
All the poems featured on this page are excerpts from my two books The God-like Things (2021) and Moonhold (2019). All rights reserved.
You can also read my {poem + story} series where I share new poems, art, stories, and my translations of old Slavic poetry.
steel blue cool
and maybe almost i married you
a train runs on steel blue
eyes mirror my past life and maybe i use this
to harness myself through the late nights
don’t be afraid.
the end was so far ahead it is already behind us
just call it horizon, it’s narrowing dark times
i arrive at the land of thousand fires
this place feels like a person, this beckoning
me towards itself so known, so clear
a mystic letter lays in the centre of my palm
it’s steel blue cool with grey wolf skies
tempted kneeling to witness
two tiny native
snowdrops grow in shade
venice in veils
it should have been veils on my shoulders
a snow so white —
it is scraping windows and shredding stars
erasing streets and stairs
i never knew how far we’d walked
a snow so white …
it should have been veils falling on my shoulders
it should have been forever
now only venice is in veils
no.
this is snow, this is snow
and this snow is so white, it is red
and the red cardinal is here
and the red snow begs for ink
snowdrops get here before me
maybe spring really is near
how can life forget?
i am holding a pulse
pumping imprints, shaping skins
and there are loves
greater than all other loves and forevers
i’ll know them only when i am a mother
my prince of blue
because the frail wing
trembling in black possessive mud
is a voice stranded by words and
the night eats words
i walk towards it sharpened by desire
sometimes it seems human
maybe this is the only way
for my pillow to keep its gentle spell of dreams
because i need a place where i can hold you
you should know
i’ve become every altar across three continents
you should know
i’ve become every animal you’ve left behind
my prince of blue
night is better
i am afraid, glorious
and ethereal
water is poseidon and
the sky opens its mouth wide of fireflies
i land cool rain of thousand fires
in ash we are born
sometimes this place feels almost human
tuck away this moon behind my ear
tuck away the moon behind my ear
aura of royal blue
butterflies migrating south
& each word is longer, further
away from where you are
if i ever forget you i’ll know i’ve gone too far
somewhere on the radio
is how i feel about you
is our summer afternoon
leftover flowers gather on the side of the road
each window carries its own
little rain
night car
in winds and wants
designing skybreaks
because the full moon is children’s book gigantic tonight
and maybe it’s the impossibilities that
make us so possible
so come your eyes & tuck away this moon behind my ear
dear stone garden
dear stone garden: you smell of magnolia
damiana, sweet orange and rose
yesterday he built me a country
where he stretched his long shadow and
i laid flat where i could sleep
(there may be mud on the carpet tonight)
i lazy the bed to question my ego
i throw love when loyalty undoes me
press ancient truth into my palm like fortune
for the future i know i begin
i say to the dark, look
everything is shifting into something else
of river’s fate and human time
as every earth goes round his moon
dear stone garden: he’s a night possessor
but life is just souls changing clothes
the carpet will have mud tonight because
there is a nightingale in my heart
changing woman weaving house
the woods are waiting for me tonight, dear stone fruit:
so i run fast over the wild land of returning paths
destiny chasing my heels, i enter
changing woman weaving house
where the otherworld is everywhere
weaving the integrity of emeralds, sacred lovers
tenderness in tents and the souls of the thousand white wolves
and so i weave, dear stone fruit:
to intuit fire i
am moon water i
am white shell
woman
and so we weave, dear stone fruit:
clouds into winds, tides for the fishermen
lyric of hearth and the seed of the eagleman
weaving, spinning the ever creating
web of wyrd
under the constant beat of the only sound there is:
of love
of hands and marriage
wrinkles of care and i sink into folds
of touch is touch, years in the making
holding on holding strong
but even strength is fragile
i hold steadfast under strain
but i too need to be held
and this is how we loved
years of lines connecting other lines
on palms lines stay and other lines
circle like courting hawks
but the most beautiful part of hands is where they touch now
and now is not too late
and tomorrow is also
not too late
sweet child of mine
i know you worry but look around
twilight shadows have fallen tucking in the earth
and the night is busy too as she wraps stars
into the hair of the goddess moon who is preparing
to dance in lushness with princes from distant lands
so lay your head in peace, sweet child of mine
close your eyes as the earth is closing hers too
take refuge in the quiet corner of your heart
and know that tomorrow the laugh of
the sun’s cheerful head will wake us up again
and i will take your hand
and we’ll figure it out then
november falls
november falls and like deep magick,
it smells of cold amber, cold enough
to hold us to absolute honesty
i walk sharpened by desire to follow
red hawk and wolf for half a moon
along the tender edges, where
something else begins
sometimes trees grow far too wide to hide us
from our eyes but when love comes,
it comes rushing in like ocean
wrapping our world in weightless
blue, a kind of levitation, sublimation
hunter and hunted marry barefoot
in the deep wet black soil, the land remembers
the feet of those who fed it with kindness
when no one was watching
and the uncompromising drumming of the human heart
begins our bodies
of intentional dialogue, of how
we always chose love
of how some tales can only be fully dreamt
when flames rise high inside the hearth
into trust and safety we settle soft
like rocks against the river streams
and it smells of oak burning, amber
and appleskins
what’s left of this loosens
water takes it away
no less purposeful
no less needed
no less loved
to be seen
it is vulnerable to be seen
especially when trembling
i say to the lamppost as
it sees me be seen
and the distance
as if
in a dream
opens – you are there
you watch me watching you watch
it is the possibility
of dreams that gives my heart no rest
and sometimes i don’t even know i am here
until i see you holding me
