Poetry
So proud to be included in Bramble Lit Magazine’s Winter 2024 issue. The theme for the issue is “Marvel” and this poem is about my marvel at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum exterior design. Here is the issue’s cover art by Matthew Koller and my poem.
A Place to Play
For Fiserv Forum
You interrupt the sky
with more sky. Voodoo
architecture of glass.
An iris of restless color:
now daybreak
now rain cloud
now sundown and lit
from within.
Your zinc canopy swells
and spills like a waterfall,
like my body
in genuflection.
A Place to Play
For Fiserv Forum
You interrupt the sky
with more sky. Voodoo
architecture of glass.
An iris of restless color:
now daybreak
now rain cloud
now sundown and lit
from within.
Your zinc canopy swells
and spills like a waterfall,
like my body
in genuflection.
"Celestial Collusion," "Optimus Prime," and "Shape Shifter" were published in Sport Literate, Autumnal Road 2023. The editor wrote to me that it was a rare "three for three" to be published!
Celestial Collusion
For Dr. Troy Flanagan, Bucks’ VP of Performance, and his team
You are Jupiter,
father of ankles
seized by wings.
You doctor basketball
demigods’ blood flesh
gravity into a collusion
of orbit, into stones
sunk, into glass
cleaned, into steel
stance. You coax
ligaments to breeze
past bone until
bruised or frayed or dis-
tended and then you --
their blood actuary,
flesh architect, defiler
of gravity -- unfurl
your god tongue
and thunder, Stop
eating Skittles.
Optimus Prime
For Suki Hobson, Head of Strength and Conditioning and the workout machine she designed which some players dubbed Optimus Prime.
In another life
you’d be steam
roller, back
hoe, crane --
your fly
wheels and pin-
ions and axles
strafing earth.
But here
you sink teeth
into men’s limbs,
your gears pull-
eys girders crank
their six hundred
fifty skeletal muscles
into steel fiber cord rope
enough to sling two
hundred fifty pounds three
and a half feet
into sky.
You collapse
man into machine.
They might
like you better
as Ferris wheel.
Shape Shifter
For Pat Connaughton, Bucks’ Guard
Son of Poseidon, you taste
of salt and sand and ocean
creatures. And whimsy.
Whatever whomever whenever
your team fancies, you be-
come.
Sometimes eel
electric, you ripple then
wave, crest and
trough. Pump fake
half spin. Hesitate.
Penetrate. Score.
Sometimes dolphin
keen, you tut click
whistle, dribble dribble
pass, then you are liquid
spine, wingless
flight, air walker.
Sometimes manta
ray, you deep idle,
shallow graze. Then
you circle orbit cinch
foes in the molten cape
of your body.
Some say this game
is science, some say
farce. Some say stone
cold cash. But I know
love, I know witchcraft
when I see it.
For Dr. Troy Flanagan, Bucks’ VP of Performance, and his team
You are Jupiter,
father of ankles
seized by wings.
You doctor basketball
demigods’ blood flesh
gravity into a collusion
of orbit, into stones
sunk, into glass
cleaned, into steel
stance. You coax
ligaments to breeze
past bone until
bruised or frayed or dis-
tended and then you --
their blood actuary,
flesh architect, defiler
of gravity -- unfurl
your god tongue
and thunder, Stop
eating Skittles.
Optimus Prime
For Suki Hobson, Head of Strength and Conditioning and the workout machine she designed which some players dubbed Optimus Prime.
In another life
you’d be steam
roller, back
hoe, crane --
your fly
wheels and pin-
ions and axles
strafing earth.
But here
you sink teeth
into men’s limbs,
your gears pull-
eys girders crank
their six hundred
fifty skeletal muscles
into steel fiber cord rope
enough to sling two
hundred fifty pounds three
and a half feet
into sky.
You collapse
man into machine.
They might
like you better
as Ferris wheel.
Shape Shifter
For Pat Connaughton, Bucks’ Guard
Son of Poseidon, you taste
of salt and sand and ocean
creatures. And whimsy.
Whatever whomever whenever
your team fancies, you be-
come.
Sometimes eel
electric, you ripple then
wave, crest and
trough. Pump fake
half spin. Hesitate.
