Category Archives: Poetry

The Boys of the 39th Come Home

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The train is not far
    from the station now
    and finally
    we chug on home.

The sergeant says
    there will be pretty girls
    to hug our necks
    and kiss our cheeks,
    there will be old men in hats
    to slap our backs
    and say “Welcome home, son,
    good job, good job!”

There will be ticker tape
    and a big brass band
    and a parade right through
    the center of town

but this train is
    so much emptier than it was
    when we left for the trenches
    and none of this fanfare
    will fill it up again.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

What Happens To Me When You Laugh

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What happens to me when you laugh: my lips desire
your laughing lips; my hands desire your skin beneath them;
my mouth all of your playful mouth.

Your laughter unwinds the knots in my limbs,
it softens the hardness calcified on these poets’ bones,
your laughter shushes my nervous belly gnawing.

You laugh and all the worries of my world fall away.

Sevenling: Waterfalls

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I want to take you to all my favorite waterfalls:
the two cascades of Multnomah, the trickle and basin
of Fall Hollow, Falling Rock’s downpour and cavern.

Let me love you with crush and spray,
with crayfish playing in shallows,
with sips of light filtered through limestone.

Climb with me; bathe with me; love me.

Sevenling: All The Things Birds Do

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I thought of all the things birds do:
they nestle down together, they preen together,
they swoop on eddies in the air together.

They chirp good morning and croon goodnight,
and sometimes, they flash their feathers at each other
and say “Come on over, let’s have some fun.”

I want to be like birds with you.

Cherita: Stars

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You probably think I made a pact with the stars too.

But I don’t know why they fall.
Maybe they are visiting their lovers.

Maybe they tired of their lovers.
Maybe the stars get wanderlust like you do.
Maybe they are trying to light someone’s way home.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

Cherita: Birds

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I made a pact with the birds when I was a little boy.

I fed them crumbs of my grandma’s cornbread
and memorized their colors and their names.

I promised to pick up their fallen nests and put them back,
if they’d just pop in and pipe at me from time to time, 
when I am sad, when I am in love.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

Morning

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Morning licks

the nectar of Night off her fingertips
and hums content.

She sucks on dew, bites the lip of dawn,
she moans into the mouth of the earth,
waking the world with the waves of her hips.