Before the body decomposes, it will heal itself first. One discomfort will suture itself into something better than before. You will find pain in other ways – Previously Published by: Smartish Pace (a Beullah Rose Poetry Prize)
contemporary poet
Previously Published Poems
Phantom Wave
Suddenly, the center of the earth took an oceanic breath in—and never let it out. Eventually, the only ebb and flow was trickle and evaporation. No one wanted this to happen—everyone knew it was bound. New hotels were constructed in front of what used to be oceanfront resorts. No one expected a twenty-first-century land grab—everyone…
X
we’ve x-ed out the relationship on social media, which seems like the final click that will keep the music box in my heart closed, but this morning — I am all moonshine, hot black tea from new red kettle, and happiness. Being with someone else isn’t a thing we will do, but it’s a language we…
A Warhol Postcard
said art is anything you can get away with. It was laying on the hotel bed as I walked in and all afternoon I swear it begged for a story. Warhol would have loved the way I experience Las Vegas: quietly. Just letting the light disburse, diffuse, drift round and round and round me. So…
Three Oranges in the Morning
but last night there were four until he muddled the body of the orange with a reasonable rye we thought what we afforded each other was more than sensory and less than waste until he dropped the rind down the disposal letting the aroma press out of skin…
The Seventh Year
How did the spider conceive of the thread inside her head— How can I after tucking so deeply inside your web— Originally Published By: The Wax Paper
How to Enter a Cold Pool
Run toward the water. Remember how good it feels to be surprised by something more powerful than yourself. Realize there has been a stream running through you all along, take this as a lesson for abundance. Look the water straight in her eye. Pretend the water hides the same animal you’ve encountered deep in…
Dessert
no one was hungry after dinner but the ripe figs were beginning to burst and we couldn’t let sufficiency get in the way of what was splendid it was always summer for the fiend who wanted everything the spun sugar sings how craving is infinite going forward…
Habits
Languor I hear is a terrible way to waste one’s life. I hear speed cannot be taught— which can get you thinking if you like that sort of thing. To swap the tea for tequila. To trade the imperial for a travail. …
Bordeaux 2000 Deconstructed
The whole year lacks tension someone says, but not for the spider who comes up from the cellar on the bottle of Bordeaux, not for someone else who kills it by staining the label with tiny organisms. Someone is talking about the German who cut…