I welcome your comments on my work. Please email me at poet_kelly@yahoo.com.

Saying Goodbye to Nanny

“Wait until morning,” my sister insists.
“Nanny will live until morning.”
But I lie awake all night,
waiting for the ringing of the phone.
I drink too much coffee and drive too fast,
not even stopping to pee, and get there
just before noon. Nanny is alive,
but she’s also not.

Here is what I want to do:
Sing to her softly, lullabies
like she sang to me, words
I can’t recall but love I can.
Read to her from the Psalms.
Psalm 23. Yea though I walk
through the valley of the shadow-
Lie in bed with her and hold her.

Here is what I do instead:
Stroke the papery skin of her
left arm. Sit at the foot of her bed
and rub her feet. Stroke the fine hair
away from her forehead.
Say goodbye too soon.

This poem was published with my grandmother Gladys Eisele's obituary.

A Self-Portrait in Braille

My fingertips trace
the tightly-woven threads of my flesh,
my wrist stitched like a quilt,
my mossy cheeks, the soft
tangled web of my hair.
Night settles into my skin
and I stroke it there, soothe it
where salt crusts beneath the lids
of my eyes.

This poem is published on Associated Content.

Barb’s Lament

I offered up my mother’s soul
to the black-and-white priest at the altar.
It was in my mother’s honor;
the church shed its honor long ago.

I would have accepted the wafer
and wine in my mother’s name
but the priest refused me
as I left the church long ago.

The stained glass windows poured light
the color of blood and the gargoyles
have ceased scaring away evil long ago.

This piece was first published in the Spring 2008 issue of Penwood Review.

Cat Tails

The cat peels the sofa
like a banana.

***

The cat waits
like a sniper
in the shadows.

***

The kitten
mistook my leg
for a tree.

***

The cat’s claws
carve calligraphy
onto my flesh.

***

The cat stares at me
with candy-apple eyes.

***

A knock on the door—
The brave cat flies
beneath the bed.

***

A miniature mountain lion,
the cat crouches
atop the refrigerator.

***

The tomcat sings opera in the alley.

***

A pink canyon—
The cat’s wide yawn.

***

On white-padded paws like moonshine,
the indigo cat creeps to the pool to drink.

***

The cool misty night
and I sip tea
the purring cat stretched across my bare feet.

This string of short cat-related poems and haiku can be found on Associated Content.

Bittern

Do not tell me
not to dwell in bitterness
for I dwell in the desert
and the sand is arid and dry
and scratches raw my throat
whenever I speak.

Do not tell me
not to dwell in bitterness
for I shall eat of the acrid herbs
until I am full of them
and only then will they pass
from my body,
leaving clean my heart,
my hands, my soul.

This is another poem that can be found on Associated Content.

Reading the Stones in a Cemetery

Brandon Remy, aged one day. Born unto God.

Earl Snyder, aged eight months. A flower just blooming into life enticed an angel’s eye. “Too pure for earth, he said, “Come home,” and bade the floweret die.

Dallas Miller, aged one day. An angel touched him, and he slept.

Colton Lee, aged one day. Suffer not the children to come unto me.

Daniel Thacker, aged one day. Until I hold you again.

Nicholas Heimberger, aged five days. Some people only dream of angels. We held one in our arms.

Seth Brown, aged eight months. The chosen.

Jeffrey Graska, aged two years. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe.

Chance Lee, aged one day. May you find comfort in the arms of an angel.

Kelsey Smallstey, aged one month. And in the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing.

This is a "found poem," consisting of words found on stones in a number of cemeteries throughout Ohio. The poem is featured on Associated Content.

Alzheimer’s

The light does not leave you.
Your hands remain strong.

It is your soul that begins to crumble.
You forget that you love fried eggs
with perfect yellow eyes.
You forget that you love the scent of apples
when they fall from the trees,
the warm weight of a tomato fresh from the vine,
the heft of a hoe in your hands,
and the smell of soil and sweat on summer skin.

All these little loves lie forgotten.
You look at your wife and you do not know her name.

