Tulip for a New Millennium

Find what way, you sing,

we each are made to catch and release

(like your tight cup of petals)

more, oh more, long-needed light

after all the torn, wounded

centuries under all those darkly wed

to themselves, to Self only, while we waited

while we wept and sang, dear tulip, we who

once lived lost in your beauty:  we

are no longer so tender or weak

we hear and feel now the desperate red

whip of the ache of this time:

and together, just now possible:

together what we gather--syllable

brush stroke, bold note swelling

and sailing over and through--

what we make and gather enough

at last, an ocean against all rivers

dark and void, this ocean greater

gracing hands that open and release

image after image over the mass

graves and palaces of history and out onto

a dazzling plain (far, near) where finally

we walk, weaponless and unafraid.

(c)Vivian Teter

from Edge by Edge, 2007

Quick

My mamma used to go dancing on Fridays

She would spend extra time putting on lotion after the shower

curl her hair
and let me pick out her top
She would tie us to the hip of a babysitter and
bribe our good behavior with pizza money

Other times she would corral us into an old beat-up brown Toyota
and haul us downtown to the park with free TGIF concerts
and cheap Miller Lite
She would slide out of her shoes and dance with us
in the grass while the late summer sun kissed the river good night
She would twirl us until we fell
dizzy and giggling into the backseat
half asleep before we even got home

I still believe that women are the most beautiful when spinning

outside

And people always talk about the music making them feel
but the best music makes you move
Alters your senses
Inhibits inhibitions and weaves you into nights that will leave
you pondering your ability to drive home responsibly
Nights where boot soles meet floor and tap out familiar patterns
Where hips sway like infinity signs left to right and back and forth
Where eye contact is an invitation
and strangers become partners who already know the steps

So quick
before we run out of time or worse
discover more time to think things through
and change our minds
Let's dance
Let's dance like it is Friday night
and the sun is sinking into the river
Dance like you just broke up with your boyfriend
and moving your feet is just another way to move on with your life
Dance like your body is cymbal
heart pounding to chest

Let's dance like white people when they hear disco
Point finger to floor then sky freeze then hustle
Let's break-dance
wiggle worm and spin like teacups at
an overpriced theme park
Let's dance like single mothers
family able to have a night on the town
Let's reenact scenes from Footloose and Flash Dance
Let's dance like strippers when they know the rent is due
Let's dance like the boys don't even know your real neme
Dance like you aren't going home alone tonight

Let's dance
like you are listening to your favorite band play live
at a free outdoor concert
with grass between your toes
a beer bottle in your left hand
and some fine tall man
twirling you under the stars
making you suddenly beautiful

(c)Cheryl "Snow" White

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Symbol

My Jewish girlfriend
Gave me a rose,
A yellow rose
With red petal-tips
As if it were bleeding.
Identical to
Another yellow rose
With red petal-tips
That she gave me
A few weeks before.
The first rose is in its
Vase still in full bloom
But the yellow has bled
To a dry-blood brown:
It has given me the
Joy of its color.

As I remove the rose from its
Vase carefully to
Preserve its bloom--
Preserved even in death,
And before I place
The new rose
Vibrant, alive
In the vase,
I realize today is
Good Friday.

(c)Nelson Farley

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Indigo Blue

Clouds of indigo blue smother me,
You're next to me in my mind,
But miles away in truth.

Why do you persist in haunting me?
I wish to be with you, but am lost, alone.
(You always had a way of disjointing my feelings.)

I thought when I left town to be free--
Free from you and all your wiles;
But I guess memory is my private Hell.

How can I disentangle my soul from yours?
I can't live with you or without you.
you are my devil/guardian angel.

Clouds of indigo blue smother me,
You're next to me in my mind,
But miles away in truth.

(c)Anne Gray

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Lilith and Chava

*In the garden of Eden, long before the eating of the apple, the Holy
One created the first human being -- a man named Adam, and a 
woman named Lilith.  Lilith said, "We are equal because we are
created from the same earth."
                                                                 -- Alphabet of Ben Sira,  2 3 a-b

Lilith, swayed by the serpent's
hiss, No man is my master as I am
as strong as he, no man will tie my
lips as I have tasted sun and fruit,

echoed above the Trees 'til God
shackled her tongue, binding her
name to the shores of the Red Sea.
But when Chava bit into the Bitter

Fruit, Lilith rushed to assist:  Sitting
within a circle of stones on a mat
of reeds, she cleaned Chava's gypsy
curls with oily wool, perfumed tawny

skin with orchid petals, and fed her
on goat milk, pomegranates and roots.
As the Garden awaited, Lilith gracefully
wrapped her Skin around Chava's,

implanting the Infinite Life into the
unborn child.  The First Cry rushed
out of her womb and with a stream
of blood became the House of Israel.

