...To Death!

Just once more

She'd like to sidle

Up to him

Reach her arms

Around him

And tuck her hands

Into the back pockets

Of his blue jeans

And hold him still

Until she kissed him

To death!

(c)Linda Amos          2006

Memory of queens

Dusk softens the
summer day when
he rounds the curve
sees the three does
standing among the
shelter of trees
each slim as a
ballerina with the
high, slanted cheekbones
of a queen     shy
eyes dark as secrets.
One rounded ear
flicks  the lead
doe raises her head
and the three turn
dissolve into
green dark  like
women of the Sidhe
who appear but
are not there.

(c)Serena Fusek          previously published in Reflect

Mother of Ten Men

Chiquimula, Guatemala


chupacabra
attacks in darkness
gnashing teeth
stench of fear

silenced
by the ambush
Alicia clutches her neck

fighting will bring
deeper wounds

she is dragged
farther away
on this night
coqui muffle
the struggle

floating up the twisted path
to the top of the mountain
she gazes over the
starlit valley
          to fly, close your eyes

Alicia whispers
scorpion's lurk
in her black-brown eyes

splintered
wrinkles
filling with tears

mud wall
behind her hangs
a velveteen print
of "Jesus Last Supper"

so that is how
it is told
          to fly, close your eyes

chupacabra
attacks

(c)Lisa Malone          2009

Ode To The Feminine

In an enchanted forest
ancient and forgotten
is a shrine to the goddess
hidden deeply within
familiar ruins fragrant
with timeless incense.

Sofia, Mary, Demeter, Isis,
Sarah, Fatima, Buffalo Woman,
Kali, Creator and Destroyer,
Theresa The Little Flower,
their penetrating presence
healing hurt and brokenness.

She breathes the Breath of Life
into every womb and breast,
into the whole earth body,
every creature, tree and sea,
her sustenance expanding
far out into the cosmos

Her power, love and mystery
is every woman's birthright
bursting forth with every birth,
feeding every suckling babe,
flowing out to cleanse the universe
with her stream of blood and tears.

(c)Mary Curro          12/2009

male call

a backyard observation


youreadyoureadyouready
youready

is that the red cardinal
or mr. mocking bird
atop evergreen tree


youreadyoureadyouready
youready

calling out, frantically
   so audibly

youreadyoureadyouready
youready


from leafless limbs
   another tree
a return to sender
at the constant inquiry

YOUREADY!

(c)B.Carder Boyd          2010

Old Lady

Deaf old lady incommunicado
Ultimate control until the end
Her victory:  I have no answer

Never will I know who
Begat me in love or sorrow
All my life without belonging

Her victory in shambles
Straining to communicate
She died, and with her,
     the answer

(c)Anna Morgan          2010

The fit

She sits in her doorway
her hand clenched in the
dog's fur as she spirals
into blackness that burns
in the center of her
arid eyes.  The dog sits
patiently  when he
was a pup she often
dragged him into her lap
her hands spasming through
his fur kneading in the
torrent that seared her eyes.
Now grief stuns her  no cry
escapes her   the dog
whimpers.

(c)Serena Fusek         

Attorney at Love

People hear "lawyer," and they automatically think "rich."
Well, certainly some lawyers are loaded enough
To elevate the average legal income to a level
That rivals the earnings of professional athletes
And other celebrities riding high in the entertainment element.

However, the lowly low-income lawyers
Do manage to keep those loaded lofty legal eagles
From maintaining payday parity with entertainers;
Low-wage lawyers are also admitted to the Bar,
(Even if they can barely afford the drinks).

A low-income lawyer is not the same as a "cheap" lawyer;
"attornies who labor for Legal Aid clients
Do not bring home the big bucks; they are trailed home
And dogged by cases begging to be fed and warmed;
Extra duties similar to the homework of teachers and stuedent.

Clients are too poor to afford the boastful barristers
Whose ads clog the airwaves and fill big billboards;
These folks qualify for assistance from legal aid lawyers,
These legal laborers who are not called "poverty lawyers"
Just because the clientele are poor.

Although my Sweetie tried her hand at
Private practice as well as public prosecution,
She spent more than two decades helping
Disgruntled divorcees, ticked-off tenants
And so many others, as she earned her wings.

(c)Bill Carroll          2004

Secrets

Every woman's secret
a small glowing ember
in the ashes of her heart.