This poem won the 2007 Armchair Poets Contest of the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library. It was also published in the Winter/Spring 2008 issue of Kaleidoscope.

Insanity

When you’re crazy
you get to tell the truth,
which is itself a blessing.
If you’re lucky,
you’re crazy enough
not to care or understand
when people tell you the truth,
which is an even better blessing.

Unfortunately, I have
only a mild case of insanity,
and I have seldom been blessed.

This poem was published in the Winter 2008 edition of Open Minds.

When Darkness Falls

When darkness falls they come,
slinking in after supper, sliding under beds
and pressing against the backs of closet doors.
They do not wait for the witching hour,
only for the shadows after sunset.

As I wash the dinner dishes I can see them
twining around the table legs, squatting in the pantry.
I can see them slither up the stairs as I go up
to give Jonathon his bath, and they wait
below his crib until he is safely tucked in.

They follow me to my room,
slip under the covers with me,
and worm their way into my dreams.

This poem was published in the 2008 edition of U.S. 1 Worksheets.

The Sound of Pigeons

I am making thirteen-bean soup
and remembering when a pot of soup
and a pan of cornbread
would keep me for a week
when I lived in that tiny flat
down by the railroad tracks
and I was poor
and I ate tea and toast for breakfast
and packed jelly sandwiches
on day-old bread for lunch
and savored the sound of the pigeons
on my windowsill
each morning.

This poem was published in the March 2008 issue of English Journal.

Insomnia

“Can’t you come to bed?”
my lover asks,
where she is nestled
among the quilts.
I stand at my mirror,
brushing out my hair,
no sleep crossing my eyes.
“I will, I will,” I say.
But I don’t.
I move softly
through the room,
straightening books on a shelf,
tracing the outline of a photograph
with one fingertip.
The news comes on the TV,
and goes off.
My lover sleeps now,
curled on her side like a child.
I stop to stroke her hair.
I make tea in the quiet kitchen.

This poem appeared in the March 2008 edition of English Journal.

The Ordinary and the Blessed

I carried dinner to your door, kissed your children,
and tucked you onto the couch with a crocheted
blanket and a heating pad. I told the kids
you had a tummy ache, and that satisfied them.

After dinner the boys sat on the floor
beside you, playing cards and watching
television, while I sat on the end of the sofa,
rubbing your feet and waiting.

The children went to bed at nine, and we continued
our vigil in the darkened living room, not unlike
those nights when we waited for your labor to progress
and those tiny faces to come into the light.

Somewhere in the middle of those dark hours
you went into the bathroom, and disgorged
the tiny life that had been growing inside you
in plumes of blood and clots of thick red earth

and then you went upstairs to kiss your sleeping children:
the ordinary and the blessed, sleeping in your bed.

This poem appeared in the 2008 edition of The Willow Review.

How to Pack for a Trip to the Psych Ward
in Five Minutes Flat

Pull the suitcase from the top shelf of the bedroom closet
Throw in 2 pair sweatpants- the kind without drawstrings
2 pair jeans
3 tee shirts
2 sweat shirts
5 pair socks
5 pair panties
House slippers

Grab the gym back from the hall closet
Throw in shampoo
Tooth paste and tooth brush
Hair brush
Journal- not the spiral-bound kind
The book of poems by Jane Kenyon

Find your Medicaid card and stuff it in your pocket

This poem was published in the 2008 issue of Transcendent Visions.

The Magdalene Laundries

The last one closed in the nineteen-nineties.
It sounds like something from another century,
but these Magdalene laundries, they just happened.
Prayer and hot water and hard work and laundry soap
to exercise the demons. Pregnant women, pretty women,
survivors of assault, sent to scrub away the guilt.
They worked three hundred sixty four days a year,
and received not one cent of pay. The bishop
bought new robes, new rings. Oh, holiness, oh charity!

This poem was published in the January/February 2008 issue of Art Times.

Another poem about the Magdalene Laundries was published in the Spring/Summer 2007 issue of Red Owl.

