Thomas DeFreitas

My chapbook, Elegies & Devotions, has been accepted by Kelsay Books for publication in late '25.

Coming back to myself.

Rituals are riddles.

celebrating my poetpals with abandon & antic joy, esp. the luminous human Fizzle B

My sleep was Brazilian.
A carnival of elsewhere.

Meanwhile, forsythia plots
its yellow revolution
in various cells and cellars.

This match between KC and Philly,
I deem preternaturally silly.

icicle.
incandescent pain.

lamppost.
cold sobriety.

lightbulb.
coffee and industry.

table.
digression and dactyls.

It is going to be purple. It is going to be pantaloon. It is going to be all the things.

liverypudlian
giacomo flattopper
groovin' up slowly
the son of a gun

wrote several songs ono-
matopoetically
some of these canticles
hit number one

(not to self-congratulate
but 5/6 is a killer line-break)

Remembering back in '07
when then-Senator Obama
announced for the presidency
in Springfield, Illinois.

He spoke for nearly an hour
in twelve-degree cold.

He didn't take his speech indoors.

Just sayin'.

night prayer fails me
i read your poem

My analogies
don't limp. No, they run
phucking marathons.
They've got the moves
like Benatar, all 99
of their balloons
are luft.

Join me, friend!
Let's drink
the pure winter starlight.

Choose Your Life Either an intruder’s in the house or I’m shopping online. An intruder or stargazer lilies in a vase. A noise my body makes. My body in a different room. Yesterday we played I was the prisoner. I ate t...

I enjoyed this poem, especially its domestic ending.

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Current reading. Jane Kenyon: The Making of a Poet by Dana Greene (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2023). Thanks, Debba, for the gift!

Nettled. And being out & about isn't helping.

knowing what it's like
to be excluded
they choose to include

knowing what it's like
to be torn down
they choose to lift up

knowing what it's like
to be insulted
they choose to praise

we have had
too much of hate

let's follow them
and choose to love

It was the Busta Rhymes
It was the Wusta Rhymes

YouTube video by St. John's Cathedral Dean Kate’s Morning Devotion Friday Nov 15, 2024

"Use your attention in ways that will build up your love." --Very Rev. Kate Moorehead Carroll, 10th dean of St John's Cathedral, Jacksonville, 15th November '24, in her morning devotion
youtu.be/_66j5dTgNWo?...

what is this din
of voices and choices

these throngs
of isolate souls

huddled against calamity

Heart full. Four poets. Music in between the poems. Amazing conversation. The perfect evening.

heartcheck:

maybe i'm off-kilter.
maybe i'm weird.
but maybe
so is everybody else.

i mean, look at us!

stumbling wonders, all.

what we're used to
is not necessarily
what is normal
what is healthful
what is good

undaunted stars above
candescent avenues

YouTube video by Christie Reeves Willy o' Winsbury - Christie Reeves

Such ineffable grace in the rendition. Ms Reeves, your voice is lovelier than the church.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GXb...

holy mackerel i bought this wednesday

from 2022

November morning
graveyard puddles
cellophaned in ice

Dear Daughter, by Julie Weiss oneartpoetry.com/2024/11/15/d...

YouTube video by Thomas DeFreitas Thomas DeFreitas: "Tin Cup"

My poem "Tin Cup" youtube.com/shorts/YWFkp...