width=61 height=87> Editor's Corner
Tracee Coleman, Selected Poems

 

Below are links to some of my work. A few other selected poems follow. Thanks for your interest. :)

  • Contemporary American Voices
  • Other Voices International
  • The Argotist Online
  • Great Works
  • Expecting Rain, A Christmas Poem About Bob Dylan, December 27, 2012
  • Birds by my Window--Willow Tree Poems
  •  

    Fate, You Crazy Ninja
    
    throwing your stars at will
    always coming in way too late
    with your tongue all wasted
    and blasting hydraulic 
    
    I love you too
    but you’re drunk
    
    and not getting your way
    with me again Mr. all eyes
    spinning yesterday’s promise
    into today’s slivered tinsel
    
    I love you too
    but you’re just drunk
    
    and can’t kiss your way out
    of it this time and time again
    stringing bulbs and bursting
    streams and minnows pooling
    
    You’re still not invisible
    
    
    © 2009 Tracee Coleman
    
    

    Last Sound

    
    "Hey Little sister
    what have you done?" *1
    Billy Idol, remember him?
    I was changing the baby’s diaper
    and crying for the first time
    while you stood in the shadows
    but somehow sent me one note--a
    rebel ding from that snow globe
    you gave me one Christmas.
    Full of a hummingbird 
    spinning to Greensleeves,
    I hadn’t touched it in years.
    I like to imagine. Was it you 
    who wound up 
    that one little slip of sound?
    
    "Hey little sister
    Who’s the only one?" *1
    Mom burned your diaries and poems
    in our barbeque pit on the front porch,
    fed it all our old concert tickets too.
    All I found in tact was a box of love letters
    from that guy you called “prince tutu nice”,
    along with a rock you wrote “reap” on.
    You were hilarious when you imitated a frog
    and made that ridiculous sound, “reap, reap”.
    Nobody understood your version of rib it.
    
    Fist in the air, you sang it like an anthem,
    "..in the midnight hour 
    she cried more, more, more" *2
    
    "Hey little sister
    Who’s your superman?" *1
    I’m sure you knew I had forgiven you
    for driving off with my bad boy,
    my "les yeux sans visage
    eyes without a face
    got no human grace" *3
    Still, I didn’t really care much 
    when you let the next guy 
    stab his art into over half of your skin--
    a Mickey for your kids,
    an eagle spread over your rear for him.
    I Didn’t try to stop you from running off
    to Rome with that trucker either.
    
    "Hey little sister
    What have you done?" *1
    What was your deal with needles?
    You little devil. When you were three
    and turned my mattress into a cactus patch
    everyone thought it was a little odd.
    Your tiny eyes so soft with innocence,
    cackling yet twisting to confusion--still
    makes we wonder if your will 
    was ever really free.
    
    What was the last sound?
    Did you hear me ringing your phone
    once I learned you locked yourself in again
    or had your heart already exploded?
    
    "Hey little sister who’s the one you want?
    Hey little sister, Shotgun!" *1
    Someone else will decide when
    but I don’t really want to go 
    anywhere 
    you’re not welcome
    "…I walked the ward with you, babe
    …I’d sell my soul for you, babe
    …I’d give you all and have none, babe" *2
    
    "It’s a nice day to start again (come on)
    It’s a nice day for a white wedding" *1
    
    1. White Wedding, Billy Idol, 1982
    2. Rebel Yell, Billy Idol/Steve Stevens, 1983
    3. Eyes Without a Face, Billy Idol/Steve Stevens, 1983
     
    © 1999 Tracee Coleman
    
    

    Another Willow Song

    
    After school, we rode
    a bumpy bus then bikes
    down Camp Willow Road
    into afternoons and evenings
    full of adventure.
     
    We didn’t study the trees,
    just swung on tires or boards
    or plain old ropes hung from
    sturdy branches in back yards
    or front yards or on the river bank
    behind Grandma’s place.
     
    Standing still meant toes 
    sinking in soft mud and waiting
    for warm currents to wind around
    or just letting the minnows
    have their way with girlish legs
    growing shorter below.
     
    Dusk peppered with giggles
    and fireflies and full of whispers,
    stories of an elusive lost camp,
    shivered our chins treading water
    over thrilling tales of handsome, 
    mysterious river-boys, Gypsies 
    lurking around the bend with kisses
    deep and charms like pet snakes
    and dangerously hypnotic glass eyes.
     
    I have no quarrel with the telling 
    of sweet things or the ways
    Grandma’s tapioca pudding
    waited warm from scratch
    and whirled its scent around 
    to call us home.
    Time and time again we ran
    dripping from those dreams
    toward tiny spoons of safe love.
     
    On that bank, willows still
    sink and whisper truths
    of certain boys
    and self fulfilling prophesies
    of foolish girls
    who never really noticed
    much less heard
    the rustle of gentle switches
    speaking over heads
    of home
    with no lashing.
    
    
    © 2009 Tracee Coleman
    
    

    Birdwatching and Healing Heaviness

    
    Speak to me father of a mountain lake, 
    of the waterfalls which feed her
    Reminding of the gentle pines, take
    me there again, where birds will stir
    
    as brush cracks beneath a heavy boot.
    
    Teach me again to walk with bare feet,
    to honor earth as it should be	
    Rewinding where lake and river meet,
    when birds might like to watch me
    
    if lightly I’ll flow through their trees
    
    
    © 2006 Tracee Coleman
    
    

    HOME


     
    

     
     


     
     

    Archives   Search   Terms   About   Submit   Link Exchange   Poetry Links   Newsletter   Contents   Home