(c)Michal Mahgerefteh

from In My Bustan, 2009

Double Solitude

Across the hall my husband
talks on the phone
about a crane, its certification

needed by noon.  I open
my notebook, finally after six days,
stare at the words last written.

His previous conversation
concerned a fire on the Eastern Shore.
Heard him say, neon,


plastic, electricity.  I argue back
and forth with myself about the necessity
of isolation--the possibility of double solitude.

Suppose I had a garden of delphinium, day lilies,
and peonies outside our back door.
Suppose we had a back staircase to the kitchen.

Suppose I didn't know he was writing a report
about a collapsed bin and damaged wheat.
Who or what defines fault, failure?

Earlier I lingered in bed, waiting
for him to return.  Heard him say,
failed brick wall, crumbling mortar.

(c)Elaine Walters McFerron

from Double Solitude, 2004

The Bedroom Clock

Reads 2 a.m.
Red digital lines
of today.

The day closed,
still as a locked church
before even the stained glass

has come to life;
shut against the sunlight
and the news that will

break into my life, a thief
who steals my time,
measured out

in pieces.
They make no sound,
except to breathe,

intake of air so silent
my lungs hurt to stay quiet,
and then, rise only by degrees

inches that cannot be heard
for fear the news will be bad,
and the alarm will sound.

(c)Nancy Powell

from How Far Is Ordinary, 2007

Command Performance

I should be sleeping,
but the giant moon
tracked my every move
with spotlight precision.
Is mine the Seventh House,
or am I supposed to be
performing in some
cosmic stage show?
I saw it earlier
at my office window,
thought its message
was quite simply
to put it all aside
take a long break,
give my work a rest,
vacation in dreams.
My eyelids are too thin
to block the tireless strobe
determined to wake me now
at four in the morning,
insisting I meet its call,
insisting I meet its call,
to appear on cue,
take the stage,
play a roll.
I turn my head away
but there's no escaping.
My bed is slashed
by a stream of light
sharp as a laser
burning my body
'til I have no choice
but to surrender.
There's no 911 number
for this emergency,
no moonstalker patrol
to rescue me, make  arrest,
no neighborhood watch
to protect me against
a nighttime intruder
such as this.

Beaten, I stumble
to my bedside window,
armed and ready with
curses and gestures,
prepared to shut it out,
when it kisses my face
and charms me
with its brilliance.
Seduced, I'm persuaded
'to celebrate the night
with moonlight cocktails
of milky inspiration
that make me giddy
with morning poems,
as my new friend
steals away at dawn.

(c)Mary Curro

printed in Skipping Stones 2007

Almost in Love

Like mirror images reflecting
each other's ego needs,
drawn together yet frightened
by the possibilities,
we pretend to trivialize,
to focus on the practical,
the business at hand
to get us safely through.
We peek into the mirror
holding one eye safely closed,
avoiding the fiery tales
years of memories have told
leaving ears red and sore,
eyes red with tears unable to
quench embers that won't die.
So the fortresses are strong,
the moats dug wide and deep
around each of our castles.
Still, we call to one another,
pay our visits frequently,
lowering the ramps
for an afternoon or night of
forgetting whys and wherefores.
Quickly we retreat again
as dawn sneaks a laser beam
revealing all our fears of
how frightening it can be
to meet our match in the light
of so many painful lessons,
to face the scary prospect
of accepting ourselves.

(c)Mary Curro                        2007

published in Skipping Stones 2007

MIdlife Chrysalis

Midlife crisis

sounds too serious.

A hurricane is a crisis,

a train wreck is one too.

But a crisis for age,

not me or you.

Let's call it instead

midlife chrysalis.

Much softer

sister butterfly.

Spread those wings,

it's time to fly.

(c)Phyllis Johnson          2007

from Hot and Bothered by It

Comfort

Today I'm wearing my old comfort clothes
The draggy pants, the torn, moth eaten sweater
My relics from days when formal dress wasn't
So de rigueur and I didn't don polyester
Now full of memories, now not fashion sense
Just perfect for black coffee and delayed attic trips
With dust and photographs yellow with age
Tiny snips of hair from angels that passed by

We don't need the armor of society
To enjoy the things that comfort us most
The old, familiar, useful, worn, but faithful friends
Who remain so stolidly with us today
Embraced by memories I hold most dear
I'm wearing my old comfort clothes today

(c)Anne Darrison          2009

Push Me

Push me
too hard
and
i crack,
splintered
pieces
skittering
across
the floor.
Back me
into a
corner
and
i react,
spluttering
shrapnel
'til only
shards
remain.