In a Magdalene Laundry, County Cork, 1967

The air was so heavy-laden
with moisture, you could almost drink from it.
There was the chlorine of bleach, harsh
on the hands and sharp in the sinuses.
Blisters turned to calluses on hands
rubbed raw on washboards.
Did you know you can save your soul
if you scrub enough sheets?

Shapeless blue dresses hung from us
like shrouds and dark nuns floated
like ghosts with faces ironed flat.
This is what it must be like in Hell.
We’re all sinners at heart,
aren’t we?

Confession

This is my confession:
these hands can work no more.
I packed up my desk, took my coffee mug
and my rolodex.
Forgive me.

I took a vow of poverty,
emptied my ego and my bank account.
Forgive me my debts
in bankruptcy court tomorrow.

The county teaches a catechism of humility
daily at the welfare office.
First communion is served on Tuesdays and Thursdays
at the St. Francis soup kitchen.
Forgive me, I cannot swallow it.

Who is the patron saint of the disabled and of flightless sparrows?

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for the stricken
and put your arms around the sparrow.
Amen.

This poem appeared in the 2008 issue of Transcendent Visions.

Vigil

I am at work.
I am kneading dough,
soft and supple and alive
under my hands.
I am wearing the green apron,
and have flour on my hair.

Two hundred miles away, you are in hospital.
They don’t know if you will live the night.

I am slicing tomatoes,
perfect thin prayer wheels.

I could pack my bag,
drive down through the darkness,
be there long before first light.
You would not know I was there.

The knife is silver, and sharp in my hand.
The steel is cool, and comforting.
The ovens are hot, and I sweat,
weeping through my pores.

There could still be time
to say goodbye.

But I am peeling onions,
their papery skins like dead leaves
under my fingers.
The onions make me cry.

This poem was published in the Fall 2007 issue of The Hurricane Review and in the March 2008 issue of Splizz, a publication of Wales.

Innocence

The buttery sun runs down the wall
and pools on the bed where we lie
sticky in the sheets. I see the china pitcher
on the washstand and it looks fragile
and innocent as eggshell. You look at me
with eyes the color of maple syrup, and oh,
how I wish I could love you.

This poem was published in the December 2007 issue of Splizz, a publication of Wales.

Morning Creeps In

Morning creeps in like a cat
on tiny padded paws.
I yawn, and scratch its back.

This poem was published in Bear Creek Haiku in 2007.

There Were Some Trees

There were trees with bark like scales
and trees with worn-smooth skin.
There were trees with branches reaching
like empty outstretched arms
and trees holding the tangled nests of squirrels.

There were some trees.

There were some trees with broken leaves
and trees with broken hearts.
There were trees that stood on spindly legs
and trees that squatted on the ground.

There were some trees.

There were trees with heavy heads
and trees with crumbling bones.
There were trees with green sap
rising in their veins
and trees with mourning
in their flowers.

This poem was featured in the Winter 2007 issue of Avocet.

Daisies in Jars

Jimmy will pick daisies
and settle them in jars beside my bed.
He will hold my hand and read poetry out loud.
He will pretend not to see the IV lines and the bruising.
He will only cry when he thinks I am asleep.

My mother will not spend summer in her garden.
Instead she will sit by the window
shredding damp Kleenex between her fingers.
She will wash my face and brush my hair.
She will pray for me while I sleep.

Jimmy will stay by my bed,
will not go home to shave.
His whiskers will be rough
against my cheek when he kisses me.

My mother will beg me to have faith
as she straightens the hospital sheets
across the foot of my bed
and arranges Jimmy’s daisies in their jars.

This poem was published in the Fall 2007 issue of freefall.

Snow on Cedars

It is Monday morning.
There is snow lying on the cedars
outside the window.
The cat is sleeping
on the afghan-covered couch.
Dishes are stacked in the sink.
There is a basket of clean laundry
at the foot of the bed.

I will not pet the cat today.
I will not wash the dishes.
I will not fold the laundry.
The best that I can hope for
is to remember the snow on the cedars.

