Poetry
Ketsia
I stare. Pinks, grays, blank canvas politely obscure below her neck, hint at her thumb resting on her collarbone. I raise my hand to touch trust, let it fall.
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Poetry
Showing 241-264 of 681 pieces
Poetry
Figurin’
Anyway, they form a scooby-doo-esque gang of lovable misfits And solve the mystery of why I keep waking up unsure of who I am And why its so hard to explain what that means Entering your life from the outside can be a jarring experience
Poetry
Red Tail, an Epitaph
The yard you plotted then planted has come back wilder, the way seeming winterkill comes back wilder for its next life. So you think, pruning-time! — when, with a looming shadow and a gust of backwash, the ponderous bird alights, the porch rail trembles with its weight.
Poetry
Late Walk
a man must lean on his liquor getting through the prayer line walking fields with all colors flaring soft or fired with hard light the walnut shell his face is the tan smeared greasy eyes a mature man out of time
Poetry
Ode to Goibniu
Son of Esarg the axe-thrower, smelting and pin-lining coasts with bronze whirls, smoothed by Macha’s shawl. Forger of tools, lately found half-sunk in peat in a depthless bog, with his elbow crooked upward. The gases preserved his jacket, the raised sinew on his small finger, and the blazoned buckle he himself fashioned.
Poetry
Subtext
a window in the greenroom. a garden of trees. the opal sky. fractals of gold and violet, both. two salamanders suspended above the formless dark. liquid. speaking.
Poetry
Having Lost a Cowrie Shell
Madness is when the warrior god calls the initiates to the altar stone in a masquerade to play with death to prove their mettle
Poetry
Sanctum
What if this belly was where you buried your sorrows nestled into disappointment shame and fear. What if this belly resisted expectation conformity like the time you refused to stand and pledge allegiance.
Poetry
War
Words were eliminated from dictionaries— bridle, ruin, barricade, lapidaries, famine, clay, sparrow, genocide and yarrow—
Poetry
My mother, in the hospital—
My mind won’t place me there, not today, or tomorrow, or those four days in December, when the drive became a ritual and in the evenings, after the nurses said enough, it’s almost Christmas go home, sleep in your beds, not hunched over like a burlap bag of coffee beans on a storeroom floor;
Poetry
Monsoon
To watch a compassionate sky with you, the palms bend and the wind chase the parakeets home.
Poetry
Baby womb tomb, catacomb write
Kiss the wall & pretend they’re here. Let them cry like those sweet cadaverous ways they might have. I am living this life & wondering about those miniature coffins.
Poetry
Cartography of Self (Leaving)
My traitor tongue whispers tales like wind through mountain hollows, hugging teeth like clouds that cradle snowy peaks. I’ve mapped this topography in abundance, traced familiar trails like lines inked by well-worn pen, stain left to pool at base of storied waters.
Poetry
Cancer Hair Cut
The salon is quirky— an indoor swing, a stuffed unicorn— silver and pink everywhere. My stylist meets me at the door tearful and subdued, as though about to prep a beloved aunt for burial.
Poetry
Some Boys
Trash-talk. Heart on one’s sleeves. Girls. Tattoos and scraped knees/ Random talk of beautiful, myth, foolish, heady girls/ more girls. Brittle desires unfurl.
Poetry
A Long Time Ago, at a McDonald’s in West Columbia, SC
The McDonald’s, bright and beautiful,is a coloring book filled in bya comic book artist. Yellow doesn’tstay inside the lines of the GoldenArches. Yellow doesn’t spill..
Poetry
Shaker Dreams
We should do everything as if we had a thousand yearsto live and as if we were going to die tomorrow.-Mother Ann Lee Down below..
Poetry
Outside the Laundromat: A Forward
Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, 2008 In mottled cotton, shambling toe-heel, toe-heel,Bass-ackwardsWith Zen concentration and breathing down the neck Of the square’sPath, sinking under the shards of bruised..
Poetry
Clothesline
I blink at sky, fiery yellowthis time of afternoon, as I unpinlaundry flapping in an intermentbreeze like flags of surrender. Clothes have wrapped around themselves,knotted into..
Poetry
An Ad I Wrote As A Child for a Ghost to Live in the Attic
I show my dead grandmothers the map I drew: here is woman, there is queer, here is my dot on gender ave. Wish you’d braid..
Poetry
What I Might Have Said
When I came to say goodbye,I brought a pocketful of poems,not mine, but some which I meant to comfort you,and I hope they did,hope you..
Poetry
Separation
In the spirit of all things we are not, I should be honest. Demand:take your cardigan off first, then my pantyhose, use your tongue to..
Poetry
Family Matter
Mother, this home is infectedwith demons, every rooma photograph of the tragedieswe performed many a night. Frightening is the bedroom whereI threatened to hit youif..
Poetry
Just Silence
On some nights, she doesn’t eat but instead writes about the food she really wants. Jae Yook Gui. Kimchi jigae. Foods representing her Korean heritage…