Sweet Grass
Field of sweetgrass and sageEarthly prayers, saline dripsthoughts of love and rageUnfamiliar memories like movie clips.Babylons’ gardens yet to be...
A Sagittarian Looks Toward the Sky
For BeautyWhen she saysLook at those starswhat she’s seeingare the stars beyondthe stars The onesyou can’t see Noteven by looking intoher eyes if you wereone...
Writers Are Thieves
At a writers conference in New York City, I took a break from an all-night writing marathon. An Oklahoma woman out of my element, I sat in a diner at two...
Edible Pages
At breakfast,I nosh on news at home,at mid-morning desk,a poem or two.Lunch is just a slice of fiction,then a skim through a trade how-to,come snack-time, I...
I Am a Survivor
Oh yes, I know, I’ve shed a tear.Alone, upset, concern, some fear.Yet, all my years my feelings clearExists a Godly presence here.His love displayed, so many...
Ode to a Coffee Table at Whitty Books
You support and you separate as spaces do or need;You’re drawn upon—not with pen; upon your function—not that first glancing line that’s skewed aim at...
STORM
I do not like to walk in dark rain,the mulberry trees tossing fruit at each other,the wind an off track tuba blasting into intolerance,gutters in free fall,...
Caudatorio
Fly for me again. Fill my eyes with a breastso scarlet robins sob. Only you are photo luscious,Richmondena Cardinalis, crowned with a crest,body the color of...
On Hà Nội Street
He was so tall; when I looked up at him,in his eyes I wanted to seethe Statue of Libertybathed in the sunlight of his homeland.Instead, sorrow rolled down...
Indonesian Rain
Maranti trees shelter green slopesin the Pacific Rim of Sabah.This lofty estate is my terrestrial zenithwhere I survey these woody punctuationsas they take...
The Scoop
In the coffee shop, the Anishinabe elder leaned over her coffee mug. Her shoulders were hunched, her face creased as she slowly told me what happened to her...
A Sketch on My First Writers’ Workshop, for V.
Voice and mood yokeIn wintry duskCut from pen’s smoke.This is our task,Oh lost Plains childReaped from rhyme’s husk:Inter one wildAgon, one cheapMood and...
Word Juggler
age four, looking out the car’s side window,azure sky, scudding clouds,supine in the vast back seat of the Buick,my mom and her boyfriend driving us home to...
Christopher Wrote a Poem Today about a Woman with Stigmata
(for Christopher Stephen Soden)My friend Christopher the poettold me he wrote a poem todayabout a woman with stigmataBut he is frequently an...
In the Time of Leaving
Prologue My name is Chava. My story is one of leaving. A litany of what I hold in my empty hands. The scent of bread and the sound of horses in the narrow...
The Flicker and the Flame
The Flicker and the flameIt can’t always be the same.A soft spoken screamBut all were immersed in the hot dream.Thick air, panicOne more verse.Soul...
TYLER
Some things come out of no place:a jerk and a brake:a flash and a fire:a text and a heart bends itself in two:the monster came with the rain,the night bright...
Atop a Sloping Hill
Atop a sloping hill,at the end of a gravel road,can a new life start here?A watercolor painting,an ekphrastic poem,an essential oil healing remedy,A glimpse...
Love Letters (at the end of all of this)
They continued to writelove letters to each otherafter their breakup after theirbreakup long after theirbreakup and they knew theywere never getting...
Last Night’s Dream
All dayLast night’s dreams flirt with meOffering only hintsAnd, rousing feelingsI smile, try again