My Published Poems
These are just the poems that have appeared in print or on-line. I'll be sharing new poems in the future as well.
The following poems have been published in these print and on-line journals:
The Clot
Unheralded,
the shark swims
up the bloodriver
The big man
fanged,
stem bitten.
Days pass before he
understands,
weeks before he walks,
months before he utters my name.
Circling,
the shark is undeterred.
The big man swims upstream
never quite arriving.
Fins brushing his legs.
2. Excerpts from “Lady Sings the Blues While Looking at National Geographic”, Drunk Monkeys online journal, October 2014 BY AMY GALLOWAY POETRY OCTOBER 6, 2014
LADY SINGS THE BLUES (WHILE LOOKING AT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
A pecha kucha inspired by Terrance Hayes’ interpretation of the form.
[High above Boston]
The men, of course, are
high above Boston, masters
of the roads, rulers of the bay.
I am in the city, lost among the bombs.
[Spirit Bear]
Oh great Spirit Bear,
claw your way into his sleep
rake his dreams with blood
clog his lungs with muddy leaves.
Oh, great Spirit Bear
[Mr. T’s Special Breakfast]
Shit, Mr. T. can eat any
thing, any damn thing.
I’m throwing two brown eggs
in the iron pan.
That’s it, two damn eggs, no toast.
© 2014 Amy Galloway
3. “Run, Run, Run”, Five 2 One online journal, February 2, 2016 (Sadly, this journal is not longer publishing.)
Run: April 15, 17, 20, 2013
Bombblasts in Boston
reverberate twice
deep into the earth
Those who can
run
Two brothers in the crowd
run
A boy watching his father
run
A girl, another girl,
Watching,
They will no longer
run
Across the land
bombsbursting in the West
a fertilized spark
a town rocked
The blast reverberates
There is no chance to
run
In rural China
a vibration deep below the
earthcrust rumbles
buildingbombs crush
no one can
run
The factory shakes
Then pancakes
At home
children will spill
onto the playground and
run run run run run
4. “Collided”, Drunk Monkeys online journal, November 2015
Collided
The season of our severance
I collided with myself
The cold hard truth ducking
under a shower of rice
Bitter lemonade
A summer under ice
Weeds dug in deeper
choking the lilies
Drowning in the pool
I crawled into the garden
Slept with the slugs
ate mud
In fall I fell
red maple and oak leaf
Dead spiders and acorns
inside a rotting pumpkin
I couldn't move
I missed you
5. "Cicadas”, Cicada Magazine, July/August 2016
Cicadas
The call and response
of cicadas
along a muggy country road
slows my rush home
like a dog I listen
my head hanging out the car window.
Little abdomens vibrating madly
an electric buzz fills the night
slow down, let me listen
to the mad yearning of time
running out.
I’ve been in the woods in winter
the only sound
a crack of branch breaking
the thud of limbs falling
the call of wind
the response of ice.
Give me the mad rubbing,
as summer draws in on itself
the thrumming of the cicada
calling out the last days
The response still humming.
6. “The Ghosts of Sicily”, “Pockets of Protection”, “Space-time”, and “Signs”, The Raven’s Perch online journal, December 2016
The Ghosts of Sicily
The ghosts of Sicily are rising again
Searching for me in the scorched hills
Slithering up the mountain from dusty hot graves
The donkey brays
They find me dreaming of Taormina
Tossed in sea-swept sleep
Smelling of Etna sulfur
Sliding on fire-licked lava
They speak Greek and broken dialect
They whisper you're crazy
They scream I hate you
A malocchio slips
Under the door
Crawls into a jacket pocket
Superstitious salt left decades ago stings and brings tears
I am safe for now
Among the ruined columns the conquered spirits swarm
Among the petrified corpses the angry phantoms
Prowl
A strega winks at me with a cloudy eye and knocks over the salt shaker
The ghosts of Sicily are howling again
Pockets of Protection
Salt in my pockets
deep in the crevices
each new coat christened
Grandma takes a handful
Tosses it in each fearful hole
Tosses some over her shoulder
Tosses a prayer to the saltgod.
