze,
floating above a floor—a bed of silt, and bones,
and patient treasures—you could never reach,
and beneath the sky’s ceiling of endless,
shapeless clouds you would never name,
life suspended in a decision, in a breath
held within your chest, and a captain’s voice
called—small, steady, ancient:
Keep going
I.
Will you please read the groups announcements which have the rules and guidelines for posting?
II.
Name a type of poetry.
III.
You must answer all Four questions. Failure to do so will result in your being banned from the group. Have you read this??
IV.
Add your poem to qualify.
V.
If you do not read the rules and guidelines and post a violation into the group. There are no warnings, you will be banned. Do you understand this?
VI.
Poets who actively oppose banning books while threatening banishment to prospective poetry group members for failure to conform–
VII.
What’s the word I’m looking for…
This morning I woke up and it hit me,
I didn’t write my poem – yesterday
Yesterday was day seven and today is day eight.
I made the commitment to write a poem every day
But things don’t always go our way
At this moment I am writing poem number eight
Today I didn’t wait to write
Now when you count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
You will see 1 – 6 is there
But there is,
No 7
Some people can draw a picture that looks exactly like the apple on the table in front of them,
With nothing but a pencil, and a single sheet of paper.
I have a box of pencils, sitting in a closet in my house.
Sometimes I look at the pencils, and I don’t draw.
I just look at each of them, and think about how different they are from one another.
One of them is sharp, and if you were a detective, you might come to the conclusion that that means one of two things:
Either I don’t use it very often,
Or, if you looked at how long it was, you would see that I used it the most.
I had worn it down so much, that I needed to sharpen it.
I had worn it down again and again, and now it’s just a nub.
The pale wooden top of one of the pencils is smudged.
I don’t know how that happened, but I find myself hesitant to sharpen it,
For fear I would erase the mark.
That’s why that pencil is the dullest.
When I draw an apple, I use all of the pencils.
My pictures aren’t super realistic,
But when I sit down in front of an apple with a sheet of paper,
I look at it like I look at those pencils.
I look at all the ways it doesn’t look like a picture.
There are no perfect circles, or squares whose sides are all the same lengths,
If you took a photo of it, from the angle I was looking at it, you wouldn’t be able to see the stem because of how it curved backward,
And even though light reflected off it, when it just sort of faded into the paper, I drew all of these things.
The fruit on my page didn’t really look like the fruit I was trying to draw,
But when I went to bed that night I dreamed of an apple,
And even though I had stared at it long enough to remember every detail about it,
Down to the green spot beside the stem,
The apple in my dream was my drawing, because in my dream I thought about all the ways a drawing looks like an apple,
Even a drawing that leaves a lot to be desired.
I don’t remember the whole dream, but it was something about how in both drawings and apples, every detail,
Every spot where the lines and curves changed direction was important.
Both detectives and artists have one thing in common.
They both look at those details,
A detective, to find the point where certain things meet, and an artist to draw a circle around that point,
And then, there are people like me who can’t draw perfect circles, so instead I draw apples, and I hang my up.
All of the pictures I drew of that apple look a little different,
But all of my drawings look like apples, and now those apples cover an entire wall.
seeking validation from an empty mother
is like hoping your vision will adjust when you are six feet under dirt and rock with peeled nail-beds and a naive hope to make it out alive while everyone has mourned and moved on
accepting said validation is almost as easy as it is to crawl back from the dead. an eternal task that leaves you wondering how long infinity really is
praise from a honor-less mother means you got what you wanted-
your religion is real!
…now what?
God gave you what you asked for when your heart stopped pumping and your cells died out and your brain stopped telling your body how to survive
gradually everything you ever think, hope do and were for naught
Armored against attack
by skin pricking spines
Naked fruits nourishing
the gentle handed
Filling your home
with my blossoms
and bones
Inspired by “Often I Wish I Were” by
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer.
today I can’t do what I want
everyday is a new day to fail
and feel and my trembles turn to
tremors when unshed tears are finally shed
tears I didn’t know I had
tears that are familiar
tears i’ve never seen before
and tears I welcome back
i’ve never felt more at peace
than when I’m screaming out
about my pain to someone
who finally understands
someone who finally believes me
someone who knows just
what it is,
the hell that I’ve been through.
the hell that she’s been through,
our hell, the same but different.
these tears help keep me
right in the present
where my pain is most intense
right where the healing is.
a battered squirrel, so freshly dead
there wasn’t even a fly,
just there, wounded from a tire,
blood where it had been squashed
the first, there was a buzzard
poking at the corpse,
unaware that it should be in mourning,
that it wasn’t behaving appropriately
the last, the fowl was gone
& it was just the lifeless body,
even lonelier than before,
not even acknowledged by its abusers
as humans, we see our faces in everything,
marking the earth with our inconsiderate acts;
because i am human,
i wonder which role i play in this scene:
am i the squirrel,
subject to bystanders
& beings who feast on my newly rotting flesh,
unaware, in my death, of this abuse
or am i the bird,
inconsiderate of proper protocol
when things die
& flees even my own cruel hunger
or am i, truly, just myself?
luxuriously in my car,
centering myself in the miseries
of other beings
Reaching out, never fully grasping,
hand of a neurotic one
desperately needs someone
feels they’re a bother, just for asking
instead places hand over heavy heart, clasping
Emotions swirl inside
a chaotic, negativity soup
smell alone pungent enough
to penetrate skin, a spilling tide,
crashing on the outside
The more it simmers
anger and fear lash out
destruction all about
until numb is emotion, soul dimmer,
left are the tears of this poor sinner.
Husk of a being
now lays before thee
no hesitation, despite what you’ve seen
you hold them close, promising, guaranteeing
your embrace, instantly freeing
They’re still lost
spoiled vegetable in a rotten stew
but you buy the ingredients, make a new brew.
They won’t accept it, you say “It’s no cost,
not when it’s you because I love you lots.”
