Research on Juneteenth, and I am born to disquiet by lynchings from my shelter of privilege, to find history leveledunder voices once muted, now megaphoned from Minneapolis to Berlin. I am disquieted by a father’s breaths, taken under knee and divisible by the wrong room where Breonna was shot. Disquiet reboots the me that I…
A Cascade of Larks
Action divides with the anthem of blood lulled by song and politics through roots to bedrock binding this very stanza to the fate of a statue. Invalid; I am spackled in iron, barnacled with slurs, and sunken with purpose toward the molten lore of justice and the sting of your fist. The vowels of a…
Daughter of Heaven and Earth
A steampunk narrative poem of adventure and love lost in Cairo.
Armor Me
A sensual poem forged in the will of submission.
“Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”
This poem, published in Issue 7 of Ladowich Magazine, is an homage to Star Trek fans who might just find themselves subject to shotgun-house fever in the heated time-space continuum immediately following a New Orleans hurricane.
Sanctuary
An exploration of faith abandoned when subjected to the nature of religion.
Some Other Nature
Now my soul mates like Icarus/with the cerulean beyond reflection/your eyes have consumed from the sky/like a beast coaxing the blessings of the wind./
I was placed here for you. [9-13]
Her Own View
Fire could be found in a breath of morning/where mild is to flagrant and rhyming is chaos/should such a maiden control her own view./Surely Pandora is to blame,/for even Prometheus is bound to come forth scaled with wings/proposed on reflection of flames/to bleed out in cycles/through the delicate surround. [13-20]
The Word on the Street is Tchoupitoulas
Mastering the pronunciation of exotic street names in New Orleans can be as intimidating as the sudden realization—when it hits—that there are just so MANY of them, but there’s an easy out. Find someone who’s lived here.
The Colors of Calm: Writing on a Wednesday with a Benign Brain Tumor
It is so hard to keep momentum going in an article, poem, novel, etc., when I blink into the sudden realization that I cannot remember what I was typing or why.
Writing the Poem “Some Other Nature”
Descriptions evolve. I introduce a feeling, or a memory, working that abstraction into an image. “Some Other Nature” is a self revelation where the voices of my Grandma and my Nenaine come into words through the swaying branches of live oaks.
Spangling the Verse: Submitting a Poetry Manuscript
An idea spirals out of my mind and onto a rectangular sheet of white with a blinking cursor. I tweak and I worry. I edit and research. I consider the imagery. I mold the metaphor. I part the words. I braid in several strands of mytholog
Spangling the Verse 