Poems
The Slowdown with Major Jackson “Six for Gold”
“I rub
my hands together vigorously and then slowly
pull them apart like a wizard commanding
an invisible orb. I tell him to try—
keep rubbing your hands as fast as you can,
and when you are ready, stop—wait
for the energy to arrive between your palms.
He doesn’t know this is just a game, just
our nerves responding to friction…”
Tampa Review, issue 65 2023
Cutleaf “Anatomy of a Home (and other poems)
“…She joined ordinary people
in the bottom-up insurgency.
She plucked delicate excesses;
untied God from her body
and let her skin spill
in the purple penitential light.
She was problematic to the coddled
American mind…”
(from “She Was”)
Open: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L Featured Writer for May 2019.)
Now I Lay Them Down to Sleep
Grease
“I sink my knife deep into the skin
of vegetables—eat the light hidden
in the tomato. The slow horse of my heart
clopping as if it has nothing better to do.”
“Knead” Moon City Review 2019
“…This house
that shelters you—
sometimes it carries
you away in a net.
Sometimes you put
your hand on the faucet
just to watch cold water
rush down the sink…”
“Cockcrow” Mom Egg Review 2019
“…I had a mind.
I had ideas. And a beast seeps through unweaving
me thread by thread, turning its bundle
of claws— I was I was I was.”
Atticus Review
“A Mother’s Nature,” “One For Sorrow,” “Swaddle”
Shake The Tree 2019
“Elegy of Color” Salamander
“…Shimmering red rosary beads. Red
garnet of my claddagh ring. A leak
yellowing in the ceiling. The many
colors of my father singing. I was blessed
and I was blessed, like forcheads, like palm
wisps, like water my mother bought
from the church--colorless, colorless.”
“Star Grace” -co written with Paul Marion
They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing
"The Birds" Inklette
"Never To Be Told" Yes Poetry: Special Feature
“I would never blame myself.”
"Breakthrough" Featured in Five:2:One Magazine Lit Style
"Crow Funeral" Semi-finalist for the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize
“The crows scold loudly as if to say look:
look at one of us fallen, see the danger,
feel how it hurts—the dead crow sizzling
in the pavement like a fallen roof shingle. So nothing,
so gone this thing we have lost.”
"The First Gunshot" Doug Holder: The Sunday Poet
"Mill City"Mass Poetry
"Godless" Mass Poetry: Poet in the Spotlight
“It is easy
to remember this kind of stillness.
I want it on my skin
like a tick. I want to lie down
like a dog for what it might give me.”
"Majors" Harpur Palate
"Dear Lowell" Poet Lore
"Letters" Richard Howe blog
"Woodworker" Wilderness House Review
“You promise me
we do not bore each other
and run your plane along
the cutting edge, stripping
down to the smoothest point.
This is how things are done.”
Prayer
Along the Riverwalk,
refuse skirts the southern bank.
White foam pools below
the cantilever. I've come here
because I don't expect to be found.
Dear God:
what should we make
of what has gone wrong with my life?
All day I could watch
dead water. I'm in love
with a lunatic, I drink too much,
and I no longer believe in recovery.
I want back what disappears
into the crook of the canal.
Dear God:
this is my persistent letter,
my pinched bead,
my hymn that tolls and darkens,
this is my church bell shaking
off the birds.
Mid Drift copyright 2011
Loom Press