This is Pilgrim’s page featuring the published and accepted poetry of 2025.
The lastest poem added is “Sploot,” accepted by The Bond Street Review in fall of 2024 and published February 2025.
Three other poems have been accepted in 2025 — the first, “No winter picnic,” by High on Adventure.
Mad Swirl then chose “Cookies of shame,” and Explorations, an online journal of the Climate Psychology Alliance claimed “Sea ceremony,” which will be posted here after it appears in Explorations.
Each poem accepted or published in 2025 is featured below — unless the accepting journal has an embargo, which delays that poem from appearing here for a specified amount of time.
This page features accompanying art, mostly watercolors by the late Mary Dale (photographed by the late Bud Dale), but photos and photo-illustrations by Pilgrim and Carolyn Dale and others are also included.
Thanks for visiting this site — enjoy these poems!
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)
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)
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)