Happy to announce my third chapbook, Count Seeds With Me, is now available! These are poems written in 2020 during the height of quarantine. The books are beautifully handmade and offered in limited quantities, so get your copy over at Ethel’s shop for just $9!
When lightning strikes a distant tree
I lift my hands from the steering wheel.
Hail knocks on the windshield–
a desperate stranger. Curled in fleece,
I hide behind windows, the past
a gathering flood until the sun
bares terrible fangs
of clarity and renewal.
(originally published in Rust + Moth, Autumn 2018)
you asked me to move in
or lose you Ben
Franklin is credited with
the early bird gets the worm
and also electricity
which became
the computer
I have a tic
wherein I set a clock
back twenty minutes
to make myself early
keep imagining
the string
and the storm
the kite so vivid and red
corporeal and endless
(originally published in Epigraph Magazine, Winter 2018)
your zen
is blackout
drunk
no memories
chalk thoughts
dreams
meditations
on calm
in a crowd
no different than
eyes closed
alone
beside a tree
in summer
your breath
the steady
breeze
drink more
to clear
you
of you
(originally published in Jokes Review, Summer 2017)
to leave water would mean I suffocate
so I wait for orange pellets to fall almost
like rain you and I are alone most
of the time pooled in a little world
aimless from place to place
in a bowl peering through glass
to see what moves around us
swimming feels like drowning
when you come to me and I press
my face to glass trying hard to break
it to come meet you
when I flap my fins it means I am starving
not for food but to end these
lonely days punctuated by when
you surface through the waters of that
more colorful other universe like magic
my sky becomes kaleidoscopic orange
and I nearly believe I belong
(originally published in Perspectives Magazine, Spring 2017)
yes i have
seen my neighbors
we disagree but shit
violins i’m saying welcome
cupcakes i’m saying
welcoming there’s the dirt
we both walk on trust
i’ve seen them
i’ve seen us too
(Originally published in The Neglected Ratio, Summer 2017)
a horse runs
on a long treadmill
at first we say this
is not normal
but the horse runs
on the long treadmill
long enough
we normalize it
there’s that horse
running
on the long
treadmill
(originally published in The Neglected Ratio, Spring 2017)
I have started a long-gestating project:
The Mantle is an online quarterly journal dedicated to compelling, contemporary poetry, committed to publishing the most memorable poetry we receive and will nominate for both Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.
Send poems that are odd, poignant, beautiful, or oddly poignant yet beautiful. Send poems you’re proud of whether raw, refined, or jagged.
Check out the full submission guidelines here and consider sending your work!
