Tag Archives: culture

The Ecstatics

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The Ecstatics

Divisions and separations, a summing of consequences,
the brother whose ashes remained forever lost. Two cities
and their survivors’ shame. The loud, kind young man
whose words fell to the restaurant’s floor, unbidden.
What came next in the drift, untoward and misspent,
in the grammar of between? Darkness, suppressed.
Smoke. Pleasure and fear, unclothed.


sorrow bw

“The Ecstatics” first appeared here in January 2016. It’s an odd piece, part of a larger sequence that I put on hold several years ago. Perhaps I’ll return to it someday.

Poem Up At The Pangolin Review

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My poem “No One Knows” is live at The Pangolin Review, an interesting little journal out of Mauritius. You’ll have to scroll down to find my piece.

And if you don’t know what a pangolin is, picture an armadillo with scales and the ability to emit a foul odor reminiscent of a skunk.

The Language of Birds

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The Language of Birds
(for Lydia)

Something thrown beyond
light: a stone,

words. The language of birds
evades us but for the simplest

measure. And how can we comprehend
those who live with the

wind when our own
bodies seem far away? In the darkness
certain sounds come clearer, as if in

absence one finds strength, the evidence
gathered with every breath. Speech is,
of course, not the answer. We release

what we must, and in turn are released.

* * *

This first appeared on the blog in April 2015 – another oldie dug out of a folder. I wrote it for my niece perhaps twenty-eight years ago, and don’t believe it was ever published. It felt good to finally release it to the light and air.

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Vent Ahead, Read With Caution

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Heather Curran, teacher extraordinaire, tells us why she’s not taking a gun to school.

gracelesscurran's avatarPoetry, journals, vents, and musings of a distracted woman

I went into teaching because I am relatively non-confrontational.  Now, talk to my brother and he’ll tell  you that I started everything when we were children.  That’s probably correct.  I can’t remember.  Doesn’t matter.  I’m not a kid anymore.

I’m an almost 46 year-old woman with two biological children and at least a hundred adopted.  I believe in compassion and goodness.  I believe in random acts of kindness.  I believe in saying my mind when I see something or someone beautiful.  I know that this might be weird.  But if I see a beautiful person, I am going to say something.  We live in a world saturated with unkindess, or at least we could.  But not on my watch.  Not in my corner.

I just finished teaching the Holocaust.  I made a point of talking about people who chose compassion and goodness over atrocity and evil.  My biggest regret right…

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Shadow Charm

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Shadow Charm

When you place your mouth
to my ear

how does the ocean know
which wave

to relinquish?
In your darkness I find teeth.

Blessings of the meek-throated.

A ribbed tunnel. Codicil.

Your tongue scrawls: too late,
the unsaid     nerve-sparked and

dilated     too late

And my skin replies: with
lightning     all strikes

count     to each its charge

“Shadow Charm” was published in August 2017 in The Icarus Anthology.

Poem Up at Little Rose Magazine

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My poem, “Forced to Eat Soft Food, I Consider Options” has been published at Little Rose Magazine.

Parkland Haibun

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Parkland Haibun

What toll, dripping from his fingers? How does he sleep? Which truth
honored? The senator takes millions and offers prayers in lieu of action,
betraying the children, appeasing his benefactor. Seventeen chairs emptied
on this day, alone. He says nothing can be done, that laws are ineffective,
the shooting was “inexplicable.” What do his thoughts weigh? What griefs
will they bear? Can they reverse a bullet’s track or bring laughter back
to a family’s shattered life? Would any god answer this man’s prayers?

even the skunk balks

at Rubio’s empty words

ah, hypocrisy

You Are the Wind That Trusted

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cave painting

You Are the Wind That Trusted

The barriers I could not place, the incomplete lines and unmouthed
verbs registered in stone, saying I am here,

as if taw were born in evil, and not the fruit of the need to mark.

At what velocity must sand scour these walls to obliterate the hand’s
intent? How may we gauge design? Galileo’s thermoscope

crudely measured temperature variation, but in 1612 Santorio added a numerical scale.

For centuries, T did not produce a miniscule and stood tall in its singular representation.

Hydrated iron oxide, mixed with bone marrow and charcoal, yields
ochre, a formula that predates writing.

Development, not invention.

T’s varying structure may be one of sequence and slippage.

Thermoscopes were open ended tubes dependent upon air pressure.
Celsius originally proposed a scale with 0 at the boiling point.

A cruciform. The capped spike. Blended tongues.

Complexity intrudes with every step: smoke-darkened ceiling.

***

This appeared on the blog in February 2016. A slightly different version appeared in Otolith in fall 2013.

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This is Not Just to Say

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This is Not Just to Say

Okay. I ate the damned
plums. But it’s not my

fault you left them
sitting there on the top

shelf, so sweet, so cold,
enticing me, as only

you, or perhaps a ripe
peach, or strawberries,

or Asian pears or even
pomegranates, can do.

Besides, you need
something substantial

for breakfast. How about
donuts, or bacon, instead?

* * *

My apologies to WCW, but I couldn’t resist. You can find the original Williams poem here. The poem first appeared here in September 2015.

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If We Burn

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If We Burn

What flares instead to replace our
privileged nights? And which

assemblage of words could reorder these
deaths into comprehension,

change I can’t breathe from epitaph
to actuated plea for help?

Are words ever enough?
Can we stack our indifference and fear

into a mile-high pyre, and torching it
watch them rise to nothingness,

disappearing through the clouds
into the streaming light of cold, dark stars?

Raise your hands and sing. Blow softly
upon the ember. Inhale and recall.

Do you still feel? Will you breathe?
Every fire needs oxygen.

* * *

“If We Burn” first appeared on this blog in December, 2014. It’s also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.

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