April 29 – Asah

I call my Beloved Asah, meaning: a cool spring day, the sun flowing warm on my belly new grass dew washing winter from my back, writhing and wriggling, flinging my fine four legs free as falling whirlybirds, while the world waits, breath held, for me to rise and run

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April 28 – None of us deserved this revision

None of us deserved this None of us deserved this, but still we’d been tried, judged, pronounced guilty. We’d believed that sexy was a path to power, that all those slasher movie bloodbaths meant nothing. We’d believed that our lives could be more than what it had taken to survive to now, to posting an [...]

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April 25 – None of us deserved this

None of us deserved this None of us deserved this, but still we are held accountable. We’d bought the lie that sexy was the same as having power, we’d believed we had a right to walk to work, to go to school, to live in the city, to live in the country. We’d survived through [...]

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Gaia, Dreaming by Philip Metres

From the amazing contemporary poet Philip Metres, whom I first heard at Split This Rock. Philip’s own poetry blog is:Behind The Lines. This poem is from the chapbook Ode to Oil, which you can buy from Kattywompus Press here Gaia, Dreaming Philip Metres She dreams she is body again. In the open field, sound of [...]

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So often now I’ve no idea

So often now So often now I’ve no idea who’s contained within this skin: woman, child (boy or tomboy), horse. Polar bears are said to shed their hides and live as humans; peel my skin and you could find a bear. What we are is merely social invention: white, female, human, dyke, all labels threatening [...]

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Amazon in the land of oranges—Eleanor Lerman

Finally I See Your Skin Eleanor Lerman in Amazon Poetry, 1975 Finally I see your skin so scarred by my use that I can close my eyes and tell you where the constant embrace of my fingers is turned to gold on your stomach, and the press of my legs has turned your thighs to [...]

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Poem a day #27 And enter into my body

And enter into my body Do you believe there is some place that will make the soul less thirsty? […] Be strong then, and enter into your own body; There you have a solid place for your feet. Kabir It takes a certain strength to enter into my body To enter into the cave of [...]

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Poem a day #15 Found Poem in Explanation of Events Beginning October 2007

if there is a lyric poem inside every narrative poem, isn’t there also a lyric poem inside of an essay? At least inside of a well-written essay, the pleasure of which is the combination of the well-researched opinion and the exceptionally good writing? It’s a theory, as is the Timing Hypothesis Cynthia Gorney explores in [...]

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Poem a day #14 Getting Dressed for Work

here’s a little lesson in what first drafts can look like. This not-yet-a-poem wanders all around, taking forever to tell a story which will probably be reduced to a few descriptive details when I’m done blithering and ready to really write. Inside every narrative is a lyric waiting to happen, but sometimes digging it out [...]

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My Horse Body (version2)

My Horse Body version 1 draft 2 My ears, soft, tall, all movement and knowledge, grew in first. I felt them swiveling on my head, attuned to sounds in all directions, shuddering if a fly landed. Then my tail—long, black, hairs of thin steel cable. Then my mane, and with my mane my muscled horse [...]

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