The Midlife Crisis Poet

If you're one of the five people I imagine will visit this site at least once, I'm glad you're here!  A couple of notes: Plea...

Hi everyone, I just thought I'd take a moment to toot my own horn, as it were. My poem "Home" was selected to be read at the...

Hi everyone, I drink a LOT of tea at the Corner Bakery every week to produce these poems that you (hopefully) enjoy!  If you are intereste...

When we selected instruments  to play for school band, I unwisely selected the drums. A fourth-grade feminist breakthrough, sure, but everyt...

Me, a one-breasted woman,  walking Horus,  a three-legged dog,  each day such a gift. 

Something that looked like a mutant mosquito was climbing on our ceiling last night with long, spindly legs and large wings strapped to its ...

It was unnaturally still in the woods that day, no fellow hikers crashing along the trail, no birds chirping love songs and war cries, no sq...

“Look!” he cries, eyes wide, finger pointing off into the distance, words temporarily failing him as to what exactly I should be regarding, ...

An impossible tree stands on its own behind the tangerine dunes. The tree stretches its bare, black limbs to touch the cloudless azure sky. ...

The planet looming before you glows tranquil blue. Peaceful ocean world oasis except you would be breathing pure methane gas. How many Earth...

The Schaumburg District Library is currently presenting their Library Lights program, featuring spring-themed artwork and poetry from the co...

The email you’re waiting for, it contains a yes or a no, the yes that could completely change your life, but it’s most likely, probably, a n...

Streaming will never be the same as going to the video store. Watching a movie at home was still an event when you went to the video store. ...

The pink and white petals of the blossoming trees float through the air, dancing on the breeze. The birds have returned, composing their son...

I only see the dawn if I’ve stayed up all night  the night before. Or sometimes I’m forced to greet the new day, but I can assure you, I hav...

I open the fridge for the fifth time, but nothing has changed. I survey the leftovers— several days old— with a scowl. I don’t throw them aw...

The lilies of the valley, for now just blades of jade, are inching their way up, up, up having emerged from the brown earth and old red mulc...

Extraterrestrials in a sleek silver vessel slowly flew over the town of landlocked Ridgedale, Illinois, and hovered over the subdivision of ...

I held his heart in my bloody gloved hand, my face drawn closer to it, this strange cut of meat you’d get at the butcher shop, pumping like ...

Pi is that 3.14 number, and it just goes on and on. You use pi to find the area of a circle.  In eighth grade Sister Rose made us memorize t...

Health Power, strength, energy, life A freedom you don’t appreciate until it’s gone A divine gift—you don’t get to choose the where, when, o...

Celestial century Pewter shadow Polished pine Frostbite Sea serpent liberty Sunken Sahara tumbleweed Axle grease Mummy’s tomb Muscle shell F...

With a savage joy, he showed me his freshly painted scars, and I said, whoa, man, you’ve got problems, you really should talk to somebody, i...

Monday I forgot that project was due Tuesday I got some negative feedback too Wednesday was the team meeting where I burst into tears I went...

The tomb has long since been plundered, only dusty cavities now  where gold and jewels once adorned the statues of discarded gods. Crunching...

My future self will travel to the past, about three years before now, so that I could leave myself a note, that I would only find just today...

The disposable facemask lying forlornly on the ground in the parking lot, used, abandoned, perhaps even hated. Tossed carelessly between car...

I bought a cursed coffee mug from a small, cluttered store in New Orleans, you know, the kind with incense  and crystals and supposed voodoo...

For five days straight, the thick heavy wet white flakes tumbled down recklessly, inconsiderately, never letting up even for a minute. and s...

Some of us knowingly snickered when we saw the email titled “Dress Code” in our inboxes. One of those “friendly reminders” that Yasmin often...

I’ve been falling in my dreams lately. I don’t know what the context is. I’m just plummeting, the world a blur, my stomach somewhere in my t...

I’ve probably had it about twenty years now, my favorite sweater. It is the color of cinnamon, chili powder, tart cherries, the leaves of th...

Having crash-landed on the small blue planet, full of life but short on intelligence, Rakmar felt very alone. He stared up at a light blue s...

After years of worrying about global warming and meteor strikes and pandemics and war and terrorism and wildfires and exploding frogs, human...

Everyone had a bad year in 2020, but Ryan was particularly afflicted. After being struck by lightning on a golf course, he died for 42 secon...

The sudden plunge. Water in your ears and your eyes, rushing down your throat. You cough, choke, struggle to rise. Your clothes, soaked, wei...

The kettle screaming, the steam perfumed by cardamom and cinnamon. A splash of cold milk, a swirling white galaxy. Warm your hands, fix your...

Sky-colored cotton candy, sugar dissolving to nothing in an instant. Bright blue raspberry snow cone juice, dying your lips and tongue and t...

Cinnamon   Cinnamon is the smell of the things I’ve lately been giving myself permission to do. Sipping slowly on a cup of chai, a spicy clo...