Tag: poetry

Please Visit Me at Tangled Locks Journal

I feel deeply honoured to be part of September’s issue of Tangled Locks Journal. Thank you to Teresa Berkowitz for accepting my poem, “Feline”. Please visit me there, and take a moment to peruse all the writing: you won’t be disappointed.

Tangled Locks Journal is published quarterly. Information for how to get involved is available on the site.

First Kiss

Dock sitting
past midnight
parental drone
humming in distance

Two silhouettes
haloed in moonlight
I lean in, heart pounding
your lips brush my forehead

Nothing more…
Nevermind! I blurt
scrambling to leave
rejection a soul tattoo

(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson.
Image my own. Care to join me and write about your first kiss?
Drop me a link so I don’t miss it.)

Religious Calling

Armed with righteous conformity
the zealots rang my bell

Came calling on a cleaning day,
in that remote country hell

Spotted me before I did them
my attention on wringing the mop

No choice but to answer
and before I could ask them to stop

Carefully scripted narrative
tumbled from pious lips

Bemused, I noted neither blink
as I, stark naked, stood hands on hips.

(Image my own)


Another Chapter Closes

House creaks
ferocious
decries starkness
of bare walls
absence of furniture
finality of boxes
stacked and sealed

Sleep eludes me
mind recalling
passages –
his cancer
my fear
twist of fate
that left me housebound

We could not stay here
this place chosen for healing
turned prison

“You’ve been good to us”
I whisper, “Now
you’ll favour someone else”

She grumbles in response
this old house, sharing
my trepidation
of unknowns, change
always precarious

Another groan
and I concur
we grand dams
need extra TLC

but I have faith –
an injection of
new life
will do us both good.

(This is a found poem, excerpted from a post of the same name which appeared on my second blog in July of 2017. Image my own.)

Pain

Pain.

I push against it
challenge it

A warrior intent
on proving
I am…

indestructible
unwilling
to flinch

Convinced
that denial
equals power

Except, it gnaws
at my edges
tears me down
bit by bit

Just as I prepare
to succumb…
clarity

…this is invitation

…surrender is a gift

…pain is passage

I let go
absolve myself
of the need….

(Pain first appeared on One Woman’s Quest II in June of 2016.
It has been edited here. Art my own.)