January 2012
9 posts
Top 100 Classic Books →
December 2011
16 posts
He Came From the Crow's Nest
He Came From the Crow’s Nest
When I dreamt of strength,
I dreamt of you: a sailor’s gentle
footfalls, weak sea legs that
leant into my salting earth,
whitely waiting for
your quivering fleet.
You arrived on the banks of my
stripped white shore, doveing sails,
but my world didn’t ask for explorers.
The flash of a golden telescope triggered
warning flags, my country’s
cannons at the...
“And if you ask how I regret that parting?
It is like the flowers falling at...”
– Ezra Pound, Exile’s Letter
Six Feet Deep
Six Feet Deep
Irregular black tracks
streak across my face, soft
as after a slap.
Pins of water push out
from the corners of my
eyes like a tongue
against someone’s closed lips.
Gasps of breath, pale as laughter,
bring sharp oxygen back
into my curling system.
My body shakes
aching for you.
“You know what hope is? Hope is a bastard, hope is a liar a cheat and a tease....”
– Ben Folds “Picture Window”
I just want to find peace.
“I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch...”
– Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah
A Foggy Day
I’ve written half a dozen poems linking one certain person to the image of fog…what’s scary is that I didn’t notice it until just now. Subconscious??
November 2011
15 posts
Poem
I know what it’s like
to feel your body as
a corpse,
a dead fish
made of iron,
exhausted from life
and hoping
to just stop
breathing
to see if anyone
would notice
or if they’d let you lie
there in your puddle
of not so
convincing self
sanity
“It does get better./ It just takes a lot of practice.”
Grief embraces you always/ from behind.
Born Yesterday
Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not just the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love—
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you’re a lucky girl.
.
But if it shouldn’t, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not...
“But after a moment he murmured “Peter, I love you,” and all the walls I’d so...”
Lovesong for Delia
(a haiku)
Kiss your wooden brow,
full of glossy harmony
like hair, and I’m young.
How to Write a Novel ("The Snowflake Method") →
“Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?/ Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may...”
– Keats, “To Autumn”
October 2011
4 posts
“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.”
– Lord Byron
“This is what I thought I wanted—why am I afraid?”
– Sink or Swim
September 2011
21 posts
