I had an actual dream about opening a museum that was full of poetry machines. In the dream, the museum was in my grandparents’ old home, which we had turned into a used bookstore and then when it closed, my nephew and his friend moved into it while they are going to college. But the house was also an amalgamation of a psychiatric museum I had visited in St. Joseph, Missouri. Continue reading “Poetry Machines”
Tag: nature
Etymology in the Morning
A stone cast from the sky by the gods
Landed in her garden next to a purple turtle
Because it was the only color
Of paint available at the time, not the stone,
Which was the color of a missed connection,
But the turtle which had been art and crafted
In bright kelly green and egg yellow,
Hideous amidst the spearmint, which even weedy,
Knew a gaudy neighbor when it saw one. Continue reading “Etymology in the Morning”
Unopened
It was not even ten o’clock,
And the coyotes called to one another
In the cow pasture. I told you
About it. I told you because you say
You are a werewolf,
Your breath hinting of the moon, Continue reading “Unopened”
The Witch
I am a witch.
It is what I do, you see,
Make people happy,
Or at least give them the idea
That they may stop at a tea room
Or quit the job or return her kiss
In the fading light of a winter evening
When the starlings are calling
The darkness into their breasts. Continue reading “The Witch”
Strange Beauty
for Lea, 9-9-1962 to 8-30-2012
It is late October, and a red rose bush
Is blooming on the south side of her house,
In that best place for the light. I remember
How she could draw a flower
When we were in high school, a few
Simple strokes and strange beauty appeared. Continue reading “Strange Beauty”
Her Kind
The fourth poet chair for the museum that I made is Anne Sexton’s, based on her poem “Her Kind.”
Her Kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light; Continue reading “Her Kind”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 