A Backlog of Poems

It turns out the new year has made me prolific. Here's a bunch of poems I've written in the last week or so.


the obliging snow

falls like stars
on a dying planet
white ash raining
down from oblivion
attacking everything
it encounters – clinging
like bleach to bark,
plastic, metal –
all of nature and of
human accoutrements
made color-less in the storm
a season of destruction
we don’t have to manifest
in smaller ways on our own.

ltv


the artist as a young woman

who knows what walls
were touched by woman’s hands
what pottery or gold inlays
were crafted or designed
by a feminine mind instead
we never saw a trussed up woman
alone on the streets of Paris
or in a café or a riverside tavern
we see Impressions of family life
children because she had one
or children because she didn’t
while men could explore nudes
and landscapes – it would be
a hundred years before she could
paint the world around her
as something other than
the walls she called home

ltv


[untitled]

Hope is not a pit stop
on a tragically short journey
it is a companion and
navigator - necessity
requires that mindfulness

though on slower, longer trips
we forget entirely
about that spare tire
or triple “A” card

sometimes waiting hours
on the shoulder
broken down until
Hope arrives

ltv


Homes of Hope (Burundi)

they had no age
since birthdays
were a luxury
their nation
couldn’t afford
and so, they were
eternally children
before the orphanage

Hutu, Tutsi, Twa together
until they created
a new life, established
the day that was
to be theirs forever
trading obscurity
and their place
in the ground
for family,
advancement,
and their place
in the world

ltv