Silent, stolen moment
still locked tight within her,
brief, cherished memory.

Through long lonely years
the memory lingers
now warming the cold days.

Like a lingering dream
in the mind that awakes
is there for the asking.

Ever fresh, ever young,
losing nothing with time.
A small bright candle burns.

(c)Anne Darrison          2008

Angels, Demons, and Madonnas

Names matter.  Identities too.  At least temporarily,
not all Madonnas are plaster
replicas.  One promotes her eponymous DC;
demands rights to      madonna.com;
she's the one with stretch marks

and little resemblance to THE  Madonna, an icon
long before possessed superstar Raphael,
may have married his lover, model
for La Fornarina (1518), baker's daughter
Margherita Luti, pearl from Sienna,
who posed half naked as the prodigal Raphael's school,
commissioned to paint the Vatican's Sala di Constantino,
grimaced

while doing church work since Raphael was officially engaged
to a prominent cardinal's offspring
who didn't know symbols of love
her fiance left on his canvas,
his tributes to the other woman,

his surreptitious yummy wife, pearly as a cloud
in her husband's sky, a man she could never claim as hers,
his fame, her widowhood,
his name; for the record,
he died a bachelor.

Even her picture, sensuous as any undressed Madonna
would ever be
was meant to hang on someone else's wall.

(c)B. Koplen          10/6/2009

Shattered Glass

Who did you lose?
That loss became an intrinsic part
Somewhere in that sandbox
Ground into your soul like grit

Your world spun and turned
Its axis never again to rotate surely
When you returned home
Looking at us through shattered glass.

(c)Anne Darrison          2009

Cherry Tart

Hey, yeah - I feel your eyes
when we pass in the school hall.
Oops! Did My hip graze your thigh?
I have absolutely no idea why your
forehead beads with sweat
every time we say goodnight
after a movie and my full round
peaches with cherries on top
touch your chest and I stop
your hand just short of touching
them just the way Sister Mary Claire
said I should, Hey! You heard her
last Friday, didn't you? Oh, yeah and
what the heck is the matter
with you when we slow dance,
are you nervous or something
you tremble like you have a chill
or something and every time I boogie
and get my whole ripe little body
really into it you suddenly go
paralytic on me, just stop and stare.
What's the matter with you anyway,
- you sick or something?

(c)Mary Curro          January 2009

Evolution

Her body becomes
rain cool as
autumn through which
grackles and ravens
fly   their dark wings
beating in her
blood   she trades her
youthful  silks for
rags  of velvet,
satin, for bedraggled
feathers   the
patchwork plumage
of winter starlings
who ride the wind
into open sky.

(c)Serena Fusek          2004

Notes on the Moon

Dianna fits my image of her but retains her strength.
I could call her Luna or Selene, for she answers to
whatever name may please poor mortal conjurers.
She's answered me a thousand times
but always I'm aware of her majesty.

Can any female creature made of scent and sinew
contend for my affection after such a Guinevere
has caught me in her creamy, silken net?
She shifts her shape to suit my flesh and dream
and straddles curling arcs from southern lows
to apex of my charcoal favorite nights,
and if she is discovered in the afternoon
she'll flirt a blue reverberant small talk
asking her beholder's patience till the dusk.

To be honest, one woman did receive
my imagination and let me mold her
though in transitory fashion
as she had much more life outside of me
than I could [or can] find in any dream.
Sadie hummed in tune of tunelessly
by turns and by no open logic.
She wore a dusky brown skin that she used
to melt into the background when she chose.
She could become a pair of hands engaged
in delicious back scratching.
She was paid to care for me but gave her love for free
in the only platonic pairing I can recollect
that went all the way through spirit.
We were separated by four decades
but united in disregard for age and flimsy social status.

I find sparkles of her in the cat with whom I live.
He won't be dominated but allows himself
to fit my hand and imagination.
She and he may be hidden from my view,
she by mortality and he by walls and distance,
but they both reflect their glow on distant clouds
at night as Mistress Moon is wont to do.

These afterimages redeem their force
when I seem stuck on a pointless course.

(c)W.W. Yoder          2009

Who I Am

I'm not just a vessel
containing ovaries,
breasts and a womb.

There's more to me than
housework, raising
children and preparing
meals.

Being a friend . . . a
beautiful soul, mother
and wife sums up the
fact . . . I am a woman.

