Author Archives: Anne Birkam

Activity abounds here. Once I saw a swan chasing a goose, with a trumpeting call she drew so close to him his feathers must have shivered. I stood watching and wondering what did this goose do to so enrage the swan? Goose, swan, human, we all figure into this landscape of unruly plants hiding allContinue reading “Sanctuary”

I too, don’t like it, this entry into the subterfuge – I know there is a laugh, a smile beyond what my eye can see and I long for return to a normalcy of seeing all of it – whether smirk or pout or goad. I too, am weary of this daily vigilance lest theContinue reading “Mask”

This is where knowledge is taboo only in dirt does survival depend upon un-learning all you know whether Confucius or gravity’s pull release them to the atmosphere never more to meander here. This is where language comes to die no more to read Khmer folklore words are a poison to kith and kin every foreignContinue reading “The killing fields”

Their shoulders carry us as we strive for heaven’s door the age of colossus is passing the time of giants gone how the righteous leave us with our grief filled songs. But those songs will carry us like shoulders do at heaven’s door. There is a river running through this broken heart of mine itContinue reading “Make some noise”

Today I’d like to try you on I think your sweet hello would fit just fine the perfect glove for a withered hand that used to shake mine in the days when we connected those days are gone today we must be content with virtual hugs and yet your sweet hello is what I needContinue reading “Today”

first voice history beyond the scope of corners a man is standing there a wink and a grin he renders and a most diabolical of stares as if i wasn’t there no as if i wasn’t there ignore me noble master do not see my bones when leather reaches skin i know i am aloneContinue reading “a poem in lower case”

I watch them from shelter, this glass so wide, protects me from the virus seeping, through porous molecules, the cough in air, but the robins are there building a nest with twig and grass and grit they perceive how I listen to song, this melodic thrush brings everything avian into the haunting. Then comes amusementContinue reading “Everything avian”

The power of a river breaking free from dam is an emblem washing over me with life detained, blue upon the seam snuffing out the black and brown and red so unseemly in not caring for life itself. Oh river can you hear me? Will you weep those tears for all I’ve seen? Or willContinue reading “Speaking of rivers”

The days of hope They came and went, and despair can breed the worry of closure on anything sweet – are those days gone for good? With blood in his mouth and bone through his teeth the heckler shouts tyrant in the kingdom of fear illusion reigns supreme with false grandeur. The love of aContinue reading “The quarantine blues”

The night drapes the sleeping, conceals our souls in smoke, when the dreams are open relentless in all breath- the gasp is what we search for and welcome smile relief, in my home town the people forever deal in grief. The forgotten soldier who served in world war he is now expendable to talking heads-theyContinue reading “My home town”