to set the world on fire—
I just want
to strike a match
across my mouth
and blow a spiral of fire
directly above your head
that takes the shape
of a brass key
only you know how
to turn in my chest
without burning
so that my fuel
can escape
and catch a spark
and fly into the night
like a phoenix
and write our initials
over Scorpio’s tail.
but the stars are winking out
and the wind blows hard
And clouds, clouds, clouds
rise up from the hilltops
like puff-headed Godzillas
and I keep going to the store
to buy something I remember
I need and then go home to see
I’ve forgotten the soft dog food
so when I go out again to wander
in my rootless daze back and forth
toward my husband’s hospice
bed, I will fold a little note
in the top of my purse
that says “dogfood and envelopes”
which I will carry home after my visit
to realize I only have one can left
of cat food which means the store
again only this time the one
next door to the wine shop
the wine shop, the wine shop…
Where Marrowbone winds through the mountain’s side,
Like an old hymn soft on the breeze,
The creek keeps time with the years gone by,
Beneath sycamores and trees.
The fog rolls low through the morning light,
Till the ridges awaken in gold,
And every stone on the worn-out road
Has a hundred stories told.
There were men with faces black as night,
Coming home from the coal beneath,
Their laughter rose through the supper smoke,
Though dust still clung to their teeth.
The whistle sang from the tipple high,
Calling daylight into toil,
While mothers prayed on weathered porches
For sons beneath the soil.
Old churches stand where the valleys bend,
White steeples against the sky,
Where voices gather on Sunday morn,
And old amens never die.
The songs they sang still haunt these hills,
Though the pews have grown more spare;
For faith, like laurel upon the ridge,
Still blossoms everywhere.
The mines grew quiet, the rails grew cold,
And many a child moved west,
Searching cities for steadier pay,
Leaving home inside their chest.
Yet every autumn the maples blaze,
Like fires no rain can drown,
Calling wandering hearts back home
To little Marrowbone town.
For mountains measure a richer wealth
Than dollars ever could own;
They count in memories, kinfolk’s names,
And fields where the seeds were sown.
So long as the creek keeps carving stone,
And whippoorwills still sing,
Marrowbone will live in the souls of those
Who call these hills their spring.
Though the world may pass it by in haste,
And strangers never know,
There’s a kingdom tucked between these ridges
Where mountain people grow.
And if one day these hills should ask
What legacy we’ve shown,
May they whisper gently through the pines:
“They loved this place called Marrowbone.”
the leaves go belly up, dancing with thirst
ticking clock or a clock dead, which is worse?
summer is a waiting game, moment’s peace
what will close sooner? the days or me first?
when I tuck the truths I avoid in fleece
when the welling waves in my chest increase
how brief it is here, the being okay
crashing when the hot winds beneath me cease
it’s missing the step, darkness in your way
how your stomach drops out, it’s disarray
the routine drags you through every cold night
when warmth will return you can’t really say
some things that make
up the whole are
ugly
wow,
revolutionary
Two years and some change
and this is the first time
that my inventory is completely honest
I want to go
into a restaurant
where the menu
reads like poetry
If i can’t visualize
what is written
in the menu anyway,
I’d rather it read like this—
To control a people you must
stifle their ability to breathe
bare access to the very thing that
is life itself
Pollute the air
Kill the trees
Disconnect the people from traditional
foods & lifestyle
All to create a numb world
A world in pain so that we don’t revolt
Then tell them to come to them for a cpap machine
a band aid on a wound they created.
Once, the sun welted across my shoulders,¹ the
speakers, my feet. We sat on folding chairs;
a sharp rock nudged against
my heelbone. But I paid it no mind.
The afternoon wrapped itself around
my ankles and wrists so honorably that I
did not request a rescue. Rambling around us, the
hours claimed space, checkmating the
sunbeam trends showcased by your kind of
strumming Woodstock pacifists and my kind of
swaying influencer activists.
And joy settled in among the crowd with
a gather-round campfire ease.² On my own,
I devoured the salad…feeling
grown from
its kalamata, vinegar healthiness. Then, when
it was too hot for frying oil ,
wearing my last-minute, look
and grab straw hat,
I wondered.
I wondered about the singing men next to us, and
how prepared they looked when
the basket of garlic, parsley, and French fries arrived
between sets. Brave of them for bringing
their barely toddling baby…
Braver still for them to pack utensils³…
¹ First go around at Newport Folk, 2018…epic…in over my head with friends whose souls sought deep-cuts instead of the top-twenty I embraced…burnt to a crispy tater, paprika red….weren’t no way I was goin’ ta do anything but painfully laugh my way through that day of lyrical awesomeness, you know?
² This festival is worth every dime because you witness a bountiful harvest of musical camaraderie through jam sessions and a community of shared language…in other words…my guts were shook….and stitched back together with the same loving carefullness one might use when repairing a quilt once owned by a founding father.
³ Lucius, Nudes, “Woman (Acoustic)”, 2018… I opened my eyes from a sun-burnt stupor and heard heaven.
When our poetry filters out our mouth
The breath catches in our throat
Right above thin collarbones
As if gasping for air
For that next word
That next beat
That next prolific thing
To ripple off the tongue
Like a wave crashing into sand
Like a newborn baby
Screaming its first cry
As if air cannot come deeply
Or quickly enough
To fill that space
Of needing
To push the next words out
From my mouth
From my guts
From my soul
But I cannot find it
Without gasping in
So deeply
So quickly
To find the next pattern
Of words
To articulate my thoughts
That run more quickly
More deeply
Than the words from lips
My mind like a child
Running through wildflower fields
That same child
Small, short, and stunted of breath
To not know yet
The immense power
Of her spoken word
Eventually helping the words escape
So rhythmic and enchanting
Magic from within
Something so beautiful from the inside
Out
My breath so much more grand
Larger
That those words
Than the weight of my words
From mind to mouth to world
So deep
So quick
Who are you reading? you ask, sharing your list of 10 favorite poets.
Ah, that I could sit in the sun today, devour poetry til dusk, ripe apricots on the side.
Even make progress on The Correspondent before book club next week.
Instead, I worked my way through
– Sheets of eyeglass prescriptions: which one is needed to replace the sunglasses
that broke?
– Twelve back and forth texts for plans with an out-of-town visitor
– Online information regarding late-stage Parkinsons; had to shake my head at AI’s solicitous first person voice “We’ve covered several topics here. Is there anything
else I can help you with?”
– A grocery list, until I decided not to bother
– Instructions for completing Generali Trip Interruption Reimbursement paperwork
after contracting the flu in Houston
– Altima manual while waiting at the optician: how turn off the new buzzer that sounds when car touches a lane marker? (failed)
– And for the third time, instructions for syncing my phone and computer (also failed)
But I have to tell you, whenever I have a few minutes, Jose Enrique Medina’s chapbook, Haunt Me, flies back into my hands
Time passes,
And my binder grows, thick with ghosts
But, enough about me.
Go on. Show me your collection.
Don’t be shy.
