Die, die, the Old Crow kept cawing. Was he talking to me? Here in the Old Poet’s Home, only I can hear him. Maybe someday you will too, when you’re older. Despite his contention, I must admit I admire the luminous sheen of his midnight coat.
Read Moreget the audience
looking in one direction
and then surprise them
from another
“We are dancing in Paris. I see us in a small apartment near a busy intersection, we barely have enough money to live and I am spending it all on paints and canvases. I try teaching English but no one cares and then we hit on a plan to open an American Midwest Dancing school and make millions!” Jennie said with a shriek.
Read MoreHe liked to glimpse their snowy blooms
among all that stark wood of spring
I grow increasingly captive to the imperatives of aging,
to the quest for comfort and assurance. Like a fussy
mother spider, I scurry about attending to my private
universe: cobwebs in the corners, crooked pictures,
eroded mortar between chimney bricks.
on the wolf-edged page
magpies gather
I have music, soft jungle light
through ginger leaves, azaleas
blue & scattered skies & books
“What are you drawing?” She holds up a picture of a woman, one half of her torso shrunken. On the ground, there is a small pile of curved bones. Julia tells me that these are the woman’s ribs.
Read MoreThe difference between me and homeless people is negligible. The surface details are just that. Reality is within, not without.
Read MoreTo the east, an old woman opens her palms. Onyx fingers / raven feathers, and the bird soars aloft. In her eyes, brush fires.
Read MoreShe had a good arm for a nun.
Hunching forward she’d swing her pointer like a switch,
cracking out the rhythm
as we recited times tables in simple sentences.
If you live long enough you start to notice that so many stories are examples of a bit more general story that lives at a deeper level
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