VERSEWRIGHTS
  • Welcome
  • All Poets
  • PoetryAloud
  • Inbox Peace
  • The Press
  • Journal Archives

Angie Werren


flight

I want to photograph
a flock of tiny birds
swooping simultaneously
from bare-branch tree to
swaying high wire
 
I want to capture the surprise
this sudden rise     into air
 
(an unexpected testimony of flight)
 
but here
now
your face
 
(and all the things that moved
when you flew)

a roll of film phantom

everything I’ve lost is here
the world inside this roll of film 
your child-face screams through each frame
a crushing weight of birdsong in the air
 
the world inside this roll of film
these pink walls and old bedroom doors
a crushing weight of birdsong in the air
I close my eyes hoping it can fly away
 
these pink walls and old bedroom doors
this place is not where I want you to be
I close my eyes hoping it can fly away
I find a downy woodpecker — soft, on the sidewalk
 
this place is not where I want you to be
your child-face screams through each frame
I find a downy woodpecker — soft, on the sidewalk
everything I’ve lost is here

Wake

she smokes like a chimney
she is brandishing an unfiltered cigarette

we cross a bridge
the coke-stink of this town hangs between us
like a tombstone

we pass the tobacco field
a green infusion into a rural wasteland textured with             steel
and mountains     stripped of coal

there’s always snakes in the tobacco field
(she says)     I roll down the window

the sun ekes through empty branches
it breaks onto the slurping river
glinting like rows of tires in a junkyard

you know I told him to stop
(she says)     I told him

she crushes the cigarette between her fingers
I look at houses flying past like abandoned railcars
boards on the doors     gaping windows     sad sagging         roofs

I really believe her this time
I forget about the snakes     (shiny black and thick as a         tire)

yeah     (she says)
there’s always snakes

answer me.

am I dust to you?
am I ash?
a gasp swirling in gravitational pull?
 
(father)

answer me.
 
my face
my arms
a cloud of sloughed off cells
 
am I blessed to you?
 
(father)

am I a pulse?
a breath?
am I?
 
in this instant
in this shared ride
in this unbalanced slide into blue
 
answer me.
 
(when you slap me do you feel my wings?)

Picture

Angie Werren's Profile


the ground is still frozen

loving you is finding an empty
robin’s egg       holding blue
surprise like a heartbeat

it is laughter slipping
through fingers       the shadow
of faces and hands bending

now
this frozen ground
reduces memory
to sediment

I don’t think we should have a funeral at all

I watch the dog catch a moth
its wings melt like sugar
on her tongue

unnecessary subjects

what is person 1’s age and what
is person 1’s date of birth

I’m older than you know
born       in a year of your lord
born in a year of       my sorrow
 
is this house apartment or mobile home
occupied       without payment of rent

I live in cobwebs
paid for with dry-rotted floorboards
rented with the mold on these flood-damaged walls
 
does person 1 sometimes live somewhere else
someday       I will abandon this place
 
did this person work last week
at what time did this person
usually       leave home

sometimes I close my eyes
 
how many of these rooms are bedrooms
sometimes       I breathe
 
please print
today’s date


the stones in your belly

today we are
the same as we were
yesterday
 
we’re as heavy
as the devil
 
(you know)
 
black as sin
black as night
black as pitch
 
(we gather no moss)
 
tomorrow we will be
the same as we are
today
 
black as soot
black as tar
black as coal
 
we’re as heavy
as the devil
 
(you don’t know)
 
somewhere
there are children
skipping stones

opossum

a dog is barking opinions. he is my ex-husband, waking neighbors. something rustles in the backyard, tips over a stack of empty clay pots. this night is in my head, feeling its way because there is no moon; there are no stars. I open the door and the opossum screams, frozen in guilt. light turns his black eyes to gold. his teeth, his pink tongue are fear and they writhe, they gnash. neither one of us moves. we feign, our dead tails curling like parasitic worms.


the night stands with its feet flat on the ground.

​
Picture

Comments

***

​Thank you for visiting Tweetspeak VerseWrights.
© 2012-2018. VerseWrights. All rights reserved.:
Acrostic Poems
Ballad Poems
Catalog Poems
Epic Poetry
Fairy Tale Poems
Fishing Poems
Funny Poems
Ghazal Poems
Haiku Poems
Love Poems
Math, Science & Technology Poems
Ode Poems
Pantoum Poems
Question Poems
Rondeau Poems
Rose Poems
Sestina Poems
Shakespeare Poems
Ship, Sail & Boat Poems
Sonnet Poems
Tea Poems
Villanelle Poems
Work Poems

To translate this page:
  • Welcome
  • All Poets
  • PoetryAloud
  • Inbox Peace
  • The Press
  • Journal Archives