This Pilgrim page features poems accepted or published thus far in 2025 — a total of eight.
The latest ones accepted are “Fitted sheets” by Hawaii Pacific Review and “Facts worth knowing” by Jeopardy Magazine.
Just prior, “No breath drawn” was chosen again by Whatcom Watch to be published in an upcoming issue.
High on Adventure, an online travel and adventure magazine published “Back” at the beginning of March — and accepted “Montana absolution, of a kind” for its May/June issue.
Explorations, an online journal of the Climate Psychology Alliance, has chosen “Sea ceremony,” which is slated to appear soon — and will be posted here afterward.
Also, two bonuses for 2025 — “Trinity remorse,” which was accepted Fall 2024 by Here: a poetry journal and under embargo until the print editon appeared — and “No red books,” accepted Fall 2024 and printed in March 2025 by Whatcom Writes Anthology.
Two other poems, “Sploot,” in The Bond Street Review, and “Cookies of shame,” in Mad Swirl, both published earlier this year, are below as well.
Other 2025 poems may be included later if the accepting journals have an embargo that delays publishing for a specified amount of time.
All Pilgrim’s poetry pages feature accompanying art, mostly watercolors by the late Mary Dale (photographed by the late Bud Dale), but also photos and photo-illustrations by Pilgrim and Carolyn Dale and others.
Thanks for visiting — enjoy these poems!
Back
Sundown, mom waits with fawns,
knows I will cave, open the gate.
Permit her inside again, twins,
safe. It’s a matter of trust —
they totter, can’t leap the high fence,
escape. She found her own life here
amid ferns, behind snowberry
under the fir. Stood wobbly,
shivered under her mom.
I’ve said many goodbyes
to sorrel, anemone, laurel, rose.
She reclines, ears up, chews,
closes doe eyes. Fawns frolic
in nasturtium, feast on astilbe
jump arugula, leeks, beets. Finally,
they settle, sleep. It’s summer,
light fades around nine.
I’ll latch them in, from the night.
(published by High on Adventure)
Cookies of shame
Lying there blotched, chunky, flawed,
hideous bumps sticking up.
The disfigured, cowering among
the perfect. Sad testimony
to carelessness in shaping,
failed fecundation — or worse.
I sense warmth, fervor,
desperate desire for touch,
nibble, tongue, lips.
Karma seems to be saying
eat the ugliest ones first.
(published by Mad Swirl)
Facts worth knowing
Our last big clash, why affection
for anyone other than ourselves
withers as we flow toward death.
Lost somewhere, the truth
about the void between us,
complicated by iced silence,
mostly mine. Whereas, it’s a fact
to banish rats, use pounded glass
splashed with dry corn meal.
Not enough to apologize — instead,
I offer a saying, boiled walnut bark
can darken eyebrows gone from gray
to white. And so, the day turns bad,
divides itself, bringing sundown closer,
faster, the finish depending on upset
sealing off each heart. Matters not
if a hot iron will soften putty,
unlike anger, easily lift it away.
Contempt pulses, ebbs. Love splits,
often jaggedly, but hardly ever
in half. To repair the ending,
I must first find one small tear.
(accepted by Jeopardy Magazine)
Fitted sheet
We’re making the bed
after the night of failure
not that it’s always like that.
But it does happen
sometimes, given my age
and I wonder if it’s even possible
to fold a fitted sheet
shrunken, wrinkled, sad.
By the time it’s stretched out
all corners finally tucked
we’re both sweating, staring
at each other across the void
of taut whiteness
her with the two firm pillows
me, alone with the comforter
almost all down.
(accepted by Hawaii Pacific Review)
No breath drawn
Darkness separates Dipper handles,
until now allowed no stars —
not even pristine planets dolloped out
as shiny buoys. Suddenly, light
intent on us — kin in our own way
in mid-gorge. Burning white in black sky,
shooting toward our carnage.
We pause, still hungry, no breath drawn.
A few look up, kindle distress signals,
small campfires lit with flint
in high Salish meadows,
await the bright molten accretion,
new to deceit, lies, greed.
They fish, pan-fry rainbowed despair,
lie back, wait to be embraced
as naive aftermath streaks home.
(accepted by Whatcom Watch)
No red books
Montana, me a teen, summer day,
studied ritual of bloodiness I hate.
In my memory — big sky, dawn,
family up, everything prepped near shed.
Roosters, hens, feet clenched, peck
a pattern, cluck a collective cluck
when shooed near the chopping block.
Dad, ax, Mom, gutting-knife, sis,
scalding-tub. My job — stretch out
the neck, hold firm with stick, deflect
each gold-eyed stare a bit.
Swift chop, head lopped off,
chicken freed to circle-prance,
dance, spray the wet grass red.
Guts gone, birds get dunked,
plucked, singed, packed to freeze.
Last gash left behind, queasy,
I bike to town, weave the streets,
rest in shade, quiet as required,
on library steps. A shaken guest,
I try to erase my blood-geysered day.
Inside, find books, books, books —
also silent, roosting on shelves.
Unblemished, at peace, entrails intact,
eager to be read.
(published in Whatcom Writes Anthology)
No winter picnic
Camping date, iced gusts sweep in,
smoke follows beauty, I say.
You smile, stomp out cold, twirl
and spin. I coax fire to life,
twigs grow bright, subside, die
to glow. I blow coals back
from black, make flames rise,
spit. You whirl past, flash
a grin — slip away, too fast,
me, too slow. Just then,
a branch of snow lets go.
(published by High on Adventure)
Sploot
Squirrels do it, so do cats.
Lie face down in extreme heat,
limbs spread wide, bellies flat.
Black holes find each other, dance,
send gravity waves through fabric
of the universe. Squirrels try to cool,
survive, revive at night, hope never
to sploot again. Black holes swirl,
collide, unite, take a few galaxies
into oblivion with them. Scientists
wait breathless at telescopes,
eager to witness the final moans.
I lie naked on my back, alone,
sweat, ignore noise next door.
Nothing rises into the black.
(published by The Bond Street Review)
Trinity remorse
First atomic blast, story buried
deep, page six, the Times.
Orange flash goes red, yellow,
gray. Shroom cloud seven miles high,
sand melts green to glass.
Bunkered generals, still as desert rats,
whistle, cheer, break into wild dance,
keep out of mind the aftermath.
Land called desolate, uninhabited —
shameful lie. Thirteen thousand souls
with homes, quiet lives until ten pounds
of plutonium rain down. Hot ash
coats cows, goats, their milk aglow.
Corn, beans, peas, dusted too. Silent death
blown layered-in on fatal winds.
Sickness, suffering, painful ends.
No remorse, no apology.
No sorry for pain, short lives
for you, your children, their kids too.
Trinity shame — it still remains.
(published by Here: a poetry journal)