Category: writing
Start Here
by Josie
Beginning is the most difficult. Here is this vision, this goal, this dream. Here is the triumphant ending, here are the quick montage days of the “normal” middle, and here is the second breakfast on the unusually warm day and the little boy passing a granola bar through the car window while I rest my bicycle against my thighs at the traffic stop. What … Read More Start Here
+ About Josie, Austria, Bold, Gratitude, Hawaii, Humor, Indonesia, Kansas, Literature, Living on Purpose, Nature, New Zealand, North America, Poetry, World Perspective, writing
Announcement!
by Josie
Available in paperback and e-book, Articulated Soul is a collection of 50 poems in five categories (Kansas, Austria, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Hawaii). These poems catalogue the many fragrant emotions of living abroad on one’s own, the sites and smells, the insecurities. Supplementing the angst are 25 original collages, expanding the metaphor of influence and creativity. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors and … Read More Announcement!
+ Hawaii, Nature, North America, Poetry, writing
Approaching the Alphabet
by Josie
Flight control signals hard against the rain which whips >>> catastrophic! against the slick window panes salt and pepper ocean waves corn soup flavored popcorn the day … Read More Approaching the Alphabet
On Writing a Poem in the Morning
by Josie
green mint tea seeps around the rim of the garden plate ductile : serpentine I set the cup down and it clatters. It’s about how to see the things how to get to the vision the tea cup is significant and not a step in that direction.
101 bpm
by Josie
Wisps of sainthood waft about this living room— give me flamenco, give me Persian rhythms and sweet gypsy jazz, swing it all out of speakers perched high on the cabinet counter. Bits of wild wind shoot through the second story windows, running from the belching mountains beyond the poplar trees in the backyard. The gusts lift the melodies and snuggle them into marrow-bones, into … Read More 101 bpm
Descending
by Josie
So it is with civilized care that I kneel down to the open blank pages of a crease-lined book and cast my memories in its bronze borders. You’re my marauder, my hopeless staircase looting the use from my crouching soul and leading me to dark places too deep to stay dark.
Write Long
by Josie
Be patient, and write long. As long as the strokes of your eye lashes pulse the fingers to keys, then both of us remain alive. Be patient. Your dreams have no anchors; let them float light. Let the throat grow easy and jaw relax. Open and close the hinges of your mouth and feel the knobs of your shoulders merge with the elbows. … Read More Write Long
Legacy and Longing
by Josie
By the passed humanity, whose active progeny is the heart beat rocking my sense of soul—as I clutch the leather-bound covers of Burroughs, of Whitman, di Prima and Ginsberg, in the soft lamp night, rain shadows wrapped against windows, me, folded into fresh sheets, with a cup of tea; hungry, Alive, washed, I sing— and selfish do I less than pause before the … Read More Legacy and Longing
+ Austria, Bold, Gratitude, Humor, Indonesia, Living on Purpose, New Zealand, Poetry, World Perspective, writing
Half a Year Away, Away (and Happy 300!)
by Josie
Half a year has gone by since I left Kansas. I’m still learning various currency exchange rates and the metric system, so still going strong (relative phrase). Relativity is a fickle friend. If I think on some of the travelers I have met—Liz and Hadyn in Assisi, who have been backpacking the world since summer 2016, Sara in Mostar, who traveled alone for three … Read More Half a Year Away, Away (and Happy 300!)
