Saturday, March 28, 2020

Saturday, March 28, 2020: National Women's Month: Anna Cates' two poems "Legend" and "Some Kill"

Legend

A Japanese legend says that if you 
can’t sleep at night it’s because 
you’re awake in someone else’s dream . . .

above a valley, crisp with pines
atop a hill, taken by frost
an old abode groans like dry bones

twilight descends—
gossamer curtains flutter
in unswept corridors
few traverse anymore

here sounds never
punctuate the silence
grandfather clocks stop
dictating time

I become that legend
I cannot sleep at night
I lie awake in your dreams

© 2020 Anna Cates 



Some Kill

clothes on
others savage naked
some only feel
the wind
how cold it blows
making even clothing
nothing

gossamer curtains flutter
in unswept corridors
few traverse anymore

I kill
I feel
I keel over . . .
am I fulfilled?
have I fulfilled?

summer to cruelest winter
trees root through earth
holding it down
keeping it in its place
against heartless gusts
wind takes the dust


© 2020 Anna Cates




Bio:  Anna Cates is a graduate of Indiana State University (M.A. English and Ph.D. Curriculum & Instruction/English) and National University (M.F.A. Creative Writing).  Her first collections of poetry and fiction, The Meaning of Life and The Frog King, were published by Cyberwit Press, and her second poetry collection, The Darkroom, by Prolific Press.  Her collection of previously published haibun, The Golem & the Nazi, recently appeared via Red Moon Press.  She is a member of the Tower Poets of the Yellow Springs, Ohio area and currently resides in Wilmington with her two cats, Freddie and Fifi.  She teaches education and English online as an adjunct professor.

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