The words are buried in the Dollar Store journal where grief and relief exist together Where salt and sugar both have their place Where hurt deeply felt has less of a hold and is not a theory but a theme that is lived Where meaninglessness passes like an overcast morning Where another back door is […]
I don’t have the balm of little children I don’t have an island to go to I can’t hunt or lift heavy loads I won’t drive on I-95 I don’t have a garden that doesn’t die that isn’t choked out by weeds at the end of every season I don’t have a brown paper bag […]
Squirrels drop nuts on the woodshed’s tin roof as if dotting exclamations for your Virgo birthday Butterflies land on zinnias while spiders start their webs spinning quiet rhythms for the changing of seasons And we are girls passing notes that have grown into poems We are mothers in rocking chairs holding loved memories close Some […]
X marks the spot of exaggerated thoughts and a plural of cells that float outside my body I hid under the bed seeking the darkness not wanting to be seen at four-years-old The tomb is a womb I know I’ll return to I’ll scratch poetry on the walls like a cave-dweller marks the maze of […]
A poem is a dream that’s willed into being A dream just shows up and writes itself When dreams are absent a poem can be imagined When pens are inkless a dream spells it out Both emerge from the subconscious A poem takes some coaxing A dream is unsigned They both break barriers revealing the […]
I slipped on the moon’s crescent peel flipped a double scoop of big dipper shine I slid on the milky way’s parlor counter was hit with a full phase of whipped moon pie ___________Poets and Storytellers United
“Now we are old with only mortal gods and rent to pay for all we have loved. Ashes to ashes, we knew this would happen, but we never want it to be now.” – From Sunflowers, 1999 I saw my life in a box of mementos and photos and outdated clothes that nobody wants A […]
A stroke of genius on a live canvas A tilted smile in a metaphoric portrait A curved nude in a side-view posed for the muse’s changing mood ______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
Illumination zero a chance to see anew a blind spot revealed on what you thought you knew _______________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
I still remember the man on Martha’s Vineyard doing a crossword puzzle on his cottage porch I admired his peaceful concentration and thought I’d like to do that too It’s not like wanting a cold beer after you see someone drinking one You have to work and it takes hours to finish It takes years […]
I worry about running out of onions the way my dad worried about running out of flashlights and batteries and because he lived through The Great Depression he had a store in his A Street basement Now we hoard toilet paper and wear masks on planes We think every splinter could be a Lyme carrying […]
They say you have to find your voice like they ask ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ But you don’t know where to look or know that you have the voice you were born with You sit on the phone with a boy you like and time stops still while no […]
