Tag Archives: Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis

J E T T Y

At moon high tide

I run off the end of the silvered dock

Phosphorous confounds inverted eyes

wanting to grasp something more

than air can offer

to sustain this body sinking

into black mollusk mud

and transparent jelly fish.

Jessan Dunn Otis (c) 1985

From the unpublished manuscript MIGRATIONS OF THE HEART

Reconfiguring

Since May 21, 1996, I’ve marketed myself as an independent, freelance writer/editor, collaborating with some amazing clients. To them, as always and again, many thanks for trusting me.

It’s true, from time to time, I did my own work. Not enough, however.

After twenty-seven (27) years it’s time to reconfigure.

Going forward I’ll be focusing more on my work that has laid dormant or ignored too long.

This is my path. Not to walk it is unconscionable.

#DanceOn…

DISSOLVE

As when you touch yourself for the first

     time inside and out

Or when you have left without saying goodbye

     for the last time and you do not know it yet

Like walking into a dark room where everything

     is known and you are excited that

     something alive and beautiful will brush

     your face

Or I am the long tree whose branches

     move gently wild from the wind

     and leave marks on your face

     that you will remember when you dream

     and you will go back to stare for days

     until your eyes ache

Like arms that nobody who has ever loved you

    has had before or has held you more strong

    than you will ever be held again

And you will weep because you know that

    that is true.

(c) Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis – 1985/1987 – CQ, California State Poetry Quarterly, Spring-Summer 1987, Volume 14, Number 1, p.11. 

GREAT AUNT JESSIE – poem

, or we don’t talk to the ones

who

know and survive

          It is past time

          to call you back again

          The old ones are dead

Like water bright

in the eye

           The brush of memory is too wide

           And the surface is shimmered and wrong

Long afternoons listening

to the old woman about 

her old women

           The algae of remembering obscures

Again and again.

Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis  © 1985

A new spin on K.I.S.S. ~ essay

A new spin on K.I.S.S. ~ essay

Sitting in my science class in junior high school, my desk was at the back of the room, situated to look down one of those long hall ways.

Someone was out of class and shouted out, “You’re stupid!” to someone I couldn’t see. That echoed ’round that long, empty hallway and smacked me right in my gut.  What an ugly word to shout at someone.

Years later someone shared K.I.S.S. with me and there was that ugly word again.  Despicable.

I’d have none of that.

From that time forward I changed that last “S” to “Sweetie”.  So much better.

Words have power.  They can heal or they hurt.

Mind what flows through your lips.  You are responsible for what you speak and what you don’t speak.

K(eep) I(t) S(imple) S(weetie).

K.I.S.S.

~~~~~

 

May 1, 2017 – #poem

May 1, 2017 – #poem 

So much to say

So much Silence in between

Solitude is my constant companion

 

Blessings

 

Gratitude

 

Balance in all things

 

Letting thoughts and breath

run out and back

 

Sun on skin

Joy-filled hoot from behind

that hedge

 

Mating calls of this bird and that

 

Distant roar of plane pushing into

brilliant blue of this afternoon’s air

 

One mourning dove lowing

soft and close

 

Blessings

 

Gratitude

 

Thank You for this life

This one I’m living at this moment…

…this moment   …this moment

 

Each of us is in service to someone or

something

 

Who do you serve?

 

…this moment

…this moment

…only this moment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(c) 5.1.17 – Jessan Dunn Otis|Writer

 

 

Falling Into Your Eyes – for CKW – poem

Big Red Heart

Falling Into Your Eyes

                   for CKW

Two black birds fly together

as if the shadow and the object

were coming to the same place

 

A tongue wags from the stump

as if the song of presence

that lament brings speaks

after so much silence

 

A white star flashes on a dark blue

directly over the heart

and you say

                   who will come to us

                   who will give us solace.

 

(c) 1981, 2015 ~  Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis

Jessan Dunn Otis | Writer

AmeriCymru

Poetry as Narrative

THE RISK OF REAL GROUND

 

Stepping into air the woman falls

momentarily catching hair and nails

as on a wing or cliff or webs

 

First this, then that

 

Falling is water washing flesh away

it changes everything

begin to learn, again

 

Earth gives up pieces of itself so slowly

breathing passes through ash or oak or bone

amber perfume fills a room

 

A hand touches and moves away

you meet yourself

passing by a shattered glass

 

Say you understand, say you say

stand up, open your mouth

what are you standing on.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

– for Todd Bartel, Joanna Barth, Miguel Calderon, Sean Coel, Jemima Farwell, Lael Jacobs,

Elizabeth Jackson Johnston, Blane Kieng, John McLaughlin, Anna Regnery, Charis SanAntonio,

and Jodi Schwartz

(c) 1986 Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis