Persephone Abbott

Posts from the “Poetry” Category

On Hillesøy

Posted on July 2, 2024

Summer on the islandlong beaked birdsprod the groundand the grass is running*Near the sea arctic orchidstoo early for cloudberriestelevision crew circling the hoteland the grass is running*Red light on The Mermaid callsopen for ice creamseagulls swoop over the cemeteryand the grass is running*Friday clean house dayrhubarb soupbaby crow scratchingin the chimney pipeplop he drops downstares through grate windowand the grass is running

Categories: Poetry

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Keith Kumasen Abbott: Mordecai of Monterey

Posted on May 17, 2024

It’s been nearly five years since my father passed, and I hope by the end of this year to publish one of Keith’s novels that has faded out of view. It’s a comic work and when asked how I am editing it, I reply that it’s more like I am retelling the story. Although I’m aware that he was given some advice, I’m not a hundred percent sure Keith actually had a serious editor for “Mordecai of Monterey” way back in the day. I’m discovering I have my work cut out for me. As I remember rolled up bills falling out of my father’s shirts when I was collecting the laundry back in 1984, I am pretty sure the inconsistencies from one paragraph to…

Categories: Poetry

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Magnanimity, a poem

Posted on March 30, 2024

Magnanimity is a poem that reflects growing older and the feelings of panic and fear that surrounded us as we grow up that ease away over time because “it” hasn’t happened and we don’t want to think about these possibilities happening anymore. Perhaps modern life has less focus on church-going or religious practices and many don’t feel that religion has any purpose, certainly not as a backup plan when facing earthly dangers, and then again religion itself can be toxic and dangerous. It’s as if we have become more callous in a “getting-over-it” way and humanity has, in the meantime and as long habit, solved nothing when it comes to ending wars and strife.

Categories: Poetry

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Lamento: All That I Read

Posted on January 22, 2024

All that I readis not my storypiled under piecesof furniture I’vecollected books from other people’s bookshelves like the air delivers dust and in myhome it gathers in the form of blocks of prose behind my reading chairunder the wardrobejammed against the wallbetween the kitchen and the bathroomjust in case I might pause midway for some literature.

Categories: Poetry

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In Memoriam P. B. 1939 – 2023

Posted on December 25, 2023

The Best Cup of Coffee in the WorldIt was most delicious – especiallyprepared for me by a dying manbone china he said tapping the saucerbought two cups in Francesouvenirs sourced at a thrift shopyou can’t find such nice ones here in the Netherlands He was standing in his kitchenmanaging the coffee machinea one cup of coffee at a time type he’d been on his own quite some yearsBy all accounts my exfatherinlawshould not have been standing in front of his coffee machine on his own two feetbut he even had a little bit of oat milk leftI noticed the fridge needed cleaninga smattering of fuzzies caught my eye as I closed the door He frothed the milk up and poured it outI set the…

Categories: Memory, Poetry

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Keith Kumasen Abbott reading his poems in 1975

Posted on September 26, 2023

I was recently reading some of my father’s poems that were published in a collection called Putty.  And today I found a video on YouTube of Keith reading from this book in 1975. I happen to own the copy that he dedicated to his parents-in-law, Hannah and Lloyd Hansen, in 1971, the year we were living in Bellingham, Washington not far from Tacoma.

Categories: Poetry

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Keith, recollections from his daughter

Posted on September 16, 2023

Keith Recollections from his Daughter I am unable to remember when I met my father. He told me he recalled the moment even though The nurse thrust a substance upon his person To keep him (well mustached at 23 years of age) from fainting And falling on the hospital floor in a heap. He admitted he liked both: The baby and the intervention. It was a good day. I remember my father busy in the mornings writing something important. Then he’d come out of his lair for coffee. He was adored and admired for his charm and wit but he also drank coffee. He ground the beans first. It’s not a secret to making good coffee. When I was a young girl, my father…

Categories: Poetry

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We’ve been missing you

Posted on September 4, 2023

We’ve been missing you The pews weren’t even half full – “My mother,” HR said to me her youthful words dancing forth from between her painted lips, “Finally saw the light.” I had been on the job one week and listened carefully about a series of step-fathers next to the office aquarium HR again, this time about an interviewee “It’s not that she is too old,” she explained as we stood in front of the dishwasher also seriously in need of an update It reminded me – the congregation trying their hardest to sing the tune, mouths stumbling across the words in the hymn book Here I am Lord My new boss strolled casually behind my chair “We’ve been missing you,” she murmured low…

Categories: Poetry

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Cobalt, a poem by Persephone Abbott

Posted on July 24, 2023

Cobalt Twenty kilometers south They closed the factory In 1898 Cobalt I knew it was the farm As soon as I saw it On my left Even though the place didn’t Look like the photographs From 1904 A switch flipped in my mind I turned into the driveway On automatic pilot Cobalt I don’t suppose my great-uncle Would have ever worked In the cobalt factory or the saw mill or the grain mill Even if the mines and the factories hadn’t closed Even if he, at age fifteen, Hadn’t left for america Along with a lot of other Local teenagers holding Tickets to board the Celtic. He wasn’t the type to work in a mine. Yet I still can’t find what he did For…

Categories: Poetry

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