(c)Lisa Kendrick          2009

But When She Sings

To only hear her whisper

is to enjoy a cool breeze

in an Arizona desert

Yet never realize

it was once a tropical storm

blowing from the south pacific

But when she sings

every beautiful sound in nature

rides the wind

and every creature and man

on earth are kin

When she speaks

her voice is soft and kind

Yet there is only a hint

that the souls of men

have given her the rights

to their song

But when she sings

angels flood the sky to listen

and mortals imagine themselves

dead and gone to heaven

yes in her breath

ordinry people fly with angels

And to only hear her laughter

is to never know her pain

And to only hear her cry

is to never know the joy

But when she sings

the tragic and the true

the happy, the blue

all comfort one another

in the revelation of song

that even death is nothing to fear

for life itself

is forever changed

(c)Nathan Richardson         2001

from Likeness of Being         

Tokyo Christmas Cake

The Tokyo Office Ladies
sip their tea and whisper
as a coworker goes by,
"Kanno-jo we kurisumasu
kekki, so desho-ka," meaning
"She's  a Christmas Cake, yes?"
They hold their hands up
to their mouths and laugh.

I ask my guide Miss Sato
what it means, and she says
"Shoppers only want to buy their
Christmas Cakes before December
25th, after that they're useless!
And so also the saying goes, no
man looking for a wife will want
one over twenty-five years old."

Then noticing my ringless hand
and graying temples, Sato San
sets down her cup and bows.
"Sorry, Sumimasen," she says.
"That's OK, Daijobu desu,"
I tell her, not in the least offended,
only--by that calculation--
several decades stale.

Later, in the Ladies Room, I see
the object of their scorn, applying
liberal make-up with the deft hand
of a geisha to her young and lovely
face, making lashes long and curled,
cheeks bright, unsmiling lips plum-pink
and full.  She sees me in the mirror,
says in perfect English:  "At least they
can't say I'm not good at frosting."

(c)M. Lee Alexander          2007

from Observatory   finishing line press

My Hair is

too long
too dark
too curly
too wild
for my mother
She wants
oh
how deeply
she wants
me to cut
cut
cut it

(c)Sharon Weinstein          2010

Mother at War

My vanity is long forgotten,
The mirror tells me so.
I used to care, but I don't anymore;
I'm a mother at war.

I dreamt you were in a black robe,
It was graduation day.
I try to sleep, to dream some more;
I'm a mother at war.

A rifle as your best friend?
I can't imagine you.
No longer the boy, I knew before;
I'm a mother at war.

Each battered bastard's blood shed,
That of an enemy's son.
I once cried a little, but little no more;
I'm a mother at war.

My soul has torn and tattered edges,
relentless conflict rages.
A heart wounded woman, battered and sore,
I'm a mother at war.

Today is my tomorrow,
'Til you walk through that door.
You will be as you are, as I am no more;
For I've been a mother at war.

My vanity is long forgotten.
The mirror tells me so.
I used to care, but I don't, anymore.

(c)Donna Kalinski          2010

In an image from a wake (circa 1921)

another century's tireless girl awaits
off-center, calm on the homestead porch,
and presses the palms of downcast boys.

The door behind hangs indistinct, ajar
perhaps to free their house's nervous spirit
on indecisive breeze.  Her charges tilt

as if in prayer:  Let us toss our Sunday hats

into the trees, hang go-to-meeting clothes; Lord,

please don't take our sister, our Mary, too.

Young Mary must have seen a western flash

through budding maple, elm and ash--

a wink from Merriman Lake.  Revelation,

grasped silver-bright and sharp, is carried still

like a favorite verse, yellowed and creased

in our matriarch's purse.  This force of faith,

sustained in her throughout one-hundred years,

throws light and hope to all who live in her

enduring scope.  New generations come--

an endless flood of tangential blood--

to gather at her seat.  So let us pray

that when she sleeps, age-rippled days reflect;

gray hair again acquires a copper glow;

her freckled skin grows taut; and mischievous

brothers return as children freed from all

portents that blind the present.  So enjoined

they'll weave past brilliant trilliums arisen

from generations of moldering leaves.

Unshod, three wraiths may chase the small grey fox

down paths compressed by warrens of rabbits,

sort through the shadows for shy morels, and

find confirmation at the water's edge.

