August 20 is the deadline to sign up for the online open mic August 23.
Poetry
October 24, 2020
The West Tisbury Library presents an online poetry reading with local poet Amarylis Douglas, Wednesday at 5 p.m.
November 10, 2020
The online reading is scheduled for Nov. 22 and all are welcome to listen and take part, according to an announcement from the West Tisbury Library.
April 6, 2021
Island poets are invited to take part in the April 25 reading.
2012
July 16, 2012
I found the tendrils of your fingers
wound around mine like prayers
woven into the clothing of prayer.
and fled with you in my arms
along the highway of snakes,
concealing you from streetlights
and stars, from dogs barking in alleys.
Because nothing should speak of this
because no one would believe me—
they’d shut me away
in a room without views—
July 16, 2012
(song lyrics)
Every year has only one July.
Careful! It may find a way to pass you by.
Flies come through the door;
Come November, watch it pour.
Summer, don’t you love me any more?
Looking for a wishbone on your plate,
Hoping for the kind of fish that likes your bait;
Working till you’re sore,
Scared of spending winter poor.
Summer, don’t you love me any more?
(Refrain:)
July 5, 2012
Three cars, three minutes
each time, on time, just
in time, to midnight — metronome
for the separate island
releasing triptych cars which drive
twenty-five on one paved road
and less on dirt washboards
where rhythmed bumps punctuate
as fishermen, construction crews
returning shoppers buck and heave
on sand bunched like bedclothes
on a humid night when unquiet
May 10, 2012
This month’s flower girl stops traffic
in the garden center parking lot
in tight Carhartts and Felco holster,
wiping a smear of soil from her cheek
with clay-encrusted fingers. Where’s she been
all winter? On some exotic playa
down under, collecting seaglass? Or here
all along, holed up in a rental off Oak Lane
with only a wood stove and cable, plotting
meticulous scenarios of perennial displays.
January 19, 2012
I love to work a crowd from top to bottom
and as wide as they make em
as long as you’ve got ’em.
I love to work a crowd
that I can swim across—hand
over hand —
an ocean of hands . . .
of all kinds of colors . . .
and a thousand pairs of eyes
and they wink
as they press away
with a sea of smiles
to make room for me!
“hey-how’re you doin’?”
January 5, 2012
Who will gather leaves for the children’s craft?
Who will sort the harmless reds from the poison?
Who will fold and unfold the octagonal star?
Who will care less for the flower than for its unfolding?
Who will look at a rock and see a king, a loser, a lost you?
