Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Enter Through the Window


Open Books:  A Poem Emporium
Seattle, WA
Photo © 2017 Jennifer Wagner


(About Poems)

Enter through the window,
not the door,
if you’re a poem.

Doors are so conspicuous.
You must be creative—

make me wonder
how you got here—

layered in metaphor,
side-smiled with simile

—surprise me,
even when just spoken plainly
from your heart.

As no doubt, even cerebral,
you are
all
heart.


© 2017 Jennifer Wagner



Also, I’m delighted to have three poems in Lakdi Ka Pul – II, The Poetry Bridge, An International Anthology by Twin City Poetry Club. 




Thursday, August 3, 2017

Flowering


“Consider the lilies, how they grow . . .” Luke 12:27.


They don’t need
to find themselves.

They just are.

They receive sun.
They receive rain.

They grow.

And when the smiling sun
turns, split-scorching what’s tender, what’s new,

and the thunderous dark and cursed rain
somehow gives blessing,

I will remember them and bend

and grow,
too.


© 2017 Jennifer Wagner

Friday, July 28, 2017

One Way to Look at It


(A poem for June)

Half way through
I haven’t done half
of what I said I would.

Half of things left undone . . .

but of the other half?  I won.


© 2017 Jennifer Wagner


I wrote this in June and since it’s the end of July I figured maybe I would post it –which is how my year seems to be going!

Monday, July 17, 2017

beautiful name(s)



your name
a whisper on his lips

called like consuming fire
to taste and see
he is good

the sweetness of his name
on your lips

like water
like honey

like something new
you didn’t know
all this time
has found you

when you didn’t know
what you were looking for


© 2017 jennifer wagner


written for some people i love



Thursday, June 15, 2017

Carry the Moon to Me


The rain like silver
sky fish scales falling
here at midnight, like I am,

into you, waiting.
The moon, fragrant, white,
blossoming, solitary.


© 2017 Jennifer Wagner


A twist on the sedoka (two katautas with 5-5-7 instead of 5-7-7 syllable counts) for OpenLinkNight.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Ship Town


En Route

I slept, mostly.  The trip taking longer than usual.  Cat scratching holes in the blanket under her crate. Tranquilizers to little effect.  Grandma swigging Pepto Bismol and turning up George Jones.  Seattle Traffic.  My teenage self waking sleepily to this new life.


Arriving

Hotel hot and stuffy.  Summer late, as usual.  Voices all night outside.  Shadows visible only by the No Vacancy sign.  Mom too worried and stressed to sleep.  Smoking Virginia Slim after Virginia Slim. 


Of the ghosts we left behind, which would meet us here?



© 2017 Jennifer Wagner

Thursday, June 1, 2017

The Gift



Sand shifts
this brittle, black driftwood mood

out to the inhaling sea
with a booming, insulting sneer,

carrying footprints of poems
I’ve neglected to write in the sting-crash of time.

But I won’t hear,
captivated watching you,

my favorite sanderlings,
prying open shells, beaks gleaming,

etching me poems,
wing tips in the sand.



© 2017 Jennifer Wagner


for my sons