the days my daddy died
My father was a handsome, intelligent, charming and troubled man. I didn’t know he was a covert narcissist until I began writing Betrayed: Inside a Pathological Love Relationship in early…
which is more exciting? giving birth or being born?
I was born at 0600 PST on January 28, 1956. I turn sixty-five today January 28, 2021. It seems like yesterday and several lifetimes ago that I was turning six….
i’ll be glad when christmas is over
I wrote the poem below in December 2017, a little over a year after my mom died. I’m republishing it in December 2020, when, like many others, I again find…
the awning
The first time it was clear to me that I was not part of my own family was the summer of 2005, six months after Bobby and I had…
even in prison there’s space between the bars
quarantine a short poem by punkie quarantine fearful others choke and smother the right to seek and find destroy fine art and break our hearts with…
beware the charming king of swords and his evil pair of queens
a nurse her re rhyme ©2015 by punkie the king is in the parlour, pissed off at his sister the queens are in the pantry finding ways to…
I Found the Future in a Brown Paper Bag
Of these four, which one doesn’t fit: rug, egg, drum, sex? I remember the question. I remember the answer. But I’ll be damned if I remember the rest of the…
You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings
“DITTO!” was all it took to bring tears to me eyes. You wouldn’t think one word at the end of a tweet from someone you don’t “know,” retweeted by someone…
15 Empowering Things to Tell Your Kids (and Yourself)
In the summer of 2012, I was cracking up (not in a good way). I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I did both. Often. And intensely. Things…
Life Breaks My Heart
Life breaks my heart. There it is land-sliding Down my lover’s shoulders When we discover death in the backyard. Life dissolves my heart. There it is flowing in the river Of…