If you keep the twinkle
in your eyes . . . when you
whisper I will hear you
in the night.

Love me or leave me,
I'm on a journey. Hold
on tight.

(c)Jeanette Cheezum          2009

To M A Y A

May all life's richest blessings crown your life,
And may you zip with ease through storm and strife;
You are a teacher's joy, a parent's treasure,
A fount of energy beyond all measure.

Many drift through life at just half-speed,
Content with "good enough," no need
Knowing more than needed to get by
In this world obsessed with "me" and "my."
Not you, my ever-loving little friend
Swooping, soaring, singing without end,
Excelling in a life of not-stop learning,
You exude love, which cannot stop returning.

(c)Dr Bill Carroll         2002

published in Dedicated, 2009

Girl Versus Vomit

I'm trying to think/of something to do
besides clean the catpuke off the carpet

She's calling the fire department
to light her cigarette    You know her:
the demon dressed in less than progress
with a permanent pucker on her lips

Flipping on the tv I hate this game
I hate her voice in second-hand smoke

     You should have seen the cat convulsing:
     back like a bad-luck horseshoe
     eyes like bubbles about to pop
     jerking spitting moaning


I could take the bottles down to the bin
better than hearing/what I should do for her

She's shaking/her heels running
fingertips along the rim of her glass
Feeling a little ill I find the 409
and the thick paper towels

The corny sloppy sponge is sometimes more fun
than Russian roulette with a fake brunette
but there's nothing better to do than fire

(c)Daniel Pravda          2009

From this Minute

(to a three-year-old, on the first day of class)

From this minute, your best-loved frock
Will be your practice tutu.
Already, you treasure gleaming shoes
With toes clattering.
From this minute, you enter a world
You will never leave.
Point, curtsy, one-two-three.
Rhythms laugh in your blood;
Five-six-seven-eight, Waltz-clog, time-step.

You will not know when
Music becomes your marrow,
When pieces of the universe
Become leaf-dancer, stream-dancer, deer-dancer,
Bird-, butterfly-, star-, snowflake-dancer,
And you need to dance as you need to breathe.
Your feet will refuse to be still.
Your calves will tense, as you watch ballerinas:
Glissade, assemble,  temps leve,
You make art of yourself -- the moon, your spotlight,
Flowers, bouquets thrown at your feet.

You will not miss
What you decline:
Game, race, picnic, parade,
Mall-dawdling,
Dares and disasters.
"I can't   I have dance."


From this minute,
You define whatever you become
Mother-dancer, doctor-dancer, lawyer-dancer,
Teacher-, poet-, shopgirl-, skier-dancer.

In a century or so,
Clearing your room at Sunset Villa,
Your grandchild will clutch to her breast
Pink satin pointe slippers
You could not discard.

(c)Patsy Anne Bickerstaff

Learning Curve

Left in the middle of the driveway
Solitary child without a playmate
Designing roads on her dirt paper
Eating small stones she finds there

Stones round, soft and crunghy
Stones irregular, hard and inedible
As an adult I will learn them to be
Sedimentary forms and granite

(c)Anne Darrison          2009

My Offerings to Thee Mother

Tangled are the memories endless.
Mingled are the souls boundless.
Whom do I leave when I leave thee!
Was I ever far away from thee,
When I had to be cut apart from thy placenta.
When the placenta of that love
Still nourishes me with the beauty of life.

I know I could never create thee ever,
Not in my greatest of all imaginations.
Such a masterpiece beauty,
And that too with pen or color,
I quit!

I sit as a beggar at thy feet mother,
For I know thou hast created me,
Protected me ever with thy unknown prayers.
Many a times in my urgency and stupidity,
I hurt thee, but I know, the ocean of thy love
Is vast to purify the polluted stream of my being.
With my puny hands, I offer unto thee,
These flowers of words, though insignificant,
Like the strokes of a child on a blank paper,
But do contain innocence and beauty of love.

(c)Manish Wadlwa          2010

Thirty-Seven

Your photograph seduced the sun; projected
on the windshield of my car, your presence
slashed the span from Hampton Roads
to California as our letters slashed
the span from Hampton Roads to Vietnam.

Our love and dining out and working out
our differences reduced the distance
from youth to parenthood as traveling
the world and settling in a place
reduced our distance to maturity.

Although we never knew what might become,
we'd never doubted we'd mature together,
not withstanding I have no intention
to grow up.  Although I may have mellowed
some, 'tis you who've anchored us with grace.

