scissors



let’s run with ’em, 
cut cloud paper dolls 
across this sky. 

if we get ’em snip
-snapping fast enough,
I bet we can fly. 

::
Yesterday’s Poetic Asides poem.

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all bark 



even the dogwood trees 
have got no bite left, 
no spring 
in their step. no sway. 

the breeze has loosed
both blossom and bellow
, the un
-mellow 
mayhem of May. 

we barter. 
we beg. 
we dig for dregs. 

but
summer’s here 
to 
stay. 

::
I’m late to my own party over at dVerse, where yesterday was Quadrille Monday. Come play!

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here there be {snap}dragons 



show me a garden
and i’ll sow you a song

fallow and un
-talon’d and sylla
-bled only by sword. 

show me a word 
and i’ll fire you a phrase

some ancient of days 
petal’d glee – 

all dandelion fluff 
flight and the stuff 
of new 
dreams. 

::

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pondering petals 



she plucks them 
one by one 

he loves me
loves me not 
loves me 
loves me not 
loves me 
loves me not 
loves me 
loves me…not


drops the last one 
frowns again  

and then: 
                 {he loves me} 
counts the stem. 

::


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flower dragons

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Emberling

This poem is an unquiet dragon, 
waiting for the years to flame 
at the same rate as her rage, 

for the page to turn to ash
before anyone reads, needs 
something more from her center. 

She’s held together with mud and 
scars, a crinkling of stars along 
the edge. She’s wedged in tight 

in the hole of an abandoned tree
hidden in plain sight for none to 
see. She’s trying to find her 

wings, the things that make up 
her muchness, jumpstart the such
-ness of a silence she can no longer  

sing. She’s grown tired of the sting 
of syllable and stage. This page. The
burning of her own bright heart. 


::

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The Year of Living Dangerously 

::

Started with a kiss 
     (it was only a kiss) 
and then a little bliss 
and then a smallish twist 
        (of fate, of time, of page) 
and then here’s the gist: 
trysts 
fists
rage. 

::

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Eliza Shifts Her Focus 



No more “He taught me how to walk 
and to speak and to fake 
like a regular lady.”
 No more 

guardroom analysis or matriculated 
days or Paris waived until October 
starts volcanic 
winter. No more complicated 

chemistry (she fell in love) 
                                             (and out again)

or fancy gloves or lecture room re: 
actions. No more silver 

slivering of mirrors or milk or meat 
or mercury rising. No more surprising 
pigments of paint or phraseology 
that just ain’t 
right for her tongue. No,

the storage closet’s done and the skeletons 
are dancing dangerous medicine 
with radical apothecary hopes. Nope 

to universities and gyms. Yes to gin. 
The nutritional value of 
twinkies and twinkle little star. 
Clouded art, apart
-meant to vent. To sting. No more 

singing (in the rain or otherwise)
of chimneys (chim-chim-cher-ee) 
or chairs or children in pairs 
or glasses that make her look 
smart. She is 

                           (fluid) 

brewer of time, condensing vapors 
and vim in a signature swim of 
strange. Professor Emeritus 
Extraordinairus of all things in
                                       -sane.

::
Just Doo-in a ‘little delightful, insightful insanity born of an awesome wordlist.

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all those years, as shifting sands 



they land. 
they shift. they stick. 
they 
s
l
i

through our fingers, 
or linger 
just a little too long. 

they run wrong. they 
go right. they feel 
like an endless fight 
of fear and blood and 
salt and sweat and tears. 

they veer over a hill 
we didn’t see, flee 
as if chased, hasten
our pulse
our pace
our breath. 

we fight and flight 
and freeze 
to death, resurrect 
the ashes 
and fall 
in love 
with it all 
all over again. 

::

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Naming the Moon 

{a lunar year} 

::

Wolf howls. 

Snow falls, 
rises again. 

Buck horns 
in. 

Sturgeon swims 
in indigo. 

Worm wriggles 
silver glow. 

Pink blushes. 

Strawberry crushes. 

Cold shivers
in star slivers. 

Flower blooms, 
unblooms. 

Corn sways,
a husk of her old self. 

Hunter stays. 

Beaver carves her own way. 

::
Lillian had a fun word over at dVerse this past Monday.




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