Poetry
Diane Webster

Photo Credit: K Hardy/Flickr (CC-by-nc-nd)

He sleeps 30 feet away
in the house next door,
but he sits on a folding chair
outside his room watching
TV in the living room
through propped open door
of his parents’ house.

He smokes cigarettes,
listens to running water
of koi pond crowded
into his area like a hot tub
for people with limited space.

I hear his one-sided cell phone
conversations with friends
at 2:00 a.m. after the bars close;
I hear him cough when he can’t sleep
and cigarette smoke invades his lungs;
I hear him slam the wooden gate
to his graveled domain when darkness
explodes within him as much
as it descends through night.

I want to whisper through my wall,
“It’s all right.  Morning’s coming.”
I wonder if he hears.

Diane Webster’s goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life, nature or an overheard phrase and to write. Diane enjoys the challenge of transforming images into words to fit her poems. Her work has appeared in El Portal, North Dakota Quarterly, Eunoia Review and other literary magazines. Email: diaweb[at]hotmail.com

Poetry
Diane Webster

Photo Credit: Tim Ereneta/Flickr (CC-by-nc)

Log and Fire

Log expands grains
so fire breathes
through veins
emblazoned with gold
aliveness, molten glass
blobbing before
form-fitting mold
cools exterior
like ash fragment
remembering burn
flutters skyward
until extinguished.

Fire pries fingernails
into oxygen-rich cracks,
snaps and smacks
merrily as it grasps
concentric rings
blazing smaller
like log’s life
twinkling embers,
lifting last ashy eyelash
before sleeping, merging
dreams surrounded
into charred midnight.

Bedroom Sounds

Sounds not belonging
creep into bedroom.
Sounds like cat,
claws ticking on floor,
but not.
Sounds of stealthy searching
ruffle papers, finger loose change
on dresser, brush gloved
hand over painted wall.
Sounds not right for my bedroom;
too light for a man,
I hope. Bravely, stupidly
I rise and don’t
knock anyone down
as I switch on the light.

Moth dive bombs my hair.
“Damn moth!” as I stab a grab.
It races into lamp shade
to beat itself against bulb,
bumper cars
with shade’s design.
I am a crazed badminton player
with fly swatter as moth
careens the room, disappears.

Sounds silent. Moth invisible.
I give up to my bed.
Moth attempts, attempts, attempts
entry to computer lights;
wishes to fly a giant avatar
in cyberland.

Fellow Travelers

After eight hours driving
it’s time for lunch.
We park among the row
of cars, SUVs, campers, RVs
and choose a picnic table
out in the weeds away
from weary, fellow travelers.

Table is splattered
with dry mud from previous
inconsiderate family members
tossing Idaho soil for next
picnicker to snarl at
which we do. We stand
and eat glad we don’t
have to sit again.

Pair of swallows swoop
under roof, dart out
startled by us intruders
who spy mud construction
of nest against wall
and forgive our previous tenant’s
inexcusable mess now okay
as we abandon picnic alcove
to honeymoon suite swallows.

Diane Webster’s goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life or nature or an overheard phrase. Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Poets, The Aurorean, Better Than Starbucks and other literary magazines. Email: diaweb[at]hotmail.com

Poetry
Diane Webster

Photo Credit: Johannes Freund/Flickr (CC-by)

Knife Etchings

The knife etches
grooves into glass
like cuts of initials
into aspen tree
bark scarred
forever in love
by AB + PS
now logged
and split leaving
shards of splintered
memories behind
like shavings,
like sawdust.

Shivers/Slivers

When the sculptor’s hammer
rings against the metal chisel
carving stone beneath its blade,
reverberation tingles her fingers
like tiny orgasmic ripples
signaling the start of art

exploding like shivers/slivers
of dislodged stone firing
into her plastic face guard
like fireworks dislodging night darkness
to fingers desiring a touch of the masterpiece.

Drives to Work in Snow

Snow in the parking lot
squeaks as tires tread
across whiteness searching
for white parallel lines
marking space for parking—
first one parked sets the grid
in motion for late starters.

Never knew so many people
walked until coming-and-going trails
moonwalk across the snow
where discovered by its purple color
kicked loose beneath a waffle boot track
like a possible treasure discovered
washed up on a storm-washed shore
a pacifier lies in sparkling snow.

Morning’s silence shivers through air
until a snow shovel scrapes against
raw sidewalk somewhere in the next block.

Digital Family

If photos aren’t taken,
a family doesn’t exist.

No past scolding,
“You should have…”

No standing captured
the way one was then
and not allowed to move
for fear of blurring
the picture for generations.

In the present now
to cast shadows,
to hold two fingers behind
smiling people’s heads,
to stick out a tongue
or to deliberately
close one’s eyes.

