Historical Work
Impassioned Cows By Moonlight published
This book was published in 1974 by Red Dot Press, a division of Hanging Loose magazine in New York. I was invited to submit the manuscript for the first book-publishing venture of this long-running literary periodical. The poems and short stories are in chronological order, beginning with one written at…
Barcelona
dark pension hall you approach white and nervous in dark drug alert she killed you the mother stabbed that snake-slim tree white flesh home i have stroked in infinite undoing now you see her in doorknobs in dark…
Dingy-Squaat
The short-bladed knife slices pirate bread Candles light cheeks round above the fur like eggs in straw. We live in a boat’s duck-belly, six of us frying onions slicing bread by candlelight Oats falling like stars onto the green wood.
Cleaning Richard’s House
Night before last was one of the most incredible good earth things – Richard invited us over for dinner. We got there, bathed and shiny, long dresses, on our bicycles. I had made coconut – avocado cookies and brought them with a pale green cloth in an Indian basket, over…
This year is different
This year is different from all other years. The flowers I sew together seem ready to slip suddenly into a deep green pool the palm of my hand. Sidewalk cracks widen when I approach like opening eyes. Trees take their breasts from their…
The Crows
(a block from my childhood house ran the tracks; a nut-canning factory sat beside them, with a groundcover of crushed nutshells. I used to dream the trains got off the tracks and ran through the streets at night–) We are the crows. We stroll between railroad tracks, trading…
Astoria
Astoria on the Northern brow of Oregon those pioneer names The Columbia, the Willamette still pulse out to sea The sun is but a moment older eyes closed only slightly more to all the rags and rages of the dangling stairstep days.
Sentences in the Desert
To Glen I. Out into the desert into tall night the family comes walking sad Okies, books’ images filming over their skins Invisible amoebas of words with slipping colors Not here, the family no brothers no father no desert boots…
Back South
We are trees together sleeping, exhaling shadows felled into cupped silence; our fluting has impassioned cows by moonlight. Banana slugs have lusted for our fingers, we have dug green stone from an ocean cliff. It shattered into white…
The Two Princesses
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, in a middling-poor town, in the middle of a vast desert, two little Princesses were born, not entirely by mistake, into a very poor family. In fact, their mother was a Queen and their father a King, but all were under an…
I Will Live in a Small Hovel
I will live in a small hovel In the midst of life And be a gypsy/mystic/poet constantly. I will always wear a smock and sandals My braided hair swinging Around my knees Forever kept shining by fog and…