This poem was published in the Summer 2007 issue of Wild Goose.

Night on Her Knees

Women walk on their knees
and utter cries strange and shrill as birds.
They throw themselves on the graves
of their children and eat the freshly-dug dirt,
until the other mothers pull them away, weeping too;
for what mother has not buried some small hope or dream
or blessing, and then been forced to walk away?
Night gathers her skirts above the tiny earthen mounds
and circles them on her own calloused knees.

This poem was published in the Trinity 2007 issue of The Cresset.

This I do believe:

Every cry of pain lives forever in the heart of God
and He does not forget even if we have forgiven.
Pardon is not ours to give or to hold.
All that is required is a softening
at the edges of our hearts.
We can loosen our fists
and allow grace to flow
between our fingers.

This poem was published in the March 2007 issue of Ceremony.

What He Left Behind

Half a box of cornflakes and two cans of
Campbell’s soup in the kitchen cupboard.

A chipped green coffee cup, rinsed, and a
slightly-tarnished teaspoon in the stained
porcelain sink. A bowl of sugar on the counter.

A black plastic comb, a disposable razor,
and a red and white striped can of shaving cream
in the bathroom. Dentures in a blue plastic cup.

Six stained undershirts with matching shorts,
four pair of black socks, neatly folded, in a dresser drawer.
A pair of bedroom slippers with the soles worn thin.

A brown weathered wallet
containing three wrinkled bills,
an expired driver’s license,

and a forty-year-old photograph
of a dark-haired woman laughing
and a little boy with fat cheeks and blond curls.

This poem was featured in the 2007 issue of Coal City Review. It was also nominated for a Push Cart Prize.

Twenty-Seven Weeks

You are so light,
your bones must be hollow
like a bird’s; if only you could fly,
but you are not ready to take to air.
You are more suited to swimming
in the salty sea from which you were
so rudely delivered yesterday.
Your skin is translucent like wings
of a butterfly as you lie pinned
behind the glass wall of the nursery.
I think you would fly, if only
you weren’t tethered by all this technology
and so many prayers.

This poem appeared in the Easter 2007 issue of The Cresset and in the 2007 issue of Coal City Review. It was also nominated for a Push Cart Prize.

Jonah

I know what it's like
to be caught between
the ribs of a whale.

This poem was pubished in the June 2007 issue of Speedpoets, a publication of Australia.

deliverance

you were delivered on Easter
my own personal resurrection
an unwieldy stone rolled away from my body
but I never prayed for salvation
and I know I am unworthy of grace
and surely you, my child, were without sin

This poem appeared in Ceremony Collected, published by dance of my hands publishing, in 2007.

Holding On

The doctor gave him six months,
but love couldn’t hold him that long.
The winter sky was metallic gray
as he lay in my arms and we listened
to the sound of sleet against the window.
Love shrunk that night to a tiny puddle
of lamplight on the pillow.
I held him as long as I could.

This poem appeared in Ceremony Collected, published by dance of my hands publishing, in 2007.

Aria

The old man sang opera at the bus stop
Italian arias while waiting for the eight o’clock
While the late commuters on tired feet
Leaned against the brick wall of the library
And the soaring notes stroked their work-worn backs

This poem appeared in Ceremony Collected, published by dance of my hands publishing, in 2007.

Letter to My Sister

You did not visit me in hospital,
did not send get well cards
or vases of flowers.
That’s OK; they wouldn’t
have let me keep the vases anyway.

You say I have been sick long enough.

You do not say that to our grandfather
as his Alzheimer’s progresses.
As his mind becomes a sieve,
as he no longer recognizes you or your children,
as he becomes incontinent,
you love him. You are patient,
you cook his favorite foods,
even though he no longer remembers
he loves them. Even though
he no longer remembers he loves you.

But you have decided
my illness is not an illness
but an indulgence from which
I should simply abstain.

My mind is not a sieve.
It holds on to everything.
And yet, I am not sure
I can recognize you now.

Do you remember how I walked with you
as you labored on a salty summer night,
brought you herbal tea and a birthing ball,
sat by your hospital bed those long and lonely hours?
Oh, I do.

