Why Trees Stay Outside is available from Unsolicited Press, Amazon, bookshop.org and other retailers.
The Poet’s Garage is available from Unsolicited Press, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, Amazon and other retailers.
Here are sample poems from Why Trees Stay Outside.
Why Trees Stay Outside
Why do trees stay outside?
my son asks in the rearview mirror,
his car seat centered behind me.
He worries about the soaking rain,
the trees getting wet.
I could tell him the old fable:
the night the redwoods came to dinner
and grew too tall to leave.
Or I could tell him the truth,
how the trees are inside now.
We live in their house,
their roots clasped in rings around us
like praying hands. They watch,
wondering why we neglect
the pain of mowed grass,
the desperation of doe and fawn
sprinting for shelter, the cold stars
peering through boughs of live oak,
the promise of blooming moss.
I might echo his teachers,
say we are one with nature,
the trees and rocks love us.
They want to be left outside,
the easy answer he expects.
We climb a ridge as the rain clears,
sifting soot from the air.
Across the bay the Farallon Islands
punch through the fog like knuckles.
The James Webb Telescope Detects a Heartbeat
They say the pulses come from a distant galaxy,
an infant cluster in the first moment of birth.
But I wonder if the heartbeat is yours
there in your nebula of blood and gas
mindlessly chewing the corners of your blanket
with toothless gums,
your eyes still shut to screaming light,
the weave of distance and time
where you will always be our first child,
the edge of our farthest vision.
We squint in every spectrum
just to see you the way you are
though we know it’s the way you were
what you might have been,
larger than we can imagine
and farther than any lost prayer,
your growth beyond our lifespan.
What do you see when you look our way:
are we even there or are we infants
like you?
Here are some sample poems from The Poet’s Garage.
How to Build a House
First, wait until the snow clears.
Pull on rubber boots with wide soles
so you will not damage the carpet.
Walk until you find a depression
where deer have rested in tall grass.
Here you will sleep.
Walk out of the bedroom and turn in a circle
until your eyes water, facing the wind
Here you will place your chair.
The roof is self‑explanatory,
but walls are something you will raise yourself.
Be sure to plan your windows.
Now call your friends
and gather sticks for a fire.
If it snows before daybreak
you will have to begin again.
The Poet’s Garage
When the policemen come to arrest me
for forgery, I hide out in the garage
where I learned how to write, my manual
laid out on the bench, words stacked around me
like old tires, the pools of black grease
where lines have spilled, staining the sawdust.
I watch the detective watch the house,
his junkie nose running, he anticipates
my arrest and waits for my wife to come home
from the library. He reads her the charge,
how I forged checks in three counties.
The name is right but the description fails,
the forger stands taller, pounds heavier,
a different smith. My husband looks a mechanic,
she says, and he’s much older. I grin my
toothless grin, holding a bucket of greasy
words. A blue‑suited sergeant refuses
to believe her, saying I am both
smaller and larger, older and younger,
a mechanic, a smith. Look in the garage,
she says. Modifiers hanging on nails,
the cardboard box of active verbs, the files
of proper nouns. No signatures remain,
the author gone, only the spaces where he worked.
They gather the spaces for evidence.
I escape with the narrative, some of it
leaking on the way, until my book breaks down
in Pennsylvania. When my wife escapes
and brings my tools, I begin to forge a new
silence, and new name, a new library.
See a description and hear a podcast of “The Poet’s Garage”: The Poet’s Garage Pod
Recent Poetry Publications
“It Starts With Hemingway” https://www.flipsnack.com/Remingtonreview/remington-review-fall-2020.html
“Why Trees Stay Outside” https://rustandmoth.com/work/why-trees-stay-outside/
“Waiting Out the Storm” https://poppyroadreview.blogspot.com/2020/08/waiting-out-storm-by-terry-tierney.html
“Ghost Machine” https://www.themetaworker.com/2020/07/06/ghost-machine-by-terry-tierney/
“Birth Cave” https://www.themetaworker.com/2020/07/27/birth-cave-by-terry-tierney/
“Death by Fire” https://www.trouvaillereview.org/home/ashes-on-water-by-terry-tierney
“Man In Glass” http://www.rogueagentjournal.com/ttierney
“Robot Writes a Love Poem” https://typishly.com/2019/06/22/robot-writes-a-love-poem/
“River Walk”https://thegreenlightliteraryjournal.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/national-poetry-month-day-22/
“Life Line” https://thegreenlightliteraryjournal.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/national-poetry-month-day-15/
“The Crossing” https://www.splitrockreview.org/terry-tierney
“Smelling the Rain” https://themantlepoetry.com/issue-7/terry-tierney-smelling-the-rain/
“When It Was Dark Enough” https://www.valpo.edu/valparaiso-poetry-review/2018/05/21/terry-tierney-when-it-was-dark-enough/
“Blue Jay” http://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk/poetry-archive/june18a/
“Family Dinner” http://frontporchrvw.com/issue/july-2018/article/family-dinner
“At the Leonard Cohen Concert” http://ratsassreview.net/?page_id=2862#Tierney
“Ice Age” https://riggwelterpress.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/issue-fourteen/
List of Poetry Publications
Terry’s poems have appeared or will appear in the following journals.
Abraxas: “The Poisoned Blood”
Blue Buildings: “Two Women Leaving the Church”
California Quarterly: “The Rattlesnake Exchanges Its Skin”
Centennial Review: “The Museum of Personal History”
Chattahoochee Review: “The Empress of Iowa Sheds Her Disguise,” and “Cider Press”
Cold Creek Review: “Light and Shadow”
Concerning Poetry: “Turning Back at the Rubicon” and “How to Build a House”
Cottonwood Review: “Shaky Charlie Talks About His Youth”
Dreams Walking: “Next Wave” (coming)
formercactus: “My Only Homerun”
Front Porch Review: “Family Dinner”
Great River Review: “Poem With Nude” and “My Old Furnace”
The Green Light Literary Journal: “River Walk” and “Life Line”
Kalliope: “Painting the House White”
Kansas Quarterly: “The Boxer’s Choice”
The Lake: “Blue Jay”
Lullwater Review: “Her White Tattoo”
The Mantle: “Smelling the Rain”
The Metaworker: “Birth Cave” and “Ghost Machine”
Milkweed Chronicle: “Weather Report” and “The Weeping Willows Green First”
Poetry at 33: “Wine Stains”
Poetry Motel: “The Man Who Never Dreams”
Poetry Northwest: “The Poet’s Garage”
Poetry Quarterly: “Last Words”
Poppy Road Review: “Waiting Out the Storm”
Puerto del Sol: “The Empty Bottle”
Rat’s Ass Review: “At the Leonard Cohen Concert”
Remington Review: “It Starts With Hemingway”
Riggwelter: “Ice Age”
Rogue Agent: “Man In Glass”
Rust and Moth: “Why Trees Stay Outside”
South Dakota Review: “The Lives of a Cell” and “What to Do in the Case of a Gas Attack”
Split Rock Review: “The Crossing”
Third Wednesday: “Her Names”
Trouvaille Review: “Ashes on Water”
Typishly: “Robot Writes a Love Poem”
Valparaiso Poetry Review: “When It Was Dark Enough”
Westward Quarterly: “What the Seagulls Know”