Bill Carpenter recently compled a long collection of his poetry called Templates: collected poems. Contact him at
Bill's poetry has appeared in such journals as Runes, Blueline, Chest, Balancing the Tides, July Literary Press and the RI Writer’s Circle Anthology, He’s a member of the Ocean State Poets whose mission is to bring poetry and give voice to divergent populations, such as prisoners and children at risk.
* Bill's poem, "Arms Wide Open" is a finalist in the Origami Poems Kindness Contest 2016. His poem can be found under the Introspection category in the Origami Poems anthology The Best of Kindness available on Amazon.
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► Bill's Origami microchaps & selected poems are available below. Click on the title to download a printable, one-page PDF. Free poetry!
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Origami Microchap |
Selected Poem(s) |
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 Cover: Raven Restores the Stars,
button blanket in the style of Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest by Emily Westcott Photo by Bill Carpenter •
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Love Triangle The Land basks
in her suitors’ attentions, aroused by Sky’s torrid caresses, lifting her tidal skirts to Ocean’s brine, blushing in foreplay, she gives herself freely to both. But Sky is a jealous lover, smothering Land, turning green at Ocean’s advances. The Sky scrolls love letters on clouds to dissuade her from Ocean’s pandering. His missives range from pastel dusks and dawns to dark rants billowing wrath. Nor will Ocean willingly share the lover he cannot stop kissing. As they lie together beneath suspicious heaven, hopeful of touching places only Sky can reach, Ocean washes ever higher up the rocky knees of her shores. This struggle unravels as heartache for Land’s inhabitants, who thrive on the planet’s marbled blue harmony, but cower when Land spurs her suitors to jealousy as they whip up cyclones and ocean-driven maelstroms, when all earthlings can do is pray to their gods, amid the throes of these tempestuous lovers. •
Bill Carpenter © 2015
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 Cover Photo by Bill Carpenter
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Dream Time Our kayak cuts throughthe unevenly toned darkness, wakes aglow in bioluminescence, each stroke a green-white flame below the black surface- an aurora borealis beneath the sea. In this world, of darting fish and kelp beds as thick as cables, we shake stardust into the depths. It's dream time- as we listen for blackfish, imagining them surfacing in brilliantly illuminated auras. •
Bill Carpenter © 2014
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Cover artwork by Bill Carpenter •
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Creation Myth - Whales I. Gray Whale
She rises
with a “humph” a misty exhalation over Magdalena Bay. Her back encrusted with barnacles and amphipods as if carrying a dark arc of sky full of star clusters and dust, nebulae and contrails, planets and moons, an untold creation myth, a seafaring galaxy. Her long spine ridged with knuckles, this storied sea serpent or “devil fish” has come to calve in sheltered lagoons. Surfacing and submerging, lifting her fluke, and plunging into the deep leaving a massive oval footprint, a black hole in her wake. •
Bill Carpenter © 2011
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 Cover artwork by Bill Carpenter • |
Ode to the Wind Oh, to be the wind,
cling to you like rain,
run invisible fingers through your hair,
sculpt your cotton dress
to your contours like Venus,
run away with your sweet perfume
tossing it like petals in my wake.
To billow your skirts,
animate your breath with my spirit
flowing in your veins as life;
to cling, caress
and kiss
your moist mouth dry.
Oh, to be the wind
and take you as my lover.
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Bill Carpenter © 2010
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