
Tie a Yellow Ribbon


Powerful palling
cannot cut the concrete.
A young girl filing her
fingernails will tear it
to shreds.
Life is beauty
too high
and devouring everything.
What machinery can’t do,
a Valentine doily and
a lollipop can.
Girls grow in to women,
request houses of firm foundation,
wear fake nails.



Over the years I have experimented with various ways of combining poetry with either color or image. I’ve done poems on images and Instagramed them. I’ve put interesting lines of poetry on solid blocks of color as names for those colors. I’ve tried over and over again to marry my obsession with color to my poetry.
I think I have something new to try. I’m downloading free textures online and tinting them different colors. By doing this, I am capturing not only a color I like, but ensuring there is texture to go with that color to make the image and color deeper. Then I write a poem that corresponds to that color/texture. It can correspond by mood, location, subject etc. But something about the poem has to relate to the color and image, or at the very least the color.
I’m excited about this project. Periodically I like to have something new to work on. Photo editing has always been enjoyable for me, and naturally I live for poetry. Plus, new projects are good for the mind. I know my husband has been hoping I would start something new recently. He feels it is good for me to have something I’m working on. Not anything too hard or stressful, but just something to add a little oomph to my days I guess.
To the north,
isolation escaping over ice.
I was born of the crowd
to the crowd,
my mouth pasted on me closed.
I whip my back with feathers,
wear sackcloth of spun gold.
As the curve of collective consciousness
moves us closer and closer
to opposite edges.
The secret catapult
and the old rope swing
evade notice.
Except to me,
my eyes red galoshes in a
congregation of black.
Did I ever loan him a life vest
or sell him food?
We live our lives in a
stranger’s life.
He ran alongside the
multitudes until he
absorbed them.




Craig is 35 years old today. I am so blessed to have this man in my life. This morning was the present opening. He opened a bunch from me. I basically bought everything on his wishlist. Then he opened a lovely air fryer cookbook from his parents. His Mom also sent me a personalized sketchbook just as a treat.


