Friday, July 24, 2026: Terry Wolverton's "Mazurka"

 Mazurka

This ragged broom has been sweeping Hell

for too long, its straw singed from cinders

hidden in ash. When I try to whisk my

bedroom floor, it turns sooty, dirtier

than before. Same when I try to cleanse

my soul, I can’t do it. The devil

lurks in my tools. The simplest implements

harbor my mistakes; my smile grows more

crooked each year, eyes ever focused

on the wrong things: I missed the Perseids,

bedazzled by bracelets of flame.

The disobedient broom sheds straw

bristles all over the hearth. Women’s

work is never done. My mother was

a reluctant housekeeper, disdained

domestic chores, though she liked it clean.

My spouse seethes when she vacuums. The broom

turns in circles, etches a spiral

in the dust. Will it guide me to new

worlds? The shaft jabs a splinter in my

thumb, lodges in my flesh, becomes part

of me. Its ardor kindles my blood.

The smoldering broom insinuates

its spindly torso in my grasp; out

of the smoke swirl sprightly notes of Chopin,

a feverish Mazurka. The besom

leads, I strive to follow. Feet stumble

over embers, birch branches, tempo

erratic as my mercurial

pulse. Clumsy. Still, something shifts. Don’t all

things in this universe turn—world, sun,

our circulating blood? Whirling, my

crimes are sloughed, their smirch spun back to dirt.

© Terry Wolverton

Bio: Terry Wolverton is author of thirteen books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, including Embers, a novel in poems, Insurgent Muse: art and life at the Woman’s Building, a memoir, and her most recent novel, Season of Eclipse. She has also edited sixteen literary compilations. Terry has received a COLA Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles, a Publishing Triangle award for nonfiction, and a Fellowship in Poetry from the California Arts Council. She founded Writers At Work, a creative writing studio in Los Angeles, and Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

http://terrywolverton.com

Friday, October 10, 2025: Terry Wolverton's " The moon showed up at my house this afternoon"

 The moon showed up at my house this afternoon

Isn’t it a little early, I asked when

I answered her knock. I didn’t want to wait,

she shrugged. She was so beautiful standing

there on the porch I could only invite her

in. I knew the neighbors would gossip, the news

would get back to my spouse, but she also loves

the moon and her main upset would be that she

wasn’t home to greet her too. My spouse works hard,

but devotedly follows the moon at night.

The moon squeezed her orb into my living room—

she’s bigger than she looks from far away—sat

next to a window so the afternoon light

could filter over her. She glowed. She faced half-

way away, so she appeared as a waxing

crescent. I offered her a cup of oolong

tea. She returned a musical laugh as if

my suggestion was charming but absurd:

After all, what do I have to offer the moon?

I longed to unburden my predicaments.

It felt like we were old friends, just catching up,

but of course, I’d never been this close to her,

inhaling the scent of night sky. And what could

my disconsolations mean to her, whose view

is so vast? Shy then, I stayed quiet, chiding

How stupid! The moon is sitting right beside

you, and your tongue is mush? As if she heard me,

she offered a kind wink, then began to hum.

© Terry Wolverton

Terry Wolverton is author of thirteen books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction,

including Embers, a novel in poems, and Insurgent Muse: art and life at the Woman’s

Building, a memoir. She has also edited sixteen literary compilations. Terry has received

a COLA Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles, a Publishing Triangle award for

nonfiction, and a Fellowship in Poetry from the California Arts Council, among other

honors. She is the founder of Writers At Work, a creative writing studio in Los Angeles,

and Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

http://terrywolverton.net

Friday, March 24, 2023: Terry Wolverton's 'You Up?" and "Where you'll find me"

 

’You Up?

My ringtone is a song from my libretto,

“The Opposite of Fear is Love.” It’s the eleven

o’clock number, but I’m not used to hearing

it in the middle of the night. I often

keep the phone turned off. I’m relieved it doesn’t

wake my spouse; she gets up early, works long days.

