Indifferent as God I plant this stand of irises along the wall of our foundation. Transplants from a ravaged bed driveway traffic forced to move, they’ve spent a season in the dry, brown paper bag in our garage. That dark despair, their purgatory, leads to ressurection here if faith redeems them, and my wife isContinue reading “The Seeds of Purgatory are Regret”
Category Archives: Poetry
The Marriage Pool
New dumping stopped, old toxins settling out, the marriage pool clears down its watery syncline by degrees, and though no bottom can be seen subsurface fogs of old debris are thinning and the bleached remains no longer float up unsuspecting as we kneel through our reflections to appall, and though no slick and slender troutContinue reading “The Marriage Pool”
Marriage is Not a Sometimes Thing
Marriage is not a sometimes thing.Married is married, twenty-four seven.There are no time-outs when it’s hell,and no do-overs when it’s heaven. It can’t stopped once it’s begun,laws and lawyers notwithstanding.It’s not a frolic or a club,that cuts all ties by just disbanding. It’s not a job that you can quit,or a vacation never-ending.It’s storm andContinue reading “Marriage is Not a Sometimes Thing”
Only Four of Us in Bed
At first, there are only four of us in bed, my You, and your You, your Me, and Mine. We are like rabbits hidden in the trees of a child’s puzzle; half of us are obvious, half are invisible. The four of us would make a great couple if there were not six of us.Continue reading “Only Four of Us in Bed”
Marriage is a Church We Build
For Chad & Mariann Marriage is a church we build to worship one another in and like cathedrals put up over time each day adds buttresses and vivid glass, a beam shaved smooth, or a lock rock dropped in an arch’s apex, defying Physics, making stone hang curved in empty space. Marriage is full ofContinue reading “Marriage is a Church We Build”
Young Girl Contemplates Marriage
My dog would be a perfect cat, if he could just meow, he’ll love to do that for me, once I can teach him how. He will not want to eat all day or spend the day in bed or follow growling always like he needs to be fed. I’ll take him to my girlfriend’sContinue reading “Young Girl Contemplates Marriage”
Snow White’s Mother’s Curse
Perhaps it was the pain of a child three days in coming, or the final realization that the coming would kill her, that brought the curse to the lips of the dying queen, but queens are made queens by beauty and both beauties and queens are vain by nature, so the dying queen must haveContinue reading “Snow White’s Mother’s Curse”
The Werewolf’s Dotage
The werewolf is pushing seventy. When he is a wolf, his coat is whitening almost past transparency with bare spots that look like the mange. When he is a man, he has no hair at all. His gums are receding, and his teeth are loose; he is afraid they would come out if he bitContinue reading “The Werewolf’s Dotage”
The Werewolf Ages
Because his ears peak and the hackles still rise at the sound of a fight, his or not, and because no bitch passes however far downwind without pulling his nose into the breeze to gauge the days remaining between her and her heat, because lame as a beggar, he cannot run in the pack withContinue reading “The Werewolf Ages”
Indefensible Disclosures
The Federal Center for Controlling Things wishes to know where I contracted poetry, so those infected, or at risk, can be advised. They have a list of everything that sings, and since my name appears on two or three of their cross-referenced indices, I am apprised that I have been identified as dangerous to theContinue reading “Indefensible Disclosures”
William John Watkins 