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Best Poems Written by Kathleen Austin

Below are the all-time best Kathleen Austin poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

The Inevitable Arctic - Fragmented Verse

Half a year ago we were in bed and in love.
Insistent lips danced between sunshine smiles. 
                          Our hands entwined;
                            the clock’s marched.
		 
Beside dreams of a white dress and honey kisses,
my winter coat now withers on the floor. 
The tundra of cold sheets between us grows
while echoes of bitter words chap my face.

        We both know that seasons must change,
        but why must you too, my darling?

                          Love, like summer,
                            succumbs to time.

2/25/2021-- written for Emile Pinet's contest-- fragmented verse

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

The Vipress

My scales are stars gleaming in the water. 
My body is the river you cannot cross. 
I am massive. I am the moon. 
I will not shrink or shirk 
away the love you made me fearful of. 

I shed this skin you once peppered with adoration.  
I’m perhaps larger, but more beautiful,
more powerful than before. 
I am without you. 

I am not fashioned of your rib, no, it’s
parthenogenesis; I birthed my own self. 
I never needed you 
or the silver words of deceitful lips. 
I am the decider of destiny. 
I am not afraid. I’m oiled with venom of my own. 
I am God. I rule this life and you
cannot take my garden away from me.

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

Pluto - a Pleiades

“Planet” of the distant
past, now considered too
petite for the title.
Pray, don’t you despair now.
Pirouette though pitch void,
pretty as always, for
perhaps our minds will change.

4/11/2021. Written for Kim Merryman's "Pleiades P" contest. 1st prize.

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

Quarks - a Pleiades

Quickly, dear scientists!
quest after their secrets!
Quench curious scholars'
queries before these motes,
quarrelsome particles,
quietly die in the
quantum cosmos beyond.

a "Q" pleiades

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

Serpent - a Pleiades

Somewhere through Eden’s leas
skulks our forgotten foe.
Seraph of God, now a
slithering trickster who
swayed Eve to taste vile fruit.
Salvation fell away;
sin dwells in mankind’s heart.

4/21/2021. Written for Kim Merryman's Pleiades S contest.

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

Coffee Date

A spoonful of substance—
that’s all I’m looking for. 
Stir it in while it’s hot. 
Let it dissolve and
rest until it’s tepid. 
Saccharine black?
Drink up. Dry. 

Granules cluster the bottom of the mug
and bitterness lingers on my tongue.

I’ve fooled myself again.

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

My Old Friend Longing

Matt asks me how you are
and I’m reminded of a life I almost lived:
the one where I’d know the answer. 

Here she comes gliding back. 
She sits on my chest,
runs her hands down my throat.
Her fist white, my dead fish tongue greying 
with an unutterable apology. 

I lean into her grip. I don’t 
know how to set myself free in the end.

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

Ocean - a Pleiades

Over pelagic reefs,
oscillating waters
obfuscate sunken fetes. 
Octopi tango while
oarfish flash titian fins. 
Opulent paradise:
oblivious to us. 

4/5/21 - written for Kim Merryman's "Pleiades O" poetry contest - 1st place

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

People Talk

Kristin says he wasn’t good enough for me. 
Kristin tells Andrew she loves him in front of me. 
Kristin wishes Andrew was more thoughtful. 
Kristin says nobody is ever enough, anyways.

Katie says I can do better. 
Katie says Jackson is perfect for her.
Katie likes to fix things: 
problems with no solution. 

Anna doesn’t care about anything. Anna says I need to let go. 
My friends from home agree, say it’s time to forget. 
Kathryn says I need to love myself first. But
Kathryn says love isn’t real.
Lane says it’s going to be okay. I say it’s not. 
Christy and Julie and Ansley and Bailey say nothing.
Carson says I talk about him too much. 
Carson says I talk too much. 

Everyone wants to tell me something
of their own but I just want 
somebody to admit to me 
the capital T 
Truth. 

That some small part of me 
will always be the child 
who cried on the first day of kindergarten
then pressed her white oval nose
tight to the car window
as she rounded out of the carpool lane. 
The child who begged for more
when life promised it would hurt me.

Details | Kathleen Austin Poem

A Photograph of Us

A photograph of us: we are blushing
in your bathroom mirror, your body wrapped
around mine. A blanket. A tattoo
needled in. Your beaming chin in my hair. 
You, promising marital bliss. 
How could you be so lovely?

A photograph of us: 106 miles apart. 
Me, wrapped in fading amaranth sheets that now 
call to mind evisceration. 
You, ripping up wilting notes I wrote to you
til their worthlessness disgusts you. 
How could you?