(c)Allen M Weber

published in Skipping Stones 2007    

and in the anthology Peninsula Poets 2008

Dirty House Poem

there is poetry in a dirty house.
the way a sweatshirt is flung here
or there
the way dust settles
books pile up
and fray, the top book,
a flippery paperback,
the bottom, a hardback
long forgotten
in the sink, the layers
of toothpaste and saliva,
without which it would seem
no one has ever spit
on the blue porcelain,
slides past the chrome
we have traces in this house
lives leaving footprints
let's not forget ourselves and sweep
the drying grass off the foyer
let's not forget the night before
and make our beds
the way the creases fold,
the way the blanket tangles
some record of tosses and turns
some indelible love
we call the swirls of our bed linens,
art
we call a note from our child
scribbled on blue lined paper,
literature
shame on us
to disturb the masterpiece

there's poetry in a dirty house,
a triangle of striped shiry
caught in a drawer
shoes strewn
patriots being born

I fear the vacuum
lest some vital record
of our existence be erased

I say let the artists live
and let the house grow on

(c)Jill Winkowski          2009

Cinderella

In my dreams
I am young, beautiful,
But often, I am wearing
An old bathrobe
With belt missing,
That has seen better days.
Trying to be invisible,
I clutch the robe around me,
As I slink through a room
Full of well-dressed people.

I wish I might stroll elegantly
Among the glittering crowd,
Dropping "bon mots,"
But no--
Always I am the princess, unrecognized,
Searching for my prince
Who will see beyond the shabby clothes
To the inner perfection.

(c)Margaret Peck Latham          2010

Summer and Smoke

My Momma was running hot
bleached blonde crazy,
a crap shoot of slaps, hugs,
ambiguous permissions, it didn't matter
it had all been done before,
              -Look at her wild eyes, Charlie-
I was bad enough to earn distrust.

Then she dug my white cotton panties
our of the hamper to check
for what? I didn't know,
               -We were talking, that's all, Momma-
mired in real-life drama,
it was the night she wasn't there.

I played Blanch Dubois, won second place
in half the whole damn
state of Texas, second place!
Can you imagine that?

Looking for her face through
the red curtain slit, I was
wrapped warm in applause
and the kindness of strangers
               -Shut her voice up inside-

Kenny was back from Tulane
on his way to Viet Nam.  Top down,
we had burgers in his Corvair,
I sobbed in big gulps, he tried
to make it right, fondled my breasts.
I felt beautiful, returned
his wide-mouth tongue kisses,
                -but that was all, I swear.
                 Why won't you believe me?-

The next day we went to East Gate Mall
for new school clothes and shoes,
it was as good as her sorry ever got.

(c)Shann Palmer                         

from Dashboard Fire 2009

Birthdays

Don't think of yourself as getting older
Think of yourself maturing, a fine wine
Growing in complexity and flavor
Appreciated by those discerning
Few who pass by the beer kegs of life

(c)Frieda Landau          2010

Warrior

visions of indecision
queen of hearts
assemble parts
armored
            of
                            jewels
                            boa
                            and dagger
feminine swagger
with bouffant helmet
sporting medusa tiara
the terror revealed
in stiletto heels

(c)Frank Kozusko

Locks

Your hair, this black cascade that falls like time
Upon the pillow, twining into streams,
Leads fingers on an odyssey, sublime
As unencumbered pathways of deep dreams.

To break the spell would be horrendous crime,
But holding silence drives me to extremes,
So I spin lover's wishes into rhymes
As you drift through the land where passion teems.

We lie again beside the surging sea
Whose breeze is scented with a hint of spice--
Embrace those waves with nobody but me!

And as we roll on swells that never end
Discovering that destinies can splice,
My lips decipher every word you send.

(c)James F. Gaines          

No, Sister

Sister Magdalena takes my hand between her wrinkled palms
offers sage advice to ease the throbbing ache between my thighs
as though the raw meat of my womb
were just a bruised knee
pain far removed from her cloistered flesh
beneath ponderous folds in her gblack habit, perfect wimple
that shield her from squalling babies and men's body parts
sweat and the bite of love and self righteousness.

Sister's cheeks crease into creamy wrinkles.
Broken blood vessels embellish my eyes
testament to thirteen hours of effort,
ankles so swollen I am carted in a wheelchair
to lay eyes upon my firstborn.

Sister pats my hand, murmurs
God gives you pain, then rewards you with pleasure--
see, how beautiful it is?

How she twists the adjective
like fabric with mismatched designs--
I would not love my sapphire-eyed daughter less
had she slid from between my legs like a folded origami.

I want to leap up and slap the woman across the face
but I send her off to someone else's room
to spoon-feed platitudes to a willing victim
slong with Gerber applesauce and formula
tested against her virgin wrist.

