Selected Poetry by Jan Wiezorek

Photo Source: Unsplash

Freedom

Daddy and daughter on a windy day.

Hair blows up the yellow kite, so small.

Held in handfuls, cupped, taut in four,

three-foot lines. Isn’t that freedom rising

and falling? Father joins me for a wooded

walk. Imaginary men in my large family—

fanning out on the trail, meeting foot

by foot at vaulted marshy stairs. No motion

like tallgrasses playing long, lazy, swishy

patches. How’s that for freedom?

Just before leaving, I spot delft,

deft, indebted color. Light blue hazes

a sudden pink: thistly loneliness,

suffering, bleeding stemmy brown.

Trying to imagine what’s flying, flying

inside me. Of course, it’s yellow

and as small as a kite (of unfinished

ideas, poems, and breezes).

Adjust

Adjusting the blinds

to see the backyard.

And what better way

to hear speech, language

talking, opening and closing

its tangles and demons.

Words scattered, sanctioned,

sanctuary, saying: sacred,

sacrament, scintillating 

as grabbing handfuls

of dirt and crushing them

over a grave.

Through the blinds,

the symmetry of tree-ness

involves my hand,

flaking liverwurst.

Inside every morning,

wowing us

beyond our blotched skin:

this marble mapping

we may not find

until we stand here

and adjust. I survived the night,

and I’m trying to understand

your splendorous speech,

your morning tongue.

Jan Wiezorek (he/him) writes from Harbor Country in rural Michigan. He is author of the poetry chapbooks Prayer's Prairie (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press, 2025) and Forests of Woundedness (Seven Kitchens Press, 2026). Visit him at janwiezorek.substack.com.