This is Pilgrim’s page featuring poetry success in 2025.
Seven Pilgrim poems have been accepted or published thus far.
The latest one accepted is “Facts worth knowing” by Jeopardy Magazine.
Before, “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 in April — and will be posted here soon after.
“Sploot,” published by The Bond Street Review , can now be found below as can “Cookies of shame,” published by Mad Swirl.
Some 2025 poems will appear below later than others if the accepting journal has an embargo that delays poem 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)
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 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)