Penetrate. Score.
Sometimes dolphin
keen, you tut click
whistle, dribble dribble
pass, then you are liquid
spine, wingless
flight, air walker.
Sometimes manta
ray, you deep idle,
shallow graze. Then
you circle orbit cinch
foes in the molten cape
of your body.
Some say this game
is science, some say
farce. Some say stone
cold cash. But I know
love, I know witchcraft
when I see it.
"Pathfinder," dedicated to Coach Mike Budenholzer, was published in Moss Piglet's July 2023 issue. What a graphic marvel!
Pathfinder
For Mike Budenholzer, Bucks’ Former Head Coach
Born of tumble-
weed cactus agave
desert, now you
groom men, prune
prickly sinews into one
team, suss the dirt
roads gravel
roads rail
roads, sea
and sky
of their your
dreams. You lord
potholes and black
ice, undertow and rip
tides, turbulence and wind
shear. You tend
sorcerers who see
without looking, fly
without wings, practice
chaos beneath tempered
glass. In other words,
you write
your name
in sand.
For Mike Budenholzer, Bucks’ Former Head Coach
Born of tumble-
weed cactus agave
desert, now you
groom men, prune
prickly sinews into one
team, suss the dirt
roads gravel
roads rail
roads, sea
and sky
of their your
dreams. You lord
potholes and black
ice, undertow and rip
tides, turbulence and wind
shear. You tend
sorcerers who see
without looking, fly
without wings, practice
chaos beneath tempered
glass. In other words,
you write
your name
in sand.
"Learning Cursive" was published in Blue Heron Review, a lovely online journal, you'll find here. https://blueheronreview.com/bhr-issue-14-spring-2022/
Learning Cursive
Sister Dorothy’s chalk wand
dolled up the alphabet
like mascara and red
lipstick dressed our moms.
She showed us how to fuse
our clumsy marks into
molten loops and a girl’s
finest friend, curlicues.
I wanted to kiss each swipe
of those linked letters, touch
my tongue to the spaces
between each fluid word.
Even capital letters --
their perilous sweeps and
archaic frills — thrilled me.
I uncapped the crystal
throat of my blue BIC pen and
ravished spiral notebooks
with the sighs and whispers
of my new liquid name.
Sister Dorothy’s chalk wand
dolled up the alphabet
like mascara and red
lipstick dressed our moms.
She showed us how to fuse
our clumsy marks into
molten loops and a girl’s
finest friend, curlicues.
I wanted to kiss each swipe
of those linked letters, touch
my tongue to the spaces
between each fluid word.
Even capital letters --
their perilous sweeps and
archaic frills — thrilled me.
I uncapped the crystal
throat of my blue BIC pen and
ravished spiral notebooks
with the sighs and whispers
of my new liquid name.
I'm thrilled to have won an Honorable Mention with the Council of Wisconsin Writers' 2022 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award. The award is given to the best collection of up to five poems published in literary magazines by a Wisconsin-based writer in the previous year. And it comes with a one week residency at the Painted Forest. A first for me!
You can find the five poems I submitted -- "Winter Lives of Bubblers," "My First Orgasm," "My First Blue Gill," "Snake Molting" and "Fluid Dynamics" -- below. Thanks to my friend, Annette Valeo, for the photo!
You can find the five poems I submitted -- "Winter Lives of Bubblers," "My First Orgasm," "My First Blue Gill," "Snake Molting" and "Fluid Dynamics" -- below. Thanks to my friend, Annette Valeo, for the photo!
Poem in new Ariel Anthology. A virtual reading was held November 2021 to honor the issue. Two water walkers from the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa led off the event and Dasha Kelly Hamilton, Wisconsin's Poet Laureate, closed it. Wonderful!
Here is the poem that won the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poetry's 2021 Triad Contest. It also is live on WFOP's homepage https://www.wfop.org/welcome:
My First Orgasm
Before we tip any vinyl albums
from their cardboard sleeves,
our dance coach demands
100 sit ups.
Basketballs tut next door.
Another coach bellows.
I cradle my skull
in my palms
and fold myself
into myself,
a gardener absorbed
in upending pots,
guiding tendrils to root,
to climb. When I’m almost
done, I feel a nudge
like a cat’s paw.
