The warmed blanket
offers as much comfort
as the ghost
who held me in dreams
said all the right things
too late to even consider
a new lease
fucking cliché
at this age
find myself wishing
I were the type
to waste away in bed
where dreams
at least offer promise.
Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!
As one ghost lies dying
from heart ache,
another suffers tragic loss,
and a third fades quietly
into the ether,
she is reminded that
always,
in the epic final battle,
everything resurfaces:
there are fires burning,
smoldering moments of despair,
a defeated arch nemesis,
a warrior waning and
AND
a heroine — walking wounded —
considering the sunrise
its event horizon
the point of no return
from all of this
and all of them
these lost souls
her poetic impetus
what will become of her now?
Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!
By the time I can walk
freely to the backyard again,
my summer friends have flown,
their brightness replaced
by soft subtle grays,
and I can’t help but wonder
about the cardinal,
her wing askew,
who spent the season
managing her brokeness
as deftly as I navigated
my own;
she moved about
as best as she could,
stayed strong;
found her stride
and her song.
I miss her now,
these cold mornings
more quiet
without our shared infirmary,
and I imagine her
somewhere safe,
like myself,
moving without limit.
*As if on cue, I saw my cardinal friend in the backyard just this morning, the first time in a month!
Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!
Do the birds know
I am not myself
moving gently towards them
seeds in one pocket
water in the other
barefoot in the cool, damp grass
tticking to call the cardinals
tticking to say I have not forgotten you
I have been here all along
just moving more slowly
finding my way to solid ground
done with the flitterings of grief
and old limitations —
so what of loss?
these leaves had to fall
it is the natural order
churning and churning
everything changing
the leaves, the river,
and time tticking too
Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!
The 8″ battle scar
explains the retreat
in glorious, punctuated detail
so no apologies
or all apologies
for having been
absent from duty
absent from craft
absent from self
our tactical strategy
required split-second timing
a vanguard deployment
of the strongest self
armed and ready
for the battle
of chemical warfare
and severed skin,
of breaking bones
and hammered metals;
while the correspondent self
held the flank,
taking cryptic notes
to send by wire later,
when the haze cleared.
Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!
a poem inspired by Stranger Things, post-op drugs, and him again
The meditation takes me
to the Upside Down —
a crossover of dreams
and Spielberg memories,
where muses suddenly appear
with the Next Great Idea!
on a dark plane of black water,
the beaming light of
What Comes After This;
but he is there, too,
and I say the goodbye
I never get to say
except in dreams
and poems I want to fold up
and leave in secret places,
like the Upside Down,
where maybe he
travels sometimes,
this kindred spirit
who is so familiar
I am always certain
we have crossed paths
in some other life…
or is that just this
rich, deep darkness
of conjuring?
the magic of a poet
turning things over
to see what might be, maybe,
substance for another poem?
Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!
I am holding up the world, still
from a hospital bed
with tubes connected to a wall
I cannot move.
Even here,
the hard work of caretaking
caretakers and my self
all the while admiring
the strong muscles
I have sculpted to do this job,
wondering if I might find
a softer way.
Poem ©2025, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you’ll love my new book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now!
While the healer laid hands,
I felt my breath return
move tentative and slow
from that tight, broken spot
near my heart
down into my belly
my soft, round
curvy belly
the one he never loved
the one I hid under layers
and blankets
and breath
So before I even finished
a poem called Things He Never Liked
I realized its last line was Me
and that broken spot was Him
a broken spot
found with breath
healed only
as I forgive
myself.
Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
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