zinc words & images

  • To My Friend, On the Occasion of the New Year — stephcplummer

    I wrote this a few years back and though it is a bit rambling, I think it still holds. Keep trying. The end may be nigh, but you aren’t. Whether you disappear beneath the ground or into the sky- whether we return to our mother’s wombs on our weeping knees, or settle into salty oceans,…

  • Chivalry

    Make the race long, past the point of no return. Cannons and ramparts, weaponized playthings read the dirt for signs of God, of father. We joust with words, carved in the air and spinning out towards our posterity. Counting wooden nickels, the wooden women, the knives on the table, recognition is for the dead, You…

  • Flora

    Some say opening, blooming, But each petal unwinds Itself across the air, Denying gravity’s hands And existing only for itself And its encircled sisters.

  • Golden flood

    The wheat waits for us Brushes and waves Licking the moonlight It’s seed ready for an Odyssey. The grass has laid a graph Of shadows on top of you. And what do you wait for? There is never a right time To become what we wish we weren’t. Failing silence, I speak to say Tomorrow’s…

  • True promise

    Lessen the lively way You say, forever. Forever Is not what you think it is.   Burnished steel with oil And old cotton shirts. Buttons On fire when the world ends.   Is it a guidepost or clock, An imperceptible second or The sun’s arc across the sky.   More so fatal reasoning And an…

  • The Young Architect

    In the fall, we would make a house and take turns being the mother. There were no walls, only an architect’s plan made of crisp, crepe leaves. Rake. Neat lines. Making sure to leave openings for the door.

  • Depressive Interstate Communication

    I am not sure how to say, “I miss you” without fearing your reply. Days, months and years came upon me quickly, so that now, the past seems distant and I seem callous. I was drowning and still I circle the edge of a pond that I am at the bottom of. If today is…

  • Musings on a Single Topic #2

    What are phantoms made of? stardust memories The mist from lava dropping into the ocean ectoplasm open doors blowing curtains words spoke softly dim lamps with antique shades beaded curtains crackling branches padded steps on a wood floor lost loves good advice, in retrospect dappled forest light letters photographs portraits historic markers a large single…

  • Der Blauen Kunstler

    When you paint a house on canvas it must be blue, for this is the color of home. The soft robin’s egg edges of motherly relationships, the deep indigo of sleep and dreaming begins at your hand. Reunions, a pale sky of ephemerous greetings and embraces. However wayward the color of distant foothills and city…