Posts for 2025 (page 5)

This poem is a basket
to keep my metaphors
contained, so they don’t
spill out onto the floor
roll under the couch
ball up with the dust
and soon start to smell,
an odor wafting 
about the room
like a lingering worry.

This poem is not a basket
that only decorates a shelf.
It’s a useful poem,
but you can see beauty
where beauty
isn’t the point.
A Swiss Army knife
is a beautiful thing
ready for whatever
you may encounter,
it gives you hope.
Hope is useful
and beautiful.

I keep my ideas contained in a journal.
(You’re a poet, you probably do, too.)
The ones with a sticky phrase
or tickling sound,
I’ll make into a poem,
like a basket holding
fresh-picked peaches
smelling sweet,
so full of juice,
just a beautiful picture
sparking memory of
a perfect day
I never really lived.

A story unfolds in my ears,
an audiobook of war, remembrance, intrigue—
listening as the moon, waxing gibbous rises.
My evening under indigo blurs
as the memory of someone gone
but as near as a click:
a photo of the gibbous moon sent,
intrudes, blends—
where is the line between story and need?  

Am I right to look for boundaries or let them blur?  

Just a bit more moon,
just a sip of single malt
and the smoke from a cigar
to tease just a hint of recall, return,
full like it was once or could be—
or do I bookmark the playback?
and let our shared fiction be enough.

She stands
    a bastion
        bright and glowing
            against the bitter winter chill

Sheltered deep within the heart
    a warming green of new beginning
        her blossoms painted heart’s blood red

Each paintstroke a murmuration
    of loving prayer and gratitude
        of deep resolve and love of home
            of hope and courage, pure and kind

Amidst the mountain’s broken pieces
    she sings of welcome, peace, and joy

Her song so sweet of bright renewal
    that strangers blossom into friends

I have the kind of peers who pressure me
to write my poems in forms like this dizain.
It’s time to take a break from therapy.
Feeling too much too fast makes me insane.
I have some memories I can’t explain.
I need to write some songs that I can’t sing.
I’m like a buzzing bee that wants to sting
someone, something. I know that I will die
after my stinger’s gone. Changes nothing.
Like Icarus, I only want to fly.  

In the faded glory hotel that stood
at the entrance to the Monastic City
in Glendalough, the harpist sang
her songs in Gaelic and English,
told stories about how she
could skip any class to practice
in the harp room,

At the end of her performance
she said “Any requests?” I asked
for The Parting Glass. “Sing with me”
she smiled  

It was just the two of us at first–
Oh, all the money that e’er I had
I spent it in good company

By the end, it was all of us–
So  lift to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all!

Afterwards we went out under the stars,
stood in the roofless chapels
of nameless saints, listened
to the wind and the ghosts
of their prayers.

That’s a dachshund puppy if I’ve ever seen one. 
Can we get one? Not right now, but in a bit. 
I promised the cats I wouldn’t do that to them again. 
So ten years give or take, maybe longer. I mean,
it’s not like I’ve never broken a promise before. 
Please? I know I’m allergic but I could do the shots, I would do all the walking, 
unless you wanted to, I mean, you like to walk after all.
(Somewhere my mom is rolling her eyes instinctively).
Yes, but this is different. I’m grown, I’ve kept these little guys and myself 
alive on my own for quite some time. I know what it is to lose a pet
 to a partner. But this is different. It’ll be mine.
Except, we’re supposed to be a team, aren’t we? Anyway, 
a dachshund is basically just a long cat. 
(Somewhere my dad, and his/our/my obese miniature (not so much) dachshund are sitting on the futon, alone together).
This is different. I want to be different.

the last five years ravaged me
without my consent 
and I was too sad to notice.
this year i’m going to be happy if it kills me because
somehow the slow ache of early adulthood failed to.
i was cocooned in my own melancholia but I didn’t
emerge a butterfly, i just emerged
older, with wrinkles i never thought i’d have
with clear eyes who still beg for the thrill of wind 
whipping my tears through crows feet
and more than anything, a body that wants to be loved. 
if i can’t outsource it i’ll have to start at home.
i’m going to care for this body like it’s the last one 
on earth and maybe along the way somebody else 
will worship it.

There was a prophecy, from ice-filled world:
A girl who would bring knowledge, unknown then,
Of time for warmth and growing leaves unfurled
Before she came of age to drink with men

Impatiently they waited for her birth
Until a cunning wizard hatched a plan
To speed up prophecy, and stole from Earth
A girl of age too young to know a man

He gave her to a weaver, left in dark
Of Earthly origins, who raised her well
Then she, when seventeen, went on a lark
Returning with a child in belly swelled

Prophecy, fulfilled, was quite a bummer.
Knowledge, new? She named the baby “Summer.”

shattering inside
     shards fly in all directions
     wall goes up for protection
answered “fine,” when asked how i’m doing

live my life like i’m dying to live

how to forgive myself
(yes, the person i was)
when i let your fingers slip     from my hand
your nails raking desperately
     across my heart