A Cursed Place
The topography
of isolation
is stone,
is time,
that fall
from the luminous
to a land of exclusion,
the ground damned.
~ An erasure poem composed from page 22 of The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort, 1919
When we lose someone
the self becomes fragile—
a gossamer wing.
Find the fountain
of beauty recurring
in the edges, the ribs,
the muscles of perception
which radiate power.
~ An erasure poem composed from page 47 of Line and Form by Walter Crane, 1900
A Way to Live
Surrender
to cellular wonder,
the nexus to fields
of vision,
to be able to see
vast worlds adrift
in tides and currents—
bodies hypnotic.
~ An erasure poem composed from page 184 of The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort, 1919
Karen George’s photographs appear in Dos Madres Press’ River Anthology Riparian, 3 Elements Review, and on covers of the following books: Time and Distance, Frame and Mount the Sky, and Touchstones. She is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), and forthcoming Caught in the Trembling Net (2024). She won Slippery Elm’s 2022 Poetry Contest, and her short story collection, How We Fracture, which won the Rosemary Daniell Fiction Prize, was released from Minerva Rising Press in January 2024. Her writing appears in Adirondack Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Salamander, and Sheila-Na-Gig. Visit her website at: https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/.