The poem sprouts
from the compost
of the mind.

People, events, desires
memories, hopes,
dreams, disappointments,
all mixed and turned,
watered with imagination,
until something
catches and clutches,
pale and fragile,
and begins to *****
slowly for the light.

Coax it,
nurture it,
tend it.

Pour your soul
and your love
into it.

Bring all that is you
to the task.

Perhaps a poem
will blossom.
- mce

The Oracle at Delphi said:
Know thyself.

Oscar Wilde said:
Only the shallow know themselves.

After long, painful consideration,
I'm with Oscar.
- mce

Rolling up his sleeves
in waves of watery time,
He unfurls fists
across the sand:

The old man's hands
outstretched
to bless the shore.

Horror floats on the air
colliding with our ears in spurts,
the news of African strife, sounding
like sticks on a snare drum, threatening
to burst the comfort zone
of our drive home from church, so
we stop at the store to buy milk
and eggs and flour.

147 souls lost:
Girls in a school
trying to grow
to learn
to change
Kenya.

Terror awoke them in their dorms.
A broken voice of a dead girl’s father travels
through the radio to Nebraska,

I called
and called
my daughter,
and finally
found
a computer
and
saw
her
name
on
the
list
among
those
shot
first.

Turning the radio dial down,
We are holding hands
in silence.
One of us suggests we bake banana bread
when we get to our home.

Every morning 

My dad writes me a note on a napkin
He thinks I don’t read them

But every “have a good day!”

Is tucked away 

Into an old blue shoebox under my bed

Freshman year this boy wrote me a letter

With the words: why do you come to school looking like you just rolled out of bed?

I stored the words in my mind 

And the paper in a shoe box 

Now I wear dresses almost every day
And wake up 20 minutes earlier to do my makeup


I’ve been telling myself I’m over you 

But I pull your shoebox out of my closet

I cry over our photo strips and 

The origami flower you made me

When you didn’t have money for a real bouquet 

As I put the box back I tell myself

Maybe next time I’ll throw it away

The flower is crushed and soggy anyway.

Every time I buy a new pair of shoes 

I keep the box
It keeps my arms from aching too much

From the weight of all the things I hold on to.

Is today just a dream?
Have I woken up yet?
Life, it blends at the seams
In disguising its thread

Feels like I don't ever sleep
When I try, it's all fake
Lying there, counting sheep
Always stuck there, awake

My mind is always stirring
And my thoughts are confused
Repeated and reoccurring
Insipid and then reused

Now I just dream throughout my days
As my eyes just want to shut
But at night, that goes away
And my brain makes me stay up

Sleep was once a friend of mine
But we don't speak anymore
I'm stuck in the back of the line
And just waiting for my snore...