Poetry

Strange days Isolation Canned food To maintain a budget. Day and night Sleep and wake No longer match No longer matter. Too much T.V. Too much bad news Too much racism Too much. Eyes behind masks Breath behind Masks required Where is my mask? ‘Help Wanted’ sign Could use the money If only the potential […]

Inflame the landscapes We all take for granted, Driven by toxic plans To Divide & Conquer. Was there ever a time Clear skies prevailed, And we all gathered To discuss the obvious? Kirk Gothier

The next home we leave Will belong to both of you. Curtains will be drawn To let in the sunlight We will dearly miss. Doors will be unlocked To make all feel welcome, As is our custom. Memories will be scattered Everywhere too familiar For you to bear. Still, something will exist where There would […]

Peach and I are tender hostess species of the hood. We grin fondly at the Fox’s bark. We only wish the Skunk would. We know about the Bear. I’ve seen her apple poo. If I can draw an inference Then watch cat Peach can too. We sleep in a small cottage During humid summer moons. […]

Picking blackberries a lovely form of Zen practice the ones you see first – bright red – are not the ones you want their black edible sisters hide modestly among the thorns and leaves. Pick too fast and you crush the berry pick too fast and you stab your fingers grab the berry just right […]

A faithless comet promised luck To Bonaparte’s far-reaching eye. The wavering Creeks watched, thunderstruck, Tecumseh, pointing to the sky. Pantribalism! Slavs undone! The comet passed behind the sun. In his Pleasure Garden sits An old man, talking with a bird. Beyond the roses, Covid spits On the vast, unruly herd. Sounds of the Space Force […]

Months of Pandemic And now this Comet, Beneath the Big Dipper. One faint light stroke Is apparently moving Nowhere in particular. Billions of Stars Appear indifferent, As my mind races. Calm it down Is now my motto Racing into the night. Kirk Gothier

Pepperwood dust hung in sausage curls by the long, sweet face of the river. We ate Co-op bread from paper sacks as our bare feet thrummed nature’s anthem, accompanied by ants, choired by trees, in perfect harmonic summerese. Jenny Lovewell

  am here where I live near to that place known to those here before and to them for forever as the center of the world those of us here who can see in George Floyd’s color and because of his color his last breath taken in such a way, ourselves, ourselves and our brothers […]

From the roof comes boyish laughter! How cool to be there in the blue with an elevated view, a solid job and good pay after. I see them resting on the peak. Thickish middles show their age. Their shapes against the page of sky show strength in their physiques. With balance there is levity. They […]

This morning I came down the stairs put water on to boil for tea opened the door to get the paper first breath of a new day and there at my feet sweet roses in a jam jar vase smiling up at me unmasked I asked the usual suspects “No, not me,” they said though […]