down by the southbank no one could find you if their life depended on it illuminations across the river spasm xenon (the yellowness is outstanding) refracting on acapulco gold smirched streets blood vessel epiphanies burst neon zigzag candyman turkey-tina star-dust snow-bird turf-jellies pig-highs hey you lights i did not encourage that wink the underpass is […]
Writing Poetry on Location challenge
Plateau
(written at the Blacktail Plateau Drive, Wyoming, USA) In the fields my mother stands stooped among the bison, her spine bent into the downward V of their necks, her hands panning for a wedding ring. Somewhere among those hills, there it is. My mother has found the herd, these bison, these girls who are solid […]
Summer Storm in a Village
Stream bursts its banks. Roars its new freedom over sodden emerald grass. Pavement slickens; Glistens in an explosion of quiet euphoria – Each trodden stone a dark flash to the final image of rapidly retreating raincoats – red blue yellow – A child’s watercolour. The oppressive embrace of heat melts away like warmed snow. Replaced […]
Northern Place
Down the striped bank The purple tree Sways in the afternoon breeze, And the shades of green That surround it Rustle in a cascading cloak Of leaves. Yellow field stretch past the fence Across the far road, Ribboned with fresh drying grass Cut for hay. The fields rise In steady waves Up towards the rough […]
Sunless Beach
Leg-hairs rope rat-tails after the gush of the brown froth we call the ocean hissing auto-tune to the distant jets that drop bombs into the sea and girls scream at dead fish, the mountains carved by waves collapse in ribbon dunes as insects lose footing thunder-flies slice leg-forests down, sewage surges black puddles; we wash […]
National Park
“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.” -Aldo Leopold The prairie is contained within a rough sketch of mountain, its trees whistling out their scratched tune like a child with fingers too small to cover the holes of her recorder. All this time the coyote’s breath has been thickening […]