No time nor distance shall express itself
between us.  We are one together; and
when we have shed this earth-bound suit, we shall
be one, together we and God  the angels
and the universe for ever.

(c)pete freas          2007

Change of Station

Over the teacups in 1959,
Young officers' wives,
We met monthly in tutorial support.
There was a saying with raised eyebrows and a shrug
"North Africa's so lovely this time of year."
We had an airbase in Lybia then.
Like Saudi today where you live in a compound
Never go out without your husband or a male
Only men can drive
On a visit your male driver waits in the car;
You can't leave the compound
With an uncovered head.
Better to not go out at all.
Over the teacups in 1959
Someone was being assigned to Minot
Where you didn't let the kids run outside
For fear of frosting their lungs
Children played in winter basements,
Medics doled out sleeping pills stingily to wives
Knowing the Statistics
On the effects of isolation and depression.
Someone murmured with a wry smile,
"North Africa's so lovely this time of year,"
We got the point:  it could be worse.

Next year a story went around
The men whispered first, then pillow talk;
This won't be in the papers, they said,
Not the details; hushed up.  Yet things get out.
Onc night in North Africa
Longing for company, countrymen,
He said to her
"Let's go the the club."
It's just a little drive to the base
Across the desert.
A deserted road and coming on dark
Up ahead he spotted the roadblock,
Men with guns gesturing for him to stop
We didn't have much air conditioning in the fifties
He didn't have to roll the window down
As he slowed to a stop.
It's probably nothing
He said tensely
But he left the car in Drive
And rested one foot on the gas
As he braked with the other.

He had just turned to the window
When there was the explosion
She was instantly covered with wet spatter
Blood and brains and skull fragments
His boot slipped from the brake
His hands still gripping the wheel
The car sprang forward, startling them
She reached over
Her left foot on top of his right foot
Her hands against his on the wheel
She stamped on the gas
As the car bounced and followed its headlights
On the strip of asphalt across the desert
They were too shocked to move:
A headless man driving
So fast away from them
She drove without screaming or stopping
Until she reached the gates of the base.
Nobody knew her name
But word of mouth gets out.

Over the teacups in 1960
We looked at each other and wondered
Could I do that
My husband drove me to the club
I measured the distance from my left foot
To his foot on the gas
Looking at his strong capable hands on the wheel.

Alone in my house in 2008
All the teacups are put away now
Reading an article, news from Iraq,
Because of the Shiite tribal security forces
In what was secular Bagdad
Professional women are discouraged from driving,
Threatened to cover their hair now and asked,
Where is your husband?
On TV, the list, American faces so like my sons.
North Africa is so lovely this time of year.

(c)Bea DuRette          2009

Solstice Dawn

In the dawning of the solstice
the snow's silence
spreads white in midnight
she walks
thick flakes touch her cheek
she journeys to discover
the tree where branches glisten dreams
she experiences rebirth
in the music of a babe's awaking cry.

(c)Kent Miller          2009

To My Granddaughter

You're on the ship from Here to There
upon the wide Transition Sea.
With visibility not clear
the future has no guarantee.

The navigation tools you need
were yours before you left from Here.
To find them all you must dig deep
to force solutions to appear.

When rocks and shoals and storms arise,
you'll steer your ship around the gale.
The links from ship to shore and back
are solid and will never fail.

If ever winds become so strong
they try to blow your ship off course,
remember where your anchors are:
you're ethics will avoid remorse.

So know you're on the proper ship
and face that sea devoid of fear.
Enjoy the voyage all the way;
you'll find that There is much like Here.

(c)Edward W. Lull          2009

Interiors

I was beautiful to someone once;
His eyes shone when he looked at me.
That knowledge, strange, but through him true
And absolute, it  like a kernel  grew
Inside me something hard and strong.
Now, all exteriors melt away,
Hair, skin, tool thin, the bone too bent,
The fair shell to the shadows sent;
The hard core stands,
Though winter's come, and love is past;
It holds me yet,
Holds to the last.

(c)Bea Durette          2009

The muse in the morning

In jukebox gleam
black silk and dark hair
flow like a river
down her shape-shifting
jaguar body.  Watching
her walk to the john
the way she stalks
through the crowd
hips swaying to
a country tune
seems a revelation.
Around her curves
he feels the
words of a poem slide.
All night she dances
like an enchanted queen.
Every step her
spiked heels take
tattoos a scar
into his ribs.

