My Poetry!

I’m posting this a bit late today. I didn’t forget; I’ve been out and about celebrating my birthday. Welcome, 49! Today I shall celebrate myself, and share my own work with you.

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End of the Daydream by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

Maybe I’m doing better
at looking past red flags.
I wish to be happier;
I remind myself even cowgirls get the blues.
I see beauty in pain,
thank it for finding me.
I need a place to fall apart,
someplace quiet
where I can chase the sun,
count the pebbles in midstream,
just be.
I carry a picture in my pocket
a fragile memory of the price we pay
to hide the hurt.
I’ve reached the end of the daydream;
I won’t say goodbye.

***

Gas Station Manifesto by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

Turning the pages backward
I find pressed flowers in my old diary
from the day we saw
lavender growing in the woods.
The sun was swallowed by clouds
that were halfway to a metaphor
and you told me the eye color of love
was dark hazel, the very depth of my own.
In a packet of handwritten letters
I find polaroids taken at a cemetery.
I remember I told you when I die
pour hot honey on my grave
to wash away my small-town sins.
Your manifesto,
written in a gas station bathroom:
you mourned never having learned
how to properly smell peonies
and failing to share blood and wine
with people who don’t exist.
You kissed me
and I told you things the moon told me
under streetlights and stars.
You replied if it ever ended
to burn it all.
In my hands I hold a broken promise.

***

Hello Earth by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

The man, the myth, the manifesto;
listen: the world has disappeared.
We are dragging around this ache,
a hope, an interlude.
Yin, when, thus, then;
across the scope of humanity
where does it lead?
Maybe in another life
we won’t be breathing broken things
but instead will experience a revelation
back to before it started to hurt.

Hello Earth,
your faults have made me love you more.
How do I forget things that never happened?
On the kitchen table, a jar of peonies;
it is difficult to write about love—
let me tell the story from the beginning.
You need to come and find me, step into the night.
Let’s swim out to the past
a million miles from anywhere.
We’ll pick lilacs and daisies
and weave them through our hair.
The first time I really heard my own name
it was in your mouth.

With gratitude and respect to the words of Kate Bush, Sarah Teasdale, Whitney Hanson, Amy Dryansky, Bhanu Kapil, Heidi Wong, Imogen Heap, Billie Myers, Mary Lambert, Ellis Nightingale, Trista Mateer

***

Love Appears Every Day by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

It is quiet in my room
and I cannot explain to myself
why this should be.
I shall sit for many hours yet
in the light of my small lamp;
even when you are lonely
you can find solace within.
How far have we come
since the last new year
dawned?
Time doesn’t wait for us,
all the days felt like chasing the sunrise
into the morning.
Somewhere in a hidden memory
images float before my eyes:
you politely asked to take a walk with me.
I saw you as a flower;
last night you spoke of a dream
and now the night
will throw its cover down on me
again. Please know my heart
is in your hands.
Can’t you see where memories are kept bright?
We are the going water
and the gone,
love appears every day
for one who offers love
and my kisses will live like birds
on your shoulders.

With gratitude and respect to the words of Etty Hillesum; Patricia Monaghan; Maty Lambert; Loreena McKennitt; Norah Jones; Kate Bush; Jewel; Haedwijch; Astrid Hjertenaes Andersen; Ellen Everett