Linda Hepner

Linda Hepner Poems

Peeling onions with my naked nails
Oh how close I come to paring off my parchment skin
And on it I shall write: if all else fails
This you shall send to those I’ve harbored, allies, foe and kin:
...

The apple cart came rumbling down the street
Pushed by the apple man who’d piled it high
...

God’s knife cuts deeply into the shadowed valley
And let’s us fall there. Then we scramble up
And trudge along, bearing our earthly goods.
...

Are you my vampire? That is what he said.
I’ll just describe it. I was on my bed
Soaking the sun and reading ‘Life and Fate’
Vasili Grossman wrote app. ’38,
...

I like to take a catnap now and then
For instance on a Sabbath afternoon
When book in hand I lie down in the den
A glass of tea, some honey and a spoon
...

Adjustment

My children have been words. Words were children.
Phrases fat and thin that lined the fragile field.
...

Those little innuendoes first
just niggle, then they make us thirst
for something.... what we can't explain
until some insight gives it name
...

Lady moon you are a lamp of darkness,
You cast your shadow on the sunlit earth
Eclipsing spirit, stunting growth, a furnace
Of icy coals destroying heart and hearth.
...

Pallid you may be; Athena, Pallas,
Was wise too, pale because she knew too much
About her lover's quite elusive phallus
Whenever she came near and wished to touch.
...

Oh happy he who in his ignorance
Can spend his busy days in fruitfulness,
Who has no third eye for the clues of chance
And builds a scaffold for his happiness.
...

Bring back my email,
Lordy, bring it back.
I never meant to send it,
I never meant to press
...

When he was two they scampered
on the field far towards the trees
and he picked wild cherries off the grass
and tried to eat them; her
...

13.

One talks, the other listens;
One runs, the other dreams;
Each perfect body glistens
One quarter from my genes.
...

Bad press, that’s what we got, bad press,
Caught by our color, black we are, caught caught,
...

Happy New Year tsunami
Happy New Year hurricanes
Happy New Year earthquakes
Happy New Year floods
...

When I was four I crossed the road
To pick some flowers growing wild
In meadows lovely to a child
Allowed to roam the birds' abode.
...

I’m walkin’ through the desert
Sand gets in your toes
...

18.

Call me bardesque
but not grotesque
even when I distort
call me bardette
...

Once she was tender, soft skin, soft heart, milk
Of human kindness pouring from her veins;
...

20.

Oh god of buggies, bring me a Bugatti!
I’ve seen a massive, stunning, glossy print
...

Linda Hepner Biography

Lives in Los Angeles with 2 guys, a cat, a tortoise and some koi.)

The Best Poem Of Linda Hepner

Allium, Peeling Onions

Peeling onions with my naked nails
Oh how close I come to paring off my parchment skin
And on it I shall write: if all else fails
This you shall send to those I’ve harbored, allies, foe and kin:

Come here and read, my cold and heedless peers,
That I, constrained by expectations, image, hunger, need,
Have found beneath the skin a well of tears
And with serrated slicing into stinging flesh I’ve freed

The piercing fragrance live between each petal,
Layered bodies, one upon the other, sinew, bone,
Bleached by salt and sweat to pearly metal;
The bulby victim yields and each cut screams, no more, atone!

Until upon my maple board I Leah
Slice and chop and say my weeping is the blinding sun
That pierces through the glass like a betrayer
Waiting for my soup and sauces, sweeter once I’ve done.

5.6.05

Linda Hepner Comments

Susan Pearl 13 February 2017

If you haven't yet discovered the poems by Linda Hepner, then you are missing out on one of the most erudite writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her poetry is thought-provoking and highly intelligent. It is baffling that publishing houses have not noticed this extremely talented and and inspiring writer.

0 0 Reply
Anna Russell 18 January 2007

Linda's intelligence, strength and understanding of her craft all shine from every line. Her poetry is always a delight, and there's something in there for everyone. I demand that you read her! Hugs Anna xxx

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Gina Onyemaechi 30 April 2006

Linda is a born poet. She metaphors, rhythms and rhymes with elegance, power, and above all, apparent ease! Her work is rich, sophisticated, and highly entertaining. See this for yourself for example in 'Babel, a Sonnet' (word power that will knock your socks off) , 'A Tale of Two Dominions' (rich, imagey, and visual) , 'Tsunami' (a beautifully painted picture of nature and the horror that it inflicted in this devastating catastrophe) and 'Desert Ditty' (a catchy song of hope and determination) . I come to Linda's work both for entertainment and for inspiration. Linda tells me that she has no publishing ambition. I feel this is a shame since in my view, her sublime writing deserves to be enjoyed by a far greater audience than that offered by Poem Hunter alone. In sum, I feel honoured to know both Linda and her poetry. Her writing is never a let-down.

1 0 Reply

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