(c)Terry Cox-Joseph         

In an Assassin's Shoes

They're called stilettos,
An assassin's tool,
They strike in the deepest of nights
Under cloaks they glint like daggers

At six inches
They make the perfect weapon
Sleek and small and
Easily concealed in pretty packages

A swift stab sinks
In and right back out...

It can be days before the victim
Finds his heart on his cuff
And a blade in his back.

They step up, step forward, and on and on
Those stilettos keep
Clipping, slicing, slashing over
Pavement, slicing again and again
They move briskly under
Seamless, silk stockings that glow

Luminous in streetlight.
Eye-catching, striking,
Sharp they say.
Whistle.  Stare.  Stop.

The stilettos silently turn, sizing up
Their next victim.  Watching eyes travel
Slowly up as the heel
Taps the ground first
Then the toe, tightening the calf.
Muscles straining towards the flexed thigh,
Taut
A lesson.

Those stilettos wiped clean lay still
In the back of the closet wondering why
No one ever tells men
Most women have knives.

(c)Kindra McDonald                         

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Thank you, Madam, for Your Interest

1.  ...in the recently vacated,
Frankly overcompensated
Managerial assignment lately held by Mr. Sowsse;
You assisted competently,
Dealing wiht his "problem" gently,
And discreetly quashed emergencies in-house.
The appointment has been given Mr. Snaatt, whom you may know
As the son-in-law of Mr. Essohbie, the C.E.O.
We trust your loyalty to help with easing his transitiion.
It was a very difficult decision.

2.  ...in the advertised position
For "experienced physician,"
And your resume was most impressive; still, we feel we must
Give a chance to a trainee
So we're sure you would agree
With our final choice of Doctor Blowsie Busste.
You may know her as the resident with forty pounds of hair
Who wa chosen Pumpkins Princess at the Nuthun County Fair.
We appreciate your efforts in our volunteer division.
It was a very difficult decision.

3.  ...as expressed by your submission
In our latest competition
For the umpty-thousand-dollar "Poet of the Decade" grant.
Though your lyrics are delightful,
Educated and insightful,
The award has gone to Mr. Ara Gantt.
You may have heard of Ara as a whiskery bluejeanius
Who writes disjointed prose in admiration of his penius.
Please try again in ten more years; perhaps with some revision.
It was a very difficult decision.

(c)Patsy Anne Bickerstaff

Whalebone Junction

Of the horizon's curve, sequence
and syncopation of churned water, buoys

and daymarkers in the distance,
lighthouses and low bayberry on the shore--

Sea-spray beads on my skin
unnoticed.  Wind chafes my face.

Undertow erodes sand from my feet.
I can stand ankle deep against the ebb.

I can be alone
with the ocean's brooding, its extremes.

I savor divine discontent,
my sanctuary, hunger for salt,

the basket of broken shells beside a door.
I can rearrange driftwood near the fire place,

leave the damper open in winter,
disappear in the dune's shadow

on the coldest day in November.
I can wrap boiled wool

around my shoulders, my grief,
dampen my beloved's faith

with a beveled mirror, a sand rose.
I can watch for wild horses,

bury my mother-of-pearl
in a grave beneath pine needles.  I can write

unexpected words in the sand:
surrender, caesura, donnee.

(c)Elaine Walters McFerron          2004

from Double Solitude                       

Parsing

You could lift the hem of rain and enter its grotto.  Habit is what blurs
gesture into allotment and enclosure.  Fold it between times with a
monk's cord of silence, just a slick of candle-fat.  That way the next
becomes a sacrament.

Ladies in cream linen and sandals, men in madras cotton.  Resolute and
demanding, the world I love.  Emerging through screens of glass and
leaf, mercurial light tinting the sands amber, taming the water so it
rises and quickens again.

Each day in my plain gray outfit I've waited patiently for a sign.  Even
the shoe with the frayed tassel has gleaming copper caught in its teeth.
I want to be like that, now or in our afterlife.

(c)Luisa Igloria          2005

from Trill and Mordent

We Are Woman

I will rejoice
For being born
Woman,
And though within each blessing
Lives a dark-cloud curse,
I will cling to this silver lining,
And celebrate who I am --
Who we are --
As women.

I am tied to the tides,
I swoon with the moon
And my body counts off the days
Of her cycle
As her phases number mine.
We are sisters, she and I,
Daughters of the same Father,
Twins of the same womb,
And we both shine
Reflecting the light of the Son.

I am the entrance into this world.
No one arrives here but through my blood,
And seldom depart
Without my tears.

