poetry

  • The Color of Rest

    The Color of Rest

    “The Color of Rest on Sunday”…after Frost It’s Sunday, and the day waits at my window,A silent usher in woolen light.The world, hushed at the seams, has started,But I have not. I sit, not ready yet. Two birds,One, blue with a black-stitched back,The other, cinnamon-flecked and frosted,Chatter in three-four time, a waltz on the limb.Their…

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  • Simon and the Fish

    Simon and the Fish

    It was always somethinguntil there was nothing. Simon lived the only life he knew—a dockworker with more days off than on,meeting ends in a mannernot unlike a politician:smiles,handshakes,promises made in passing,rarely kept. But he worked. He didn’t question,not even when he probably should’ve—like when Mable,his neighbor in the trailer park,asked for his last dime.She had…

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  • Sleepwalking through goodbye

    If I were dying,would you steal the last breathfrom the seam where sky kisses sea,pour it into my lungsand tell me lies sweet enough to dream by—then step into the fog,where I could only follow with closed eyes,holding you for a thousand nameless days? If I were crying,would you unthread my face from your memory,let…

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  • Fracture

    Fracture

    “We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.”— W. Somerset Maugham Your silence cuts like glass,a delayed reply, a shrug that stings.I wrote you truth, raw and jagged,to mend the cracks where our story…

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  • The Builder

    The Builder

    Billie Holiday cries softly, somewhere between here and the past—her melody warms the corners of the roomlike the heater humming in time with my breath.A cappuccino cozies the center of me,and I write—to life,to you,across this ethereal threadspun of digits and light. I weave thoughts and feelingslike a tapestry—yarns pulled from memory and moment:scratchy and…

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  • Hey you 2

    Hey you 2

    gulped gravel gargled spit out sand, fists pound folly idol weight in hand ***word playing Haiku, simplicity to complex, breaking made up rules

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  • Gas Lit

    Gas Lit

    You struck the match—and blew. A stewof me and you,left simmeringin not enough. I was the wick,the flicker,the bustbeneath your breath. Insecurity—your favorite weapon.Everything you wrong,even the way I hung,wrongly. Painfully penetrative,you split meopen barely wide—just enoughto feel less. A ghost now,residing in your periphery.I smile.(An imaginary mend.) “It’s got to be okay,” they say.So…

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  • A Psalm of Brokenness and Hope

    O Lord, I’ve chased my own salvation,And stumbled in my pride.I paint a smile to hide my pain,And turn from hands stretched wide. My heart aches for Your healing touch,A salve to mend this tear.Let this wound fade, its scar grow faint,Yet trembling, I draw near. Must I bare my soul’s deep shame,And name what…

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  • Line 451

    Line 451

    she was a fleshing gal,okay—Ruebeneque,but I never met a RuebenI didn’t eat. she was different.her Sav-on mascara caked heavyon her upper left eyelid,open just a touch widerthan the right. her lip trembledwhen she asked me the time.“half past ate,” I said.she smiled like she understood.I looked down—respect, or maybe shame. she sat next to me.…

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  • New Ink

    New Ink

    I’m done binding sorrows into books,stitching grief with every line.Let my pen learn lighter alphabets—words that rise like bread,ink that blooms like dawn on your skin. These hands, wrinkled as old manuscripts,will smooth into new stories.No more erasing what was lost;I’ll write forward,planting laughter like punctuationin fertile white spaces. You’re no longer a characterI conjure…

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