from Romeo and Juliet, Scene III, Act II Come, night, come, Romeo, come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him […]
Trouble in Paradise
A poem that draws from Garden of Eden ideas and Adam and Eve, to talk about lost love.
At the end of the Sound…
At the end of the Sound, where the pines have been pushed back by an unrelenting salt wind, you will find that jingle-shell beach— where little cups of pearly lemon peach stretch out endlessly. Put your hands to them and you will not know where to stop. […]
Night
Night Stars over snow, And in the west a planet Swinging below a star— Look for a lovely thing and you will find it, It is not far— It will never be far. —Sara Teasdale, featured in The Joy of Poetry
Immolation
Immolation As the horizon looms, flips over to present an endless span of waves, I give up, surrender. My fate’s the fate of falling. I guess I hoped for recognition, that when I pushed my arms into the hostile sun he would look up and see my face, the frame of limb so like his […]
Hawksbill Crag
Hawksbill Crag By gravel road we rise four miles into Ozark bluff. Our truck hugs the slant of timber line thin as a pencil streak. At Hawksbill Crag, we tramp thousands of feet above shaggy pine and the thumb of Jehovah. I clutch a walking stick, while you slide to the edge of the bluff […]
Li Po
A poem about being a poet, based on Li Po and how he knew “the tea bushes flush with leaves, / sweet scent rising / from snow-petaled earth…”
Resort
Resort When the Baker Hotel died, no one ordered an autopsy or called the local mortician. They just left the carcass at the crossroads where it fell, bulging brickwalls, gouged eyes, empty sockets jagg’d with glass. On coffee break, the local doc doesn’t wonder if he could save her. Guilt dies without memory so don’t […]
Do the shells
“Do the shells still hear the sea…” asks this poem about loss, memory, and being.
Papa is the sky
Papa is the sky
Mama is the air…
Eve’s Second Garden
Eve’s Second Garden Filled with succulents and spines that scratch her legs and break off inside, so Adam has to pinch her skin, then suck and bite the sliver, his teeth the only tweezers yet invented. Nothing requires much water. Five months drought each winter turns prickly pears brilliant purple before they die. Yucca shade […]
Petit à Petit L’Oiseau Fait Son Nid
“I used to dream of living in a garden,” starts this richly colorful sestina about love and wishes.
