My bed is the hearth of my home where teacups gather like neighbors and scribbled notes are brushed aside to make room for friends who come to call for foot rubs that follow the news Sometimes my blue comforter is like a blanket on the beach and I’m the tourist of my favorite dreams I […]
Hanging on the line Not enough sun to dry Gray breeze through my sleeves Blows early September Crimped shoulders crack Where the cold holds me back Summer is like a childhood I’ve outgrown _________Colleen Redman / Poets United
A honey bowl of sun fills buttercups up spills over red clover in the height of midsummer Grasshoppers hopscotch Crickets crisscross Petal skirts flirt and bees do what they please In the last fling of summer bleeding hearts flutter Ladybugs hug and butterflies stutter Songbirds lament the last rush of lush while hummingbirds hover over […]
After the nightly news comes the wood thrush The monks of the forest sing a sundown service Buried like jewels in canopy cathedrals their clarity of truth shines with good news and rises above all falsehood _____Colleen Redman / Poets United
I want a pink blow-up raft to drift carefree in a body of water I belong to Not like a stone skipping in and out plummets to the bottom when it’s done I want a pink raft more than a girl wants a Barbie doll or a pink poodle skirt of quilted satin I need […]
What used to stop me in my tracks and threaten to sink me with its impact now slips away discreetly at night like Arctic icebergs breaking off in someone else’s proverbial backyard While true-north poets forget their lines and oar-less boats turn with the tides parts of me drift away in a foreboding and foretold […]
If I complained to William Stafford that I haven’t written a poem in weeks he’d say “Lower your standards” Natalie Goldberg would say “Keep your hand moving” Kerouac said dig deep within your soul and blow freestyle like a jazz artist But my notes are flat and motivation is flagging so I google “advice on […]
The moon tripped across the sky and landed lopped on its side It lingered before it crept away like an all-nighter in a fender bender avoiding the sun full blown and swollen while hit and run stars take cover in daylight as if nothing ever happens at night ______Colleen Redman / Poets United
I come across a letter It doesn’t matter what she wrote Her handwriting is like her thumbprint impressed on me A nudge A comfort A lover letter lost A clue not meant for solving _______Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads
I clean the stove with my mother We weed the garden together I feel every ache as I bend and stoop like she used to Her things speak for her in silent voice A bread knife A tulip print The porcelain cup that I took from her house before it was emptied and sold Not […]
On the plane ride home from Boston to Roanoke I ponder our brother’s dead body flying as cargo from Houston to Logan in 2001 Folding my magazine to a page on green burial I read that death is a spiritual birth and that embalmment means draining the body of blood and filling it with formaldehyde […]
The dream of the animal stuck on my head The dream of the woman giving me the finger The dream in which I yell to her “that’s a load of crap” and the one where I call your name out loud and it wakes us both up The dream about dog trainings on how not […]