In my top-secret self.
The self I barely know.
Then a pounce
and a tussle.
Then. Petals rush
from every
thorny
nerve.
The dancer
who weights
my feet says,
My turn.
My First Orgasm
Before we tip any vinyl albums
from their cardboard sleeves,
our dance coach demands
100 sit ups.
Basketballs tut next door.
Another coach bellows.
I cradle my skull
in my palms
and fold myself
into myself,
a gardener absorbed
in upending pots,
guiding tendrils to root,
to climb. When I’m almost
done, I feel a nudge
like a cat’s paw.
In my top-secret self.
The self I barely know.
Then a pounce
and a tussle.
Then. Petals rush
from every
thorny
nerve.
The dancer
who weights
my feet says,
My turn.
Here are the two poems I read at the Art as Poetry 2021 sponsored by The Lakeshore Artist Guild and Basil Ishkabibble's Art Gallery, both of Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
My First Blue Gill
His thumb on the silver skirt
of her tail, dad scrapes
her skin with the tip
of his bowie knife,
the whitewashed dock
sequinned with fish scales.
He squares his blade
at the base of her skull
where her gills pulse
and in one bloodless
steel flash he cleaves
her head from her body.
Then he slits the seam
of her belly, one palm flat
against her muscled ribs.
Her intestines unspool
as his fingers angle
inside her pale flesh.
He plunges her
in the shallows
for a final rinse,
a wreathe
of her viscera
circles his wrist.
Then he unfolds her
as if her spine
is the liquid thorax
of a butterfly and she
now is nothing
but wings.
Urban Archaeology
Where buckled alley meets
their building’s bristled skirt
of plaster, two boys idle
and rummage in windswept bits
of twig, steel wool, if lucky,
a fresh wishbone, a gnawed
and knuckled drumstick – gadgets
to scour and scratch into
the foundation’s grizzled
concrete crust until
mortar scatters to bare
peony and ivy,
sky and cloud. Fossils
of color. Secrets
of stone.
Art+Lit Lab (ALL) out of Madison published one of my poems online in 2021. Such a very fine organization. Go here to read my poem, "Snake Molting," online as well as other wonderful poets' work! https://artlitlab.org/all-review/snake-molting
Snake Molting
The itch starts at her eyes
and sweeps down the pulsing
muscle of her body.
She swells and shimmies
around fossil-pocked boulders,
silvered driftwood.
When she can’t find a bristled
surface, she loops into her own
strained and crusty flesh
and peels
herself
from herself.
She’s a single-limbed ballerina
tugging off her tights,
a wrinkled pool
of inside-out skin
coiled beside her,
traces of grass and beetle grub
still etched in its grooves,
her quaking spine sealed
in the gauze of new skin.
Snake Molting
The itch starts at her eyes
and sweeps down the pulsing
muscle of her body.
She swells and shimmies
around fossil-pocked boulders,
silvered driftwood.
When she can’t find a bristled
surface, she loops into her own
strained and crusty flesh
and peels
herself
from herself.
She’s a single-limbed ballerina
tugging off her tights,
a wrinkled pool
of inside-out skin
coiled beside her,
traces of grass and beetle grub
still etched in its grooves,
her quaking spine sealed
in the gauze of new skin.
"Fluid Dynamics" appeared in 2021's Sheltering with Poems. I also read it for Art + Lit Lab's July 2021 Virtual Watershed Reading. Here's a link to the entire reading (I'm the second poet to read at about 7:50 on the timeline): https://fb.watch/v/2-kjpoF0b/ And here's a link to an article about the anthology in The Capitol Times: https://tinyurl.com/86mnzpc4
Selected works on-line
http://www.versewisconsin.org/Issue112/poems/keller.html
http://www.booksbywomen.org/whenwomenwaken/author/lorakeller/
http://lanternjournal.org/2013/03/please-stand-back/
ttp://original-writer.com/gettingpoetrypublished56lora.html
http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=411
http://www.thenewpoet.com/2013/05/the-new-poet-5.html
http://www.blastfurnacepress.com/2012/11/blast-furnace-volume-2-issue-3.html
http://www.med-lit.vcu.edu/MLM2.2.pdf