The Coat Sez

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Elea Lee

It is a small label inside a second-hand London fog. Sez “waterproof” in a way that means tell the dam story. Which I tell in my head in one way or another

Every day

Protagonists too vivid to fictionalize and actual jackass antagonists who are surprisingly two dimensional for real people in a small

Awful story I don’t want to tell, but my lovely black raincoat says I must.

The dog-eyed woman

Posted on March 8, 2018 by Elea Lee

I have distilled what I have left of hope for

You and me

Into

I used to think you were home

Pieces of a Story

Posted on March 7, 2018 by Elea Lee

The woman should be dressed in black, the color of mourning, sure, but also the color of the charcoal outline of her once too solid flesh turning quickly into whatever charcoal is made of, burnt things, carbon, dust to dust…the man the groom the former love turns to choices made willingly in digital time, ushering in darkness through every door, every window

Their home now

They are….home now.

You worm Jacob

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Elea Lee

Isaiah 41:14 NIV

[14] Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Badass Isaiah walks naked through the streets of Jerusalem, stopping occasionally for a tuna sandwich and thinking about clothes. Clothes of the invisible God. Clothes of the kinsman-redeemer. Clothes eventually gambled away at the foot of an impossible Cross.

Who trades a God for a worm? Who does that?

A fisherman, I guess.

Luke 5:10-11

Winter Storm

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Elea Lee

Over my shoulder I hear the PBS lady tell my sons about blizzards, how they are just snow storms unless the wind is strong and fast. Here in Texas we have driving rain, not driven snow, and it is the percussive light which wakes the dogs in the night. Poised for a fight. Hurricanes have the eyes of Quint’s soulless sharks as they roll across the landscape of childhood and wakefulness I will momentarily regret the home I left in fear. Regret what I did not leave there. Regret what I did, but not the winds. The winds around the eye, the deceptively calm eye, of every storm that changes the landscape

Of who we once were.

Darling-I-Count-Sheep

Posted on February 24, 2018 by Elea Lee

This started as a break up but ended with old friend, Wakefulness here in the dark, in the storm

It was a dark and stormy night! But it was the dogs that kept me up

Dogs of the past

Dogs of war

That dog whose name* I can’t remember who re-enacted classics like The Prince and the Pauper.

When names and sleep elude you, there are sheep. They start out chalky, outlined, and two dimensional, but they elaborate

In depth, complexity, and general fluffiness, but also about the weather, dogs barking at night, and all the ways it was and wasn’t my fault this chance we took hurt so much.

*Wishbone

The Weirdest Thing

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Elea Lee

The weirdest thing how brave not knowing makes you. Not knowing the crash. Not knowing the presence of wrong. Not knowing the feral son has been a monster all along. He will not turn into a real boy instead he will be ever-so-carefully excised from the picture of the ordinary house, where trees have grown a rampart around all

who survive him.

Largely Neglected Spaceman

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Elea Lee

He stands on the margin between the alley, and the volleyball court, next to the forest green electrical box, his very own robot buddy. After all these years I am shocked to notice him there, poised for intergalactic exploration, his left-most meter either an appendage or alien oculus, the rusting rectangular metal box on his back full of wires, maybe space snacks as well, photos of the wife he left a long time ago and the kids who have all grown so much as all around him–light, either from some alien star or our own, winter light, middle clime, splendor, in this ordinary place.

Thing One and Thing Two

Posted on January 25, 2018 by Elea Lee

There have always been problems with The Cat in the Hat-

Why the heck does the mom leave two young children home unattended?
Why doesn’t anyone heed the fish?
Why does the Cat come off as jovial instead of super creepy?
Which leads me to this:

One day he reads the story with his older sister. When he gets to the part about Thing One and Thing Two he has a few horrified questions. Who are they? Why do they live in a box? Do they ever get to see their mother? Why does the Cat/protagonist/ersatz guardian keep them in a box?!

His questions are so good and true and terrible and she cannot really answer them adequately. When she tries he says, in grief and anguish–but they are children, little children!

In the picture they took of you we strain to see your numbers, strain to see your faces. Look for something, someone to tell us it will all be ok.

As the last few lines of this children’s story

Indict us all.

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: Poetry