In the dead of winter
deep in a snow bank
salty mittens, salty treasure
line the crevices of my pocket
Keeps the cold from killing
Keeps the white from blinding
Keeps the tongue lively
Sea salt nuggets
deep into my daughter's pocket
a new coat christened
white treasure in crevices to discover
Trace a salty path
Trace the superstitions
Traces of the old lady and her god.
Space-time
I didn't forget about wormholes even after we stopped talking about them
The kid sticking a pudgy finger in the cake frosting
wormhole
The tunnel under the river
The covered bridge
Wormholes both
The wail of the siren in the afternoon
The sluice of rain
The slide of snow
The fall down the stairs
Wormholes all
Spade in the earth making room for the seed
Blood through the vein
Air through the tube
Silent screams
Little worms wiggling toward the sun
Empty words
Garbage down the chute
Circular stairs to the top
Looking down into the wormhole
The fall from grace
The jump from the one hundred third floor
The last quiet breath
The cave in my heart
The shortcut connecting two separate points in space time
deep dark dank
indecisive on the edge
spiraling uncertainty
Signs
The signs point to you
As you run from the past toward the second round
You could be the reason
I won't carry on my legacy
You won't give special considerations to the hawks above
It's never going to be safe
I could stand outside the candy store all day and never get a sweet taste
You could stroll past ignoring me or hand me a stick of gum
I could tell the story of the gum man
Or how the hawk pecked out my eyes and flew away with a shiny wrapper
I ran toward the third round
Anything could be better
Unless you were lying
And none of the signs are about you
7. Chronogram magazine, September 2021
We Were Stupid
We didn't expect the levees to break
We thought the people would leave
We didn't expect the branches to snap
We thought the storm would pass
We didn't expect the gun to fire
We thought the safety was on
We didn't expect him to go in the school
We thought the door was locked
We didn't expect her to fall down the stairs
We thought someone would hold her hand
We didn't expect the plane to disappear
We didn't expect the market to crash
We didn't expect the baby to die
We didn't expect the cancer to spread
We didn't expect
We lived with our eyes facing in
We didn't want to know
8. “Dad’s Home” The Raven’s Perch, November 2021
Dad's Home
Crunch of tires on gravel
My sister and I lock eyes
Silently run and hide
In the darkest closet corner
Jingle of keys, click of the door
Tripping and grumbling
Too loudly a warning and a lie
The kids are playing quietly in their room
Heavy boots on stairs
Wide eyes in the blackness
She grabs my hand
He turns the other way
Little hearts heaving
Can we have a few more minutes?
Dinner! comes the call
9. “We Were Stupid” translated into Russian by Yana Kane-Esrig and
published in the journal A Day of Russian Diaspora Poetry.
10. “On the Balcony” The Sunlight Press (accepted May 2021; published January 2023)
On the Balcony
the moment when the haze
burns off
revealing the town across the bay
we need more of that, she says
clarity, the fog lifting, seeing the truth, I could go on, she says
she knows I’m lying
I know she knows but I burrow deeper into the haze
keep it foggy; I don’t want to be found out
she likes when she can see the tower and the dunes
she likes when the white houses and roofs come into focus
I like the mist and slate clouds
we read and talk and drink and dance on the lies
until it seems normal
she photographs the slow blush of sun dissolving
the violet splash to the silver
moon rising
tomorrow we will wake hungover
to dense fog and start again
11. The Raven’s Perch, March 19, 2024
Jupiter
A girl, a girl!
named Jupiter?
Already the infant has sucked
her snotty cousins into her wide-eyed web
They spin around her cooing
Her mother chooses a white dress
She lifts her girl to the sunlight
The baby kicks her sturdy legs
raises a right-handed fist giggles
The teacher notices fierce eagle resolve
in the tiny curly-haired girl
ringlets halo her face
She grabs all the blocks to herself
Bands of light follow her, unseen, pulling
bands of moon-faced girls into her orbit
She is the hot spot, unburned dazzling
She will collect lovers
stars in her celestial body
hoarding them in her heaven
letting them bask in her beams
Thunder bolts let loose
when she eclipses them
She is massive, god-mother
The children and their children cluster about her
They rest in her, baby birds in the ancient oak tree
whispering her name
Bowls and Bells
The gong gathers the listeners
deep into a lush forest
humid and overgrown
a simple teak temple
a sweet hooded monk
purposely taps the bronze bowl.
