Anointed by the elementsyou are my blueeyed mountain jewel, my empty breeze returning togreet the lipsof a valley asleepin the sky 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 […]
nature
We Need the Soil
because the roots are a gorgeouscatastrophe of gargling raindropsthose empty diamond shaped facescontaining the dreams of elderberriesbecause she fills earth’s basket with the black resinous warmth of grandmother’s handsbreaking the ruby white stalksof rhubarb and celery, reenactingeach contagious morningthe cherished dew of midnight’s tearsas the wild and mischievousrhythms of eternity nears 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 […]
Harvest Moon
laced with the benign clarity ofliquefying Moonlightmy Cherokee mother hung rattlesnake skins the same wayher grandmother leanedBull Nose peppers on long fat cedar beams letting go of the softflow of cares and allthat belongs to theCreator
Replaced
Most of my water escaped long ago too,and which one of us was reallydesigned to withstand the pressure? Slowly filtered through solid rock,the remains are all that remains: pyrite and calcite and Uranium.Armored fish patrolling the depths,consuming the soft, fleshy parts, anddisappearing into the crystal lattice. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. […]
Olympic
Chinook salmon chant on sandstoneintestine-intuition in an agebefore teachers they emanatefrom the roots of the Naupakalike sea spray 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 Today, The Wall […]
Sunset Over Henderson Harbor
She handed me the egg sprayed in blooded paint between the bones, slowly and meticulously, even perilously and the egg, in her fingers (if one could call them that) reminded me of the sun accused and oozing below a fluorescent indigo horizon sandblasted, with chocolate shadows on the cheeks of homes congregated on the rocky […]
Caught Between the Hours
Have you looked upat the stars lately? Have you watched the Moon bowor gulp light from her holy grail? Have you howled at her?The sky mother. Oozing through the gate, a vaporous,sweet olive black nightin the distance, a coyote yelping
When Daybreak Knows
I am trying to honor her.Her terms. Her words.Her voice. Her mountains.Her wildflowers. Her falsehoods and her fiberglass pauses on the screen. I ama child with her, opening painted windows that werenever closed to begin with. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry […]
Littered With Salvation
A flask-shaped bald head olive-black eyes. Short chestnutbrown eyebrows. Oshkosh B’goshoveralls and an ultraviolet purplesleeved shirt. Like small dollspatched with the materials of a day’s harvestsinking into the earthinto a wormhole of foliage, laughing at nothingbut the act of knowing that sometimes it’s commonand good to laugh at nothing. We played unconcealed. Outside. Submerged in winding branches and […]
Before Words
By the time it is written down it hasalready passed. Even the animals,the brute beasts of the fields, dumband blind to the ways of poetry in books, feel it in the soul of their hoovesand the simple sensations of their tonguestouching the grass, or a pig rolling in the mud, as birds sing for no reason but […]