Poetry By Ilyse Simon

Anders Pearson CC




Mondays at Noon


In this room
they like me.
With every insane thing I’ve said
each profanity screamed 
mortifying behavior exposed
they offer me 
an embrace.

They must be crazy too.

To laugh at broken windows
tales of cops in my driveway 
jumps from moving cars
They also come home to Federal Agents 
on their living room couch
sandwiched between their two elementary school children
or memories of running barefoot to the Bronx 

They must also feel shame.

They don’t look at me with disbelief or pity.
They don’t avoid me at PTA events.
They cross the street towards me to say hello.

How do they know 
I don’t really want to die
I just want to feel less pain.

I’m in a scratchy straitjacket and they tell me to notice the gingko tree in bloom.

They are odd and loving
accepting and challenged
compassionate hopeful 
and wise.

I am not alone on this island of chaos and joy
they are my silent investors 
my secret co-parents
my adopted guardians.

They are my nation.






Dirt Prayer


Dear God Great Spirit Weeping Willow
help me be different today
not pull into the same parking space routinized
nor let my eyes seek the unchanged billboard every single day 
I know what it says.

Lead me to divergent discomforts
that can prompt joy
if I’m alert

Aid me out of the grooves
well-worn by age and repetition 
furrows more like trenches

Help me not help.

Focus my wand of change inward
paint me with hues of morning and sunset 
the perfume of the Japanese Andromeda

Wash me in the dew collected on my tall grass
coat me with senses come alive 
in the blazing light of noon
so that I can watch a square inch of dirt
and be mesmerized 

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Ilyse Simon saw the total eclipse in 2024 and began to write on the back of a crumpled napkin while stuck in traffic. She writes because her sanity depends on it. After a quarter century of marriage she’s now a single mom to two neurodivergent kids. Parenting for her looks like the last days of Hunger Games. In her salad days she dropped out of college and walked across the country, twice, for peace.