Tag: poetry

Poem: The Poet’s Wife

Sometimes I post my poetry here on my blog. I still have the painting mentioned in this poem, which is I am showing here. The Poet’s Wife The poet’s tiny wife suffered from the cold. I gave her my fiancé’s Chinese jacket, It fit her but could not obscure her homeliness— none of the owner’s…

Poem: From the backseat of my aunt’s Chevy

From the backseat
her red hair an accusation.
Thin, careworn, and cunning
burnt forever by that long-ago season;
she knows the wrong things.

Dissolute pools
trapping the blue sky,
her mascara-smeared eyes lie,
looking backly.

“This is how the world is,”
nodding,
“this is how the world is.”

Her disjoint face abandons
the words she forces;
words are flight,
purposed for betrayal.

The Fall creeps in,
steals what is not hers;
is merciless.

Poem: Why do I remember this?

Why do I remember?
I’ve carried this,
and now–see?–here it is.

Guided by a compulsion (that has never left me)
I painted the walls of my mother’s house
the entire length of the hallway;
floating above the floor–I was light.

You’ll laugh, but it was art.
That’s the simple truth.

My mother didn’t see it that way,
in fact, she was outraged.
Again you’ll laugh, but I was flabbergasted.
I didn’t understand her.