I filmed this video of my poem a few years ago at Coney Island in NYC in collaboration with Team Rockstar! It was published on the twentytwotwentyeight.com website last year, but now the rights are mine again so I can share it here with you.
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This is my life in its
everyday gray dress pulling poems like dandelions to save in my pockets while I hang laundry out to dry. *very pleased this little one just got published in Diutay Review, issue 4* I am shouting this poem
from the tongue we don’t mention undulating a yell through the length of my guts a volcano that spills and continues to spasm I just might have a lot to say. And I’m aching from a morning romp and I’m aching from lugging love’s bed up three flights at this altitude I’m breathing everywhere messy rage-pulse dropping bonfire poems like nice girls drop a sneeze and don’t we all say “Bless you!” but just keep looking at me with no words like that just keep looking at me with no words like that just keep looking at me with no words like that I don’t want your blessing I have all the words and fires I need. *** psyched that this poem found a home in the inaugural issue of slips slips print-only literary newspaper , based out of NYC, you can order a free copy here! I'll have another poem in their next issue as well. *** Here in the liminal absence of time
I breathe above the clouds and in your chest at once, at nothing without you up here I spin loose untethered by minutes the hours unravel rude eternities last night my hunger got so violent I wrenched and broke the clock hands off their faces then I stepped outside this airplane stepped right out and fell and you are down there in the world and I am floating nowhere nothing in no time. ***thrilled that this poem made its publishing debut in NYC-based, women-run, print-only Chill Mag, issue 4 "Dreaming"! *** ALSO... Urban Ganges approached me about printing this poem on their poetry reed infusers... so if you like incense, you can buy that here.  Pulled another year
over my back and feeling pretty good in these sleeves tailored for an expanded wingspan the age of more glitter has begun and I have grown into myself into these destinies I hung in quiet childhood midnights in the back of the dark hall closet they really fit me now think I'll wear them out wear them all over town. *Update: spring 2026, Chill Mag published this in their Flux issue!* First mammogram
before the rain came before the hurricane before my appointment I took a photo of how beautiful my body is today to celebrate how smooth and lithe I felt in my own skin. With my breast clamped in the machine I tried to remember if any lover ever pressed so tight between the sheets of rain falling heavy on my window rinsing grime and memories with undue force cold biting metal plates. All relationships need maintenance with time in the name of beauty in the name of pain in the name of storms Here I promise me I’ll love myself I’ll do that work for me for years to come. ***Thrilled this two poem was recently published in Adanna's Literary Journal Issue 11.*** Reconnected
to your voice but there’s this plague and long light years of twisted subway tracks between our signal reach Out here, all black and cold expanse I’ve stripped down to my ugliness torn off my skins unstuck the muscle from my stubborn bones that flash so white in starlight like a quasar of my need doubt runs across my skeleton like an electric current tears spark against with jealousy, yes I know better I know better I know better no comfort to these hapless strings of bone twitching in our midnight to your sad voice on the phone. ***Thrilled this poem I wrote last year found a home on Bonfire Lit! *** As the title suggests, I wrote this the morning after Trump was elected in 2016. This morning I voted against him for the second time. Who would have guessed 4 yrs ago that we'd be voting early in long, determined lines 6 ft apart with plague masks on? Or all the dystopian, fascist madness we have endured since his election? This poem was published in print by Adanna Literary Journal in Dec 2017. Good luck to us all, and what's left of our Democracy, in the next couple months.
November 9, 2016 I woke up this morning in a bed that isn’t mine in a country that belongs to someone else I woke up this morning not having slept still hoping it was just our bad election dream I woke up more afraid for my neighbors who wear hijabs and rainbows and hoodies and turbans and skin kissed by God and all the young girls who don’t know any better I woke up with my “I voted” sticker still hanging on my jacket and my suffragist-white-shirt still wrinkled on his floor then I felt around a while for where I left my heart in this cold and rainy unfamiliar land but it was gone the first of many casualties to come. While you work
I have eaten the skyscraper and the elevator of your love is built to slowly lumber from my big toe up up to our penthouse suite my mouth is full of scaffolding the metal tastes like blood. I roll my tongue around it as I wait to hear you hear you slowly climbing each floor chiming up the hungry distance of my legs. *So, this poem from a couple years ago was just published by Streetlight Press! Glad it finally found a home. While empty subway cars
run all night long we are eight million lonely transistor radios sending sad sound-waves to the starred stratosphere above twinkling Hell’s Gate above grim Empire State above bruised Chinatown above our green Lady’s crown souls break hard broadcasting anguished insomnia in the City that Never Sleeps our frequencies jam out vying for validation harmonize wise pick stale fights pledge future fucks each alone together swan singing our static-interrupted lives over strained airwaves from the precious dusk to the diseased dawn of yet another day. **Thrilled this poem was published by Headline Poetry & Press in April 10, 2020 *** |
Heather Lee Rogers
I write and perform poetry. I have been published on many websites and in many print publications at various times throughout my life. I live in NYC where I also tell stories as an actor. Acting projects make me forget that I'm a poet for long stretches of time. But I mean to work on that here: I'll be posting old poems, new poems, and everything in between. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy! Archives
August 2026
CategoriesAll poems and images on this website are exclusively owned by Heather Lee Rogers so don't even think about using them without permission.
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