Category: Poetry

I smothered my muse with a down-filled pillow And left her corpse stretched out, Naked and prostrate, On the futon in the spare room. I held her in my dreams for a fortnight, Then discarded the memory, Wretched and withered, To the wraiths that live behind the house. But her siren call kept singing to…

I wrote your song last night In words of sulfur and strychnine Writ in blood on onion skin I set it on fire And watched the smoke curl Up Up Up And Nevermore Now I’m humming the melody Softly to myself Thinking only Of you — ptkh 10.21.14

The city is filled with the carcasses of yesterday’s homes, Once lovely bones picked clean by the copper vultures, Empty frames where glass held back the wind and rain In years now gone and done This was a young couple’s dream for a future together That was a family pausing on the ladder to take…

Sleepy snowdrift Slippery slope Dangling disheartened At the end of my rope Cracking the whip To drive the cart And watch the brickwork Fall apart The age of reason Trumpets change But reasons age And rearrange Somnolent sleeting Succulent slide Dolorous darkened Deliverance died – ptkh 8/18/14

There are things I wish I could say where you could hear them but the smile I painted on to the rhythm of the metronome cannot be so easily belied as that Somewhere at night my faith capsized, rammed against a frozen memory floating on the surface And for a moment, I reached out and…

once, when i was glass and the morning sun was still high in the sky i could see the rainbows shimmering through my skin the road was long in front of me but i looked forward to the walk once, when i was steel and the noontime clouds crept and dawdled i could see the…

There is solace in silence Quiet that seeps in from the shadows Sleek as a cat, padding softly across tiles There is solace in silence Snowflake settling on autumn leaves Swirled by chilling winds There is solace in silence But at the same time, Not — ptkh 010414

i saw the daze of winter fading from the eyes of the downtrodden as a fire had been kindled afresh in the dying embers of august’s barbecue a bare-footed retinue flexed their toes in the muddy spring stretched their arms yawned out their souls and dug in again backs laden with the vexing hope of…

I saw my face in the mirror, in passing, and it was someone else. I didn’t recognize the eyes, or the hair, or the point of the nose. But that wasn’t it, because I never do. There was something different. A light, a candle flame, that used to flicker. It was gone. I stopped to…

“It’s dinnertime, so I’m about to eat dinner. Butter is butter!” — jeh, age 3