Capsized moon

stranded in a sea of blue

floats like a buoy to the shore

from the deep end of the day

_____________Colleen Redman____

 More dVerse poets sharing an open link pub HERE.

I try not to put demands on the day

or dictate my thoughts

I don’t want the first thing I remember

to be the last thing I worried about last night

I make a choice to wake up

or fall back to sleep

Fragmented dreams

offer no depth of meaning

to fill the surrounding silence

I look out the window

remember the poetry of a gray day

I think about my favorite box of Yorkshire Gold tea

and how it is almost empty

_______________________

~ Colleen Redman 1/22/12

Note: The above title is borrowed from a question posed by poet David Whyte and is the title of a poem he wrote.   More dVerse poetry HERE.

The moon smokes clouds

by the sun’s stricken match

Stars rush like sparks

from her moody bowl of ash

Some say the sun is vain

to admire its own reflection

at the moon’s nightstand table

for so long

________________________

~ More dVerse poets sharing HERE.

The woodstove howls like a banshee

for the copperhead I killed in the fall

when it crawled from my dream into my kitchen

and laid at the threshold of girl and crone

The washing machine hums like a bard

spins the tale of a black bear intruder

that left paw prints in my garden

fresh scat at my front porch door

Thoughts turn to poisoned confrontations

and boundaries that were crossed

I save seeds for Persephone and grieve for Pandora

whose box is unlocked but too heavy to bring home

From an icy window pane

I watch the moon’s unrocked cradle

No lullaby for the child left alone

I sleep on the floor by a sick friend’s bed

mark my territory with handwritten poems

The floorboards creak to the tick of time

and the sound of her still warm breathing

To a slow low beat of drum

I walk a labyrinth of pine boughs

made bright with lit candles

on the longest night of the year

Under a graveyard of stars

There is song and there is silence

a community remembrance

of future thresholds to cross

~ More dVerse poets participating in the Open Link Pub HERE.

Sterling paddle dips

through a veil of smoky mist

a long legged crane sips

_________________________

More dVerse poets at the Open Link Pub HERE.

A clock is a man-made orbit

that paces it’s own cage

It’s round like a planet

made in its image

a mechanical nightingale

of gilded numbers

Alarm sounding

Money counting

Score keeping

Beeping blinking

Meter ticking

Rat racing

Fast pacing

Yo yo yanking

Bomb

In   every   single   home

It’s ticking…………

Like an installed dictator

a slave whipping master

A clock is an industrial implant

of imposed structure

a wind-up drummer

we march to

It’s a time impostor

dream spell plot

that distracts us from our beating hearts

It’s an artificial life support system

A propped-up, plugged in

subliminal intervention

A perpetual cuckoo

with an unflinching stare

With the sleight of its hands

it makes the present disappear

Let the clock stop

It’s hypnotic talk

Let the clock stop

Let it stop

Let it stop

Turn it off

Post Notes:  By my best guess I wrote this poem sometime in the mid 90’s.  It was performed by Women of the 7^th Veil, an improv-movement poetry troupe I belonged to, at the Teahouse Jam/Altared Space Gallery, which is now Oddfellas  Cantina. You can see a rare photo of the troupe (Jayn Avery, me and Katherine Chantal) performing HERE.   More dVerse poets posting for the Open Link Pub HERE.

Focused attention

Deep cultivation

Every word is a seed

to be planted

__________________

The image above is of part of a collage box made for me by my Asheville Potter Son Josh and features a photo of me on a stairwell in Ireland at the center.  You can see a small sampling of Josh’s collage art HERE.  More dVerse Open Link Poetry HERE.

Mother of pearl

button of moon

in a baby blue

coat of sky

~ More dVerse poetry HERE.

Natal is fatal

Finish is final

A great undertaking

Breaking the death barrier

has an emotional G-force

Beliefs crash down

We all hold on

Then eventually

let go

~ Written in 1999 after my friend Ise died and currently printed in the November Museletter. More dVerse poets HERE.

