Category: Poetry

When I take the chance of dreaming, I dream of Pirate Librarianship Illicit materials Gathered Offered To all comers. Clandestine sex ed In the face of death dealing institutions The Jocelyn Elders Children’s Reading Room For how to love yourself And others History classes from the bottom up, The names and places of the colonized…

some of the cans we      scavenged from the ditches after shift drinks      scattered amongst the snakes stabbing with a stick      skipping those too close to water moccasins from the neighbors we      carried tin cans of tin cans to the concrete slab      crushed sledgehammered one by one stench of week-stale beer      skipping slurred sermons to swiftly…

No, that one’s shit. Yeah, that’s shit too. Okay, that one starts out okay… but then it turns to shit. You could try fixing it, but that’ll probably be shit too. I mean… it has potential, but right now? In this moment? It’s shit. And really, if you tried, you’d still never actually develop that…

the hay had grown taller than we were then just about ready for baling we ran through it as fast as we could push ourselves knocking down the reeds thinking we were blazing new trails I ran so hard I couldn’t see home behind me when I came back home wasn’t there anymore the hay…

The project done, they’d toss what was left over the levee. “Let the river wash it away.” After work he’d back up and load up his truck. Leftovers. Junk. Bits of this and that. I learned to crawl on hardwood floors the river never got. I walk that levee now, picked clean for decades.

Banking on an invisible track, the hawk turns her belly to the sun, silhouette becoming bright beige and cream in the yellow evening light. All work below stops, workers paused in wonder, this moment, this blessing, becoming everything. The skies clear, we turn again to the soil, this moment, this blessing.

Lord, let me ever trust my tenderness, and value when I’m vulnerable. Heaven, help me ever watch where I walk, and skip the steps that would hinder or harm. God, grant me grace to hold hands and hearts, even my own.

If there were words in stones, And stanzas in plants… If chain link came in couplets, And wrapped around fence post verses… If tomato plants reached up in rhyme, And cucumbers blossomed in meter… I’d have written a few dozen poems lately. So while my writing has taken a hit, I’ve gained dirt under my…