RachelVB.com

Category: Poetry

  • Night trips

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in , ,

    I slept against the moon’s womb. Curled in sweat and backbone. There’s no winter, just rain freezing in the sky as if to ward some nameless spirit away, I jingle my keys like an outstretched lantern. Leave the blind to their sticks – I’ll take the light and the way you look at me in…

  • By morning, Fall is dead

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in , , ,

    I’m one carriage of many. You’re not alone in neurosis, standing in the shower looking back, embarrassed. Red skin – it’s hot water’s fault. Exhale and two pulses pump against my neck. Why when we’re full do we feel nothing of our bodies? Empty and bones rake against flesh. Frost is a wheeling virus, the…

  • Gatekeeper – written version posted for Claire

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    My shipped heart is ruddering resistent try turning around even though everything is screwed Let wind carry our sheared, dead hair Open the doors, you say, and sails In one Godful moment williwaws could blend us into bonds we never held on our own. I hate white flags unravelling stern and bowed at my parapet.…

  • Audio of 'Gatekeeper'

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    ‘Gatekeeper,’ by Rachel Van Blankenship

  • Abandoned Flight Patterns

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    Go to a cabin isolation in snow grind coffee burn pots boiling water steep a loose-leafed soul Your fire in the place smoke drift fanning faith Flames weave sarcous in and out through veins retrace cutting plains a heart’s blue river source. Such promised warmth when the make-up the people you’re made of flash in…

  • Muffin: a poem (1992 – I am 8)

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    He is gone so he is where I left him There under dirt and in some cloth I am lonely and so sad I am crying at my bed Lots of toys and lots of things but nothing is so very neat. Sunny and rainy days nothing is just the same Nice and mean mean…

  • Pennsylvania Birdlime

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    He drifts to sleep, hand down my pants to the man at my back I drift Campfire smell, Varvatos cologne He’s catching eastern pheromones. The Susquehanna scalping weeds at his feet. I came quickly His mouth cupped my tit drinking Big Sky nourishment. Pollen smuggled home past the Great Divide the west in me still…

  • Trepidatiously putting this out there

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    Her Hamster Devoured its Young There were no fragments to bury under the apricot tree No mourning her disembodied family. She grew into her eyelashes She shed her father’s eyes pawning the lapis as passage to her mother’s side Suicide too dark Maybe hit by a car, she’d survive? Would a father notice the billboard…

  • Sex Properly Disposed

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    Open legs swim the breaststroke my chest, linoleum wiped clean Fruit flies hover in the wrong rooms Cars slip, wet roadways Blazing feet, suddenly cold crumpled, our bodies, in your boxers

  • "Bluebird" revisited

    —

    by

    rachelvb
    in ,

    Her lips through the glass reflect her lying back Blue swarmed calves, wrapped in Pashmina lather She shaves in bathwater Soap drips bursts wakes unravels, a semen snake love’s close shave, an uncairned edge she hums hope hope hope, instead All around boisterous robins coo her toes grip a porcelain ledge wind rustles rattling ribs…