Category: Poetry
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2408: Journal of Thoughts
From a Sea-Salted Dock We wore black.Wore our pearlsand affection, spoke in whispered wordsthat left us tongue-tied. The sky watched, tasted our tears,and stirred our petrichor, calm-scentedour grey-fringed hair. We stood on a sea-salted dock,and released his ashesto the airon the coldest day February had ever seen. Fishing boats iced and rocking,frayed sails wind-stiff,and slapping…
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A Six: The Law of Finders
This “Framed Poem” is written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, Poetry Slam on 27 August I had been content to sit and listen as one poet after another stepped into the small pool of light, when the woman at the microphone looked directly at me, smiled as though we had already shared some confidence, and…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Old Woman’s Waffle Iron Predicts the Future The waffle iron arrivesthrift-shop-worn and hissing. Its hinges creak like gypsy’s bones,its non-stick grids etched with symbolsthat might be Nordic runes. The old woman pours batter, and the first prophecy bubbles up:“BEWARE THE 3RD TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”She flips it, and squints:“Also, your cat is definitely plotting…
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2208: Journal of SenHai
The Overview Effect I.all our little warsEarth hangs blue in the darknessof cold indifference. grey moon, ancient cold,a blue world caught like amber,somewhere it is spring II.Grey stone, endless dustthen that blue, rising, unmaskeda gift we did not earn Monochrome holds stilla blue arc breaks the silencethe void almost blinks Senryu and Haiku poems ©Misky…
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2208: Everywhere Poems
An Everywhere Poem Tuesday:wind rushed the sparks. a snap,and combustionof sun-baked grass. it’s the scent of charreddried herbs.smoke bittingbright, and mineral dry. it’s to swallow upa dusty road —it’s a ghost coughlingering in the throat. sirenspluck at the airin two-tones. Friday:the fire has gonebefore I find it. only its mouthremains — black grass,the bitter greenof…
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2107: Everywhere Poems
The Dry Cleaners that Aren’t Anymore windows open,houses sharing conversation. heat rising,tyres on pavement, a steady whineof a vacuum cleaner — somewhere. “Bought pizza at the dry cleaners. You know, the one busted for drugs years ago,” says my neighbour, “ten minutes they claimed, turned out to be an hour — good pizza though.” “Opening…
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2008: Everywhere Poems
The Axe in the Cedar Block Dad chopped woodevery day,until he couldn’t. One day,he just walked awayfrom his axe. Left it in a block of cedar, sunk deeperthan his tremor. And there it stayed.For years. None of us strong enoughto free it. Eventuallythe blade rusted,angry-red, and the wooden handle fell off. Everywhere Poems don’t have…
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1908: A Rum Dream Sestina
A Rum Dream Sestina The tide revealed more beachthan I’d ever seen. Dark, brimmingwaves drinking in sand, and a blackmood of clouds shrouding tearsand chunks of sky. Gusts takingto air our towels. Umbrellas. We two women clamped our knuckled twohands on our straw hats. The beachemptied. Holiday-makers ran, takingshelter in huts roofed with straw brims.A…
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Finding Your Vocabulary
Written for “What Do You See?” I took the image to a different direction: finding familair things for sale in an antique shop.
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1708: Everywhere Poems
todayhe carries her suitcases, pots and pans,towels,bedlinen, across the thresholdof a university room. I remembercarrying his. the old exchange.what we carry in,what we carry away. on the drive homeI pulled off the highway, stopped the car. some roads are without our knowing.but not this one. todayI send him a text. you’re in my heart,my darling…