Lizzy Burnam 🐞

Hindsight

Poor opossum, mouth shut tight like mimosas at dusk and a pinky-sized switchblade still stuck in…
Two solitudes

All I wanna write about is you and your intense gaze, dark as a vanilla pod,…
The World Clown Association apologizes

Vaudeville in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My bell-ringing at last night’s birthday…
The fae queen of fossil fuels

Some say the world will end in fire, but from this hot pit the fae queen’s…
Motivations

1. Ahead of schedule To the cokehead pilot flying eastYou must be somewhere between Springfield and…
The dining hall at Brattleboro Retreat

The psych ward had all-you-can-eat string cheese and boxes of tea leaves in every flavor. A…
A love poem for nothing in particular

Every day I make a little time to love: the first kiss of the uncarpeted floorboard…
Three rules for biding your time

1. good kidssit very still in the backseat of the station wagonmusic so loudthey forget they’re…
Sail out! (Response to a Danish proverb)

“Don’t sail out farther than you can row back.” — Danish ProverbSail out! A life well-lived…
The secret only runaways know

Every lesson you’ll ever learn is a new definition of home. But there are mountains beyond…
Dionysus goes to rehab

The first night, he doesn’t sleep, but lies awake tormented by the almost-silence, the dripping pipe…
A poetry prompt for when all others fail

Ideally, start on Sunday. (All the best poems are written on Sundays). Visit any church except…
A longing-mark in the shape of unpoisoned rain

What else is there? All the perfect curios of living, loving are preserved in poems like…
The desert after rain

I don’t smell it so much as feel it in my nose—a sharpness like the early…
Forever is a short hike

Up the speckled mountain Where Echo pulled her rootsFurther than the MorriganHer strange and sour tuneBeyond…
Poetry writing prompts: Concepts, activities, starters

Concept prompts Write a poem using every sense except sight. Write a self-portrait in the third…
The Patron-Saint of Small Bugs

Pupa—in Latin, girl, doll, puppet. Maggots love low and butterflies, high. Students laugh in bathroom stalls,names…
Lover’s quarrel overheard on a mid-day hike in Santa Fe

Lady don’t convince him Dust refuse to settle Philistine! Provincial! A sickly sentimentalLady don’t convince him…
Things of no consequence

Sometimes I think so hard about things of no consequence:How your head don’t keep you warmHow…
Letter from sun to moon

Who are you when you turn away from me? Friend of thieves and hunters, guiding light…