Poetry

What's in a Name?

Even pronouncing my name,
explaining how I came to own it,
is a struggle, a grappling, a fight
with faith, or grace, or guilt --
and often I know not which.

An Artist Can Never Starve
 

An artist can never starve,

if love blooms from their hearts, 

for the more they give away, 

more blossoms through their art.

An artist can never starve, 

when welcome at the table . . .

This month’s cento poem uses two lines from six different poems by three different poets. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take it in a dark direction or a more hopeful one, so I did both. Citations follow the poem.

Cento: Winds of Change

Dead, I am, but I am also alive.¹

If I’ve failed in every timbre, still,²

Chronically Healing

The things I cannot change rain down
on me like the saddest parade of confetti -
broken promises and repeated mistakes hit
hardest on my barely-holding-it-together body:
endometrial-like tissue growing out of place,
ribs endlessly slipping like tectonic plates,
nerves triggering wave after wave of stabbing,
pulling, burning, aching, dull, relentless, pain . . .

Anniversary Poem
When I think about home,

I picture the rolling hills

of your biceps and chest;

the tall prairie grasses

that I love to caress . . .

My Baby Brother

My baby brother tells me 

his inner child isn't enough.

That the old therapy hack

of taping a childhood photo up 

isn't enough for him, 

a full-grown man,

to put down the habits

that are burning him . . .

How to Heal When Wounded

Compose yourself.  

Listen for a lull in the struggle.

Then look around this cold damp battlefield
and notice who stands with you still:

Who extends to you grace?
Presumes your innocence?

Acceptance

(After Jane Kenyon)
 

Gratitude ebbs and flows

amid surges of jealousy.

Holding their glossy photos, I am transported–

by the golden teenage gymnast’s beaming smile;

a self-assured figure skater’s soaring spiral;

an elegant ballerina’s graceful bow at curtain call–

to how it might otherwise have been . . .

Summiting Cerro Renca
 

A whispered prayer

of gratitude

as my body returns to me.
 

White butterflies flit overhead,

a circle of desperate chanters below–