my scrawl

Open the fold where my scrawl falls
beneath its shadowed caul
uncontrolled and unopposed.
It covets chaos
stirring currents through my sternum.

It wants to feel your heat.

Brenda Warren 2020




Our love is a nest of twigs
intricately woven
where secrets whisper
in dark spaces and

we giggle

we find each other
in coins on the side of the road


Self Portrait as Cinderella

It’s time to dress for the ball!
My grandmother’s backless dress
beckons with cascades of tulle
in buttery yellow sheets.

Its underdress brushes warmth
with satin against my skin
And then, my prince waltzes in.
His fingers trace the path of
the labyrinth tat on my back.

Our eyes meet in the mirror
where he gestures with his head.
There’s a gift beneath the bed.

From beneath the bed I pull
a pair of lemon slippers,
jeweled flats that flatter my dress.
They find my feet. I love them.

He offers a hand in dance
our bodies pull us to trance
Balls can(‘t) wait, it’s not too late.
Fade to music twisting sheets.



For this piece I followed the early bird prompt at NaPo. To give myself some parameters, I made every line 7 syllables (if you say jeweled as one syllable). The rhythm feels choppy and odd in some places, but it was fun to write.

Something Sacred Fills Our Sway

For Len

Your touch ripples me liquid
Swelling tides within
As whispers of miracles
Drop like pins
Summoning angels
Dancing a trance

Water moves through our low spots
Surging sighs
That ebb our flow
Until shores reemerge
Spent with foam
And soft sweet sleep
Evens our tide

Brenda Warren 2017


Visit The Sunday Whirl

Sex Poem

Brief me erotic with endless grace.
Feed my roots.
Fill me until empty threads itself gone.

We speak of starlings
dancing murmurations
moving through us
rare and rendered sacred.

Beneath Pandora’s shadowed sky
we claim witness.
Brief me erotic
plant your secrets ‘tween my thighs.

Brenda Warren 2016


Visit The Sunday Whirl

Morning’s Mirror

Morning sighs its arrival
breathing sleep aside.
Denying her charms
you slumber,
holy in repose.

Silent, I watch
as the dog curls into your side
nuzzling the last of night
beside you.

Shifting my weight, I rise,
turning to your form’s reflection,
barely perceptible in dawn’s
tenuous light.

I stand here watching
until color chimes its way
through the blinds,
urging your departure,
while I imprint morning’s mirror
in my mind.

Brenda Warren 2015


Today’s prompt asks for an aubade, a form that explores lovers’ morning farewells.

We am

The tongues of angels clatter against
ten thousand stolen beginnings
fluttering syllables like wings gone
wild, until letters float like
feathers through
my dreams. Reminding sleep you
nestle next to me.

We end our day in silent
reverie, like spoons of primal
clay merged in a single am, filled
with shards of marmalade and jam.

Brenda Warren 2015


The prompt:

Love poems are a staple of the poetry scene. It’s pretty hard to be a poet and not write a few – or a dozen – or maybe six books’ worth. But because so many love poems have been written, there are lots of clichés. Fill your poems with robins and hearts and flowers, and you’ll sound more like a greeting card than a bard. So today, I challenge you to write a “loveless” love poem. Don’t use the word love! And avoid the flowers and rainbows.

I also used words from a previous Sunday Whirl.



There’s a crack in everything
that’s how the light gets in
– Leonard Cohen

Soil me.

Let your magic hair tickle secrets from my thighs,
as you sing our ragged future through my soul.
There’s no turning back (you fine furry fuck).

You are my man. My sorcerer.
Majestic, you move through the crack in my everything.
That’s how your light gets in.
That’s how you help me breathe.

Your fingers move through the spaces of my bones
as you shoulder loose the gloaming of another well-lived day.

You are it for me, my LaLa.
If only you were home tonight,
connecting constellations
for the monkey on my back,
balancing a lotus act
along its crooked track.

Brenda Warren 2014


Written for Elizabeth’s Day 2 prompt.


Bird Woman Falls is Weeping



Bird Woman Falls is Weeping

As light bends shadowed lanes across glacial faces,
my insignificance tumbles thoughts of self
through the hollow bones of birds
that hop in puddles through highway tunnels.

Unstable walls of ice edge stretches of the road,
forcing fallen streams of winter across our drive.

Beyond the vast and wild expanse,
Bird Woman Falls weeps showers of diamonds
over stone cliffs into a small steep meadow,
a glittering emerald island,
greened by melting glaciers
that carve a hanging valley
to feed Bird Woman’s flow.

The highway pivots mountains left and right,
a dizzying dazzling retreat for cars Going to the Sun
to bear witness to Bird Woman’s weeping
on this road that bridges canyons to heaven.

Brenda Warren 2013


Visit The Sunday Whirl