It’s been a long while since I’ve published any of my poetry. It’s been a long time since I’ve written any poetry.

Early last spring I ran across a request for submissions from the Ballard Street Poetry Journal, and I took a chance and submitted one, which was published in the current Summer 2010 issue.

I find the poetry in many journals rather inaccessible, either for reasons of language or subject. But I loved all of the poems in the Ballard Street Poetry Journal. Here’s mine, which appears on Page 21:

The Gravity of Gardens

They gave me a garden the size of a grave,
so I filled it with raucous reminders of sense:
riots of marigold, lavender, sage
rosemary, basil dianthus, rue.
And waving madly above them all
spears of brazen Jerusalem artichoke
that perplexing garden gypsy
that blossoms and burrows,
grows up to nine feet tall, and
in the harsh summer storm
dances her defiance
to the grim arrogance
of gravity.

I need to plant that garden again.