Term: Poem
Explore all pages categorised under the heading Poem below.
All categories can be seen on the main index page.
ALL OF THE ABOVE
You can always go back to Paris. Planes and trains to get you there. Choose spring. By far the best. You can stay a week...
Life at 125th of a Second
I watch your ballet, paint brush in right hand, wingspan of an eagle. Steel struts a geometry of light and shadow. Smoke from your Gitane...
Saint Denis of Migraines, be with us as we lose our way
Beheaded in Paris, you continued to preach, walking six miles before dropping your crown. Keep us upright as we lumber blindly from bed, walk on...
Pillars
let me take you upon me oh life take you that place red-stained and glorious upon me red-stained no shadows I attest oh life and...
Eva-a Haibun
I felt you first, in Place Trocadero—a whisper? or premonition in June, the Tour de France raced past our window and your father raced to...
The Double Espresso Tastes of Paris
The double espresso tastes of Paris. Sounds like the bistro downstairs from our twenty years ago apartment in the sixteenth in the early dawning hours...
Departed
The Gare de Lyon is the place, if you’re going to miss a train, to miss it. If there is a reason to miss it,...
Birthday in Père Lachaise
Godard-grey December twilight pilgrim-pressed gum blobs on the nearest tree to Jim Morrison, his barricaded grave. Still? The black and white grave cat doesn’t care....
Bending Time
I’ve outgrown the person I use to be, clutched by pearls of propriety, society, tucked into a pocket of politeness, venturing only when partnered, or...
When Time Broke Down
At first, there were crackles—distant yet drawing near. Then, commotion. People dashed down alleys. An ashen waiter closed the blinds, told us to be quiet.
Spring Pilgrimage to Père Lachaise
The first day of spring lures me, pilgrim-silent, toward Père Lachaise, trailing echoes in stone. To the world, a cemetery: cracked saints, tourist sighs. To...
#prayforsaintdenis [an ode to the banlieue after 13 November*]
Pray for the tongue-tied sons of immigrants. For the kinky-haired boys who are not Charlie* whose last names and ninety-three codes* are red flags on...
Nina Smoked it up along the Seine
The lures from the catfishers spin away on down the bank where the waterlogged Carolina pines rot from the inside, then the knife is brandished...
Gabrielle
It is difficult to tell what happened in that room for all we have is his lens of your face: serene, content grateful. But I...
Flight 664—PDX to CDG
I never actually slept, legs folded like a screen over 19B and C. my head on your lap and your arm on me like that...
Issue 15: Paris
Paris has long been the site of opulence, resistance, rebellion, and style. It has inspired great writing and writers, philosophy and philosophers. In this collection,...
Cherry Blossoms
Now, this is the limit of language—the sky is effluent with cherry blossoms.
They Call this Estuary a Sacrifice Zone
Two painted turtles rest in the curve of my back, half sunken log. Here I am a shelter, long season. Here I feed Gitchigami here...
The Poet's March
Let me tell you, it wasn’t Europe, I asked, it was to St Peter’s in Rome that I pleaded for mercy… when you have a complaint,...
Rest Stop
There were no miles before this, no miles behind us, only now — cool, moist air through open windows, and the smell of rain, sage brush...
(POV)ERTY
From my vantage you can no longer make a dollar out of 15 cents. Inflations. Still a black man caught up in the mix tho....
Persephone Takes the Long Road Home
We skirted the broken pillars and entered, one by one, via the gravel creek. Inside the mood was festive. We tossed off our coats and...
Now You Know How To Live
I), she said. because i could fill a cast iron pot with chicken bones their silken skin wrapped around wild kamote leaves, divination against hunger...
Letter to UNESCO
I wish to address this letter to UNESCO for, despite the sadness of my thoughts, I have not yet lost all hope that dignity may...
I Accept
While these long shadows of Sunset Cast their spell to the youth of Night, I look forward to the call of Moon In Her Star-studded...
Home is Where I Am
I have fallen into middle age contentment, years after we quit trying to force our day-night cycles to align. It was the madness of repetition,...
Haibun Self-Portrait Waiting for the Verdict to Come in
Haibun Self-Portrait ( Outside the U.S. District Courthouse in Vermilion County )( Leave It To the Good People of Central Illinois To Have Named This...
East Bay Bike Party
The mass of cyclists descend at Fruitvale Plaza the BART station buzzing and warm before pushing off into the dark cutting through the night alone and together slicing the road over...
Boarding Group K
Saline drip three thousand feet up, held by a trembling flight attendant blinking sunrise from his eyes. First plane from Chicago, your feverish farewell burned...
A Text I Sent You After Your Funeral
You know, Fall dies and lets me know you’re just the breeze. The wine is running out and I’m forced to see. I might have lived and...
Issue 14: Survival
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 14th edition, on the theme of ‘survival.’ Many thanks to all contributors and the editors...
Infinite scroll
Scroll through all work published by Panorama in one long infinitely scrolling page.