Daylight catches her
departure   snagging
on the stain spilled
on her dress  tangling
in her smoke-dulled hair.
Shadows dark as bruises
swell under her eyes
lipstick remnants
cling to her chapped lips.
Without a glance
at her poet she
lights a cigarette
blows a smokey zero
draws her face
into a squint
as the sun
scrabbles up the sky
jabs the morning
like a migraine.

(c)Serena Fusek

Big Sis

Even as a child, Big Sis was always there,
Not necessarily the captain, but a trusty First Mate,
Making sure we crew members understood our orders,
Making sure we kept the vessel Kinship on a steady course.

Through young womanhood, she was the strong, sturdy anchor
That held us firmly in place when gales of gloom threatened;
We knew her solid, trustworthy embrace would hold
Against all storms, all troubles, all problems.

Approaching the Biblical mark "three score and ten,"
She still stands tall 'mongst women, childen, men;
A brilliant beacon, pointing out the way

For all of us to reach that bright new day.

Lovingly dedicated to sister/cousin

Alma Jenkins Hall (Big Sis)

William Carroll          June 2003

Scepter

Your rights end here, I hold the broom
Solitary scepter, Symbol of power
Wielded by scrawny, exhausted arms

Whether ridden, or simply hand held
Indispensable tool of all women
Weapon against foes large and small

From dust bunnies, to stray alley cats
Burglars to wandering spiders
One method firmly dispatching all

Maginot Line of household defense
Humble instrument of domestic power
In loving weary, protective hands
Broom

(c)Anne Darrison          2008

Owl woman

they call her.  She lives
in the shack where the
road comes out of red
rock and sky  the road
on which she arrived
one scorching noon.
In her yard under
the cottonwood they
glimpse her in a
dusty skirt with bare
feet or scuffed boots
her hair a tangled
thicket of midnight.
She looks back at them
with eyes inscrutable
as the sky between
stars  a man can fall
into her eyes  some
men in town never
returned from her eyes.
Usually she's got
that big wolf dog the
color of smoke and
shadow by her side.

The ravens told her
of the owl's fall.
Under their screaming
black knot she found it--
moon gold eyes blind in
sun blaze  talons like
meat hooks  feathers soft
as silk and lace   one
wing bent.  Her skilled
fingers splinted bone
and pinions  the
mice that infested her
chicken coop fed the patient.
When the wing healed
the owl flew from
her hand into the
cottonwood where it
roosts   her chickens peck
peacefully in its
shadow that falls on
her shoulders like a shawl.

(c)Serena Fusek          2009

Anton the Marketplace Florist

Anton sold his corner store roses
With cavalier flourish and bows.
With grand gestures he'd festoon me
With huge floral mixtures,
For sixty-five cents and a smile.

But this winter he took a bride
And now his wife
Has wielded her knife
To cut corners --

Until today.

With a wink and a grin
He slipped in
six yellow spring daisies.
"I just can't say no to my ladies!"

(c)Christy Lumm          2009

Basic Skill

This embrace has no timidity,
no gloomy doubts hiding
in the shadows to paralyze,
no false, uncertain smile.

No risky relationship this
- risk may come later
when the one in my arms
tries to forget what I never will.

The warmth of our bodies
cuddled and curved,
the inocent sensuality
knows no equal.

Milky white love flows
nipple to hungry baby mouth.
For once in my life I'm sure:
I'm doing something right!

(c)Mary Curro         December 2009

Lynn's Grill on Tazewell

She showed up in a photograph
of Lynn's great Grill on Tazewell Street.
That bar's been gone for twenty years.
Glum planners catered its defeat.

She was a sassy blonde back then
who'd drink with anyone who knew
to keep the conversation light
to fight the bad, old B-girls blues.

Her tavern was a place unlike
the other Downtown drinking spots.
The glee was cool; the draft was cold,
and sailors could forget their knots.

She didn't really own the place
but ran it well as if she did.
An older Norfolk man was boss
though she would always call him Kid.

There was enough room in the bar
for a tiny, quarter billiard game
that only tested players' skills
to shoot the ruts but not to aim.

The last time I was in the bar,
the fleet was in; the place was packed.
Nostalgia rarely charts my sight,
but, oh! those other senses track!

(c)W.W. Yoder          2009