Wendy Videlock



Wendy Videlock is an American poet who lives in Western Colorado with her husband and two children. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Rattapallax, Measure, Redivider, Ale House Press, Smartish Pace, Zone 3, Rattle, and other literary journals. Her chapbook What's That Supposed to Mean will be released in the fall, and one of her poems will appear in an upcoming column of American Life in Poetry.



A Word on Verbs

It's often those
who talk a streak

on world affairs
and love and peace

who seem to love
and peace the least.

Originally published in Poetry



The Owl

Beneath her nest
a shrew’s head,
a finch’s beak
and the bones
of a quail attest

the owl devours
the hour,
and disregards
the rest.

Originally published in Poetry



To Hell with Spring

for J

To hell with spring. It's all too much.
The daffodils and bleating sheep,
those fragile infant roots that clutch
the earth, then stack their little hopes
on pastel skies and budding leaves.

To hell with it. It's just too much.
Spring has no time for fallen things.
September is the time for touch.
A touch of gold. A touch of cold.
A touch of truth. No promisings.



Winter Cracked Open

Winter cracked open,
there lay spring,
soft colored thing.
Take me, she said,
swallow me whole.

And summer did.

Summer burst open,
there was autumn,
audacious thing.
Watch me, she said.
Just watch me fall.

And winter did.

Published in Blue Unicorn



Pattern

The arms and legs
of two, entwined,
over time, declined,
by one or the other
becomes in time,
a wistful thing.
Later, unraveled
by wistful things,
when one or the other
cries for the other,
yet
another comes
to forever the
entwining. (And though
the twine may look
the same, the arms
and legs do alter.)



I Know You, Sister

I know you, sister.
You're the one
who runs and runs.

And you as well,
mountain woman,
you speak the tongue;

your daughter is
the weightless one.
White witch, bright queen,

I too have held
a box of stones
and called it gold.

Blue dreamer,
wife of mist,
I've slept your sleep,

I've kissed your kiss.
Man of blindness,
man in the moon.

Alas, alas. I am you too.