lizmcgehee

[lizmcgehee]

Look, you

want it

you devour it

and then, then

good as it was

you realize

it wasn’t

what you

exactly

wanted

what you

wanted

exactly was

wanting

—Noah Eli Gordon, “Cake”

#poetry #poems #Noah Eli Gordon #literature #poems and quotes #RIP

[lizmcgehee]

“I’ve decided to try a new tactic. One where I’m brave with my heart.”

— Laura Thalassa, from Rhapsodic

#laura thalassa #rhapsodic #the bargainer series #literature #bookblr #fantasy books

[lizmcgehee]

“The green of cypress and palmetto some days would glisten after a storm in such a way that argument would cease, and we would drink silent toasts to the light.”

— Bin Ramke, from section 1 of “Variations on Lamentation,” Matter: Poems (University of Iowa Press, 2004)

[lizmcgehee]

Mary Oliver

[lizmcgehee]

It starts with us making love atop

our hurricane supplies.

We’ve been here before—

saying goodbye with our mouths & tongues

& other wet, rotten parts. As if to

preemptively deluge our belongings—

our bodies—into ruination. Devastation

on our own terms this time, we say,

like the world isn’t on its knees. Like

the only record left to break isn’t annihilation.

#poetry #poems #new orleans #louisiana #bayoucore #hurricane season #prose poetry #prose poem #my poetry #journaling #journal

[lizmcgehee]

You’re keeping it alive—your girlhood, the adrenaline, the novelty, the dying star you own

a million miles away.

— Joy Priest, from “American Honey,” published in Southern Cultures

[lizmcgehee]

When the outer bands of the hurricane reach us, I know that it is someone else’s devastation raining on our doorstep.

#poetry #poems #louisiana #new orleans #bayoucore #hurricane season #prose poetry #my poetry #journaling #journal #prose poem #short poem #tropical storm

[lizmcgehee]

gxrl as in/ a whole world made flesh of our dark flesh we call it rootwork/ this building each new break wielding a god body

—  Aurielle Marie, from “transhistorical for the x in my gxrls,” Gumbo Ya Ya

[lizmcgehee]

Paige Lewis, “Because the Color Is Half the Taste” from Space Struck

[lizmcgehee]

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets.

[lizmcgehee]

“I took the image of a burning woman into my heart. I didn’t hate the fire. I hated the people who did not believe her.”

— Lidia Yuknavitch, from “The Chronology of Water: A Memoir,” wr. c. 2011

[lizmcgehee]

“Or was my rage my mother’s? Or her mother’s? Or hers? An inherited creature?”

— Letter to My Rage: An Evolution, by Lidia Yuknavitch

[lizmcgehee]

from “The Rose” by Ariana Reines

#poetry #poems #ariana reines #poem a day #dark academia #literature #small press #female poets

[lizmcgehee]

Slow Lightning, Eduardo C. Corral

[lizmcgehee]

In the veil of floods, I am dreaming of my revenge

#poetry #poem #poems #blog #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #short poem #poems and quotes #poems and poetry #poemsnomnomnom #dark academia #life quotes #excerpt from a book i'm writing #excerpts from my life #Liz McGehee

[lizmcgehee]

I read poems on Friday the 13th. It was Mercury retrograde, a total lunar eclipse on the horizon. It felt like breaking. Like a spark of mother. Or acid. How many disasters will come to pass before something changes? How many times must I open myself before others? Each day, blue tarps from the last hurricane line the streets. There’s a flash flood or tornado watch, piles of warning wherever we look. The levees hold now, but the water continues to rise. And it’s everywhere. I saw a wildfire in Colorado at Christmas. I saw my wrist snap against the steering wheel while driving home from work. Thought I died more than once that night behind the airbag and shrapnel. In the video, you watch me pull the death card from my ergonomic chair. Then suddenly, I am in the ambulance, full of potholes and IVs. My father found my glasses in the SUV’s trunk. My father found me wandering CVS in a hospital gown and sling like a specter. There is nowhere left to run. No reason to check my horoscope or dusty air filter. No breath that isn’t held just a beat too long.

#poetry #poem #poems #spilled poetry #spilled ink #journaling #blog #spilled thoughts #louisiana #hurricane season #my poetry #prose poem #prose poetry #free verse #colorado #friday the thirteenth #friday the 13th #mercury retrograde #mercury rx

[lizmcgehee]

Langston Hughes (1902-1967), ‘Tired’, “New Masses”, Vol. 6, #9, Feb. 1931 Source