Tag: Dale Champlin poetry

Poetry

David Hockney Is Dead by Dale Champlin

The last time I saw David Hockneywe were in the postage stamp-sized elevatorto the fourth floor at ABC Carpet & Home. I was probably fifty—he sixty. Surprisingly,he was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. I felt like a small girl with an eager face,too beet-maroon to address him directly.“What are you shopping for?” I could have asked—or made banal chit-chat. Instead, I stared at the dirty wooden floor … Continue reading David Hockney Is Dead by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

A Deeper Ruby and Smoldering Eye by Dale Champlin

—after Rita Dove’s “Girls on the Town, 1946” Thirty seconds across the threshold           music grabs your neck & shouldersshakes you free from questions—           your mother’s worried eyesyour father’s furrowed brow. Across the darkened room           you recognize faceslit by swirling silver flashes— red lips laughing, eyes outlined            in diamond glitter.These are your people,           your sisters in youth. Close your eyes—           ease your body                     onto the dance floor.Let the music envelop you.   Now perfume, … Continue reading A Deeper Ruby and Smoldering Eye by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

A Split from Reality by Dale Champlin

A few weeks later, in the wee hours,     you picture the woman of your life flung on her new lover’s DreamCloud    scratching his back like a cheetah.  She was your high priestess,              your Holy Mother. But that ended  when she stormed out—after you forgot      to mention how brilliant her poem was,  when you found comfort     spending time on the sofa,  and left muddy boot prints    on the white hallway runner.  … Continue reading A Split from Reality by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

From a distance, I know* by Dale Champlin

I look like an ant—red as fireor one of those grease ants you might crush with your finger as it marchesacross the kitchen counter            insignificant in catastrophes of my own choosing(dear god—not yours) as sentient  as all wildlife            the way I head for my burrow at the first orange glow of the lowering sun  imagine how … Continue reading From a distance, I know* by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

How are you this January evening? by Dale Champlin

Are you surprised I am dead?—me too! I’m usually more than a soccer mom with a wife, a dead husband,and a six-year-old son. I left with unfinished poems,a glove compartment of stuffiesand a hole in my windshield. I tried to act casual about it—the masked men, eyes bugging out of their headspadded flak vests and crackling voices.I backed up and turned my wheel. You saw how icy the … Continue reading How are you this January evening? by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

Everything’s Tickity-Boo by Dale Champlin

When my heart beats too fast      it sets off an alarm. My watch keeps count to the tick, tick, talk of my grandmother clock.      Imagine a woodpecker beating a ratta-tat-tat into the bark of a tree to harvest a grub.      Maybe this is too graphic—let me say—it’s as if I’m up to the yin-yang in sugar-laced marzipan.     When I write, each tick of my pen records a tock of … Continue reading Everything’s Tickity-Boo by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

Green Goddess Dressing by Dale Champlin

Her head presents large as a cabbagewhen I pluck her from my garden—stony ground all but bare after harvest.She looks the way I want to remember her—a salad—tulle of lettuce leaves pale as the embrace of her pea-pod green eyes.She demurs with a wilting expression.I add three cups of arugula, julienned cucumber,a handful of basil leaves, slice an avocado in halfand prise out the pit to … Continue reading Green Goddess Dressing by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

My Mother’s Ghost by Dale Champlin

The cold of your breath doesn’t disturb meas I lie here all nightwhile your perfume passes through—incarnated to rock, sand and tide. I sing the song that used to fill youwith bliss, wrap you in white linenand carry you until you turn to frostset down gently between the flimsy craft’s gunnels.Now your flaming sails billow toward Valhalla.Your face has lost its deep grooves,smooth as tallow … Continue reading My Mother’s Ghost by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

I Hate the Whole World by Dale Champlin

“How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me…“-Mary Wollstonecraft My life is the size of a Cheerio—brittle as oats,something missing in the center.Rooms cramped and dismal, dust mites lurk in every crevice.My life’s soul is the same as everyone else’s soulbut without the music—only a base trackhumming with the low vibrationof an electric fence. It grows moodyand remote the way dry winter aircracks … Continue reading I Hate the Whole World by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

A Lone Figure by Dale Champlin

dances in moonlight under a starless sky    I, the figure in question, hesitate—tenuous and fragile,  my small bones hardly larger than    those of fishes dreaming in a blue lakemy head tipped up into wild plum night. Flocks of mourning doves rise    above a mist shrouded balsam forest.What is my role in the natural world?  Is this the humanity I envisioned in my youth?    Will we ever be free of … Continue reading A Lone Figure by Dale Champlin

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