Laura Turnbull
~
Writer

Laura Turnbull ~ WriterLaura Turnbull ~ WriterLaura Turnbull ~ WriterLaura Turnbull ~ Writer
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Laura Turnbull
~
Writer

Laura Turnbull ~ WriterLaura Turnbull ~ WriterLaura Turnbull ~ Writer
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • Poetry
  • Coaching and Tutoring
  • About Me
  • Favorites
  • Contact

selected poetry

You can find more poems on my Instagram @short_longhand

Go to Laura's Instagram
Read my poem "Sunday" in Swwim every day

the oracle's Daughter

After William Stafford, “COMING BACK”


My father, for a living, saw into people’s souls.

What I do is more like shell-game

discernment. I signed on to his tenderness but not

the oracle-ness, the soothing-saying of his,

“you are this, and you are beautiful and whole.”


You are wholly beautiful. And this,

the oracle-ness of saying it, this soothing

discernment is not tenderness. I signed on to his

shell game, more like what I do

for a living - my father saw into people’s souls.

four haiku

packaging

wrap the mugs with care

she loved them all equally

even the cracked ones


relics

butterflies and birds

in paintings of sad children

live longer than you


you

laughed all the way down

the stairs of our shared castle

just to dance with me


damages

give me a number

in terms of encumbrances

that I will avenge

perspective

perspective

perspective

 I imagine there’s a heavy

old door that opens

only with force, especially 

in the rainy season

when it swells tighter

and refuses.


I imagine it’s stained

dark black-brown and holds 

scars and splinters of

old paint from a hasty

restoration and a glass-diamond 

knob and hinges that shed 

flakes of red rust.


I imagine there’s a light

under the door and

that like in the movies

we’re leaning on either side

of it, bracing, listening hard.


I imagine I ask you things

and I feel your tender,

noble rebuffs coming through 

the door like a song, in stanzas,

hushed tones, unrhymed.

perspective

perspective

I imagine someone made 

this door by hand 

a hundred years ago, and 

I’m reminded that 

I’m most 

at home surrounded by 

the sure, sturdy persistence 

of old wood.  


I imagine that I can always 

push away from the door - 

retreat to a hearth 

and a good chair and build 

a faulty fire of hickory, 

underseasoned, that pops  

like a sprung latch.   


I imagine taking a chance  

to trust the peace and  

silence that surrounds me - 

I imagine that from where  

I sit I can still see a sharp  

channel of light under the door 

and I can feel the rain 

starting up again. 

dry January

Preselected words that follow a cry 

come out smoother, much more believable  


after whiskey, making satisfied sounds. 

The moment of reset feels right. Unwound,  


blunted, a positive emerges: clear 

plans that appeal to surprise. A softer  


kind of thwarting, this decision matters 

more than others. Sitting still with precise  


thoughts strikes me as manageable. Now, more 

than yesterday, solitude means something 


has gone right. Well done, well said: tolerate 

these pauses, I challenge, don’t fill them. Take  


stock only sometimes. Do not spar with your 

own breath just to make rent. Notice that rocks  


change color, the lemon tree is budding, 

the bass still waits in the corner, untuned.  


Time can be carved now - wisdom tapped. Offload 

probability that solves for weakness.  


As you listen, filter for resonance. 

Your own voice never sounds like you expect. 

twenty-two roses

for the University of Utah football team 

and the memory of Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe  


Bring roses in red boxes, for mother’s arms 

for the bond, for the blood of youth

red as their numbered days, for September 

and December, for young brothers.  


Bring roses for the jump, for the lights, 

for the MUSS, for mili in the endzone -  

thundering through grievous thorns, 

let love bleed. Look up, and out, and roar.  


Bring roses for the champions of sharp sorrow 

for jubilant redress in the bright desert - 

renew pride and wonder for these brothers - 

hold them in favor, for home, for family.  


Bring roses for hardy Utah men, brothers a

nd coaches and fathers and captains - 

adorn Mesquite arbors, plant vast gardens 

of grief and absence and legacy and joy.   


Bring roses in procession, in tight rows 

horse-drawn and regal, befitting survival - 

let them celebrate with roses in their teeth -  

with laurels of crimson that fade, but never die. 

leave it

i picked this for you

i picked this for you

rondelet


Leave it right there.

Let those be the last words you said:

leave it right there,

then go in silence - anywhere 

but here and now. Don’t pull the thread;

no tenderness, no qualms - instead,

leave it right there.

i picked this for you

i picked this for you

i picked this for you

She said picked flowers die faster 

and that water isn’t enough - 

that I must let them live in rough 

dirt. She admonished: my aster, 

once purple, would die, disaster 

in my hand and my heart. I lied, 

excused - she mustn’t know I cried 

to grasp my gift of death displeased. 

Dull words - amends - I posed, then seized - 

I quit that ground, unseen, denied. 

how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth

how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth

how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth


You must move to the crumbled curb

where the streetlight is brightest.

Look up at the spiraling swarm -

follow the flight of the one that falls.

fallow verses

how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth

how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth

There’s the one about a dog

sleeping behind a wood stove


an elegy to Mother’s lost

and dissonant Silent Night


opening lines about how cold

it is without you beside me


a couplet for a child’s chagrin

when icicles taste like dirt


the draft of a harsh sonnet

featuring frostbite and hunger


idle portraits in quatrains

of unrelenting, bitter chill


scrappy stanzas wrapped in wool:

a winter night watch biding time

memory

how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth

inclination

A smattering of wishes

hovered there, straight-backed,

on principle, poised equally

between latent prospects

and all of my future: I chose.


That same close afternoon

I found diamonds in the dryer

that I forgot I owned. Our back

porch steps were stones too.

Indivisible - the mind’s eye -

unreliable, indelible. Isn’t it?

inclination

vision board: home

inclination

Depleted,

dented, and spent,

I change my mind

in a hurry.

Gratified - 

not satisfied -

still, it’s not that

it didn’t sting

or tickle -

just that I won’t

stand for torment

that doesn’t heal.


vision board: home

vision board: home

vision board: home

There should always be a fireplace

  that knows how I take my coffee

A chair that listens and nods along

I’ll need plenty of paper and pillows, and 

  if possible, a screen door that inspires

  a reluctant front porch swing 

A window over the kitchen sink that 

  tolerates awkward pauses

And a vase of pink roses that 

  doesn’t mind if I wander off

I’d like to have a drawer or two 

  that can stay quiet for a while

A closet big enough for rage

A room for music, beauty, and age

And one small shelf for regret.

it's not enough

vision board: home

vision board: home

rondeau


It’s not enough - a house with air.

Invite the dirt, and leave it there.

   Emancipate the child’s excess  -

   all joyful splotches, every mess

in candy-coated disrepair.


Let tiny palms hold worlds, and tear

apart what they’ve assembled. Rare -

   these sweetest days, without redress.

It’s not enough.


An instant twinkles past, then where

it travels next, we do not dare

   conceive. Inside of our best guess

   we breathe our air, we whisper yes,

for one more footprint on the stair - 

It’s not enough.

Copyright © 2023 Laura Turnbull - Writer - All Rights Reserved.

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