Loose Leaf Notes

Wrinkled with age Some cackle as they fall from broomstick branches on bony bare limbs outstretched like arms that could grab you __________Colleen Redman / Poets United

You separate the dark and light clothes I wash them all together I don’t scrape the carrots before I add them to soup We both don’t like talking on the phone When I wrote about you in my pink ponytail diary I called you “the bigshot” I was ten with pipedreams and baby fat wanting […]

One by one, the monarchs are passing like hikers on the Appalachian Trail Like tourists waving goodbye to admirers on their way to the next town They fly by like models down a runway flashing their high fashion style In a fall show marking summer’s close they sail the wild blue as they go __________Colleen […]

Not dreams as lofty goals but the unruly kind that we have at night when no one is looking The ones with potency that are brutally honest that bypass the vanity of ego and dogma Dreams that disturb and urge self-reflection are magically empowering but not politically correct Buried like bodies waiting to be claimed […]

Quiet is a high scoring Scrabble word but in the morning when I’m grieving it’s an island that I’m stranded on and I’m anxious to find shelter and food It’s a filter for noise but some loud memories are too big to sift through They persist as a hum in my ears water-logged songs without […]

The evening sun streamed down onto the Hahn Garden at Virginia Tech as seven poets read among the marigolds and mums. The readings were in conjunction with the current outdoor art exhibit “Simply Elemental” and included an interlude of classical guitar, performed by musicians Ebru Bish and Renate Kehlenbeck. Sharing silence with a heron, gravity, […]

It comes up pink rises gold and sets like the ghost of a white-haired crone ____________Colleen Redman / Poets United

A.k.a. What To Wear to a Dream I wore a purple poet’s beret in my dream last night and asked a room full of strangers if they could guess who I was No one guessed even after our eyes became accustomed to darkness I walked through the crowd until I met another poet waiting for […]

Last night I re-read a comment from 2005 You were cancer-free when you said “I always wish I knew you were depressed” It was on a blog post titled I Almost Went to Woodstock back when blogs were like living rooms that we wandered in and out of talking to each other You almost went […]

I’m a fading flower and summer is slipping by I keep my head down and my hands busy I plant the names of blooms in the hope they grow into poems that will take care of me in my old age that will come back every year __________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads […]

I see you only with insight in hindsight in moonlight that penetrates a dream where the parts of you that live in me are cast in sand castle worlds that wash away in morning Love has amnesia when it comes to storms My love is a boat that has saved me ________Colleen Redman / Poets […]

The last thing you said to me came in a dream ‘Where have you been?’ you asked When I lost you in Paris we were both naïve not to have made a plan Now there are secrets I’m not in on And sometimes you don’t say a word I see you but you don’t see […]