Then
I When the fires sweep the floor lick the crumbs gorge the feast. When the ribs jut stark skeletal, a scaffolding of scorched tree spines...
Understory
A forest floor self portrait I retreat in primordial wet and slide out with the sun. Of makings and markings and moments of mercy how...
Tropical Delight
Do you remember the night she danced in a red pa’u skirt with a silver clip of starlight in her black hair? Torch Gingers kindled the sky; into...
the evening
the evening, ornamental nightfall a thing of remarkable fire
Self-Portrait Gestalt
shamanwoman poetturtle greenvagabond riverlakeoceanheart If she does not swirl into fire, she will be your friendloversoul
Retrospect
Keep your heart good and forgive me, I did not know where I was. Sometimes there’s just no cliff or landmark of danger. Sometimes you bow before...
Postcards from the Mouth of the Inferno
Months after the last spark is stomped out Lennon and I drive up the Poudre Canyon amidst the stretches of scar tissue. This is what...
Pine Barrens
A June wildfire bruises the sky: 12,000 acres of pines choke and I stand in the drive catching specks of ash in my palm. We...
Pastoral
I say watch the birds flicker, when the sun begins to ease over the horizon. And you say, look at the reflection of pines, over...
Passages
The night, a thicket. The sailors lean their mast Towards the flames that ring the mountain. A leopard’s glowing spots, a celestial map, A trail...
Exploding into a Fantastic Geography
a crossroads is a place you can’t help but come to and can’t help but leave from where Papa Legba sets up his diasporic shop a man could...
Embroidering Maps of Return
In a still solitary, now toilet-less cell, but with real pacing room, the relative freedom facilitates clearer thinking. My mind is on fire
Before the Fire Dies
the shore of Van Auken Lake is everything but quiet. our voices melt together in the crackle & gathered buzz
Issue 13: Fire
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 13th edition, on the theme of ‘fire.’ Fire: /ˈfʌɪə/ origin: Old English fȳr (noun), fȳrian...
My Shadows and I
My sculptural and digital images are a reflection of my past and present, projecting my life stories across a range of urbanscapes. I call them...
This Car-Centric City Makes Me Dream Of Third Places
the dream: – there is a café: — Its façade: a verdant ivy waterfall calling souls to seek solace from the urban hustle welcomes humans...
The City
I aborted one, then another. Legs splayed to a darkened sky, the city is hollow, cavernous, a mother buried with dead-born child. I popped a...
Philadelphia: A Ghazal
I never noticed a sound in my childhood room in Philadelphia, not the horn-blaring, teenage screaming, razzle-dazzle nighttime streets of Philadelphia. I slept deeply in...
Nungua & The Ritual of Rain
at the end of it there is this thing—words; we share them like sticks of smoke, our lips black with abandon for writs and tales...
Mexico City
For lunch ant eggs with worms. 900 pesos, though … Only the rich can afford such courage.
Lahaina Noon
They say there were no shadows at the height of that afternoon. Constricted to a single point, we were isolated, no secondary bodies.
Hamlet's Mirror
While gold and dollars pile up in banks and smoke from gunpowder spirals in the air, I stand, outfitted, in the village church before I...
Free Radicals
1. Amid roaring trucks, giraffe-neck cranes, all-day hammering, bicycle lanes, curbside cafés where waiters pour wine and teenagers hunch over takeout, a hoarse screech.
City of Incense
a slow haze rolls over any answers to prayers the stars sent — their light too long ago to reach still, the cathedral’s candle votives...
After Math
i. What’s Left Cracked bricks, fixtures, fencing, Hooks & some wire, torn corners of insulation stapled to Warped wood. Ash. Porcelain tiles spilt like playing...
Yellow on Yellow
In her wide-open sanctuary a female sun moth’s yellow patches are hard to spot as she lies against grasses allowed to fend for themselves in...
Issue 12: Cities
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 12th edition. In this issue, we present work on the theme of ‘cities,’ whether in...
Accra Ghana Storm
Blessed, my daughter suckles my granddaughter, Maya Ama Konamah, in the bluest chair. Jungle plants on the terrace dance. Skittish stallions across a far expanse.
Lascaux Conversation
Tribe needs food and here you are making art again, again, and again. Claiming to hear animals speak in your dreams, and see visions of...
A Tree in Betla
If I was a tree, I’d most probably be a Mahua tree in the Betla Forest, near Netarhaat, with fat black bears coming to feast...
What I Saw in the Street
Some Might Say That All I’ve Done Is Stack Up a Heap of Objects – Brenda Coultas (A Handmade Museum 2002)
You Can't Take It Back
Only enclose it in a file, default to plan B, leave your mark, sink your fingerprints into fresh soil, or wet cement, rub the match...
Painting 2% of the Earth White Would Stop Global Warming, Scientist Says
The daughter bends over arranges her mother’s treasures creating a commotion of dust motes swinging from sill to bureau. A galaxy.
After the Atlantic
When I arrive in Jamaica, I imagine Grandad growing old. I see him weaving between brightly-coloured roadside shops, smiling and chatting up the neighbourhood. Dark...
