June 2023
Bio Note: I am an award-winning poet and artist. My poems have been published in several anthologies, in newspapers and online, including The Long Island Quarterly and The High Window, where I was named the Featured American Poet. My first full-length book of poetry, Glimpse, was published in April 2023.
A New Day for Mr. Death
if, for a moment you desire to escape
the boredom of your gaping certainty
fold your iron wings to your side
follow the sunlit steppingstones to my door
come sit in my golden garden
in the brightly painted chair
cup your rusty hand, with its sharp metal talons
to your ear
listen to the spirited mumble and flutter
of morning on the rise
when the color of jubilant red poppies
fills your hardened veins like blood
the squealing hinges of your clenched heart
will loosen and open
then, later in the evening
the silvery stars will take pity on you
pour themselves, as an offering
into your black, bottomless eyes
until you can see again
until you are too startled and astounded
too filled with praise for the light
to ever extinguish it again
If My Love Was a Lavender Balloon
would you let it bounce freely
against the ceiling for awhile
coax it down with sweet whispers
and gentle tugs on its string
or make it spend the night
with your shadow under your bed?
would you take it for walks
and give it plenty of string
or leave it tied tight to a fence
drowning in the rain for days?
if you were bored
would you poke at its delicate shell with a pin?
if it was helpless and stuck in a tree
how high would you climb to save it?
could you forgive its fear
of being kidnapped by the wind
of drifting, forgotten,
swallowed up by the sky?
Questions for the Dead
when was it that you began your journey
beloved traveler?
were you already elsewhere
as I watched your chest strain to rise and fall
and clouds slowly fill your eyes?
were you carried along
by an indigo river, tender and wide?
in the arms of a precious lover
beneath an antique moon?
was your mother calling you to supper
as your father stoked the fire?
were you floating upward to greet your brother
as he waved to you from the top of an emerald hill?
or did you depart as I, your weary disciple,
slept nearby
or was it when the snow, bitter-white,
fell downward, a final curtain
from the dark, indifferent heavens
leaving me with your empty coat, your walking stick
and the taste of ashes upon my tongue?
©2023 Victoria Twomey
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