Jane L. Carman Poems

it’s nearly noon and the sun slices
through the thick spring fog, dark
with winter’s gloom, heavy with fatality:
the spent daffodil’s bloom, the cut
...

Gazing at the still
white body
I half-expect
water colored eyes
...

Despite transparent walls
the caterpillar
chews asclepsia
a regimen
...

I picture you
legs bent
feet on your highs
their permanent resting place
...

I am a strong nation
I wield power
to the right
to the left and back
...

Our father who
aren’t in heaven
or hell
dear brother
...

Momma was a girl, only twelve.
Daddy was an old man. He run
moonshine. His business, he said.
Momma was also his business.
...

“They tell me you are wicked and I believe them…”
— Carl Sandburg, “Chicago”

This is place with no name,
...

I am a sick nation
a spiteful nation
the man underground
has nothing beneath me
...

I float in
the Atlantic
and wake
up north
...