I went alone to the emergency room.
No one sat by my bed
as they emptied my stomach,
as they fed me thick liquid charcoal
that stained my hands and my lips.
No one walked with me
onto that locked ward.

You tell me I have been depressed long enough.

You sit beside our grandfather
on the porch swing,
hold the cat for him to pet.
You are tender, soft.

You tell me it is enough.

I will wait alone on the food stamp line.
I will put on another sweater,
and turn down the heat.
I will take my turn
cooking pork chops and potatoes for Papa.
I will send your children birthday cards.

It will not be enough.

This poem was published in the 2007 issue of Transcendent Visions and the July 2007 online issue of Open Minds.

Run, Chicken Little, Run

I look at you sleeping,
curled on your side like a snail in its shell,
your back safe against the white rails.
Your hair is pale silk against the Pooh-Bear pillow,
and I stand in the honeyed light that slides in from the hall,
just breathing the same air that you breathe.

In a minute I will go back to my own room,
to the glass eye of the television set,
and I will watch soot-covered men pulling bodies
from those towers that tumbled today.
I will watch people stepping into open air
where angels do not tread, and falling.
I will be grateful that you are sleeping
softly down the hall.

But for now I just stand in the light,
the bedtime book I read to you
still clutched in my hand,
and I think, my God, the sky really is falling.

This poem was published in the Fall/Winter 2006 issue of shemom.

Crowning

You crowned like the sunrise,
red and warm between my thighs,
shell shattering and yolk
pouring out and puddling beneath me.
Your hair was slick silk beneath my fingers,
your face wet and raw,
mouth open like a hungry bird.
With one more gush of sea,
your body flowed into my hands,
climbed onto my breast,
settled there like a stone.

This poem was published in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Epitome.

Hands

I remember your fingers
seamed with soil, your
hands like river beds

Stroking my face when I
had fever, stroking my hair
when you said good-night

I remember stroking the peach
fuzz of your head after the chemo
took your hair, while your sightless
fingers worked the satin seam

of the blanket, settled around you
by my hands

This poem appeared in the Oct/Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Storyteller under the title "Grandmother's Hands."

my daughter’s hair

the wind whips the grasses into braids
tangles them like my daughter’s hair
when she was seven

when she laughed and ran into my arms
and I could still hold her

This poem was first published in the 2006 edition of Cider Press Review; it was later reprinted in the fall 2006 issue of The Blackwidow's Web of Poetry and in the March 2007 issue of Ceremony.

Prozac in the Water

They should just put Prozac in the water supply,
you say, but I shake my head.
The water would be so bitter.
It would taste like the insides of mental institutions,
like Belleview, McLean,
like ECT and strait jackets and quiet rooms.
It would taste like walls painted hospital-green,
like paper slippers and gowns that open in the back.
Cold sheet packs and insulin shock and trans-orbital lobotomies.
The city couldn’t swallow it, I say.

This poem first appeared online in Truth Magazine in September 2005. It was then published in the Spring 2006 issue of Transcendent Visions and in the December 2006 issue of Black Book Press.

Sacrament

I offer You my body
and You bow to pray
at the altar of my breasts.
I offer myself to You,
a living sacrifice,
the holiest of communions.
Each touch of Your hand,
Your tongue, a benediction,
each moan from my lips,
a prayer.
I give myself to You,
in body, in mind, in spirit,
in service and in love
and You accept my offering
in tenderness and strength and surety.
All life flows in a circle,
and we circle,
love circles,
connects without binding
except that we choose to be bound,
no beginning and no end.
This is the holiest of rites,
our sacrament,
our gift to the gods,
their gift to us.

This poem was featured in the January 2006 issue of The Indented Pillow.

Blind Fish

Ecstasy and agony,
and the river is not burdened.
In the desert darkening,
camels cry to Heaven.
The blind fish fly into the sky,
and the women are forgiven.

