Mushrooms I Have Known
Reticent and tired, withdrawn,
dejected, I return.
Emerging overnight from nothing,
then withering back to zero.
Does light incite you?
The shade?
I walk by and say hello.
You do not speak.
This first appeared on the blog in April 2017.
The Larger Geometry: poems for peace, is now available at Amazon. This anthology of poems that “uplift, encourage and inspire,” features poets from five countries and three continents. Published by the interfaith peaceCENTER of San Antonio, Texas, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All proceeds from the sale of this anthology go to benefit the peaceCENTER.
I’m pleased to have had a small role in selecting the poems.
Contributing poets include Lynne Burnett, Charlotte Hamrick, Daryl Muranaka, Stephanie L. Harper, Sudhanshu Chopra, Texas Poet Laureate Carol Coffee Reposa, Michael Vecchio, Rebecca Raphael and others. Oh, yes, a few of my poems appear here, too.
In this article, Krista Stevens, a curator of the Discover site on WordPress, has selected my poem “Wind” as one of her five favorite posts of the year. Quite the honor! Thank you, Krista! She has selected quite a range of writing. Please read her other picks.
My poems “Ramekin” and “Windows: A Theology” have been published in the online anthology Igxante: An Ontology. I am grateful to editor Kate Morgan for taking these two pieces.
Wasp
Outward, the quest for
space and the wings’
hunger to unfold and
shed this home of dark
flesh and encompassing desire.
And each thing remembered, the broken
sheath, the flowering desert’s return,
reflects the notion of being, of intent
in action and its corollary,
the gift of living through death.
* * *
“Wasp” last appeared here in January 2017.
I somehow missed that my poems “Earth Keeps Spinning” and “Awaiting Thunder, He Dreams” were published by Red River Review in August 2018. Thank you, Michelle Hartman, for taking these.
Drawer of Possibilities
In the drawer of possibilities
you find stasis, the lure of the unknown.
To what should this hinged orb
be subservient? Or that wrinkled blade?
An egg, the bald potato. The sacrificial
carrot? To everything its purpose.
Like that light in the crook of the
altered frame, attracting the winged
beings. You, of course, serve nothing.
“Drawer of Possibilities” appeared in The New Reader in March 2018.