Resonant
the sound pulls and lulls
and surrounds and enters.
In Pisa, a bell is tolled once
silencing the gaping tourists.
It bounces and builds
around the Baptistry
lifting from the floor
into the dome
hovering
resonant prayers.
Laundry
The attic in my memory
smells of cedar and a musty
warmth even in winter
when we hang laundry
just my mom and me.
A rare time to be alone,
I clamber up the stairs that
frighten me going down.
I hand her
clothespins two at a time.
One pin held between her lips,
she secures a wet shirt.
I hover near her ankles
never near enough since
the baby arrived.
Mom doesn't sing;
we don't play any games.
She hangs shirts with precision.
I hand her clothespins, two at a time.
Aubade
Soft pink soon
overshadowed.
Strong sun now gleams against
the picture window framing
a doe drinking from the
pond reflecting the variegated sky.
My lover encircles
me with the smell of
sleep.
How does the doe sense this?
Ears pricked she
leaps out of the picture window
now reflecting
us reflecting
the morning.
We kiss.
12. "Don't Blink" Chronogram magazine, April, 2024
Don’t Blink
In the blink of its eye
cat pounces on mouse
swats, snubs, bats
--odd amusement.
Ancient feline impulses
snap the neck;
dead treasure lays at my feet.
In the
blink of
his eye
my lover won’t come home.
He chose the quiet car;
he will be struck first
train on car, neck snapped
twisted steel and fire.
No one to warm my feet.
In the blink
of an eye
my child is a man.
Tense chords define his neck,
Rock stares across silences until
rage and weeping snaps us to our feet.
In the blink of
my eye
there is a toddler howling
another suckling attached to
daughter-momma with puffy aching feet.
Blink and
I will twist my neck
over my shoulder to look away.
Chemical infusions, fire and ice, endless drip, drip.
At my feet lie memories.
- “The Clot”, Chronogram magazine, October 2014 (This poem has since been renamed "Stroke".)
The Clot
Unheralded,
the shark swims
up the bloodriver
The big man
fanged,
stem bitten.
Days pass before he
understands,
weeks before he walks,
months before he utters my name.
Circling,
the shark is undeterred.
The big man swims upstream
never quite arriving.
Fins brushing his legs.
2. Excerpts from “Lady Sings the Blues While Looking at National Geographic”, Drunk Monkeys online journal, October 2014 BY AMY GALLOWAY POETRY OCTOBER 6, 2014
LADY SINGS THE BLUES (WHILE LOOKING AT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
A pecha kucha inspired by Terrance Hayes’ interpretation of the form.
[High above Boston]
The men, of course, are
high above Boston, masters
of the roads, rulers of the bay.
I am in the city, lost among the bombs.
[Spirit Bear]
Oh great Spirit Bear,
claw your way into his sleep
rake his dreams with blood
clog his lungs with muddy leaves.
Oh, great Spirit Bear
[Mr. T’s Special Breakfast]
Shit, Mr. T. can eat any
thing, any damn thing.
I’m throwing two brown eggs
in the iron pan.
That’s it, two damn eggs, no toast.
© 2014 Amy Galloway
3. “Run, Run, Run”, Five 2 One online journal, February 2, 2016 (Sadly, this journal is not longer publishing.)
Run: April 15, 17, 20, 2013
Bombblasts in Boston
reverberate twice
deep into the earth
Those who can
run
Two brothers in the crowd
run
A boy watching his father
run
A girl, another girl,
Watching,
They will no longer
run
Across the land
bombsbursting in the West
a fertilized spark
a town rocked
The blast reverberates
There is no chance to
run
In rural China
a vibration deep below the
earthcrust rumbles
buildingbombs crush
no one can
run
The factory shakes
Then pancakes
At home
children will spill
onto the playground and
run run run run run
4. “Collided”, Drunk Monkeys online journal, November 2015
Collided
The season of our severance
I collided with myself
The cold hard truth ducking
under a shower of rice
Bitter lemonade
A summer under ice
Weeds dug in deeper
choking the lilies
Drowning in the pool
I crawled into the garden
Slept with the slugs
ate mud
In fall I fell
red maple and oak leaf
Dead spiders and acorns
inside a rotting pumpkin
I couldn't move
I missed you
5. "Cicadas”, Cicada Magazine, July/August 2016
Cicadas
The call and response
of cicadas
along a muggy country road
slows my rush home
like a dog I listen
my head hanging out the car window.
