Manuscript Soup or The Poems that Didn’t Make it
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Desert Ascent St. John Climacus I. At eighty he still scales the ladder to God; so long spent on the thirty rungs...
Aug 233 min read
How I Went from Reluctant Salesperson To “I Want This Book to Have Legs!”
This morning when I jumped out of the shower to write down a thought, it wasn’t a line for a poem. It was another place where I might...
Jul 62 min read
Poet as Sales Representative
Ambushed. The fear of failure comes at me, roaring, at two in the morning, making me aware of the dread-filled weight of responsibility....
Jul 13 min read
Walking Around Or How I discovered I would not go gentle into that good night.
It so happens I am tired of being the grey woman, and it happens that I walk into a vintage clothing store to find an item here with an...
Jun 164 min read
The Prospect of Unity
For David Humphreys It will take an outsized cape to swaddle this nation. It whips in the wind over a car dealership, provides no...
May 293 min read
Native
Where oh where is dear little Jimmy? Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch. Come on girls, let’s go find him. Pickin’ up paw-paws put ‘em...
May 242 min read
If Jasper Johns Was a Poet
I relearn my numbers in a grid arranged in the Chinese style, Beginning with the five in the center, I surround it with a zero, that...
May 12 min read
Mid-Century Ranch, Orange County
I cannot tell you what a bargain this is. . . . – “$7,500” Josephine Miles I cannot lie and tell you what a bargain this is. The owners...
Apr 152 min read
Loss Is Green
The little girl I baby-sit insists . . . Red Ghazal, Aimee Nezhukumatathil Humankind arrives, green disappears from the face Of the land,...
Mar 284 min read
Magdalen's Voices
Close, the desert silence brings Him close. Such silence flowered close around me two other times. Once, the day He drove the demons...
Mar 253 min read
songs of alagi
temple of brihadiswara 11th century a d we shall speak first of the emotions [rasa] nothing goes on in drama without emotion bharata in...
Mar 133 min read
Denial
Did I mention, if you stand on your head in the dark it is still dark? Yes, this morning when the clock said six a.m. it was still dark...
Mar 63 min read
Shrinking Bears
i. The only bears I know float in the sky. They appear in the dark only after I look north, find the Big Dipper, and sing a spell to...
Feb 234 min read
Rough Terrain
With thanks to Andrea Camilleri for “stanze di ricordi inutile” (room of useless memories) We outlast the silence rising Out of...
Feb 213 min read
Covered Bridge
The covered bridge nears completion, Built from the center of the roof out. Any amateur knows you begin Construction with the frame,...
Feb 132 min read
A Hoard of Books
There are rooms filled with shelves filled with paper books just like this all over this small floating planet. Is there a grimoire among...
Feb 42 min read
The Dog Takes it All in Stride, but the Cat’s Gone into Hiding
My husband unleashes beasts at our house, not just Bottom with his ass’s head escaped from a dream, but pot-bellied demons from Japan and...
Jan 303 min read
She Turns Her Back to Me
Variétés Apollinaris, 1953 Joseph Cornell She’s just a paper girl with her attention on the ground before her. Birds flutter around her...
Jan 192 min read
Alaskan Diner
Fluorescent lights buzz Shadows etched in my face Gray winter day Visiting Anna in Alaska over Christmas break altered my sense of winter...
Jan 143 min read
[The sound of breathing calms me:]
The sound of breathing calms me: Years of meditation practice come down to a chant, In, out. When thoughts interrupt each other on their...
Too long for a journal? Too short for a chapbook? From time to time I will offer something more substantial than a tasty morsel. For example, I want Playing in the Field of Robert Duncan to be read as one poem.
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