Red and More Red, by Joanne Godley

Red and More Red
 
Blooming, by Cy Twombly (USA) 2001-2008
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red   oh-red   oh- red   oh-red
Bloody red—overflows 
Mississippi riverbanks red
a chilled Clamato red
Saturday night hangover red
bloodshot-eyes red 
beefy and rageful and flushed with shame red
red as in rover as in stop lights for the hurried
red as in fire engine      red as in cherry
chili pepper and fire flames and Fuji Apple red
Twombly’s blood-soaked mushroom cloud red
Twombly’s red acid rain 
then rose petaled red
Beets and account ledgers and evening sky red
baseball’s Sox   red wine   rice and beans red 
velvet cake and Irish hair
I’m out of answers red
hand on the button signals end-of-world red     
and that old red dancing devil
up from hell red

Joanne Godley

Godley is a thrice-nominated Pushcart and Best-of-Net poet, writer, and recent MFA graduate from Pacific University. She is a retired physician and public health specialist, who immigrated to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico with her puppy, Jazz. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Decolonial Passage, The Kenyon Review Online, among others. How the Black Panthers Fell From the Sky, is a memoir-in-verse and Godley’s first poetry collection. It won the Naomi Long Madgett award for 2025 and has just been published by Broadside Lotus Press. ​