Measured child

Measured child    First thing he read in a newspaper was only a shape.  Taken from the backside, held by other hands.  The carpet floor was rather thin. Four feet measured the threadbare couch.  Two more the chair next door.  Paper and yarn in hand.  The third fretted about something fret worthy we suppose. Clouds would seem closer than the [...]

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I am not the words

I am not the words   I am not the words.  I am the sleeve. I am run out of cleverness.  I have run my mile and here, my shoes are spent. There is nothing lost to claim, nothing with a name attached, neither any ribbon to undo.  Neither are we emptiness.  Rather, simply, we thirst. Vanity has tendered [...]

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don’t call me poet

don’t call me poet me, is not poet.  me is something other. me is some one one other than name. me is not even not.  spiral tongue. words I use.  you taught me that. these are lingual furnishings. my face not paper. my fingers not ink. shave away whisker history. there me goes down the drain. flows right [...]

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Do poems burn?

Do poems burn ? Words like to keep me awake. They are not really so polite. They land from the sky the same way bison do. Not wise to divert your gaze. Sometimes they laugh, maybe smirk, sometimes jump right into the pan, bringing their own kindling along. Yet oft only a spoon’s full falls [...]

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Circling Mount Kailash, ii.

Circling Mount Kailash      ii. (Another day in the rocks.) Maybe I did read all these pages before! Didn’t mark my spot yesterday. Thought by now I was into fresh clear words again. But then, there’s a passage I know I read last day. Lost in tattered breeze like colored flags. Wanted to underline in ink, [...]

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Thimble and needle

prompt # 018 Need to Know Basis by staff@wwp Read the full prompt and poem responses by other participants. Write three attributes of yourself, important for someone else to know. Write three attributes of another person(s) or group you know about them. Having those, tie the two lists together in a poem. This wasn’t so [...]

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Half-shells, number one

Self-indulgent? Perhaps. Probably. What choice sometimes? Half-shells, number one Words are sticks are stones they have weight they are not birds. Each uttered is a birth delivered a solstice falling into long earth. Brush strokes on canvas more thousands now. But we don’t count. All threads, like the call unanswered last night. Another now eyes [...]

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Language becomes

Language becomes Words we use are fingers and feet treading ground already made. We speak now in symbolic bowls, a bride’s red gown to what we mean. In the beginning was the word. And word was water in the dark. And when it flowed, became all light. Should be a word saying. breath-that-breathes, not symbolic, [...]

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in the beginning there was the word

in the beginning there was the word a man sleeps the man dreams pictures the pictures are people and people are mountains and people who are rivers one who is the sky the man wakes the man writes words the words are poems the poems used to be words used to be dreams pretty sappy, [...]

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Poem Starting with a Line from Norman Dubie (napowrimo #13)

read write poem   napowrimo #13 prompt by Sarah J. Sloat   smoke a dubie Today is Day 13, also known as your lucky day. Sarah J. Sloat has a wonderful prompt for you; it’s bound to get you going! She says, I’m partial to the tried-and-true prompt that calls for starting a poem with a line written by [...]

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Watershed (napowrimo)

read write poem   napowrimo #08 two prompt by Jill Crammond Wickham unusual love connections Just a second poem for this day, and just because. Still some related to Jill’s prompt, but also after reading some, this is what arrived. Watershed All fall down since birth, falling forward into time feelings like gloves, thin and wooly thick [...]

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