Poetry

Untitled Document friendquote poem #5I pick up illinois times most weeks don’t always read all of it but here and there you know it fits exactly    the bottom of silas’s birdcage and boy that bird makes editorial           comments all over the place ©Jacqueline Jackson 2006 Newborns begin life as […]

Untitled Document newyearspoem2007       hate to say it folks hate worseto see it my snowdrops bloomingby the step not that it doesn’t giveheart lift but with a wrench sinceit’s newyears day probably daffodilsmidmonth robert frost debates  fire and ice favors fire those studies by global experts forget the bushie  brownnosers agree give us  a window […]

Untitled Document newyearspoem 2007 #1      I shouldknowby nowI can’tgetmy lifein orderby makinglists  ©Jacqueline Jackson 2006 American Life in Poetry How many of us, when passing through some small town, have felt that it seemed familiar though we’ve never been there before. And of course it seems familiar because much of the course of […]

coloradopoem #2 a snowtopped mountain over our shoulder we hiked on pine needles pine cones under the ponderosas pinons juniper trees pushed through tiny gambel oaks with brown curled leaves thumb size high onto the alpine meadow of goat ranch no goats no ranch dried cow pies though perhaps a bull’s those are knobbly yucca […]

lovepoem #4 Lullaby                  (My mother wrote this lullaby for my oldest sister, on her first Christmas,1925.) Sleep, little baby, the daylight is fading; Dim yellow stars the dark heavens adorn; Once, long ago, in a Bethlehem manger The little Lord Jesus was born. Lullaby, lullaby, sleep, little baby, sleep. Sleep, little baby, my arms […]

deathwatchpoem  #2 not the stuff of poems camped in this caring hospice two thousand miles from home reading a stupid mystery book while we wait for my brother’s wife to die she already died last night a daughter came too late but the breathing started up again been sixteen hours who knows how many more […]

deathwatchpoem #1 so, I packed too hastily to fly to the hospice bed of my sister-in-law wherever her heaven is I don’t think she’ll begrudge me the panties I stole from her underwear drawer nor the black socks which turned out (when you look close) to have a very nice argyle pattern woven in © […]

coloradopoem #1 a perfect perfect kid day struggling barefoot up towering tawny dunes for the joy of kangaroo leaping down the other side waving arms making sand angels clothes peeled to underwear sunny sky cloud puffs striated sand dune shadows ridge after ridge tiny tracks of tiny things mice lizards something wee that hops we […]

glutseason poem #1         my oldest sister phoned today used the o word on me you are obese she said obese and to prove it reeled off some formula with height weight letters maybe BMW? BBW? those can’t be right but she’s sending me a diet book me I said me the o word for […]

Untitled Document plantspeakpoem #1  it’s happened again midnight jerked up by our roots yes in our backyard summer camp real sun real rain real wind some of us manage to throw down a root outside our pots nodes and such our shivering saps foretold tonight’s frost so we were waiting still apprehensive but here we […]

poolpoem #5 there’s a strange bird that lives by the pool at the Y I’m hoping to glimpse her but she’s very shy they’ve posted her name and it hints at her call I’ve looked but can’t find her in sibley at all I’m sure she must wade where the water is shallow pray when […]

aroundtownpoem # 16     cold night out driving slow slow to hear — before the signal falters at my door — the whole of the concerto so achingly sweet      achingly sad it forces tears I detour slowly into the alley of city water light and power drop my payment in the slot saves a […]