Understory
Hanging above my head, Taxol (trade name for paclitaxel, polyoxyethylated castor oil, dehydrated alcohol USP, diluted in sodium chloride 0.9% solution), channels through filtered PVC...
The Monarch Egg
On the omnipotent side of the flying buttresses of the National Cathedral I discover the milkweed stand while the priest passes with a weathered brow...
I Wake up in Istanbul
Freshly stirred sun sprayed on / pink, yellow, orange houses, their spackle / of red roofs like stepping stones to heaven. on the sea /...
A Landscape, Fading
Voice like an ocean, waves throwing the weight of themselves behind their own self-destruction, their shattering laces the surfacing face of the deep. the sea...
Don't call us
“Don’t call us”: Tampa Bay Law Enforcement Asks Beachgoers to Stop Snitching on Horny Manatees. “We can assure you they are more than fine.” (Newspaper...
The Lonely Planet Guide to Death
Nobody travels there without getting there, somewhere beyond the poisoned air, the squalid cities, my loving family living amidst a million cooking fires in the...
Garden Augury
It’s been a week of betrayals: the wind biting, cold penetrating my bones, suddenly reminding me no preparation is ever enough.
Otter Cherita
The gleaming Otter so long straightened meanders now she breathes again – an aged actress loosening her stays
Haibun Self-Portrait
Haibun Self-Portrait ( at Morgan Falls State Park, Less Than a Mile ( 4000 Feet To Be Precise ) From the Once Pristine Chattahoochee River,...
Slant Light
The light of exteriors creates the Arctic Circle swim of silver and blue, recessions of brown and green.
Salamander
Tough going on a forest hike. The brush resisted us as we trailed in a staggering line under second growth, through leaps of young raspberry...
Deep Field
Tonight, you’ve turned away from everything that is not the earth, the moon, the stars.
Special Operation
There were neither bombs nor ruins then, nor the vastness of Russia, nor Ukraine’s wide plains when the devil called God up on his walkie-talkie...
Medea
As patina veils the surface of bronze, so blood veils the maestro’s countenance. Pasolini‘s murder was decreed for attempting to grasp the Golden Fleece.
Issue 11: Ecology
Welcome to Panorama’s 11th edition. In this issue we turn our attention to ecology—from the word’s earliest roots to present-day ecologies which span people, organisms,...
Bodytalk
I draw patterns with my toes against your blushing feet, I prod your deadened heel and hope you feel the heat, I meet your stodgy...
Footwork
At the end of the Mass, Francis greeted each refugee, one by one, posing for selfies and accepting notes as he moved down the rows...
who's to say my body is not all the world
is there a wetland inside me – an ecosystem all its own, so many species of chlorophyll-filled flora and doe-like fauna living symbiotically within some...
Sleep/Keep
I love that moment between space & time — we float in our own cocoon.
Red Desert (წითელი უდაბნო)
The gift of wings – is it a blessing, or a punishment to become the butt of slaves? Saint-Exupéry will tell me and so will...
Petaluma River
Muzzy overcast day haze on the hills like a hangover fresh green meadows burn tired eyes ahead a string of barges.
Panagrolaimus kolymaenis
For forty-thousand years and more this roundworm had to stay as celibate as monks of yore or nuns of yesterday.
On The Padlock Bridge
My hair is grey but at 5;30pm, it becomes gold. This is city where I watch the parting sun give the lizards the golden colour...
Gustavus Flats
Tide has gone out leaving the Salmon River but a muddy trough. Where river mud meets beach sand at Icy Strait the ground is white...
Gares Poétiques/Estaciones Poéticas/Poetic Stations
Farther down the platform a woman stands shrouded within a black burqua, a thin gold watch shimmering on her wrist.
Estrangement
April 30, 2020, Kilauea erupts. The earth revolts. Naturally, we shudder at the gurney, the frothy volcano and the ice cream truck that stores black...
Deadnettle
Purple towers sprout from the ground. You kept calling them thistle, ushered the boys outside to release some of the stress. Last year, we cleaned...
Breaches
Whenever I see sunlight freckling off the Pacific, I look for waterboys breaching the waves. You may have seen them, skinny, pale, and shy, off the coast on sunny...
Anthony
It is in a place of light and sun that we sit, in a garden of blue skies and pastel flowers. The garden is splashed...
Agape
“Because the whole world before you is like a speck that tips the scales, and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the...
Issue 10: Intimacy
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 10th edition. This issue focuses on INTIMACY in all its forms from a closeness and...
In Guatemala
In Guatemala cannas grew wild, sloping up the twisted path to the hilltop where men slit roosters on altars. One flapped headless in a man’s...
Prague Spring
“Only those who struggle for their freedom are worthy of it….”-Plaque in Bratislava commemorating the Velvet Revolution. How can the patterns go on and on?...
Great Grandmother
My Great-grandmother was the first woman in Nebraska to file for divorce—it wasn’t granted. No one will ever believe her. The wood stove hummed with...
Load More