Tag: poems-about-2025

In the dark
you whisper
your worst fears
made manifest
by explosive
lights and sounds
you conjure
in the woods
outside our room,
specters stretched
tall along walls
the shadow of what comes,
but I am not afraid
of your ghosts
nor you of mine —
we’ve never been —
it is why we
find ourselves here
again
partners in crimes
of comfort
and concoctions;
I leave my dreams
to curl into yours,
stroke the broad arm
of your embrace,
lie in the darkness
of silent
understanding,
this midnight love
come round,
the long wide bed,
moonlight and stars
our afterlife dreams.

Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. Photo by Victoria Strelka. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!

Resisting the urge
(for the seventh or eighth time in two days)
to hoist the parking lot flag
back up to full mast
in some alter-ego
Fuck Donald Trump
ninja subterfuge,
I remind myself to
breathe in the gorgeous
late summer afternoon
there in the shadow of Ikea
— monument of consumerism —
gorgeous,
except for the Spotted Lanternfly
that crosses my path
begging me to squash its
red polka-dotted guts out;
more death on these days
of infinite death
I cannot bear;
it might be feast for the songbird
trapped in the cafeteria
throwing itself
again and again and again
against
the ceiling-high windows,
their pretense of sky;
it does not stop seeking
what it remembers, the poor thing,
but is that Futility or Hope
I wonder
as I read signs about
food waste and recycling,
the 3,920 solar panels on the roof
above my head,
feast on Swedish meatballs
covered in slick red jam.

*Flags ordered half mast to “honor” the death of white supremacist celebrity. Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!