A Short Poem for Late Summer

Blessed and strange be the hawks
who understand the world
through updrafts
and scurrying motions.
Late summer
is their time.
Just before the lights go out.

Something about a river...

Spent the weekend rafting down a river with friends.  What is it about a river that makes someone think about time, and the interconnectedness of things? The smells, the glimmer of sunlight over cold, green and white water, the muddy banks sliding quietly past- those things mean something. Then I got home, and thinking about it sparked some bit of memory of a poem by Whitman I read a long time ago. So I looked it up, and Walt, you, myself, we are not the first, nor will we be the last to look on a river this way. When he talks about looking at each other through hundreds of years- kinda gives me chills. In a good way. 

http://tinyurl.com/lljrhtc

To any new followers... and I have a new book out (sorta)!

Welcome to my oft-neglected blog!  Feel free to peruse some of my past postings on the right, as well as visit my shutterfly page if you like photography as well.  I've lately been really busy with work and school stuff (see previous post), so the blog has fallen into disrepair, a bit, but I will try to be posting more and more new (and old) poetry when I can find the time.

In the meantime, I have had the honor to be one of 14 featured poets in Silver Birch Press' newest chapbook collection, Swallow Dance!  It is an incredible book from an outstanding, up-and-coming independent publisher, and I highly suggest you check it out.  Honestly, I feel in the shadows of giants in the company of these high-caliber poets.  Find it on Silver Birch's website here, or if you think you're ready to buy (please support the press- I don't get any money for this, it's all about the art), you can get it from Amazon here.

My personal contribution is called "Four Years in Pocket Change."  I am proud of these poems- they were rescued from a series of small, pocket notebooks that were written during a very tumultuous time in my youth, then edited and re-edited.  I think I've done well capturing that "younger me" voice while incorporating a lot of what I've learned about good poetry since then.  The book is divided into 3 short segments: Words, Movements, and Pictures.  Enjoy the introductory poem below:

Words, Movements, Pictures

Each word is a vision:

blue skies and oceans full of surging waves.

Each movement of the lip, each singular motion

is a staccato thought,

ripe with blood and living breath

and seems to suggest

newness.  Freshness.

And despite our wishes well,

each word will cost

a thousand and one most precious coins of thought.

She is a broken cathedral,

pillars cracked,

vast and beautiful and distant.

Intoxicating…

In her cool airs,

in the smattering of violets that spring

from the most casual of her glances,

I find a moment’s rest from thought.

In the quiet that follows,

I wonder if that is good enough.

If that is worth a mistake.

I've been away too long...

Just signed back on and realized I haven't posted anything on here since APRIL- ridiculous, I know.  There is a good reason, though- I've been taking a whole lot of classes at CBU trying to get my certification for administrative leadership.  So between teaching full time, attending classes, doing research, and writing papers, I have had next to zero time for writing, let alone blogging.  The good news?  It's a fast-track program, and I should be done by Christmas, if I can keep up the pace. 

Once I finally get some time, I have plans to start work on a new collection- poems will be upcoming, as well as some new photography to put up on my shutterfly page that's been sitting around on my hard drive too long.  So stay with me!  I'll try to be a bit more consistent with this blog stuff.

Great Plate

Drink your ales, hoist your sails. 

Ride the wind, and think of me. 

-Jeremy Riley

Words to Live By

Chalk it up.

Not enough thought for talk.

Another gem for my splendid collection.

One more round of platitudes

for my life at that table over there-

we can drink those empty calories

until we are simple enough

to sing pointless songs

and smile without a reason.

It’s hard enough to find one mantra to live by.

One championed cause to tout

standards high and dizzy like sun-fumes,

banners bright and burning like polluted lakes.

In the temple of my sins

I throw

these pretty stones at cut-glass windows

hurl curses at my captors,

I ignore the open door.

Excuses

Work stress and holidays,
been moving to a new place,
no excuses, no two ways,
time to fill this blank space...