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nine twenty-eight twenty-four
silhouette photography of person standing on rock
you can’t win if you don’t play
where i come from
chilling with piper
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1000 Stories

the prayer cards they give you at wakes 
pile up near the stack of mail that there’s
no point in opening – you’re 90, quit
paying the bills, quit every damn thing
you don’t want to be doing with the time
you have left. you’ve had enough
worry over money and people and time,
you’ve iced bruises and wiped tears
and shit, thanking god for every 
thankless minute before your celebration.
your heart’s been broken, but you’ve
known all the greatest kinds of love,
and there’s a luckiness there that so
few people have the chance to taste at all.… Read the rest

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1000 Stories

The Morning War. Heat. Cigarettes. 
You know it’s going to be a bad day
when the Times just gives up and says 
it’s hell, but we’ll keep on reporting
until we’re hanged in the streets like
traitors to our country 

Oh, how I would love to be able
to afford being a traitor to my country.
To ditch work, hold signs, protest,
knock on doors, drive people to polls.

But I am the people we’re trying to help
and it does no one any good to listen
to me whine that we’re a broken society
that might never be … Read the rest

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Blog

Quote of the Day:

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” – W. Somerset Maugham

I’ve decided that if I am going to be doing this daily blogging on TK I may as well copy it over to my website, too and start a collection of thoughts that no one really cares about but me. I’m paying for the server space and domains, I might as well start using them to their full ability. 

I feel like the more notes I read here, the more I see how alike we all are, … Read the rest

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1000 Stories

it’s okay to get out of bed early, you don’t have to worry anymore
about missing out on cuddles and special time together, he’s here,
and from what you can see (the photos, the driver’s license, the
clothes in the closet) you should probably believe he will stay.
don’t worry so much about being left alone, not any time soon, and
not any more than any other woman would worry about 
the man she loves walking out the door in the morning and 
not coming back through at night. don’t be scared,
just believe he is here to love you.… Read the rest

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blue ocean
1000 Stories

pay attention, they tell me, pay attention to the things you hear
like the birds singing, or coffee shop chatter, or crying 
and if I pay attention, they tell me, I’ll contain multitudes

multitudes of words drown me like the rising tide and
I can’t keep my head above water so the words are swallowed
and then they lift me buoyantly back to life 

there they go, floating along the waves, the words 
are boats that steer themselves and I just have to 
pay attention as they pass as if writing poetry were that easy

pay attention, they tell me… Read the rest

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Poems

Where I come from the earth was turned and tilled
by my grandfather for years while he grew

apple trees, blueberry bushes, big fat purple grapes
on vines over an arbor, but there were ugly things too –

the bees that attacked when I went for an apple, and
those fat green tomato slugs he’d burn off with a blow torch.

Even then, I thought that was crazy, and I was right. Some
things were not normal, like living with them, and mom, and nana,

four generations under one roof, which gram treated like
a miracle from her Catholic god … Read the rest

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Poems

You sing a new song every morning.
In your thin teeshirts and loose shorts,
you’re a sleepy singer, but your eyes are bright.
Remember all those Saturdays and Sundays we
woke up and rolled into each other’s arms?
That was always my favorite place to be.
Wrapped up in you and blankets and love,
sun shining through the window, welcoming us to the day.
You sing a new song every morning.

From Audrey Gidman’s monthly poetry prompts: Write a soloem. The poet avery r. young created a form called the soloem (so-lo-em), a Chicago soul poem. It’s a 9-line … Read the rest

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Poems

you look so innocent with your soft blue eyes and kind smile, no one would believe you’d do the things you’ve done to me, but here we are anyway. me here, you somewhere else; we stopped sharing our locations and now i have lost you more. but something inside me still reaches for you, despite your trickery and trampling of my heart, some thin strand of hope for another chance reaches – and so i tamp it down again. and again and again and again.

© Copyright 2026 Cheney Meaghan Giordano

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Poems


i put you on a podium,
celebrated your investiture,
wore your crown of thorns
and bled down my face,
my tears red, soul dead,
i kept wanting this so
long after you didn’t
that i missed when you
started slipping away
and by the time i knew
i was losing you
it was too late and there’s
really nothing worse
than a missed
opportunity 

© Copyright 2026 Cheney Meaghan Giordano

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