Category Archives: Poetry

Hat Tricks, etc

 

every person is a joy
…to varying degrees

 


 

Contrary to my reputation, I am actually very likable.

 


 

Every day when she comes in she does a new hat trick

In an effort to make the receptionist smile

All tricks are met with stony faces

The tricks get more and more extravagant

She acquires a cane

She throws ten, twenty feet high

She bows

She draws a few spectators, regulars every morning to watch the trick

But never does she draw a smile from her target

One day she doesn’t come in

Another second day passes, she won’t answer the phone

They call the police

Who break in to find her

Wrists slit

Two days dead.

When the receptionist hears,

All she has to say is

“I knew she was fucking crazy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

And the Stars Wrap Around Me

 

Eons pass
And the stars wrap around me.
I am born under Capricorn
I grow up under Orion
In the crisp country night
I see black and white.
Under the bright fluorescents of education
I learn what color means.
I get a job
In a room with high speckled ceilings.
I struggle smally.
I see the moon in the mornings
And dappled winter sunsets.
I grow old
Joints from creaks to cries
Complaints from whispers to shouts
My hands grasping at light-pierced blankets
I face my own mortality.
And the stars wrap around me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

Small Salvations

 

Some people have been hurt so deeply
They no longer know how to accept love.
They have been repeatedly wounded
Until fear overwhelms them.
Their defenses scar shut.
They can’t bare their hearts to trust again.

Even these can find small salvations.
A lover, a child, a persistent friend
Might break through,
Might prove to them
That love is worth the pain.
That humanity
Has beautiful faces.
That they belong.
That they deserve
All the good things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

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