my favorite cage

is made of porcelain white bars, surroundedby ringlets of fire,  red hot and orangeas daisies consumed bythe summer sun. Those cornerless bars, alive and fierceas fractals, daring me to eclipse my freedom.  George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. […]

His Shaman Eyes

felt heavy as slabs ofsandstone,like the pyramids. But only after he offeredprayers tothe unearthed,cleansed bythe drumming,a cold thunder on the dry mouthof an Illinois Prarie. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA […]

Bio-graph

The mind is rustlingclothes, sound shadowsand deadening echoes. The feel of her proximityand the wall when a blindman is walking too close. Like black panthers, all of usfind our way by vibrations, when the night gets too dark.And in the morning, the mind isa patch of parsley green moss onthe white flesh of birch trees. The ones my daughter […]

After Breathing

I notice.Everything. How the inkon my paperhas more thanone color of blackand feels delicate as silk. The hard plastic wheels of a stroller scraping the gravel. Like crackling embers,the stillness of a solitary pineneedle sighing in the breeze.An eternal thing, like bloodflowing for its own sake. That spring taskof bringing life again. Or the neighbor’s Calico […]

Stillness

Mindfulness is noticingstillness, how the ink on my paper has more than one color of black and feelsfluid as silk. It’s noticing the stillness of a solitary pine needle pulsing in the sighing wind. Andthe acrobatic foraging of a squirrel jumping from limb to limb withunhesitating spontaneity.It’s the neighbor’s Calico slouching,preying, lifting each paw as a ninjawould around a corner, while abovethe […]

Chi

It felt like cupping a shapelessbubble, delicate as a stolen Robin’s egg,yet weightless and resting in nothingness. I should have known it was within me. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 […]

Bow & Be

ThatTooTimeless&NewbornCaperingThroughWhat loveCan leave on thoseTraces of EarthEnduringThe rivers andAll that May be trueMaybe.My whole past, too.My heart.The lost partOf the brain.Cutting like a Samurai’s swordTouching the grassOr taking off a tight shoeDeath the wayRam Dass felt it. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry […]