The Ecstatic Orphan is the debut poetry collection from writer, Kerry Elizabeth McPherson, with Cloud Publishing. Brimming with longing, each piece cracks opens the terrible beauty of love passing through loss. The engine of grief asks questions at once baffling and holy. These poems of response become intimate fractals of memory, traveling anguished epiphany to chart luminous new terrain. Available for purchase at the Philosophical Research Society Bookstore, click image for link.
Celebrating the season with my poem, Tor. Click on image for link.
A poem from the collection has been adapted into a ballad by friend and collaborator, Natalie Carol, on Valley Queen's new album, Chord of Sympathy. Click image to listen on Bandcamp.
Lunation It’s all a lullaby. As the fortresses burn, coyotes slink through then take flight, passing The jade tops of banks. It’s the cost of doing business. Because they HAVE found Life’s signature on Venus And wombs ARE being stolen From women in detention. This week. Call it a lark. Call it phosphine. Now that shame has been burned Off of poverty, call it a Supermoon. We emerge from the mines With silky eyes After four millennia, Slabs of tourmaline in our arms. It’s a go-no-go for Earth. Phosphine turns to Life and says: But you were the making of me! Then: Stay close. It’s not over ’till it’s over. A female astronaut with A scorched beehive moans: WE WENT TO THE WRONG MOON! Then: No-no-you’ve got to think in flowers. It’s in our abdomens. It’s in the feces of badgers and penguins. It’s in deep sea worms. She should know. She’s a priestess, and by now It’s abundantly clear, we have to send a woman To space if we are to survive. Next moon, we won’t leave bibles. No, a single pomegranate seed will do. Skyscrapers can’t bear children. Where eight thousand workers Poured time into cubicles, Nothing remains unsaid. The negative space we call is some other. Better to plant rice paddies on every floor. Better to declare ourselves “between engagements”, And pray for microbes. It’s a former ocean floor. So we put the department store on a pyre. Inside, mannequins stand Mute in the dark. Dust on their ensembles and they don’t feel us setting fire to the place. Even as the ceiling falls in. They’re so last season. We are crying ecstatically Throwing coupons into the flames. These are not DollarDays. Over by ladies’ wear, sparks fly off the electrical box. Our throats are so open now, as it burns. The parking garage crumbles. We wail into the haze, tossing orange rinds and tin foil. Our foremothers arrive on the breeze Singing sales jingles as lamentation: Nothin’ Fancy, And the hawks circle, finally, to say You did what you had to do.