This poem first appeared in the Autumn 2005 issue of Blind Man’s Rainbow. It was reprinted in the June 2007 issue of Speedpoets, a publication of Australia. It was later published in Ceremony Collected, published by dance of my hands publishing, in 2007.

Revolution is at Hand

When you take a flower
in your hand
and really look at it,
you need to know about roots.

Rivers once flowed through the core.
Remember the crickets chirping,
artillery firing, helicopters overhead,
LZ perimeter conversation
and machine gun fire.

Put a cutting into water to grow roots
and then plant it in soil.
Revolution is at hand.

This poem, in a slightly different format, was published in the Autumn 2005 issue of Blind Man’s Rainbow.

Four Days Before Christmas, Cincinnati, 1994

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Bigotry has got to go! Hey, hey!”

The cold night air burned in my lungs.
“I have to pee,” I announced, to no one in particular.
“I need some coffee,” muttered Scott,
hands trembling as he smoked a cigarette.
That was hours earlier.

Damn bigots were more than two hours late
arriving to erect their monument to hate.
At two in the morning, we gathered on the dark and frosty square,
forming a tight knot beside the space the city police had cordoned off.
At first the mood was jovial. You’d think we were at a party.
But the temperature was below freezing.
The fountain was not running.
The windows of the hotel across the street were like blind eyes.
The parking garage behind us was like a crypt.

Two men in a rusted pickup truck, dressed in blue jeans and flannel shirts.
A dozen of the city’s finest, there to protect their right to hate.
The white cross, gleaming in the predawn chill.

I took a deep breath, held it for a minute- it’s like smoking pot,
you know, and just as intoxicating- then shouted.
“Gay, straight, black, white! Same struggle, same fight!”
A dozen or so protesters took up the chant.
“Two, four, six, eight! This cross stands for hate!”

Do protesters still use those same chants?
They are so versatile. Like jump rope rhymes.
Why don’t we teach them to our children?

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! The KKK has got to go! Hey, hey!”
The rednecks erecting their cross ignored us.
The police positioned themselves silently along the perimeter.
No one tried to breach the wooden sawhorse barricades.
Just our voices, echoing through empty city streets.

I shook my hair out of my eyes.
Tipped my head back. Saw the dawn breaking.
Sang “We are a gentle, angry people” as the sun rose
and the crowd dispersed.

A previous version of this one was published in the Summer/Fall 2005 issue of Edgz.

A God Who Looks Like Me

I want a god who looks like me,
a god who sweats,
who cries,
who bleeds,
a god who breastfeeds
Her babies.
I want a god who has known hunger,
who has known hard work,
known darkness and despair.
I want a god who has struggled
and survived,
walked picket lines,
overcome oppression.
I want a god who loves
and laughs
and rages when required.

This piece was featured in the Summer/Fall 2005 issue of Edgz.

pregnancy

the baby kicks
like a baby rabbit
under my skin
somersaults inside me
            my belly grows
            like a gibbous moon
my breasts weep

This poem was published in the Autumn 2005 issue of The Birthkit, 
a publication of Midwifery Today, Inc.

Surrender

I relax my body into Yours
like lying back into the ocean
The fluids of my body
the salt of my tears
dissolve into the sea
flowing endlessly
My thoughts dissolve
into pure emotion
I rise and fall in wave
upon wave of sensation
I relax my will into Yours
allow You to carry me
deeper
trusting
You will lift me to the
surface
in time to breathe

This poem was published in the Summer 2005 issue of Love’s Chance Magazine.

