Poetry

kitchenpoem #2 if you’re wondering how to get rid of a pesky housefly turn off all the lights open the fridge door he’ll fly right into the sudden brightness slam the door later on open it cautiously in his numbed state he’s easily dispatched with a napkin but be sure you’ve covered the butter my […]

aroundtownpoem #12 phone rang a youthful voice said I want to talk to my grandma I said which grandson is this he said christopher I said I don’t have a grandson named christopher but I’m always glad to talk to a grandson what shall we talk about he excused himself politely though and hung up […]

friendquotepoem #4 sold a lot still came back from peoria with a bunch of stuff but the real boat-anchors went home with someone else our whole street is having a yard sale soon I may drag out all the techno-gizmos anti-gravity generators spacial distortion analyzers tachyon field suppressors quasi-pseudo-random transmogrifiers and my absorbatron and see […]

aroundtown poem #12 for a long time until they kicked me out I belonged to the vachel lindsay association I still have a soft spot for vachel rhymes with rachel and all that my schoolkids did with further variations on his moon poems then what about those dancing potatoes kicking up the sand anyway we […]

insectpoem #3 some of these bricks are old crumbly a whole surface slab flakes off at my brisk trowel revealing a colony of sow beetles living out their lowly lives inside the pock holes and crevasses they’ve probably till now never seen light what do they live on moisture, brick dust? but who am I […]

sorrowpoem #1 when your heart is sore and it is hard to swallow try standing at night beneath a linden tree in full bloom you need enough breeze to envelop your body with the tree’s perfume shut your eyes be very still take deep breaths it will help for the moment maybe longer © Jacqueline […]

lakepoem #10 two flies swimming in my orange juice after I’d left it a few minutes unattended made me haul the ol’ flyswatter off its hook to smish a score more who’ve suddenly claimed the screens got most too some even backhand I am reminded of my usually mild mother once chasing my oldest sister […]

udderpoem #23 a friend just sent me a gross greeting card, picture one: a cow snoozing on her couch udder up a hoof carelessly hung toward the floor a sly bovine dipping that hoof into a pan of presumably warm water picture two: reclining cow’s eyes startlingly awake and four fountains of milk spurting from […]

lakepoem #9 it’s so humid here I have to toast each sheet of paper before the heater or it will jam the printer even though it’s ninety degrees I have an idea the oven has a pilot light maybe if I put paper on a cookie sheet the pilot will be sufficient to dry it […]

lakepoem #8 I have two wires in my heart no big deal but they have altered my actions for a while also my observations this dawning I sat in the shallows not allowed yet to soak my sutures stretch my swimming arms after gazing a time over the still surface I noticed the action in […]

lakepoem #7 what this summer I am denied is what I love best about being here naked in the still dawn the chill water welcoming my gliding breaststroke through the shade of the wooded hill behind me till far out I come into the sunlight on the water the rays first on my hands a […]

grandchildrenpoem #3 their gentle aunt my daughter chides me when I refer to my three obstreperous grandsons as those boys that’s nothing compared to what they call each other I tell them as far as I’m concerned you are all monkey dicks © Jacqueline Jackson 2006 Three days after my father died, after the funeral, […]