I’m a fading flower and summer is slipping by I keep my head down and my hands busy I plant the names of blooms in the hope they grow into poems that will take care of me in my old age that will come back every year __________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads […]
I see you only with insight in hindsight in moonlight that penetrates a dream where the parts of you that live in me are cast in sand castle worlds that wash away in morning Love has amnesia when it comes to storms My love is a boat that has saved me ________Colleen Redman / Poets […]
The last thing you said to me came in a dream ‘Where have you been?’ you asked When I lost you in Paris we were both naïve not to have made a plan Now there are secrets I’m not in on And sometimes you don’t say a word I see you but you don’t see […]
Cool dip Ladle of light Illustrious toast to the good night _____________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads
-At five foot and one inch, I’ve hemmed many pants and skirts. Maybe if I was taller, I would have read more of the classics. Sew a straight line Let divergences be gradual Unravel tangled threads and clip loose ends Don’t cut corners Repair what matters Don’t hold up hems with safety pins Take up […]
I remember being asked but don’t remember what happened after that Did I look? Did I show? For the bribe of a popsicle? I remember where we stood between the Coast Guard Station and his family’s summer rental on the back path to home I remember the sting of gravel on my bare feet and […]
Shy moon blushes Late bloomer shine From behind leafy branches It gets braver as it climbs ___________Colleen Redman / Poets United
Mara wants to take our poetry routine on the road. Because we know each other so well and have been bouncing off each other’s work for 30 years, our featured reading at the Little River Poetry Festival came off a bit as a comedy act. Back in the day (2005 – 2012) when we […]
I used to stick my head out the backseat car window not caring that it messed my hair I still lean up and talk to the people up front and lay down and rest when nothing is happening When I stare at a stranger passing by on a highway they stare back like I called […]
Today’s poetry was paper trashUnrequited loves that broke my heartTeased out lines written in circlesBig ideas that fell flat So I vowed to quitbut miss it alreadyI put it in writing but scribbled that too Now I’m looking for loopholesto fix what I quit to write today’s honest wordnot tomorrow’s regret __________Colleen Redman / Poets United/ […]
“A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh” – Leonard Cohen The scars around my ankles from being burned when I was a baby are almost invisible now Like the wound of being separated from mother and home for a four-week hospital stay We called dragonflies “sewing needles” when we […]
It’s a list of words I like A finger pointing mouthful of spelling Vanity license plate of noisy graffiti It’s not a real poem It’s a game show in morse code buy a vowel to solve the puzzle This is the fall of the oral laid out on pavement on billboards and keyboards […]
We are like two sides of the same coin Heads or tails We both win ___________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
The poem I write is not like the jacket I wear It’s more the shoulders it rests on the arms it covers the belly it warms And the poem I write is not like the soup I make It’s the wrist that stirs the spoon the hand that guides the knife to […]
The sky is always bluer on the side of new adventure.
The sun plunges low Jets trail like tribal arrows Vultures circle like warriors and startled doves cry The moon meets the horizon like a sacred hoop rising Like a white buffalo omen Dreamcatcher of hope ________Colleen Redman / Poets United/ Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
A modest moonunder the thumb of nightis hemmed from viewlike a half slip of light __________Colleen Redman / Poets United
A dismembered head stricken with insomnia has to be carried by a weakened body An unfocused gaze sees two of everything Whose voice is in my mouth? What poison aches in me? Stripped of function I don’t know anything but this underlying truth and the cost of keeping it together Every thought […]
