Psalms of the Heart
I. A Dizain If we say its name, speak the word out loud will it tarnish as pewter, a mouth un-kissed dissolve like salt, or crumble like...
Claudia Kessel
A blog devoted to sharing my favorite poems and motivating me to share my own
I. A Dizain If we say its name, speak the word out loud will it tarnish as pewter, a mouth un-kissed dissolve like salt, or crumble like...
After a series of four paintings (1908) by Susan Watkins (American, 1875 - 1913) and music by Erik Satie, Gynopedies and Gnosseries...
I. For the first time hearing my name in your mouth: a fluttering, feathered nestling all sweating skin and clouded eyes stirs inside the...
In the evenings after hospital rounds, or Sundays after church, when ice blanketed his garden during those frigid midwestern winters, my...
A season of novelty: through mud, purple peaking crocus buds begin to reveal the lace edges ...
A mother cries her predictable tears Robotic fathers cradle dead children in metallic arms Creators invoked, paradise referenced Hail...
I. Of the Aging Housewife Dear God I am bounded by the walls of this house the squareness of the yard, perpetual...
Var Region, France three-legged cat crouches in the alley one-eyed horse at pasture white sun breathes on white stone green figs cling to...
what is the color of your love? what is the shape of its melody? your face is a silken flower a mirror’s moist reflection red hibiscus,...
I. Lost I’ve lost youth somewhere between ages forty and forty-two. It escaped me, slinked out the back door, hid under the dresser...
It was one of those midwestern snowstorms that swallows the world slows time down with the weight of beauty  A sudden white erasing...
empty bench at the bus stop wind swirling trees swallowtails zigzag a solitary walk, bug spray swollen blare of distant lawnmowers sweat...
Through a window, glaucous dusk scatters lingering light swallows summer in a dim, opaque film oil pastel of smeared sunset drips off the...
Sing your song Love your voice of dark honey and amber of moss and pond froth let the blonde iris of song bloom from the calyx of your...
She was conceived gradually a tender-skinned fruit swelling on the branch timid sweetness, yet untasted she ripened over months, years...
Tonight, you are a white tunnel inhaling my thoughts object of desire, suspended My words spilled out before your wet corridor of light...
It might be vanity           or it might be the beginning       of loss the trickle before the flood the drip-drip of an iceberg’s first...
Like a rebellious bird, they sometimes say a slippery fish, a lion on a leash a flaming fox, entrapped, who pines away a moaning bear in...
I am rubbed raw, bleeding from small cuts. A limp onion, grey and shredded, stinging sour. I harbor dark thoughts. Throbbing, battered,...
In its suit blue, grey, black, brown it is just a thing like a chair or a desk a piece of furniture neutral Naked, it is a new species...