Category: poetry

residuum II | collab with Yeats – he only died 84 years ago

On By ©️K.T. 2025In anthropocene, Anthropos, birds, Capitalism, Earth hospice, Earthling, earthlings, planetary hospice, Poem, poetry, YeatsLeave a comment

pushed to the margins
hanging on by one stressed thread
to toxic or barren fringe-lands

when the once-verdant centres could, and did, hold

us, all/

“Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.”

while now, all about it

“reel shadows of the indignant [shore] birds”

harkening

one day soon, you too, will be residuum here

what remains: gulls converge in a chasmic rain-filled pothole in the parking lot of an abandoned mall

An ephemeral asphalt pond after heavy rains in the parking lot of an abandoned mall, long-infested with gulls, as testimony – not merely to the inorganic evolution of consumerism, but of the intersection of NAFTA and other free-trade agreements, American soft segregation and hard apartheid, and the inherent discriminatory and predatory migration of US and Western global capitalism.

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he swept

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Father, Poem, poetry, SundaysLeave a comment

swish, swish, knock
swish, swish, knock
a rhythm, a metronome
once a week,
usually Sunday

you felt very near to me today, also a Sunday,

me weeping while sweeping, or vice versa

my movement conjured you, conjured the once-me and the eternally you/
me, looking down from the landing//
you, nearing the top of the 2-flat stairs
in your white t-shirt
looking up over your thick glasses at me, with your big eyes
with your snaggle-toothed smirk, mustached/
broom in your beautiful hands / pure lank, elegance

had i snapped a photo of you on them stairs
with that look/

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grail

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Poem, poetry, waterLeave a comment

here am i

my eyes stigmata
overflowing saltwater
corresponding
heartache of this life, heartbreak of this world,

this cross of water, women carry

here i am

creating
fresh watersheds
from my headwaters/
my tears runoff into wrinkle streams/
flowing tributaries converge into
rivers desalinated in sediment of flesh/
creases of time and depth
weather my face/
carved canyons carry
rapids down my cheeks/
raging confluence pours into
the lake of my mouth, onto bed of my tongue/
spilling waterfall
down my throat
into ocean of my heart/

torrents cascading over my lips, chin, breasts,

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james, thank you.

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Poem, poetryLeave a comment

a man who knew my father befriended me
and caused me to question the nature of my reality,
my history, its validity,
my possibly-false memories
— all, viewed through the lens
of the person
who had a vested interest in
indoctrinating me
who preferred my naïveté
under the guise of protectivity

my last photo with my father,
Christmas break, age 6, Waukegan, Illinois

parents write stories on the folds of a child’s cerebrum,
their pens go unchallenged
until they’re challenged /
their ink is like cord blood,
except it can re/generate — or damage

but it only takes one person
to crack open their sky,
then, we astronomers spend
our lives asking our zealots
the non-answerable “why?”

poem for poet: Joy Harjo

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Poem, Poem for Poet, poemo, poetryLeave a comment

The First Time I Saw Joy Harjo

Chicago 2017

long, midnight, blue-black hair,
unmistakably hers,
melding into her pitch black jacket
an uninterrupted flowing river of velvet
she, a radiant silhouette,

like the haloed total solar eclipse that would occur later that year, in August

her regal face remains unseen, sustaining the mystery

then she rises like a sun to speak, and i am in her orbit

her first words: “i feel The Lake so very present in me.”

her voice ancient with the Earth in her throat

later,
my glisteny eyes meet her glisteny eyes,
i memorize her face, and her hands tattooed in black ink

she is dignity embodied, i think

she inscribes a protocol for me
in my book of hers, made from trees,

i give her a cord necklace
suspending glass vials of seeds
watermelon, corn, clover and milkweed from my garden in these forced-treaty lands, an onion field once, a portage between two rivers

a reciprocity for her words that seeded me, collaterally,

her poetry an eternal spring
watering my thoughts and words

i want to be worthy of the drink

Protocol,
from How We Became Human
New & Selected Poems 1975-2001
Joy Harjo
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dream[t] poetry: “dynamic rib”

On By ©️K.T. 2025In dreaming, dreams, Poem, poetryLeave a comment

this poem is inspired and directly derived from a dream i woke up from/with

on February 15, 2023

and is an experiment of raw dreaming dialogue and internal dreaming monologue to express the dreamt experience in poetic format using minimal metaphoric phrasing and language

a familiar woman sitting on the couch
in your house asks me
how many hours do you have to yourself
i am perplexed: “all of them”
they’re all my hours

the roof begins leaking
the one you fixed last year
the one i was reading under while she asked me about my hours
i noticed when the book
suddenly became smattered with rain drops
water drops or raindrops, what’s the difference

it was a Rugrats coloring book
i don’t know what page i was on
but Angelica was waiting to be colored-in and one of the boys was saying “mommy” in a speech bubble
it must’ve been a thought bubble because the Rugrats, except for Angelica, are not verbal

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poem for poet: Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Poem, Poem for Poet, poemo, poet, poetryLeave a comment

[ The Lethal Salinity of The Truth ]

Her words are not for me
not about me
Her words are not for me
not about me
Repeat

am i allowed
To float Her words aloud
To sink them in my mind
To lap them from the page

i accidentally swallow,
then gulp down Her Salt words/
like when the surf breaks,
and surprises the exhilarated, Great Lakes girl
with a mouthful of seawater
during her very first swim in the Ocean

Her words were not meant for me
Her words were not meant for me
Repeat

but

they quenched then drowned me anyway

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Her Light, her light

On By ©️K.T. 2025In moon, Poem, poetry, wildlifeLeave a comment

it’s mid evening
east of The Lake
and the night is dawning
like a second morning

the Full Moon’s light
in a clearer sky
gleams through the generous panes
of this blessed, old green house

Moon’s rise / Her Light

February’s Snow Moon is glowing
in a familiar dance with her beloved Earth//


Sun, their invisible chaperone, is voyeur to their touchless, perfect tango

a family of four deer
mother and children, i think/
are gleaners here tonight
while i consume their Moon play

silent and sitting in the dark, i admire:
coat, tallow, hooves and warm flow of blood
is all that’s between them
and this howling wind and frozen ground

let me mimic their resilience, integrity
i’ve been so weak, so broken this winter
a fractioned shadow, i am disintegrating, disappearing / my light given or grifted away

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