Love is language
And I am multilingual.
My tongue caresses the ears
Of every man, woman, and child
As my compassion
Becomes voice,
Becomes action.
I am your mother/daughter/sister/wife
And I am life,
Love made flesh
And tenderness made tangible.

We are all around you,
Mysterious and real
Sacred and ordinary,
And     we     are     wonderful!

We are Woman.

(c)Jerri Hardesty          2010

In a Class by Herself

She was my favoirte; yes that's true:

A unique, unforgettable go-getter,

A non-stop, battling achiever, who

Would always go everyone else one better,

As she outranked the ranks of the common crew.

Her goal was to excel in every way,

Holding to the lead through every mile,

Accepting nothing less than a grade of "A,"

Insisting, with that charming, winning smile,

That excellence was all for which she'd pay.

No one could doubt that when she went away

To Harvard and displayed her brilliance there

That she'd come back with early-earned M.A.

To excel in jobs and career fields anywhere

She chose to seek employment or to stay.

Bill Carroll          2008

Hollow Day

O that is empty,
the scooped orange skin,
the nut eaten, caste
on its back, gutted,

the space between lines,
the day that draws water
in drops that catch sunlight
in bubbles, clear and unafraid,

before the gift card fell
open to the ink marks
the pen said were from
the girl whose hair tie

was too bright on the old
dresser against the back
wall of the bedroom
she'd just left,

where the gold band
lay shining, casting
hollow shadows in the room,
just as the lunch whistle

blew at the shipyard,
and his front door closed.

(c)Nancy Powell          2007

from How Far Is Ordinary

After Dark

After dark
when you're
off limits
I'll pop a cork
and invite
you over
your vampire teeth
all shiny sharp
won't put me off
if I can get
the first nibble
maybe then
I'll stand a chance
you leave your sister
in the car
don't keep
the engine running
she'll just need
to drive you home
so I can
get some sleep
dawn's satisfaction
can close your coffin

(c)Jack Callan                         2007

published in Skipping Stones 2007

My Piano Student

We have sat there together
in front of her piano
on Sundays at noon
for three years.

It looks as though
I am teaching her
about F chords
chromatic scales
fortissimo
pianissimo
staccato
legato.

And I am.

Here she is
before me
Eleven years old
dark hair dark eyes
quiet demeanor
slow to answer with words
quick to respond with her
fingers moving
to "The Spinning Wheel"
which I used to play
when I was eleven.

So what is it, again,
that I am teaching her?

How to sit
before what you love
and make it sing.

(c)Sharon Weinstein          1995

from Celebrating Absences

Moonshadow: an elegy

It's gone now.
A hundred and twenty-five feet of white sugar sand;
Violet clouds on the horizon
Shells washed up daily from the Gulf,
Drifts of wet, cupped jewels crunching underfoot.
For twenty years
Sandy-footed children
Stepping in the water basin at the door
Washing sand from their feet
But not their memories.
No stores on the island, no paved roads.
Inside, all planned for the sea and the sand.
Straw floor-mats, rolled blinds, opposing windows
Thrown wide when the tide turned,
Filling the house with air like a sail.
Walking each morning onto the front porch,
Mug in hand,
I watched my school of dolphins play,
My private performance.
We sold it,
Not our hearts.
The sound of surf
Is still in our ears like a heartbeat,
We still hear the call of gulls,
The soft break of foam on the sand.

Named for the song, so frail on its stilts,
Front blown out, we rebuilt it better,
Added decks front and back, screened porches;
Twice in one year the roofing gone, once the floor.
First year the plastic plumbing melted,
So we learned plumbing,
The twelve-year-old rebuilt an air conditioner,
Cousins nailed a stormwrack walkway,
I fixed a toilet and the fridge, set bread to rise,
The tireless master dared the septic tank.
Hot afternoons
We all lay on floors and sofas, reading.

It taught us, the island,
Shaped us.
When I slide into the tunnel of the CATscan
And the rumbling comes around me
I close my eyes and it's the surf;
I am on the porch barefooted
He is holding my hand
I hear the cry of children
Beyond the sea oats on the beach.

(c)Bea DuRette          2009

Reconciled

Once we no longer raced our mares through orchards of cherries and apples--
just below the rush of burden-lowered branches--once we no longer crept

together over sighing ice, for a glimpse of promise-green beneath the winter,
Pride, with too many tomorrows, conspired that we'd meet our separate ends.

