Category: poems

  • Vapor

    ·

    1.10.12 The windows shrouded in condensation, soup cooking for hours.  Later, water pools on the sills, mold forms black networks along the edges. We breathe in and out, examining the growth.

  • Breaking

    ·

    1.9.12 They say “breaking” .                       though it is difficult to imagine .               molecules tearing asunder .                       the form no longer holding– perhaps it is more like “pouring” .                             or “freeing itself”– .                  this is like nothing you have experienced a confused signal where “this” could .               easily be “that”– then, as if it were the most natural .       action, they incise .             a neat line crosswise exposing something so tender .            you simply cannot bear to look– waters parted, she prone– .          lips open, trying to form words–

  • Sacred water

    ·

    1.8.12 How our waters    flow     into one another the breathless “yes” of convergence when   all that is   sacred    coalesces   into a meeting at a river– We arrive     with a sense of     singularity but the water    lapping rocks   shows us the flaws in our logic games– This    breath,    this    river one–this moment   punctuated yet completely ordinary–

  • Saturday water

    ·

    1.7.12 The moon’s influence on the tides is widely understood. Our bodies, water, ebb and flow throughout the month.  Women speak of their “moon” when referencing menstruation.  The dark of the moon is considered the ideal time to go inward, allowing the body’s waters to flow unimpeded. Tonight, the dishes in the sink, water running over cloth, soap uncovering bright shining plates, the moon hangs behind cloud cover waxing brilliant, pulling the gaze.  It is impossible to look away.

  • January Fun-a-Day project

    ·

    I have been horribly absent since last fall, and I am aiming to repopulate this space with posts over the coming year.  I have resolved to finally show up to myself as a writer.  For years, I have lamented the fact that I can’t seem to make space in my life for writing, and finally, I get it.  I actually have to carve out time, create a project, make it a priority.  No one else really cares if I show up and write.  I am not getting paid, my job does not depend upon it, my friends nod and say…

  • Poems of the sexual revolution

    ·

    While I haven’t been writing much about writing here, I have been working on a series of new poems. As with many of my projects, I am lifting language from a book I’ve been carrying around for years, just waiting for the right moment to call some poems into being. The book is Sexual Honesty by Shere Hite, and it contains answers to questionnaires about women’s sexual pleasure. I read a few of these in September when I featured at Port Veritas, and they got a good response, though I must admit that I had to overcome some of my…

  • Elegy for Bill

    ·

    First light of dawn .                            hill sides ablaze his farm hands move to the rhythm of           sun and moon pictures of oilspillwildlifeincompetence .                          superseded by the next new tragedy by lamplight and coffee cup .               checks written,             bills sealed .                                                smell of newly-mown hay stories like this                          told in fragments .             our minds .      too full of longing               to understand– mail in hand,                         his body 170 houses burned        books to be thrown .                  into a blaze of hate .           thrown 150 feet               bills scatter his milk-boy hands .           so fast             no one saw    it     coming .                                            broken .         no skid…

  • Postcards to water

    ·

    I have, once again, been participating in the August poetry postcard project, which has been a good way to get back in the swing of writing after a long separation.   As I’ve looked back at many of these poems, I see the theme of water emerging, and am reminded of the poems I wrote years ago, before graduate school–poems that were engaged in the tapestry of the larger environment.  I have always been connected to the natural world, from my earliest memory through all of my years living in cities.  Now that I live within walking distance of a large…

  • Unpacking boxes, uncovering poems

    ·

    It has been a long time since I have written, partially due to the fact that I spent the majority of April and May figuring out, and preparing for, my recent move to Portland.  I started my new job this past week, and have been unpacking the last of my boxes in between trying to participate in life outside my house. It has been a challenging few months–in splendid, growth-full ways.  I will soon be wrapped up in figuring out the Maine Women Writers Collection, which is what brought me to Portland.  I hope this period will be inspiring, since…

  • Springing open

    ·

    .             The color of     bursting .      our seams    splitting open  with the convergence                     of   refusal .         flexible entry— .             Before us,                               becomes .       the passageway for       ambivalent     misunderstanding Childhood  telephone  games .                                     no longer serving their functional authority— ___________________________________ a pipe-bursting pool of .                             possibility  flows  into  this .      dark alley,                lighting up    the  sky .              then extinguishing everything—