Now you can be erased
so you never existed
in the family’s album.

Diane Webster enjoys the challenge of picturing images into words to fit her poems. If she can envision her poem, she can write what she sees and her readers can visualize her ideas. That’s the excitement of writing. Her work has appeared in The Hurricane Review, Eunoia Review, Illya’s Honey, and other literary magazines. Email: diaweb[at]hotmail.com

Poetry
Diane Webster

Photo Credit: Ed Kennedy/Flickr (CC-by)

Frozen Flat

Valentine’s Day the deflated
snowman and Santa blobs
lie frozen in the lawn
like stepped-on chocolate pieces
still covered in wrappers
after the Halloween frenzy
to haul candy beggings
back home to savor
until Christmas stockings bulge
more, more, more
and the groundhog sees his shadow
for six weeks more of winter
pooled around the low profile
inflatables smiling in snow;
hand across a flat heart.

Hermit Myth

Of course hermits are wise old men
unconcerned with other people’s issues.
They remain mysterious in solitude
because most people can’t stand
a moment not connected
to cell phone, TV, internet and chat rooms.
Hermit is a profession to aspire to:
if you’re lucky, no one knows you exist,
if they do, they think you’re crazy
and give you the moniker of ghost
of the woods kind of like Bigfoot,
fun to leave footprints, tufts of fur
and not be seen except in nightmares
or corners of eyes, then gone.

Diane Webster enjoys the challenge of picturing images into words to fit her poems. If she can envision her poem, she can write what she sees and her readers can visualize her ideas. That’s the excitement of writing. Her work has appeared in The Hurricane Review, Eunoia Review, Illya’s Honey, and other literary magazines. Email: diaweb[at]hotmail.com

Poetry
Diane Webster

Photo Credit: Breigh Hammarlund/Flickr (CC-by-nc-nd)

Untied Knots

Like tweezers her fingernails
pinch each knot and loosen
its grip from the lengthening
strand patiently hearing
her mother teach
not to waste any string
because it will be useful
later lying wound
in a ball in the junk drawer
the same as I save
old shoelaces now
in pairs draped together,
and I wonder if she
would secretly itch
to tie them together.
Unanswered

Do my letters cause you to cringe
when you see my printed envelope?
Do you bury my words in your purse
like a pauper casket in a grave?
Do you burn my thoughts
into curly wisps blown away
by unconcerned wind?
Do you read and pretend
you’ll answer later
because later is always later?
Do you secretly wish
you could write “return to sender”
or “address unknown” and hope
I wouldn’t know the writing
because I’ve seldom seen it?

Diane Webster enjoys the challenge of picturing images into words to fit her poems. If she can envision her poem, she can write what she sees and her readers can visualize her ideas. That’s the excitement of writing. Her work has appeared in The Hurricane Review, Eunoia Review, Illya’s Honey, and other literary magazines. Email: diaweb[at]hotmail.com

Poetry
Diane Webster

Photo Credit: Rene de Paula Jr.

Gone or Closer

Only three days gone
marked by three newspapers
stacked for you to read,
stacked on the chair
no one sits in,
stacked so the cat
in a playful fit
of hunter/prey
doesn’t shred the print
into bite-sized pieces
eyes and hands find difficult
to jigsaw puzzle together.
Only three days gone;
three days closer to return.

Water Thirst

I am tame water
tapped into a glass;
content to soak
in bubble bath foam
or pretend I am a vase.
I want to be wild water
scratching, clawing
through rock mud rubble
like a premature burial victim
until free to run
discarding ground-colored garb
for sparkling clear laughter,
to slide by smooth stone
or jagged granite
no never mind to me
I’m free
to pool against boulder,
to bask, to laze,
to titter with wind ripples,
to twiddle a pebble
and another and another
until like a dog to scent
I tunnel
to a somewhere destination.

Diane Webster’s goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life or nature or an overheard phrase and to write from her perspective at the moment. Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Poets, Illya’s Honey, River Poets Journal and other literary magazines. Email: diaweb[at]hotmail.com

Poetry
Diane Webster

Photo Credit: annilove

I received a letter telling me
Tonya had died four months
and two letters ago—
letters to a dead friend
who never got to read them;
so I wrote other friends
and emailed a couple more the news,
and all I got was silence.
Until one confessed she lost my letter
like Tonya didn’t matter,
had died alone again,
had died without reading my letters
like the friends who never replied
not wanting death too near,
not wanting to write to the friend
who wrote letters to dead friends.

Diane Webster’s goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life or nature or an overheard phrase and to write from her perspective at the moment. Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Poets, Illya’s Honey, River Poets Journal and other literary magazines. Email: diaweb[at]hotmail.com