September 2024
Bio Note: I teach workshops on Villanelle, Sonnet, Natural Meter, Persona Poems, Freedom With Forms, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism, I am also a science writer, visual artist, composer of tonal songs and chamber music, and an advisory editor of New Verse Review. My 2022 article on setting poems to music is online at straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html. My chapbooks are available via the email address above.
The Rest of Our Lives
In this version we’ll still see Italy
because, instead of death by pesticide,
we’ve found a way—with vinegar, detergent,
and a spray bottle—to make weeds behave.
In this version we’ll live into our nineties,
since no defective cell phone battery
explodes, or keeps on swelling to distract us
and make us wander idly into traffic.
Remodeling a house? No, it won’t kill us,
at least not this time. We can recognize
beauty and home, even in different frames.
And in this version we are still together,
because I’ve learned to ask “What are you doing?”
or “What does that mean?” rather than react
when words you say transform the kitchen floor
into a pudding that swallows my feet.
Hints of Spring
Barred owl with her percussive
startup and final whoop
resembling a war cry
innocent of war
suggests there will be owlets
hooting about and songs
within me as I listen
to spring’s repertoire.
Three-Legged Race
On a warm breezy afternoon I saw them:
Hope and Fear with two knees tied together,
running, tripping, stumbling through the grass,
then getting up, trying to run again.
Fear was steadfast but Hope was never sure
whether to plow on or give up, go home,
and leave her knotted scarf as a memento.
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL