Category Archives: My Poetry

Moored—A Poem by Sanguine Woods

Posted by The Sanguine Woods on
Art By Amani Hanson.

——

I have seen Life’s face
Today and I am somber
(Unsettled may be best);
Shall the face of He be so
Bewildered? So
Shadowed—
So sequestered?
As if I could reach out a
Sparkling arm to Life—a lifesaver—
In time—before his mighty hulk
Descends into the deep
Water—? What lies
Beneath my Hope?
What burrows sub-level
In the heart’s wet chambers?
The cold Atlantic water will
Swallow him up, when all he
Ever really wanted was tether,
Dock, harbour. Within
A circle of belonging.
A calm little cove that says:
Welcome.
Again
And again and
Again.

——

(c)2022 by Sanguine Woods

I Started a Novel—A Poem

Posted by The Sanguine Woods on
(Etsy)

——

I started a novel.
It’s scary.
Not the novel. Well, it is going
to be scary
sometimes.
But the act of it.
The writing down things
unbidden things
did not sound realistic
in the how-to books
(it sounded safer)
but seeing it happen
in real-time is
scary. Things start to grab at your
pen things dart about your room
things shadow the paper so
it never remains purely white
or yellow in candle-glow—
but gray and
hard to follow.
I need to
write
this down;
and so down
I
shall
write it.
Nail
by
damned
cursèd
cof
fin
n
a
i
l
.

🩸

—(c)2022 by Sanguine Woods

Savior Love, A Ditty

Posted by The Sanguine Woods on
(NBC)

for JJCQ, w 💕

——

You derail me—
Like a cool freight
Train and I lose
My way veer so far
off track
We both know
I won’t make it
Out
And you just keep
Rolling on
You
Have agendas
Depots
Promises to keep
I fall down through
Flamboyant green woods
Dark and unfamilar
Trees snap
My wake scarred earth
And fuel leaking
ember sparks flying

Heap of coalfire
Twisted iron glowing
Glass and heart pieces
Like Parade candy
All over the ground

Torn wood catches
And I am aflame
Like a silly Valentine
In this absolution

Savior Love—
Is speaking
His licking tongues
Sharp and hot
As any devil’s tail

Choking smoke
billows can be seen
A hundred miles away
From this wreckage

And you—you
Just keep on
Keeping on

You got agendas

Depots

Promises

(To keep)

——

(c)2022 by Sanguine Woods

“L” is 4 the way u 👀 @ me… #lovepoems #poetry

Posted by The Sanguine Woods on

Love says trust me
And your heart breaks
Again, like a stone
That isn’t supposed
To fracture,
By some ponderous law of pain
Or physics—I say
If breaking my heart
10 times or 100
Pushes me, like a
Demi-urge, toward a kind
Of deeper
Love more meaningful
Existence—then,
Yeah.
I’m ok with
That.

(C)2022 by Sanguine Woods

for JCCQ
*and Sophia, gratzi

#lgbtqia

Photo (c)2022 by JCC Quinn.

Last Train

Posted by The Sanguine Woods on
(Public Domain)

——

Tonight—on this eve
of wind and frozen
white, nothing curls
warm and right,
souls are shivered
ice. A last-one-
of-the-year night;
empty tracks are lost
in snow, tumbling
like forgiveness
from an endless sky;
no stars, only pride,
sharp and aching
for a fight; and
Time sinks down
for the weight
of it. A train came
and went, once,
on New Year’s night;
its lone whistle,
crying—and I am
still here at the
depot; no one
is coming on
the next train
for me.

—(c)2021 by Sanguine Woods

Gospel

Posted by The Sanguine Woods on
(Etsy)

——


You, there, that
torch in your fist,
stone-green stare like
a lady of the sea,
indigo water lapping
at your feet. I met you
in a vision
from Battery Park;
a painting from the early
Hudson school of
trappers, selling fur
to hat-wearing women
in corsets laced by
whales and expectations
strolling along the
Avenue of Freedom.
I remember my little girl
touched a gilded replica
of your crown—spikes
sharp as sunrays—not
brassplate; copper;
like new pennies:
Honest Abe
watching (heads);
peering out between
Memorial pillars
(tails); like a man
unaccustomed
to karma; kept
like a prisoner,
confused—looking out
for an eon, now two,
from behind those
white marble bars.

Sunset, July 5th, Long Island, New York

Posted by The Sanguine Woods on
Photo by Michael Fallon. Used by permission.

——

That’s like a poem.
About pink.
And warm.
And ending.
And ice cream, peach.
And laughter dying out
Slowly from every summertime
Get-together everyone
In the whole wide world
Ever had on a holiday
With family and pinwheels
And little red white and blue flags
Sticking out of the short green grass.
Its peachfuzz voice says:
We’re still free, People.
And then it goes to bed.
And we’re tired, too—
After all the talking and children
Playing and ladies laying
Out for the first suntan
Of the season…
Where you fall asleep
Right there
In that cocktail light
With or without
A reason.

—(c)2021 by Sanguine Woods