Little abdomens vibrating madly
an electric buzz fills the night
slow down, let me listen
to the mad yearning of time
running out.
I’ve been in the woods in winter
the only sound
a crack of branch breaking
the thud of limbs falling
the call of wind
the response of ice.
Give me the mad rubbing,
as summer draws in on itself
the thrumming of the cicada
calling out the last days
The response still humming.
6. “The Ghosts of Sicily”, “Pockets of Protection”, “Space-time”, and “Signs”, The Raven’s Perch online journal, December 2016
The Ghosts of Sicily
The ghosts of Sicily are rising again
Searching for me in the scorched hills
Slithering up the mountain from dusty hot graves
The donkey brays
They find me dreaming of Taormina
Tossed in sea-swept sleep
Smelling of Etna sulfur
Sliding on fire-licked lava
They speak Greek and broken dialect
They whisper you're crazy
They scream I hate you
A malocchio slips
Under the door
Crawls into a jacket pocket
Superstitious salt left decades ago stings and brings tears
I am safe for now
Among the ruined columns the conquered spirits swarm
Among the petrified corpses the angry phantoms
Prowl
A strega winks at me with a cloudy eye and knocks over the salt shaker
The ghosts of Sicily are howling again
Pockets of Protection
Salt in my pockets
deep in the crevices
each new coat christened
Grandma takes a handful
Tosses it in each fearful hole
Tosses some over her shoulder
Tosses a prayer to the saltgod.
In the dead of winter
deep in a snow bank
salty mittens, salty treasure
line the crevices of my pocket
Keeps the cold from killing
Keeps the white from blinding
Keeps the tongue lively
Sea salt nuggets
deep into my daughter's pocket
a new coat christened
white treasure in crevices to discover
Trace a salty path
Trace the superstitions
Traces of the old lady and her god.
Space-time
I didn't forget about wormholes even after we stopped talking about them
The kid sticking a pudgy finger in the cake frosting
wormhole
The tunnel under the river
The covered bridge
Wormholes both
The wail of the siren in the afternoon
The sluice of rain
The slide of snow
The fall down the stairs
Wormholes all
Spade in the earth making room for the seed
Blood through the vein
Air through the tube
Silent screams
Little worms wiggling toward the sun
Empty words
Garbage down the chute
Circular stairs to the top
Looking down into the wormhole
The fall from grace
The jump from the one hundred third floor
The last quiet breath
The cave in my heart
The shortcut connecting two separate points in space time
deep dark dank
indecisive on the edge
spiraling uncertainty
Signs
The signs point to you
As you run from the past toward the second round
You could be the reason
I won't carry on my legacy
You won't give special considerations to the hawks above
It's never going to be safe
I could stand outside the candy store all day and never get a sweet taste
You could stroll past ignoring me or hand me a stick of gum
I could tell the story of the gum man
Or how the hawk pecked out my eyes and flew away with a shiny wrapper
I ran toward the third round
Anything could be better
Unless you were lying
And none of the signs are about you
7. Chronogram magazine, September 2021
We Were Stupid
We didn't expect the levees to break
We thought the people would leave
We didn't expect the branches to snap
We thought the storm would pass
We didn't expect the gun to fire
We thought the safety was on
We didn't expect him to go in the school
We thought the door was locked
We didn't expect her to fall down the stairs
We thought someone would hold her hand
We didn't expect the plane to disappear
We didn't expect the market to crash
We didn't expect the baby to die
We didn't expect the cancer to spread
We didn't expect
We lived with our eyes facing in
We didn't want to know
8. “Dad’s Home” The Raven’s Perch, November 2021
Dad's Home
Crunch of tires on gravel
My sister and I lock eyes
Silently run and hide
In the darkest closet corner
Jingle of keys, click of the door
Tripping and grumbling
Too loudly a warning and a lie
The kids are playing quietly in their room
Heavy boots on stairs
Wide eyes in the blackness
She grabs my hand
He turns the other way
Little hearts heaving
Can we have a few more minutes?
