zinc words & images

  • My beloved in sun

    Let’s leave The summer behind My warm, sunburnt back. You tenderly kiss The air and Inhale the bright sky. I can hear your mouth Speak the sounds Of ocean waves. They fall On me and Remind me Summer will come again.

  • If I could ask you to

    Some days are easier. The faucet drips, The light filters through the trees And I don’t Immediately Think of you. My coffee is undisturbed And my toast is not burnt. But, There are days Where you are Present In every thought. My ice water perspirates, My dog begs. You are between the words Said by…

  • 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,…

  • Feeling narrows

    there is a static that creeps in when the windows are fogged from the evening’s weeping roof. The rain and the wind scatter sad jewels across my vision like a broken necklace catching everyone’s eyes and o-shaped mouths. The beauty of my decay is apparent, my skin crawls, my eyes fill and I am rapt.

  • Musings on a single topic #4

    What is fruitful? Lying Being honest Confessing love, If you don’t mind a bruised heart Staying in the shadows on a hot day My fruit bowl, red with a pedestal My mouth, during peach season Opening the windows when it is cool out Writing thank you notes Writing your grandmother Laughing with people you care…

  • I am the soil

    I sift the dirt through My fingers and make work Of root, stem, leaf Gone ginger with fall And the slow death of desiccation. I’m not sure what I search For. Whether it is the hoof Of a doe that came to me In a dream or the rapier Of a nightmare, I don’t know.…

  • Smoke on a Cloudy Night

    Tonight, I wish I still smoked. My brain And body vibrate With late spring’s promise And I want my hands And heart to be busy. Each pore could be filled With smoke, like a beehive, Settling my desire, my heat, Abating the humid atmosphere That seeks my envelopment.

  • Defrock

    In May tulips splay, rendering their carbon undone. Petals, a visual cacaphony on the ground. Me, believing myself a spiral running into the soil, an archimedes screw that overturns soil and buries joy. I wield my scissors, clipping decay from its stem and falling to the ground.

  • Eonic Botanic

    Sunflowers turn their head slowly, as if August’s heat has given them a life much slower than time. This seems right- they are backyard watchmen, peering over my neighbors fence and greeting the surly dogs that live to the south. Making believe that they are simple flowers and that their agenda is not to outlast…

  • The Return of Spring

    I bloom when I speak, When the rain beats the windows, When I recline in the sun.   I bloom, if you remember, When you ask, who is the artist- The one who teaches the future.   I bloom when I nap, Softly breathing, dreaming beneath A tartan print blanket.   I bloom at night,…