A Good Kiss

Image of the Day: The dark ducks fluttering in the cloudy morning early November, black shadows in gray sky.

I'm not being very successful keeping this blog updated. This blog, like my poetry, happens sporadically, I guess. Yesterday, I received two rejections, which brings my grand total for the year up to 58. I'm really hoping I can get into the mid-sixties by the year's end, but we'll see. I think I got 6 poem packets accepted, so that's on par for my usual stats. I will be attempting a Poem of the Day in December and January, when things are quieter for me. I did one in October and got a handful of poems, but not much.

I do have a few Origin Poems out. One is here in Mom Egg Review. Two others are in Lily Poetry Review, a new-ish print journal, which I'll add here. Not the best picture.

Here's a poem from Verse Daily by Amie Whittmore. 

Kissing Meditation

        —after Adam Phillips

If kissing is the mouth's elegy
to itself, let me always mourn:

at dawn, when sleep frosts lips;
at noon, mouths indiscreet

as unlocked rooms, or at dusk,
lips two fading fires

quenched by each other.
Best, perhaps, midnight's kiss,

redolent with dream-craft,
or those drunken tongues

sloppy in their tangos.
There's bitter plum

of last kiss, unknown until
it's past, half kiss and sly kiss,

clumsy firsts and toothy
near-misses, forgotten ones

floating back unexpectedly
like snapped water lilies—

mouths cannot be tamed
and thankfully so.

No kiss completes.
Multiple as self,

they abate narrative.
Lawless, we unfold.

If you've enjoyed this poem, you might want to check out A Constellation of Kisses, edited by Diane Lockward. It would make a great Christmas present for someone, well, pretty much everyone, I think. Who doesn't want a good kiss?