For a youthful slight, you crossed an avenue to shun, and I'd not cross to meet.
Uninvited to your wedding, I sought descriptions of your dress.  At the local market,

I'd not set down the cantaloupe and join you for a thumping of the sweetest
watermelons--like those we won in nighttime garden raids.  In this small town

you would've heard the very hour each child of mine was born, and know that,
though your name was once my favorite sound, I didn't pass it to my daughter

as I often said I would.  Today, at last, I met your child--so much like you--grown
and lovely as the flowers that surround you now.  I've learned you spoke so tenderly,

and shared renditions of our unfeminine recklessness.  Lingering here between
her greeting and farewell embrace, I realize, dear friend, how scared we've always been.

(c)Allen Weber          2009

published in Up the Staircase

Almost In Love

Like mirror images reflecting
each other's ego needs,
drawn together yet frightened
by the possibilities,
we pretend to trivialize,
to focus on the practical,
the business at hand
to get us safely through.
We peek into the mirror
holding one eye safely closed,
avoiding the fiery tales
years of memories have told,
leaving ears red and sore,
eyes red with tears unable to
quench embers that won't die.
So the fortresses are strong,
the moats dug wide and deep
around each of our castles.
Still, we call to one another,
pay our visits frequently,
lowering the ramps
for an afternoon or night of
forgetting whys and wherefores.
Quickly we retreat again
as dawn sneaks a laser beam
revealing all our fears of
how frightening it can be
to meet our match in the light
of so many painful lessons,
to face the scary prospect
of accepting ourselves.

(c)Mary Curro          2006

published in Skipping Stones 2007

To My Sister

When I was there
and you were here
Letters were few
but oh so dear
And now that circumstance
has traded our places
Letters are new
But still the faces
lack the warmth of your smile
And love that in your eyes
reflect childhood laughter
and sometimes cries
to return to moments before
Then in moments after
becomes the same warm reflection
and joyful anticipation I see
in the moment of your return

(c)Nathan Richardson          1986

from Likeness of Being

Body Double

Round skin, thin,
wears years like tree rings,

becomes rose-hued in the view
of a new moon,

while, across chairs
set to face each other

like knee caps, faded hair
curls around a weary neck,
strained from closed buttons.

Years swallow the past
like fasted Fridays,

part company, and raise
themselves for communion.

Eyes fall closed
to rest like a Winter Oak

blanketed in Saratoga snow.

(c)Nancy Powell          2007

from How Far Is Ordinary

Walking after midnight

She wears white--
jeans and silver-studed
jacket.  Luminous
as a will-o-wisp
under the yellow lamp-
light she walks the streets'
canyons.  The click of
her heels echoes from
the walls.  On the
upper fire escapes
twisted shadows lean
forward.  In cellar
windows eyes suddenly
gleam.  In doorways dark
as toothless mouths young
men uncurl from
feral crouches. Her heels
click along pavement
and a smudge of black
tears from the sky floats
in her wake.

(c)Serena Fusek          2009

Baker's Wheel

Sometimes I feel like a cake on a baker's wheel,
Turning slowly around, waiting to complete its final turn.
The icing is velvety smooth and must be carefully applied,
That it is neither too thin nor too thick.

For this sweetness is but a mere introduction to the layers beneath,
Rich and full of their own complexities.
Each imperfection artfully smoothed by a soft fruit filling,
Both sweet and tart, it is the perfect balance.

So I turn upon my baker's wheel, my slowly spinning maker's wheel.
I know my final turn shall come to pass some day.
The wheel will stop spinning, the layers of life complete,
No icing left to apply.

Just knowing each ingredient added was simply layered with love.
Measured in laughter, a sprinkle of tears, but in the end,
a good recipe shared.

(c)Donna Kalinski

Cherry Bombshell

I'm a fruity kinda girl

I love peaches

but melons don't cramp my style

Mellencamp drives me wild,

like a cherry bomb.

I'm a rooty  kinda girl

Sometimes they're dark

sometimes not.

Sometimes root beer hits the spot,

Rootbeer with a pecan twirl.

I'm a tooty kinda girl

Sometimes you hear my horn,

sometimes you don't.

You have to toot your own horn

'cause somebody else won't.

So I'm a rooty, tooty, fruity kinda girl.

Do I like pancakes?

You bet your booty.

With a creamy butter swirrl

for this fruity kinda girl.

(c)Phyllis Johnson          2007

from Hot and Bothered by It!

