Loose Leaf Notes

The shift of the world has flipped back to flat A contagion of lies is the new plague ________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

Strange winter fruit hangs from a tree like a frosty cold tipped sugar bowl dusting the ground with icing _______Colleen Redman / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

I wanted to see you and not look away but you looked away first You wrapped yourself in a royal blue blanket and laid on the floor next to our mother I wanted her to turn and comfort you but she was wrapped up too You took your place with no words spoken becoming one […]

  Pricked at birth The sting still hurts Now my stiffened knee is loosening Now one tear falls for two losses A mirror speck that holds the past The tear my mother couldn’t shed The one my sister couldn’t hold back It swelled then slipped like a clean drop of rain Like a gem of […]

You cried wolf Now you got one Pandora’s Box can’t be re-locked There is no hiding in sheep’s clothing The little pig’s house is coming down Red Riding Hood is left in the woods The blood of democracy has been drawn The bite is always worse than the bark and wolves scenting power travel in […]

The knife went in but didn’t come out I tracked the pain and point of entry while half asleep and half awake While you were dreaming of her body in the casket and draining her blood behind the funeral parlor because no one else would do it No one twisted it No one cried No […]

Life is real But not forever This day is one unlike any other _________Colleen and Joe /Shadow Shot Sunday

Put a “Do Not Disturb” sign over the forest Hang an “Out of Order” sign on the White House door Proceed with caution Yield to your conscience Handle the whole world with care – The above poem, written for the New Year 2004 when George W. Bush was in office. It was a featured “Poem […]

My knee wore down with bone-to-bone pain with no cushion to soften the friction like my mother and sister both had bad knees invisible irritations they quietly carried How did my sister hook me a 5 x 12 foot rug while suffering with carpal tunnel in her hands? How did my elderly mother cook and clean […]

It’s too late for Woodstock but not for that leopard-skin pillbox-hat the one Bob Dylan made fun of and Jackie O passed over for pink It’s too late for a star on Hollywood Boulevard to walk the red carpet or become a Jungian psychologist It’s probably too late to hike the Camino but not to […]

I don’t want to grow up …I don’t want to wear a tie … and a serious expression in the middle of July … ~ Song from Peter Pan Before I knew that Pan was the goat god of wild creatures I wanted to be Peter Not so much because he could fly But because […]

My grandmother hid her brogue the way I insert R’s where they used to not exist in a Rebel South where folks say “y’all” and I say “you guys” when I let down my guard My grandmother couldn’t hide her Irish temper She taught it to my father who thought its harshness would make us […]