by McKenzie | Apr 14, 2020 | Poem of the Day Series, Reading
THE LIGHT THE DEAD SEE There are many people who come backAfter the doctor has smoothed the sheetAround their bodyAnd left the room to make his call.They die but they live.They are called the dead who lived through their deaths,And among my peopleThey are considered...
by McKenzie | Apr 7, 2020 | Poem of the Day Series, Reading
DOING LAUNDRY ON SUNDAY So this is the Sabbath, the stillnessin the garden, magnoliasdrying damp bells, petticoats, over the porch rail, while bicyclewheels thrum and the full-breasted tulips open their pink blousesfor the hands that pressed them first as bulbs into...
by McKenzie | Apr 3, 2020 | Blog, My Poems
A SEAGULL MAKES A LONE CALL, OFF-COURSE And across from me a bird roots in the gutter, looking for spare twigs. Its dark feathered body dip in and out of the track, its tail striking the air. I wonder insteadif it has made a nest up there when its body disappears....
by McKenzie | Apr 3, 2020 | Poem of the Day Series, Reading
WINTER LANDSCAPE, WITH ROOKS Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone, plunges headlong into that black pond where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind which hungers to haul the white reflection down. The...
by McKenzie | Apr 1, 2020 | Blog, My Poems
Where Sylvia Plath’s “Blackberrying” and social distancing meet . . . IN THE MORNING, WHERE I WALK Out to the street where cars have been parked for days, I know little of what brings the birds out of their hiding, what has come of the neighbors who...