Inside Apples contains poems in both open and formal verse, in moods whimsical and reflective. Accessible verse, for both young and old. 


     Inside Apples, Poems for the Parlor and Porch by Leland James 
     available at Amazon.com books or ask your book store.

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Inside Apples

I utter apples, as only I (and you)
can do. A tree can grow an apple.
Pigs with apples know what to do.
But I (and you) can utter apples:

“Apples, apples, apples …”
Red, sour green, yellow delicious,
Macintosh, Winesap, Spy,
Jonathans in pecks and bushels ….
Snow white inside,
 “Apples!” 

In wintertime I smell them,
apples in my mind:
I pluck one down.
I take a bite, I hear the crunch,
I all but chew.
All, merely murmuring
“Apples.”

I marvel at the mystery,
this utterance of apples,
here inside of me
(and you).

Inside Apples © 2011, 2014 Leland James, 
First Publication, Reach Poetry, UK 

Ghost Riders

Wild horses on the moon,
great silver beasts
18 hands high,
hooves of steel,  
breath white as snow--
Gone.

Wiped out
by rocket men
who never knew
—did not believe,
did not imagine—
they were there:
                                     
rocket men,
whose forebears
riding silver horses
(on the covers
of slick magazines)
now haunt the silent moon.   

Ghost Riders Inside Apples © 2012, 2014 Leland James, 
First Publication, Vallum New International Poetics, Canada.