Dinner! comes the call
9. “We Were Stupid” translated into Russian by Yana Kane-Esrig and
published in the journal A Day of Russian Diaspora Poetry.
10. “On the Balcony” The Sunlight Press (accepted May 2021; published January 2023)
On the Balcony
the moment when the haze
burns off
revealing the town across the bay
we need more of that, she says
clarity, the fog lifting, seeing the truth, I could go on, she says
she knows I’m lying
I know she knows but I burrow deeper into the haze
keep it foggy; I don’t want to be found out
she likes when she can see the tower and the dunes
she likes when the white houses and roofs come into focus
I like the mist and slate clouds
we read and talk and drink and dance on the lies
until it seems normal
she photographs the slow blush of sun dissolving
the violet splash to the silver
moon rising
tomorrow we will wake hungover
to dense fog and start again
11. The Raven’s Perch, March 19, 2024
Jupiter
A girl, a girl!
named Jupiter?
Already the infant has sucked
her snotty cousins into her wide-eyed web
They spin around her cooing
Her mother chooses a white dress
She lifts her girl to the sunlight
The baby kicks her sturdy legs
raises a right-handed fist giggles
The teacher notices fierce eagle resolve
in the tiny curly-haired girl
ringlets halo her face
She grabs all the blocks to herself
Bands of light follow her, unseen, pulling
bands of moon-faced girls into her orbit
She is the hot spot, unburned dazzling
She will collect lovers
stars in her celestial body
hoarding them in her heaven
letting them bask in her beams
Thunder bolts let loose
when she eclipses them
She is massive, god-mother
The children and their children cluster about her
They rest in her, baby birds in the ancient oak tree
whispering her name
Bowls and Bells
The gong gathers the listeners
deep into a lush forest
humid and overgrown
a simple teak temple
a sweet hooded monk
purposely taps the bronze bowl.
Resonant
the sound pulls and lulls
and surrounds and enters.
In Pisa, a bell is tolled once
silencing the gaping tourists.
It bounces and builds
around the Baptistry
lifting from the floor
into the dome
hovering
resonant prayers.
Laundry
The attic in my memory
smells of cedar and a musty
warmth even in winter
when we hang laundry
just my mom and me.
A rare time to be alone,
I clamber up the stairs that
frighten me going down.
I hand her
clothespins two at a time.
One pin held between her lips,
she secures a wet shirt.
I hover near her ankles
never near enough since
the baby arrived.
Mom doesn't sing;
we don't play any games.
She hangs shirts with precision.
I hand her clothespins, two at a time.
Aubade
Soft pink soon
overshadowed.
Strong sun now gleams against
the picture window framing
a doe drinking from the
pond reflecting the variegated sky.
My lover encircles
me with the smell of
sleep.
How does the doe sense this?
Ears pricked she
leaps out of the picture window
now reflecting
us reflecting
the morning.
We kiss.
12. "Don't Blink" Chronogram magazine, April, 2024
Don’t Blink
In the blink of its eye
cat pounces on mouse
swats, snubs, bats
--odd amusement.
Ancient feline impulses
snap the neck;
dead treasure lays at my feet.
In the
blink of
his eye
my lover won’t come home.
He chose the quiet car;
he will be struck first
train on car, neck snapped
twisted steel and fire.
No one to warm my feet.
In the blink
of an eye
my child is a man.
Tense chords define his neck,
Rock stares across silences until
rage and weeping snaps us to our feet.
In the blink of
my eye
there is a toddler howling
another suckling attached to
daughter-momma with puffy aching feet.
Blink and
I will twist my neck
over my shoulder to look away.
Chemical infusions, fire and ice, endless drip, drip.
At my feet lie memories.