Francine Walls

The shrine within me. Dew on the blades of grass shines on my dream lake. A feather drifts by, aimless wanderer stop here. Oh, it is a...

the dead must be washed, every part, to stand before God clean. Hands bound, feet bound, the child lies on the ground, the skull too big...

held by his feet, upside-down, slapped, pinched into that first cry, his first breath angry, the mother unconscious, gutted on the table,...

“king of the gods” in high school, caped with scepter in hand, a gentle smile, the basketball star in our tiny world, at 21, a lieutenant...

look carefully around, then worry. It can scuttle over land. Longer than a car, it squeezes  through an orange-size hole.  The beak?  In...

our aged container of our times together in prayer, sermon, song both in joy and in sorrow. We have gathered here for years, over...

all the contemplation a meditation within all turned inward, a divina lectio. She said, everything we do must be spiritual, bloom with...

a woman straightens the chair on the patio outside her room. Her Easter lily, parched, sits untended, one bloom left. As I pass she says,...

who could not be her body magical as fog rising in wisps among the grasses playing dress-up laughing wrapping herself in parachute silk...

and studying Chaucer in Swansea with students from Llanelli or Carmarthen or Merthyr Tydfil, I would hear the cleaning woman who chatted...

I am turned to ash I want you knowing that I hear your footfalls in the ancient forest, the scream of hawks, the water crazy-mad flowing...

The drums come from the back of the band the rhythm Jamaican the poet drifts to the microphone: “I killed a cowboy today I didn’t...

Ignition on, the key worn down almost straight now, on the dashboard, a pack of Camels lying on maps among rock samples and tufts of...

tosses off colors, swirling, a flutterance – no thought of loss or want or farewell, brilliance for a shilling or a dime or naught...