Sampling of poems
IF ONLY I COULD DRAW
I would release all the words
stored up in my language house
to be snagged by another poet or songwriter.
Please, have at them.
I’d much prefer to show than tell you,
but pictures turn to verse
before my clumsy hands
can guide them onto canvas.
So I am left with words —
nocturnal, feral. They paw
through sleep’s deep layers,
clamor for attention, then
bunch up silent in a sunlit corner.
When I poke at them, they scamper off,
taunt me into a game of hide-and-seek.
Long after I’ve lost interest, they turn up
again with those sad eyes, looking
to be welcomed home.
Published in Bards Annual, 2021
KEEPING HOUSE
Today we are at sixes and sevens.
By we, I mean the house,
which used to be easy as one-two-three to keep,
and me — slowly losing the will
to make myself presentable.
We clean up in fits and starts over months
that have melted into one long day of hiding.
Room by room dusted and vacuumed
drawer by drawer sifted and sorted
sinks, tubs, floors scrubbed and mopped
We wash up only to start right in again.
Streaks on windows appear
in sunlight breaking through straggler clouds
after a night’s torrential rain and wind —
clouds that had obscured my vision
like ones I fear may come
from black holes, not in space,
but inherited retinas.
I pray the storm cleaned up the rose bed
where I startled a hawk yesterday
its legs dipped in blood and rabbit fur.
It looked up at me
then reluctantly flew into a nearby oak
where it could guard its kill
while waiting for me to go
tend to my nest.
Published in Emily-Sue's full-length collection, We Are Beach Glass, 2022 (print); reprised in The Weekly Avocet #553, July 9, 2023
the work to be done
so many things to save
the planet
the Republic
plant life animal life
all lives threatened by a virus
the sun the moon the stars
bear witness to dreams
left simmering on the stove
too long ago to be remembered
but not quite forgotten
in the rushing river of distraction
deflection and insurrection
charred remains of promises
tossed out the back door
where smoke dissipates
along with the intention
to map an escape route ...
—Emily-Sue Sloane, excerpt from "the work to be done," published in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (Winter 2021, volume 32, number 4)
(All poems © by Emily-Sue Sloane)
