I Have Seen of California
by Jeannine Corcoran

I have seen of California-- 
fickle seasons, slow to change. 

Leaves still green long past the autumn, winters-- warm and strange.

I have wondered at their holy winds and sprawling fields of wheat.

Indian summers in their ocean,
stayed too long in October heat.

I have climbed up every summit,
trail switchbacks, aching feet.

Heard the most perfect silence,
beneath sequoia canopies.

But the quiet felled to voices.
Golden prairies sown too soon.

The ocean is not so welcoming,
when November feels like June.

The mountains are all blackened now. Fortune's fires-- every year.

I have seen all of California, and
watched it disappear.

(an earlier version  of "I Have Seen of California" was published with Sunflower Poetry Review in 2022)

The Greenwood [fragment]
by Jeannine Corcoran

We ambled through The Greenwood on the hottest day in May, when the thunderstorm, which hummed in the air, was yet an hour away.

I thought of summers coming, and those that came before, and I worried what our lives might be and if I'd want for more--

The Sun is Here Again
by Jeannine Corcoran

The butterflies have flown away, and the hummingbirds
 never came.

The rain ignored my beckoning,
and the sun is here again.

The clouds are in for decoration- the browning foliage too.

All that's left of spring and winter:
my lasting love for you.

In Vain
by Jeannine Corcoran

Father, father, father.
Mustn't ever say their names.

Father, father, father.
Hush-- swallow down your pain.

Pills for each abandonment,
pills to keep you sane,
pills to make you fall asleep,
pills to get up again.

Mother picks the devils out. 
Good catholics know the way-- you take the God intended route, then stray and stray and stray...

"But father one and father two had such a lovely smile. Father three, a silver tongue to tempt me 
down the aisle."

 "How like a chid you see the world: black and white, no grey."

Their masks slipped off 
for me alone. 
They were demons everyday.

Father one, The Lord of Flies,
father two, of Snakes.
Father three, dominion: all,
the world, his to take.

Good catholics have 
their exorcisms.

Good devils, clever lies.

But daughters who take all 
their pills, can only blind 
their eyes.

Cotton stuff their ear canals,
gag their every cry,
bind their hands with sellotape,
forgive and don't defy.

Father, father, father.
Mustn't speak their names in vain.

Father, father, father.
Hush-- silent prayer for your pain.

Family Ties
by Jeannine Corcoran

All of my bones are buried here--
stacked three deep in the ground.

I stayed so I might have them near,
but bones don't make a sound.

Their graves are all bad company,
their stones a sorry rest.

I'd leave if I could only see,
leaving was for the best.

Summer in Texas
by Jeannine Corcoran

I wear the summer on my skin--
dry brush, dying tall grass.
Most fragile under foot.

Splintered wheat fields, dying hills, ground to ash and grain.

I, too, cannot bear the weight of the sun. I, too, will return 
with the rain.

Salute Your Magpie
by Jeannine Corcoran

One dull morning, dark and dreary, with clouds that hung low in the sky,I climbed a tower, tall and eerie, to watch the magpies fly.

Their black and white befeathered bodies soared back up to their nests, and I wondered at them, marveled, waving, perching from my castle rest.

Caught up in the magpie’s weaving,
I nearly missed a most curious sight: a seagull sneaking, peeking, creeping made it’s way up 
on my right.

Without a pause, a warning, or waiting, the gull let out a furious squawk, he lunged with vigor, villainous vermin, and gave me quite a shock.

Jumping back with frightful screaming, I tumbled, tossed, and swirled swiftly, falling from my tower perch; when on my left, determined, racing, a magpie took off from a birch.

Wings flapping fervently, he dove into his nest, searching, sorting desperately, he riffled through his treasure chest.

At last with a triumphant cry, he wrenched a wonder free, a set of wings, bewitched and sweeping, 
flew right up to meet me.

I grasped onto the magpie’s tether and floated softly, safe and sound, and laughing, dancing, smiling wildly, landed gently on the ground. 

(an earlier version of 'Salute Your Magpie' was a finalist in the Wingless Dreamer: Bird Poetry Contest 2022. It was later selected for 'Wings of Wonder Poetry Anthology' and published in 2023)

In My Mind a Time Machine
by Jeannine Corcoran

In my mind, a time machine.
A crystal palace, shimmering.
Kaleidoscopes of memories 
and days as yet to come.

In these hours of suffering,
the bygone past does beckon me. Its promises like poppy seeds.
I dare not stay for long.

Beneath My Skin (fragment)
by Jeannine Corcoran

There turns a spiral 
beneath my skin.

Thick, black lines going in, in, 
one for every life I have not lived.

Maiden.
Mother.
Wise, old crone.

And I, alone in the ink blot middle.
A half formed thing, aching.
Faceless and fleshless in a world
too welcoming of knives.

A Lazarus with wool for eyes--

(from the Nowhere Girl Collective, May 2025 prompt: Spiral. Unfinished.)

Ingredients for Spring
by Jeannine Corcoran

Rain that falls in fits and starts,
birdsong in the breeze,
buds in bloom and vernal green--
a buzz of honey bees.

Longer walks in gloaming skies,
cicadas in the trees,
bluebells from the pavement cracks, grass stains on my knees.

Winter cobalts dissipate,
a mind of calmer seas,
Fortune favors Temperance,
all good things come in threes:

Rebirth, transformation, life:
ingredients for spring. 

(Posted on @725presscollective in April, 2025. Inspired by their prompt: Ingredients for Spring)