Poetry

Tahiti

Is the rain warm

in Tahiti?

Do natives melt together

like brown sugar?

Here, we insulate ourselves

against the frost.

Blood runs sluggish

like winter molasses.

And icicles stab the heart.

published in Weird Sisters

Recipe

Mock angel food cake

is made from bread,

sweet milk, and coconut.

Mock angels are made

from bread and bitter wine.

published in Bitterroot

Kansas

I can hear

the clear cool voice of hills

here on the baked earth

I feel a chill in my heart

These plains lie like clean shirts,

            pressed and starched.

Like the vacuuming tornadoes it breeds,

this land can’t give until it’s whipped

            its dwellers to their knees.

I leave for greener dreams

            of streams rushing and gurgling

                        through caves.

Not skim milk, but the rich cream

            that pulses through these veins

                        will nourish

the hungry young climbers

            who need to escape the lowland death

                        by feeling

the mountain heart’s murmur.

published in Kansas Quarterly

Apartment Living

My upstairs neighbor

trains elephants

that dance to the beat

of a hundred bass

drums.  I think

the ceiling’s cracking.

published in Valley Views

Marriage

Our love fits like new nylons,

clings just enough to support

bulging waistlines, sagging egos.

We keep our nails clipped.

published in Rocky Mountain Creative Arts Journal

To A Poet

You dive in mescaline, a cloudy sea,

searching for metaphors of clarity.

Cows and crows are too common.

You wind your life to the ticking

of Dali’s surreal watches and

stretch your soul into Goya’s

agony.  Then you wonder that we

don’t understand; we, who still

marvel at the miracle of milk

from cows, at the unmatched

ebony of a crow’s wing.

published in Pacific Sun

 

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