Tag Archives: poetry

Simone Weil: Happy Beachgoer

Posted on July 24, 2023 by jillbpearlman

“The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that ships are sometimes wrecked by it.  On the contrary, this adds to its beauty,” says Simone Weil, French philosopher in a poetic mood.  She’s right: the endless surface of … Continue reading →

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70 Rotten Swans

Posted on July 2, 2023 by jillbpearlman

I am borrowing rotten swan to put at the top of my rotation list of favorite images.  It’s the British poet Alice Oswald’s concoction: In her book Falling Awake, “Swan” observes her own wondrously devolving construction as she hovers above herself.  In … Continue reading →

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Ezekiel Does Memorial Day

Posted on May 28, 2023 by jillbpearlman

Someone snapped the light switch, and suddenly it’s summer.  Suddenly people are having fun.   The question mark of an existential figure that walked the streets alone, toting laptop and phone — he’s been replaced by friends and families walking in public … Continue reading →

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The Guest

Posted on March 19, 2023 by jillbpearlman

For three weeks, I was a guest: to different showersAnd toilet flushes in the West, to coffee houses, to apps,to rosemary as box shrub.  A guest to my suitcase.  To hot tubs and skin in the garden of my tiny cottage. Guest to … Continue reading →

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Scrappy February

Posted on February 19, 2023 by jillbpearlman

Blue sky with blacktop in the early morning.  A flock of birds takes a surprise curve over my glass,a car-toting mattress heads to unload on the strip – the dump, salt heap and peaksof scrap metal.  An old fire truck slinks past its … Continue reading →

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Rubble, Rumble, Toil, Trouble

Posted on February 12, 2023 by jillbpearlman

Rubble, rumble, toil, trouble.  All week long, a poem wrestled with me, and I within it.  It held me tightly in its grip, everything onomapoetic with rubble.  Emotions far outweighed thought: I grabbed at words, poor human with a pen, hoping something might … Continue reading →

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The Early Bird and other Myths

Posted on November 20, 2022 by jillbpearlman

Oh bathroom window, what are those ash-gray clouds,needle in the morning’s eye  — dawn too early in its strange light-threading.To 6am, I bring another party:  my thoughts, light and frisky in dark crevices,champagne-splashed agent of chaos, so loud, you say, … Continue reading →

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Bastille to Puritan Village: Strange Magic

Posted on October 30, 2022 by jillbpearlman

Each time, after countless trips, still strange magic.Hours ago, we were eating croissants in the sun, looking at the soft green column of the Bastille, the genie de la Liberté, golden wings aloft, still leaping.Today I wake up to crisp carpeting … Continue reading →

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Armageddon Blues

Posted on March 13, 2022 by jillbpearlman

I wrote the poem “Armageddon Blues,” which was published in Salamander Poetry Journal in Winter 2018-2019. It doesn’t seem to have lost its relevance! The enduring question: Is there time to slice the cucumber? ARMAGEDDON BLUES If my nerves were … Continue reading →

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Digging Out, Literally!

Posted on January 30, 2022 by jillbpearlman

The fun of digging out is that we are digging out from what we are seldom digging out from.   We are not working our way out of spates and chains of email, nor piles of snail mail, nor escaping … Continue reading →

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