You know it when you see it You hear it when you listen The meaning transcends the rhyme like the content of a person speaks louder than their looks Like the living heart can hear what the ears sometimes won’t and the soul clearly knows what the mind tends to doubt ___________Colleen Redman The Shape […]
At night I live in different houses and I’m never startled by how unrecognizable they are I live in one house during the day and carry a notebook to take down the proof I can’t see my own face only its reflection I make a living with poetic renderings and make myself at home Every […]
It starts out with so much potential I flip to the ones I like I start at the back and work my way to the middle then lose my place and wander in circles like poring through clothes at the Goodwill Thrift Shop and trying on the same ones twice ________Colleen Redman / Poets United / […]
Same lunch Same nap Same birds at the feeder Squeaky rocker in a drowsy noon Poured tea might as well be whiskey Head drops with the weight of thought I wake with a gasp and a stiff neck The couch is a lifeboat I manage to inflate The poem is a fish story that doesn’t […]
It holds a bucket list of poems that I’ve mostly given up on and handwritten directions to places I can’t pronounce Its empty pages are haunted with a family of unborn chances for people I’ve never met who only want to look at the pictures I don’t drive far from home and can barely read […]
A thumbprint of evidence in winter’s cold case The muse gives witness to the moon’s phased escape _________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
A glowing bulb to top a tree for winter’s Christmas scenery __________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
The thought has to drop like a pin to the floor in a bottomless dream where it stakes its claim With a prick of interest that doesn’t draw blood it won’t wake you up until morning When you struggle to make something out of nothing or look for a needle in a haystack maze When […]
The fat cats are squirrels They scare away sparrows Like fury Kongs they hang in gangs They swing from feeders like pirate raiders Slinging nuts and seed like wild west thieves that chase off chickadees like outlaws at the bar ___________Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
I’m distracted from my task of washing late November beets to look up all the meanings of “Red” Challenged to describe their ruby round bodies more royal than rosy more burgundy than blush I cut off their tops their blood mixes with water to make a fuchsia-filled dishpan sprinkled with dirt More cherry than apple […]
From falling in and out and drifting in between comes morning’s rude awakening when I forget what I did in my dreams _______________Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
They’re boots A half-size too big But they don’t slip off All-weather and black I imagine them taking me to the wild places she loved Did she wear them in D.C. when we protested the war or when she fed feral cats in the rain? Broken-in but still useful Dark and official I never wanted […]
