Poems

Two Words: A Wedding

There are things you have words for, things you do not

have words for. There are words that encompass all your

feelings & words that…

Francesca Woodman

i

At the heart there is a hollow sun

by  which  we  are constructed  and undone

Song: To Celia

Come, my Celia, let us prove,

While we can, the sports of love;

Time will not be ours forever;

from Citizen

The rain this morning pours from the gutters and 

everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your 

glasses to single out what you know is there because 

Song

Go, lovely rose!

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

What horror to awake at night

What horror to awake at night

and in the dimness see the light.

            …

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

One Perfect Rose

A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.

All tenderly his messenger he chose;

Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—

If Stone Dreams

We cannot know this statue, this satyr 

with his head propped on a wineskin; 

we cannot know if he dreams. In fact, 

howlin at the moon

take the moon

nd take a star

when you don’t

know who you are

paint the picture in your hand

nd roll on home

take my fear

nd take the hunger

take my body

Hip-Hop Ghazal

Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips,
decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips.

As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak,

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

That feeling of my soul getting yanked

That feeling of my soul getting yanked

I wonder where my soul hides when I’m sick

My heart feels as if it’s getting beat up

Is it because the restless ocean is clumping up?

When I was Fair and Young

When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.

Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.

But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:

How to Triumph Like a Girl

I like the lady horses best,

how they make it all look easy,

like running 40 miles per hour

is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.

I like their lady horse swagger,

St John’s Burns Down for the Umpteenth Time

Let’s say the fix was in. Let’s say history,
Being human and thus short on ideas,
Made change from an old bag of tricks. Say this

A Hundred and Fifty Pounds

In some, the luggage lies open

like a mouth mid-sentence.

In others, closed zippers grimace:

What would you have brought?

Slippers, a stuffed platypus, a gold watch

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

All things within this fading world hath end,

Adversity doth still our joyes attend;

No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,

Sonnet XV: When I Consider everything that Grows

When I consider everything that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Last Visit

Now I set out across a minefield,

space having taken all I owned, I’m starting over

from a point where every pebble may explode

beneath my shoe and the flowers blaze up

behind my body as I gasp for air,

from Quit Dying to Die

   When the doctors burrowed into my body, they unearthed a slew of tumours. Growths speckled across lungs and kidneys.

You Are Not Going to Come Trillium

But I do come to Trillium. To the Cardiac
Short Stay Unit where you’ve been sent for the second stent, 
where free sanitizer prevents the spread of panic.

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

Dover Beach

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Père Lalement

I lift the Lord on high,

Under the murmuring hemlock boughs, and see

The small birds of the forest lingering by

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things —

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple…

The Dead

How great unto the living seem the dead!

How sacred, solemn; how heroic grown;

How vast and vague, as they obscurely tread

The Wife

Living, I had no might

To make you hear,

Now, in the inmost night,

in this house

in this house

the body of a poem, still warm,

hangs on the nail of the mundane

touched to its core

like a reproach, like proof,

that i was here

and you were here

The Boxers

We were combatants from the start. Our dad 

Bought us boxing gloves when we were ten — 

Champions like Euryalus, say, or Epeius 

Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;

That only men incredulous of despair,

Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air

Embarrased

i thought it was ok - i could understand the reasons

they said there might be young children or a nervous man seeing

this small piece of flesh that they weren’t quite expecting

Journey of the Magi

“A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

Dear Death,

Am I a praise poet or a blame poet?

Today I am a blame poet.

 O Death, face it, existence

doesn’t like you.

You can’t sing. You can’t paint.

Introduction to the Songs of Innocence

Piping down the valleys wild,

Piping songs of pleasant glee,

On a cloud I saw a child,

Salmon Courage

Here at Woodlands, Moriah, 

these thirty-five years later, 

still I could smell her fear. 

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

The Fatigue

The Fatigue is just fatigue. It

sprays my body like

a numbing agent. Say the

way I sleep might not be

working, say the way I eat

might not be working.

Hope to god the meds

Blow, blow, thou winter wind

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man’s ingratitude;

First Time Smudge

It takes eight matches, a burnt thumb, and a quick Google search

to light the sweetgrass braid Mom scored for me from an elder

at work. Always use matches, she said. Spirit likes matches.