Inspired by Mert Marilyn Enness' photograph, featured below with the poem...

My friend, Mert Marilyn Enness, is an AMAZING photographer. For the past year, every time I see one of her photographs I think about writing a poem based on it. Well, I finally asked her, and she was completely on board and supportive of me writing poems inspired by and combined with her photographs. I've even created a new category on the blog, Inspired By..., where these poems, and any others created from tangible, artistic muses will be tagged. Some poems, including Joy Jay, are also inspired by comments folks leave on Mert's Facebook page about her photographs. 

"across flesh" was inspired by this quote...

"The air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it."
-Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

my story is written
across flesh...
varicose children
rosacea judgements of perfection
oven kisses
steel string callouses, faded
and earth-hardened soles...

absorbed from the wind
from words and heartbeats
to seep out like garlic
across flesh
sloughed and renewed
my story is still
being written

©Erin Croley
(from a #fieryverse Twitter prompt)

show me

sculpture becomes stage
pretend animal parades
for applause-

he sweats and smiles, sweeps arms
and leaps on to the next
exhibit

show me again
a better way
to appreciate
art

©Erin Croley

Inspired by an afternoon of Playing With Our Art at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri...

I wrote this as a response to Nikki Giovanni's poem titled "Poetry". I'd love to link to a copy of her poem, but I can't find it online. If my books weren't still in boxes from my recent cross-country move, I would at least point you to the correct collection it's in. For now, well, sorry. It's important for me that you know Nikki Giovanni is one of my poet-heroes. I've read everything she's written, was fortunate to hear her speak once, and used her poetry in my Language Arts classes when I was a teacher. I'm fairly certain she will never read a word I write, but if she ever does, I hope she sees deep respect in this response.

You will notice that the excerpt in the image is altered from the full poem. I deconstructed the poem to create four micro poems for my Twitter feed and really like those revisions. I also still believe the full poem reads the way it should, so...
couch poems really has two versions, and I'm okay with that. Maybe someday I'll title them separately, but for now, they are linked.