Although primarily a performance poet, Missie Peters also writes poetry for the page.
Here is a selection of Missie’s page poems.
Although primarily a performance poet, Missie Peters also writes poetry for the page.
Here is a selection of Missie’s page poems.
The word rolls off your lips like wind through bulrushes in autumn
when the air is heavy with death and even the sun hangs low hush,
is the sound your paddle makes as you dip it slowly in calm water
pulling your tongue over teeth and forward thrusting hush,
you are quivering like gently plucked vocal chords,
your throat is a pond a vee of geese just left,
their footprints on the surface of the water
rippling away into
silence.
You are leaving
And taking
a piece of me with you.
It is summer now
You took the rain with you too
Like you took the frying pan, the bowls and the knife
I walk through sunbeams in an empty house
And remember your warm silence.
I hope I let you go gently
Like pushing a canoe into the flowing current
Our paths diverge here
I stand for awhile on the shore watching you disappear
Wondering if you realize
You carry a piece of me.
When we have run out of canned tomato sauce
When the candles have all burned down
When the nails against the door grow loose
When your eyes from prolonged fear protrude
When we have stopped sleeping chest to head
And started sleeping back to back
When we have stopped everything but touching
When even our fingertips seem loud
I will still love you
When the empty hands find our boarded up windows
To bang out patient rhythms
When this stale sanctuary becomes a death trap
When the bars of our cell are pulled back like broken ribs
I will still love you
I will fight beside you
With table legs and toilet lids
I will die still loving you
When the empty hands and red mouths come.
I'm the kettle
still plugged in
and empty
I fridge door
ignore you
looking for love
You drip
faucet sadness
and drain me
We light left on
and leaving
dry crumb silence
Those who want will never have enough
Wanting is like the night sky
It swallows the stars
Always more wanting than having.
Those who want not will always have enough
Not wanting is like the moon
It has no light, but it gives light
It comes and goes, but the tides follow it.