I dreamt I cut off my ear the way I casually cut fabric or slice a potato which made me ask what other ways do I self-harm? What other impulsive act can’t be taken back? What don’t I want to hear? I saved the evidence but forgot what it was intended for so I tucked […]
It’s been fun to read poetry in different places and to different audiences. This time, thanks to Elle Roe and others, the hosts were a local book club. We met on the back porch of The Floyd Country Store. It was not a back-and-forth Soulful Aging duo between me and Katherine, as we have been […]
I cling to morning sleep like I cling to the blanket when it’s cold I keep my eyes closed as if there was a war I didn’t want to see As if our country wasn’t selling arms to young white men who murder children I prolong my sleep for the lure of escape from the […]
Now I have to learn to nap and wake up three times a night Now I have to talk to bag boys at the grocery store who don’t know who wrote Let It Be I talk to the flowers in my garden I call them ‘my beautiful girls’ I hang out with butterflies and bluebirds […]
I mistook the fireflies for your headlights coming down the gravel driveway A distant car on the Parkway could be yours I remember waiting for my dad to come home from work in the rain and worrying that he wouldn’t during Hurricane Carol in 1953 Now the light fades out like the end of a […]
We’re tourists to our own aging / We’ve never been here before / We take field notes and pictures / and watch the other travelers / We cross our fingers / and look for simple pleasures / We count our blessings / give away our belongings / enjoy the view from the scenic route… C. […]
The wolf doesn’t need sheep’s clothing if the door is left open if the bad apples are poison and the fences are broken if the good people are sleeping and the rest are herded the pack is emboldened and the vulnerable forsaken Cry wolf every time Don’t follow the dishonorable Don’t fall from grace or […]
Katherine Chantal and Colleen Redman will be presenting a poetry reading at the Soup Shop on Sunday, June 26 at 2 pm. Located at 7360 Floyd Highway in Copper Hill (just beyond Check Elementary School), the one-stop Soup Shop is the inspiration of owner Susan Huff, who supports local farmers by using locally purchased farm […]
Put a pen in my hand before you lower the casket and plant me like a kiss goodbye Put a pen in my hand so I can write Dear John letters to everything on earth I have loved And if the afterlife is boring I can take up writing fiction I can work on crossword […]
When bras were white even after Labor Day before they were burned for free love and peace and falsies were tissue paper stuffed in A cups a visible slipped strap was cause for embarrassment When cigarettes were glamorous and your mother’s closet was an exotic taboo where you tore open a sanitary napkin to see […]
The pioneers have left for the uncharted New World They fell off the horizon when the world was flat When I was 3rd of nine in an unbroken family line before survival was optional and paradise was a gamble we had already won We navigated destiny with safety in numbers with a lifetime of chances […]
-The following is the poem I wrote and read at my friend Alwyn Moss’s (November 3, 1926 – April 21, 2022) memorial service at the Quaker House in Blacksburg, where there was music, poems and Open Worship sharing and story telling. The second poem I read, First Tree (a gingko) is one of Alwyn’s from […]
