Poetry

Recent Publications


“Blue Heart” (2024) | The Prose Poem, Third Place Short Prose Poetry Contest

“The Needles in the Haystack” (2023) | Passion Fruit Review

“It Could Be a Pink Mermaid Finding Her Legs (2023) | Passion Fruit Review

Image by author

“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.” -Louisa May Alcott


Loving…

Would You Wear My Eyes?

My body is a torn mattress,
Disheveled throbbing place
For the comings and goings
Of loveless transients.
The whole of me
Is an unfurnished room
Filled with dank breath
Escaping in gasps to nowhere.
Before completely objective mirrors
I have shot myself with my eyes,
But death refused my advances.
I have walked on my walls each night
Through strange landscapes in my head.
I have brushed my teeth with orange peel,
Iced with cold blood from the dripping faucets.
My face is covered with maps of dead nations;
My hair is littered with drying ragweed.
Bitter raisins drip haphazardly from my nostrils
While schools of glowing minnows swim from my mouth.
The nipples of my breasts are sun-browned cockleburrs;
Long-forgotten Indian tribes fight battles on my chest
Unaware of the sunken ships rotting in my stomach.
My legs are charred remains of burned cypress trees;
My feet are covered with moss from bayous, flowing
across my floor.
I can’t go out anymore.
I shall sit on my ceiling.
Would you wear my eyes?

-Bob Kaufman