Pale as spring grass beneath un-raked leaves my skin under clothes is wilted and withered My shivering flesh is the first flower exposed at the first sign of thaw when green rumors are spread Photo: On a writer’s retreat last spring. The poem is from 2005 as well.
All my friends would like to know…how I can sleep so late…well, I have a gene for it…the wine of words is mostly partaken…in the wee hours of the morning…I write alone. ~ Colleen, From The Zen of Winter Poetry, Muses Like Moonlight. The open mic that began as a community outreach effort by the […]
I’m so confident in my Irishness that I went out yesterday wearing purple and completely forgot to post an Irish related entry on my blog or tell an Irish joke to someone. On the other hand… The two posts before St. Patrick’s Day were related to Ireland, and I did go out to eat […]
I and Pangur my cat… “Tis a like task we are at…Hunting mice is his delight…Hunting words I sit all night. ~ Excerpt from a stanza scribbled into a ninth century Latin manuscript by an Irish scribe. In March everything is turning green and seems to revolve around St. Patrick’s Day. The March issue […]
The Irish were intoxicated by the power of words. Every noble Irish family maintained a family of ancestral poets. The Irish sons of Mil were accompanied by their poet, Amhairghin… ~ From How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill Word Drunk I’ve been pulled over for driving while doing it I’ve stayed up late […]
There’s a word on a Draper Street sidewalk in Blacksburg carved in cement that I love. It says WORD. I wondered then and I continue to wonder who carved it there and why. Maybe someone always wanted to carve a word in wet cement and so they did, literally. It makes me think about the […]
Names fascinate me. They add color to a place and time, whether in stories or in real life. In “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy names like Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, and Aragorn stir the imagination. In the adventures of King Arthur, it was Lancelot, Galahad, Gawaiin, and Guinevere. Recently, over at Simply Wait, Patry, a […]
I have written scores of poems about the moon. One of the first little chapbooks I put together for myself was titled “MOONDALA OOH-LA-LA.” During that time I was participating in an improv-movement class and was one of three women in a local poetry troupe called “Women of the 7th Veil.” In our hey-day, we […]
Stars of champagne are bubbling over from the moon’s bowl of sparkling light ~ Is the moon half empty or half full? Before climbing into bed Sunday night, I peered out my window to see where all the light was coming from. Happily, I discovered the moon was half full, balancing in the sky like […]
The following poems were inspired by the wind storm we had this past weekend. Up here in The Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd, we lost our power, and at times I was writing this by candlelight. ~ The Lashing Unleashed wind lashes slapping through branches of innocent trees that cower like children in fear of […]
The following poem, written for the New Year 2004, was a featured “Poem of the Day” at Poets Against the War online that year and also appeared in The New River Valley Free Press. I think it still applies. Sign of the Times Put a “Do Not Disturb” sign over the forest Hang an “Out […]
