Category: writing
Tandem
by Josie
I seek solace in the company of cafe tablesand black aprons. Hair that sways, liquidly, under a rotating fan. I write in the companyof strangers, in order to be myself. As if I could hear the words from their lips instead of feel the conversation like a forest. As if it could not matter when the forest was on fireor still, peaceful in dew dreams under a rising … Read More Tandem
On Judging a Poetry Contest
by Josie
One finger tapping against an illusive white ceramic cuppa something—you don’t know—I’m a mystery, I’m the poetry editor. Illustrious task, these scribbleslaid bare to me, laid out like coffee spilled silent on the plate. Not too late to duck down into hiding, find a proper bunker. Fortunately good poetry chooses me, not I and I know in my heart
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