Birth-days

One night not long ago
I spoke on the phone
with my mother
about my birth
and that of my younger sister.
She told me
for the first time in such detail
about her pain and fear
with her hands strapped down
so she could not touch her daughter.
And I wonder
how that shaped her experience
of mothering,
and my experience
of being her daughter.
The very first
time that I cried
she could not comfort me.
She told me that
she didn’t know
she could make choices.
For  my sister’s birth,
she went “natural,”
no spinal to soothe her,
so that my father could be there.
Her hands were unstrapped
but she had to promise
not to touch her baby.
And she spoke of enemas
and episiotomies,
the nurse who denied her
ice chips as promised
in the childbirth classes,
the doctor who,
after her natural birth,
refused to give her any anesthesia
as he stitched her episiotomy.
“I didn’t know any better,”
she said, somewhat sadly.
“You know, things can be
different now,”
I said, gently,
careful of her pain.
She saw a picture in a book
of a woman squatting
to give birth,
of a woman kneeling,
and she was surprised.
I explained the physiology
of alternative positions,
“Of course,” she said,
satisfied.
She watched my sister,
her youngest daughter,
give birth in a labor bed
amid all sorts of technology,
fascinated by the fetal heart monitor,
fascinated
that she was even allowed
to attend.
“It’s different now,”
she said.
My sister’s first son
was born by Cesarean section
on a July morning
after a long, hard night.
My sister and I
mourned together
the assault on her body,
the loss of her first child’s
first birthday.
Expecting her third son, now,
my sister has chosen
a midwife,
to our mother’s great concern,
a woman with gentle hands
and a slight southern accent,
hoping her story
will not repeat itself. 

A shorter version of this poem was published in the June 2005 issue of Midwifery Today.

Shadows of My Soul

 Blood runs down my face like tears
and I remember the weight of the child
when the circle was broken open
and I sacrificed myself to a dream
but none of it was real
and now I’m lost in the place I found
with only echoes to guide me
and the waters run deeper now
and blood pounds through the night
and the graves are all empty
and the hounds are all howling
but the baby’s not crying now
and the walls are falling down
for the dark moon must find me
where I wait all alone
in the shadows of my soul.

Published in the Spring 2005 issue of Transcendent Visions.

The Hall of Mirrors

Lost in the hall of mirrors
            -which way did they say was out?
Each way I see my own reflection-
            distortions, which one is real?
If I can’t get out, how did I get in?
            (I don’t remember coming here.)
I yell but there’s not answer,
            only echoes -am I all alone, then?
The mirror breaks so easily,
            a thousand silver slivers.
Behind it, another just the same,
            -and yes, I am afraid.
Confusion turns to terror,
            and terror to desperation.
(Well, what path do you suppose
            you would have taken?)
And anyway,
            you weren’t there.
The mirror broke with tinkling chimes
            (silver and blood running from my wrist)
Reflected in a hundred mirrors
            like a hundred haunted eyes.
And yet, I’m still alive. 

Published in the Spring 2005 issue of Transcendent Visions.

The Bells of Old St. Mary’s

Did you hear the sound 
of the church bells ring
early last Sunday morning?
Lord, how I miss that sound.
Nine o’clock, and the street is still,
the air so clear
it’s brittle,
and the bells
of Old St. Mary’s
shatter the morning.
Lord, how I miss that sound.  

This poem appeared in the February/March 2005 issue of Write On!! Poetry Magazine.  

waiting for a crucifixion

arms outstretched
like I’m waiting for a crucifixion
and the hospital gown hangs
like angel’s wings
from my outstretched arms
as the nurse
patiently scans my body
with the hand-held metal detector
like a magic wand
and I close my eyes
and wait
like I’m waiting for a crucifixion

Published in the Fall 2004 issue of Transcendent Visions.

after suicide/still alive

I cried the next morning
when I peeled back the bandage
and saw for the first time
the neat row of stitches
running like railroad tracks
across my wrist.
Gingerly I traced the stiff black threads
with my finger,
touching each knot in turn
like rosary beads,
only I didn’t know
what to pray.

 First published in the Fall 2004 issue of Transcendent Visions; republished in the 2007 issue of Mindprints.

An alternate version of this poem (see below) was published in the Summer 2007 issue of Open Minds, in the August 2007 issue of Remark, and in the Winter/Spring 2008 issue of Kaleidoscope.

Praying My Own Private Rosary

I peel the bandage back,
see the neat row of stitches
stepping across my wrist
like the tracks of a bird
in the snow.
Gingerly I trace the threads,
touch the knots
like rosary beads,
only I don’t
know what to pray.