Category: Poetry

Loretta Diane Walker: Interpretations

~ amarillobay

“The ultimate goal… is not to understand the dream,however, but to understand the dreamer.” —Calvin S. Hall

I am a sycamore tree
levitating over a deep hole
where I was once planted.
With roots intact, fanned like wild hair,
I stare down
at the gaping wound.
No thing or thought can fill its yawning.
No longing is large enough
to fit inside or cork it.
The bark on my aged wide trunk
is smooth and slippery.
Light slides up and down my chest
with its quick fingers grasping
for purchase around my neck.
My fleshy branches are hundreds of arms
reaching in all directions, searching
for something to hold
or give my life to. Continue reading “Loretta Diane Walker: Interpretations” →

Loretta Diane Walker: Before My Birth

~ amarillobay

“Think long and hard about it. You won’t get a second chance with this one.” —Mother    

I want to return to a sticky September afternoon,
back before my umbilical cord was snipped
and tied. Even further still, back before I was a seed
in the garden of my mother’s life.
There are a few things I want to negotiate
with the Creator, “do overs” for squandered opportunities. Continue reading “Loretta Diane Walker: Before My Birth” →

Ken Wheatcroft Pardue: This Morning

~ amarillobay

eating my 4-minute eggs, my 2 veggie sausages, my whole-wheat toast,
out my front window, a passing school bus’ rumblings
launch a jumble of wings.

Our annual spring rite in full swing.
When cedar waxwings swarm on my holly bush
to gorge on its red berries.

Like Hitchcock’s The Birds,
an ear-full of them, their beaks
spotted with scarlet drops, swoop down.

My eggs cold, my plate abandoned.
I stand at the window, eyes flitting from branch to branch,
at this orgy, this blood-red frenzy. Continue reading “Ken Wheatcroft Pardue: This Morning” →

Christina Moriconi: Contra-conception: On the 20th anniversary of a child I chose not to have

~ amarillobay

Long before your conception,
a mix of protection with lust
prevented your existence.
With regularity,
chanted “my body, my choice,”
sought my “self”
before I sought the thought of you.
In this contra-conception,
mixed with bohemian illusions,
men wooed me brain and body,
and I muted thoughts of children. Continue reading “Christina Moriconi: Contra-conception: On the 20th anniversary of a child I chose not to have” →

James McCormick: Lewis Carroll’s Last Photograph of Alice

~ amarillobay

Oxford, 1870

“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red Queen: “when you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.”
–Through the Looking-Glass

Neither he nor she says a thing.  She’s sitting, posed.  And he’s telling
The seconds that make light and silver nitrate into something not painting,

Not sight.  Into a kind of world.  Into a kind of double of this world, only
Where color becomes lost, where her pale lavender day-dress will become gray, Continue reading “James McCormick: Lewis Carroll’s Last Photograph of Alice” →