Gypsy hoop dangling

in a sky piercing

Dagger of orange

cuts a black cloak of night

________________________

~ Colleen Redman

More dVerse poets HERE.

My soul is like a goldfish

that wants to be seen

but doesn’t like attention

 ________________

The ocean is too big

the fishbowl too small

I’m afraid to be abandoned

but want to be alone

_________________ 

In a dream I grow legs

carry the fishbowl outside

where sunlight swallows shadows

and  happy cats chase sparrows

________________

~ Colleen Redman

More dVerse poets HERE.

If you are quiet

be loud

If you are loud

be quiet

Don’t laugh

if you don’t get the joke

Don’t cheat

Wear red

If you are generous

be frugal

If you are frugal

be generous

Give away

all your ill fitting clothing

Give up your place in line

It’s okay to ask

for directions

There is no bush to beat around

Fall asleep smiling

Don’t set the alarm

Wake up on the wrong side

of the bed

_____________________

Colleen Redman  ~ Poem read to Florence at her birthday tea party.  More dVerse Poets HERE.

Sometimes I get nostalgic for my pink suede bell bottom pants

and the maroon Indian print bag with the mirrors on it

or the gypsy scarf that I wore as a shawl and sold at a yard sale in Texas

because we had to stuff everything we owned into one U-haul trailer

when we moved to Virginia in 1985

________________

My younger sister had a T-shirt with a star on it that I loved

She wore it in the high school play Hair

She also had a pink suede pocketbook that I nagged her to trade me for

Maybe I paid her good money for it

but the ocean washed over it and left a stain

I joked it was tide-dyed and never liked it after that

or the boyfriend who shot-up drugs

_________________

And that pink spaghetti strap shirt with the matching jacket

that I wore on my first and only trip to London

with the boy I later had two sons with

I bugged her for that too

__________________

My older sister had a peek-a-boo blue and green top

that I still look for in thrift shops

I still dream about sneaking clothes out of her closet

of having all the latest styles like my girlfriend down the street

whose mother was an alcoholic and took her shopping after a binge

_____________________

I used to love taking the bus to downtown Quincy Square

to shop at Lerners and Remicks (family of the actress named Lee)

I wasn’t nominated for best dressed in high school

even though I spent all my babysitting money on clothes

I washed dishes at the nursing home to buy them

or stole them

I didn’t know I didn’t look good

in anything brown back then

I still love paisley and purple

___________________

Did I leave my Nehru jacket in the closet of the house

that burned to the ground?

or in the moldy basement of an apartment I rented?

Is my corduroy maxi skirt with the zipper down the front

somebody’s cleaning rag now?

Have the moths eaten my Salvation Army fur coat?

___________________

Today I’m drawn to clothes of long ago

like the navy blue suit I never wear

I only bought it because it reminded me

of the suit I wore for the school yearbook picture

of the pep rally team I never belonged to

__________________

We just wanted

to look good

and get in more pictures

It wasn’t real wool

________________

~ Colleen Redman 10/6/2011 – Inspired by Jannie Funster. Posted for the dVerse Poet’s Pub Open Link.

I shop for words

as though the dictionary was a catalog

of women’s clothes or shoes

________________

As though the folded over corners

of favorite words on pages

were the edited alliterations

of hemmed skirts

_______________

Browsing for the uncommon

I pin down a suitable meaning

unfold a matching pattern

for a  custom-made fit

_______________

And if I was a model

and my signature was a label

I’d be zipping down a runway

wearing poetry on my sleeve

_______________

~ Colleen Redman, fall 2004

More dVerse poets open link night HERE.

Global Warming

is hell to pay

for the greedy business

of self interest

And constant economic growth

is like a forest fire

that some don’t want to put out

________________

Hell, lets just burn the whole place down

and collect the insurance money

Let’s buy up some stock in the funeral business

Let’s pop a pill and make it all better

_________________

The hole in the ozone

is our debt to the devil

in this buy now pay later

new world disorder

where our lives are held hostage

by white collar bandits

who spin the earth like a trade commodity

who gamble our resources like they’re at the races

_________________

The hole grows as big

as their appetite for more

and we all get stuck with the bill

Floods, droughts, fires, and chaos

cancer, terrorism, and war

__________________

We all buy in to some degree

like it’s the only game in town

The greedy business of self interest

The business as usual American way

______________________

~ Colleen Redman

Post Notes: I had completely forgotten about this poem and found it recently while looking for something else. It was written sometime during the Bush administration after hearing his positive spin on global warming.  More dVerse poets posting HERE.

Moon hangs like a tack

holding up the dark

waiting to reveal

heaven’s first act

in a theater

of late night drama

________________

~ Colleen Redman

My husband has tools

for digging potatoes

but I like to use my hands

_______________

Reaching down deep

into the musty dark soil

mounded up like swollen bellies

_______________

I feel around for the curve of their bodies

wiggle them loose like teeth

__________________

Born into my hand

without the sharp edge of a shovel

more than twins

more than quintuplets

_________________

I lay them out in a proud display

marvel at each one’s uniqueness

___________________

In piles along rows they dry in the sun

glow golden at dusk

____________________

Collected in buckets

they tumble and plunk

then settle together like a newborn litter

____________________

I rise like a mother

from squatting labor

with buckets swinging

brimming with harvest

I haul my new brood home

_____________________

~ Colleen Redman, written sometime in mid 1990’s and recently revised

More Open Link poems HERE.

When the second shoe drops

where the dirt was swept under

in the childhood home

that burned to ground

will it make a sound?

________________

Will you hold your hands over your ears?

Or hold your breath until someone listens?

________________

If the shoe doesn’t fit

how long will you wear it

before you ask?

________________

Whose shoe is it?

How many are there?

When was the first one lost?

________________

More dVerse Open Link Night poems HERE.

I want poetry to be my mother

to be something I can count on

I want it to know its loving firmness

and learn the difference between right and wrong

_______________

I want poetry to be happy

to be what it is

confident poetry

that shares what it knows

and isn’t afraid to disagree

________________

I want poetry to want me

to soften my edges

and fill my pages

________________

I want to claim it as my birthright

I want it to love what I do

to be something I can look up to

and trust it to tell me the truth

_______________

dVerse Open Link HERE.

like a single woman reads want-ads

looking for an eligible bachelor

as though my poem were a lover

looking for a partner

and I was a matchmaker

setting up a date

________________________

More dVerse poets HERE.

Crepe-myrtle is summer’s answer

to lilacs in the spring

happy girls with red berry pom poms

shaking in the breeze

while ironweed purple

and goldenrod yellow

in September school colors

play the field

_______________

More dVerse Open Link poetry HERE.

High-pitched

crickets drone

like a phone off the hook.

Waking from a dream, I ask,

“Won’t somebody please

hang it up?”

~ Colleen Redman

________________

More dVerse Poets Open Link Night poetry HERE.

The Moon gets top billing

in a black tie night

In a star studded ballroom

it shines a high note of light

Cat’s bowl of cream

tips into the night

light soaked stars

track light

Does Jasmine fear the sound

of thunder from the grave?

Does she care that a wild rabbit

is living under the porch

and nobody’s here to bark?

_______________

Is my brother Dan who died

too sick for the liver transplant list

still mad at our brother

who lies to our mother

and she believes every word?

_______________

Does my grandmother still hurt

because my mother chose her father

to live with as a child

after the divorce

_______________

Is my brother Jim having the last laugh

because I never liked pictures without people

and now I photograph barns and birds

and red chairs on the beach at sunset?

________________________

Does my father mind that I stole his line

when asked how I’m doing?

I got out of bed this morning

I’m ahead of the game