But no, she hovers in her tenth dream as I

fumble the holler box to my ear. “Hello?”

my tongue clumsy. I’m shocked to hear your timbre,

stunned to realize I’d forgot its cadence.

So relieved am I to hear from you, I don’t

think to wonder how you’ve managed it. You weren’t

good with your cell phone here on earth, even one

with big numbers and extra volume. Even

the cordless proved too taxing at the end; you’d

lie in the hospital bed I’d installed in

the living room and howl my name, phone clutched

in your hand. What device have you mastered that

allows you to ring me now? In what time zone

is the Beyond? You don’t care about waking

me, as you didn’t those weeks when pain’s steel blade

slashed deepest in the middle of the night. You’d

cry out ’til the sound of my name pierced slumber;

I’d stumble downstairs to dispense a pill, rub

your legs until you tumbled into rest. Since

you left, my sleep is fitful anyway; I

ruminate on questions I forgot to ask.

Now in this waking dream they once more elude

me, scurry like roaches from my mind. But words

aren’t the point. It’s enough to lie in the dark

and breathe with you. At least, I’m breathing, night tucked

around me, pillow bathed in the phone’s soft glow.

© 2023 Terry Wolverton

Where you’ll find me

I admit, it isn’t easy. Around here

things are always changing.

Different roads bear the same name—

Cazador Street/Drive/Court,

winding into hills at a precarious pitch,

leading to dead ends or entirely other

neighborhoods, no room to turn around.

Some thoroughfares, like eager starlets,

shed their given names—a stretch of Sunset

becomes Cesar Chavez; Rodeo Road (not Drive)

is now Obama Boulevard. Second-hand shops,

the candle store, once landmarks, are leveled,

replaced by indistinguishable high-rises;

their poker-faced facades mask what’s inside.

Chinese priced out of Chinatown, punk clubs

and artists’ studios succumb to high-end galleries.

There was once a trainyard where hobos

camped under the bridge—remember hobos?

Now it’s a state park with landscaped lawns,

paths of decomposed granite, shiny restrooms

the homeless can’t use after dark.

It’s easy to get lost in this erasure. Googies and Blairs,

Tower Records, Atomic Café are but debris,

nothing to navigate by. I might once have said,

“Go past the laundromat and come up the hill,”

but now, I can only offer, “Follow the hummingbird,

the music of jasmine, the slanted shadows

of afternoon” to arrive at my front door.

© 2023 Terry Wolverton

Sunday, May 1, 2022: Terry Wolverton's poem "Falling"

 Falling

The house looks the same, except for what’s missing:

the people who lived here, belongings acquired over forty years

Rain-light flickers over walls stripped of mirrors;

only the simplest furnishings remain—couch, bed, table, chair

White telephone hangs on the wall; no one calls

though water still rushes from taps; gas heat whooshes through furnace

Garage laments the disappeared Impala;

deck mourns the vanished table, cocktails on late spring evenings.

Despite my labors to clear it out—bundling

boxloads to move, donate, dump—the house retains its ghostly forms:

Swing jazz burbles through the absent radio,

cards shuffle on kitchen table, vodka swirls in clouded glass.

And I too want to undo the emptying,

stock the bare refrigerator with apples, onions, cheese

I turn on all the lamps in every room,

fill ice cube trays, hang my clothes in closets, draw the curtains wide

Through plate glass, October’s vista blurs as time

crawls backward. Days lengthen, sunsets at 9. Fireflies spark green lawn.

Tumbled reds and golds leap back up to branches,

verdant once more, oblivious of the burning down to come.

© 2022 Terry Wolverton

Terry Wolverton is the author of eleven books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, including Insurgent Muse: life and art at the Woman’s Building and Embers, a novel in poems. She is the founder of Writers At Work, a creative writing studio in Los Angeles, and Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. https://terrywolverton.net