gracious like summer

good sister smears
incomplete shadows
against the endless landscape
gracious like summer
singing faintly and falling
on turned branches

leaves struggling in the
moment unnoticed when
familiar bodies stretched low
push against tense skin
healing rapidly for
the glory of a living prize

poetry at work

I work overnight shifts at a youth shelter. Sometimes in my down time in the middle of the night I write poetry on the walls in the dining room.

Wednesday night's poetry included: Claude McKay, Bob Perleman, Rodney Koeneke, and Ron Padgett.

An ecclectic, but fun, mix of poems.

these hands

gracious hands
bring in the
detached wanderer
carrying light through
the saffron memories
of a dripping sun
melted together
with the pageantry
of city and sky

longing stretches
down beside the
familiar pictures
of golden explosions
but nobody wants
to contemplate
the rumbling

ginger sky

dark nectar on
branches brings
scent tingling faintly
upon glazed rain
leaving shadows on
bottomless memories
wax picture colors
stain strange hands
singing in flickers
of tangerine flame
rising the moment
starlings clang
in the ginger sky

Featured Writer: Lillian Short

This is the first of many upcoming featured writer/artist posts. As Sweet Lozey continues to grow, we will be featuring experimental writing and art from many talented women. I am thrilled to present Lillian Short as the first featured writer. Though young in age, Lillian's artistic ability is already recognized within her community. Her passion is painting and drawing but she is a talented writer as well.

Two (short) poems by Lillian Short:

...

delicious starlings are
only red plums

...

heavily red is stretched
among fire trucks where
iceboxes carry green people
across the sky and
endless heads drown

...

morning stroll

Women in Small Press Article

Lynn Alexander writes a monthly column about women in small press for the Literary Mary Newsletter. The June column is about Sweet Lozey (and me). You can read the article here:
Literary Mary Article

Lynn is an impressive lady and someone that I greatly admire. She is involved with many literary projects, including editing Full of Crow. I was really excited when she asked to write an article about Lozey. To learn more about Lynn, click here.

there’s more to the story

girl is moving
at the speed of light
whirled violently
and changes direction

got me to thinking
so i pulled up a box
and wrenched another
peach off the tree

she stared limply at space
speeding toward her
and considered the
possibilities of existence

but this isn’t the real story
it was pitched off
into the distant past
to be stripped away

we couldn’t travel there
she begged me to tell her
the story until there was
nothing left but hunger

what he does, he does well

the slowdown creeps
in the flickering shadows
like the grey fading grin
of rip van winkle

he impetuously packs a
scribbled hurry-up letter in
a box of roman rockets
and slips into the dark

flicker

muscles convulse
the system is perplexed

overcome by the madness
of unrelenting quiet

shouting inequities
across the widening universe

fire crackles like
shattered alabaster doves

in the shadow of
faded celluloid memories

sleep comes easy
but ransacks the soul

interpretations

we discovered truth
late one night
though you might
not remember it

hastily dragged out
and hanged in
the courtyard before
it could be recorded

we were close then
interpreting the prophesies
quietly spoken by the
captain of the guard

his revelations were
profound even if
they were screwed up
from time to time