It came in through the front door a dense, black body and paper wings crashing headlong into the window screen above where I lay Over and over he pounds on his prison dumb to my quiet eye What if I can save him, I think I’d be so beautiful A little god with red fingernails…
Tonight you’ll be my long, dark drink That slick burn in the belly That stilling of hand A blood filled wine bottle, spilling for communion For I am an owl now a devouring phantom in the low light shape-shifting insomniac, unblinking on a perch and my eyes are fixed on you.
Fat birds in the lawn to greet me just before twilight when the blades are cool and the earth exhales in shadow Engine idling Solo piano swelling in the cab in my chest I crack the window A break in the dam for notes to spill into infinite space unnoticed by gravity I like to…
I don’t feel like naming this one. Call it: in bed with cats, windows open, desert spring, fat flashlight and a beautiful book. I could force myself to write and God knows I’d mean every word; but all I want to do is feel. My inner body, says Tolle, author of said beautiful book. So…
the same thing i love most feeling I don’t want to miss anything I’ll set down my recorder in the world and walk away and take in the cool in my sweat my daughter’s deepest wound traffic yawning in the distance like a seashell over a child’s ear barking dog laundry detergent wood smoke on…
… Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not,…
the burn never stops burning the ache never stops aching and when one part of the body dies ten thousand bodies rise up to fall headlong into that cold hole We think we’re alone and sweet Jesus, we are But what amazes me even in the witch’s hour roll call when the clock ticks like…
Choosing my soul again and again Feeling her light hurl from my eyes Love for Love’s Sake Knowing what that means for the first time in my life My daughter’s breath filling the darkness of my bedroom at 2 am Smiling into the ceiling as I listen for hours Book ended by purring cats All…
Once upon a time, I could hardly wait to curl up in some dusky corner and fill my veins with smoky blues and red wine. Clink glasses with Billie Holiday. Hold my knees. Sway. Ride the dark current of longing. Sob religiously until the drunk took me at last. A form of premeditated spiritual murder…
I made it through New Year’s! It was much more of a helmet and bunker moment than I anticipated, but it is well with my soul. Whew. The aftermath of anything, when sober, is always better. A well earned nugget of wisdom that one. Funny how this blog has become a bit of a priestess…
Sobriety Poet 