Lyrical Lament: A Poetry Blog

At the late afternoon hour when sunlight oozes with pleasure and dust glistens in sunshafts wafting through the languid parlor mingling...

My one wish is to embody your grace at life’s end, after I have put to rest Persephone’s childish innocence, whimsical as a wildflower,...

When you look upon me, I wither shrink from the hard insistence of your gaze— unblinking as an owl pierced by a blade of judgment in your...

From a wife to her husband of 20 years You ask me, what do I want for my birthday? Please, no more things: Books that sit expectantly on...

I. Having been held under for so long, she emerges. Her beauty urgent, shameless. Sparkling eyes like the glistening gold dripping from...

When she considered your name Emily, or Anne, or Lily swelling with your burgeoning body with powdered fantasies lacy anticipation, rose...

Your anger leaves a residue in the starched, yellow room a gluey film clinging to the walls Cowering here, I cannot help but absorb it...

My peace gives birth to violence: cocooned in your small frame— a pink-cheeked cherub with flaxen hair and dimpled palms, a beloved...

Since youth you beamed golden son of light, with gilded heart tall and taciturn sage words glided from your sleek and silvered tongue...

Beware the critical mind, for it is a self-devouring beast. Like your trusted arrow, sharp and ruthless. A lifetime of spouting venom –...

silver at morning sun scarred, blue brown in midday violet grey at dusk pinecone-scattered beach footprints of geese in wet sand blanched...

The languid density of August damp polyester, coconut-oiled skin caked by loose, tawny sand we squat amid scattered popsicle sticks...

Des Plaines, Illinois, 1989: Visiting Dad An hour away, on the north side of Chicago, he lived in a foreign land Four or five times a...

After two more bites, you can have dessert. Finish you milk. Blueberries roll off the kitchen table, bouncing off the linoleum into dusty...

The mind sheds fragments of thought. Disjointed. Threads pulled from a fabric. Why can I never find the pencil chapstick that falls to...

After the poem by Lisel Mueller Among children, I was the golden one Among days, I was the dusk Among trees, I was the supple birch...

Lord, purify the foulness of our hearts We offer you our garbage thoughts and trash Throats of filth, soiled souls, our bitter parts Fat...

A colorless January morning. Walking into the office in my sweat pants, hair unkept, toting my son’s guinea pigs in their little blue...

I. I have loved you for generations my tears, rivulets carving your body’s mountains water seeping in slick caverns hollow inside, like...

We found you curled beneath the windowpane in the corner, between the brick and bush. Warm and not yet stiff, limp with dream and wet...