I am a poet available for readings/performances and commissioned pieces.   Additionally, I am happy to contribute to blogs and periodicals to which my skills and interests would add some flavor and inspire conversations.

(Photo Credit: Stephanie Feudale)

See Through Walls

I became a clown so that I could see through walls

Naked in my own house

So that my shameful bits and parts would tickle folks like jewels

So that fear would become fire and tears would be bent and hammered into bawdy bangles

and shabby chandeliers

And I'd dangle from the ceiling because we all want to fly

Stop, sense, silence, and stare because we all want to cry

I became a clown to see through walls

I became a clown to fall in love

Naked in my own heart

Valves and chambers, a water park from childhood

Writing notes to myself, all blush and beginnings

Gravity giving me the scrumptious gift of speed

And I slid and faster and faster

Falling into deep pools of sun and safety

Because we all want to wish

Because we all want to be fish

I became a clown to fall in love

I became a clown

So that I can stand up

And I keep falling down

I became a clown

I keep standing up

And I keep falling down

W

(photo credit: me)

Coming of Age

came of age like a mad magnet in the land of coral castles

a dozen years like broken eggs sliding down windows

a broken child, her brain an eight-limbed animal playing jazz on an accordion

her angry-feathered wings trying again and again to ascend

snap, her sister's breath, stolen

snap, the blood of her brother searching for the dug out canals

crack, she fancied herself a dinosaur with with a jet pack

an invisible ancient animal, she'd build a machine if she couldn't fly

diving, like graffiti, onto walls, vertical swimming pools with no regard for gravity

she'd give these spray-painted songs to her siblings to extend the days till we all die

there is fruit behind each movement of my jaw and my fist

and my throat and my hips

and my chest and my legs

and my feet and my lips

there is snow behind the joint and the bend

there are mountains and oceans between birth and the end

in the silence of winter I think of sweet mangoes

my sister in a swing

the blizzards of my brother

interpretations of a motif laid by ancestral beasts with hard souls

I know joy I will stand steadfast and hold her with both hands

run towards those who show up for life

swapping our gear and finding a place where our modern bodies

look less like scaffolding and more like music

W

Chord

They say the brain is made of folds

An accordion wrought with minor scales

Major indecisions

Song

Wishlists

Undergrowth

Roots and reeds

inverted

Humming and shaking in handstands

On upright pianos, downright rowdy

Every new thing, the first to the Moon

Bellwether

Maverick

An orchestra with no maestrx

The whole body straining to play the score

Fingers racing and bracing

Percussion and wind

Striking and soothing

Petting the coda as one would a scorpion's tail...

W