Deleen's profile

I haven't been able to write recently so I am writing about writing instead, trying to rekindle the fire that makes poetry so exciting and enticing for me. I see all kinds of poetry all over the internet--much of it vapid and cardboard-y; like bad, formulaic renditions of the great inspirational poems. The question I always ask myself is: Why? Why bother writing a poem if you aren't going to use it to say something new and shocking? Why spend your time digging in caves that have already been ...

A breath begins the journey— whose lips gave it life? The boundaries of bodies are disappearing. Inside me a song is sung silently: at once an affirmation of the beauty of this corporal bond, and a sonorous keening for the self to whom I have died to allow myself this chance for union.

I am the eternal hidden diamond. Can’t shine in my shell of a thousand rocks. Crack the surface, reach deep within my pain Agony bears quaint magic healing too. You who will lay bare my gray chrysalis, Take me, don’t be scared to let me take you.

Christmas is coming: season of joy, love compassion, season of gifting-- anyone who has ever had a TV or stereo stand flooded by vacuous Hallmark decorations, dashed off in the mail by acquaintances long forgotten along the dusty gnarled ribbon of years can tell you that. A shining, sprightly woman strolls down a sidewalk in city center, one hand held by a handsomely suited man and the other cradling a breathing bundle of blankets. She is beaming as though the hand of hardship had never caugh...

Don’t listen to what I say. My voice will not guide you to anything worth knowing. The wind is my mother tongue, words like gusts of air whisking through the river channel turning the waves as they please, making you wonder which way the current really flows.