History

It's serial monogamy
Not polygamy or bigamy
It's the timing, not the ending
that surprises

Most women are monogamous
men naturally polygamous
It were ever wise to keep the end
in mind

(c)Anne Darrison          2009

What is midnight?

midnight is an eye, awake, insistent,
holding on to ragged deams

midnight is an arm, silken with age,
fringed in hope, it is a sidewalk,
an unpaved road

midnight is a bosom, rising quiet like
bread and love presses down, just
so it can rise again

midnight is a hard sole, crusted
with garden, memories cling as it
pads to morning

this midnight is lighted, as white and
opaque as milk

inside is a dream that someone once had
the dream is still and awake

(c)Jill Winkowski          2009

Let me taste the soulshine

Let me taste the soul shine
on the smoothness of your breasts
see the midnight moon glow
in the passion of your eyes
feel your spirit pulsing
in your fingers' caress
let us listen to the voices
calling from the night
hear the hymns of passion
in the rising sunlight
drink from each others' lips
of romance warm and true
let's explore a couple's kingdom
built with care, each day renewed.

(c)Kent Miller          2010

She is the Land

for Gin


Her hips roll like the lush hills of Kentucky
round and fertile with tomorrow,
patterned with sunlight.  Her ears cuddle kitten songs,
mewing pink tongues that beg gifts
from swollen udders; rosebud nostrils sniff for cream
tht rises in the air like clouds,
fills her mouth, drips down her chin.
Her arms strain like roots
tethering the almost-born to earth.

She works golden shafts of straw
into welcome mats to clothe her beasts.
Her wrists snap and flick wood chips into misshapen utinsils
mined from cedar, ash and cherry,
whittled voices, stolen spirits singing of the Appalachian Trail,
souvenirs and Birdfoot Violet wildflowers.

Her pen drops words like rain
nourishes all creatures great and small,
infuses them with souls, one bleat at a time.
Salt tears replenish the crops
while she cradles her seasons in a basket.
In the distance, a whinny
shines in the sky.

(c)Terry Cox-Joseph         2006

The Teacher

My students
They haunt me.

They line up by the side
of my desk in the classroom
as I remove my grade book,
the text, my pen;

They meet me in the halls,
They merge into my office,
They wait for me by my car,
They leave me messages.

Thais is what they tell me:

My computer broke down,
My grandmother died,
My husband was just released
from jail and is trying
to murder me.

I'm in the school play,
I'm pregnant and I'm spotting,
I have lupus,
I need this course to graduate.

I had to work late,
I was in court,
My roommate is having
a baby and she had no one
else to be with her,
I just had an abortion.

And I
listen
to what
I don't
want to hear;

The messiness
of their lives
happening.
I believe
each story--

I have to--

These are my students
This is the way they learn.

(c)Sharon Weinstein

from Celebrating Absences, Road Publishers 1995

Intrusion

With eyebrow arched, the sun peeked over the horizon--
Was woman earth still in her shower?
Or had she stepped out full naked?
There she graced his eye, stark in her beauty--full figured,
And not yet even towel dried,
But glistening as sun's rays began to enhance her roundness.
With hot blushing face, the solar orb
Sought a cloud behind which to hide,
Thereby creating a shawl of rose lace draped where it lay,
Covering woman's earthly parts in modesty,
Easing her pangs of vulnerability.

(c)Linda Harrell Coffman          2010

'Pop' sicles

Tiny iced tree buds
Cuddled close on twigs
Spring's courting, sudden caught by Winter

 

(c)Anne Darrison          2010

Twentieth Century Limited

For women, the end of the twentieth century
Is no big deal.
After Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem
We had hoped for better things,
But where has all that consciousness raising gotten us?
We are stretched thin,
Trying to fill the shoes of our mothers
While pushing our way
Into the world of our fathers.
Meantime, we are blamed for the problems of our children.
Some harsh master or mistress expects us to be all things,
Including
Having an ageless body,
Incredible orgasms on demand,
And the calm nature of a Zen master.We try for a little spiritual sustenance,
Only to be bombarded by articles in women's magazines
Blithering about decorating the perfect house
In the 2950 style.
At the same time
We are expected to whip up
A gourmet meal in twenty minutes,
Not forgetting our aim of losing twenty pounds
In ten days.
Men are discovering their inner feminine nature,
As we go off to the offices
Dressed in tailored navy slack suits,
Leaving the children in the hands of tired workers
At the local day care center.
Some call this the "sandwich generation."
Often we must care for aging parents
While trying to cope with rebellious teenagers.

We wonder what the new century will bring?
We begin to long for the dull world of our mothers,
Who stayed at home to suckle their babies
And be there with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
When the kindergartners come home from school.
We are told that now we can have it all.

I can't help wondering
What "all" is?

(c)Margaret Peck Latham          2010

Before Dawn

Dark, quiet, expectant
The house awaits the day
With silent anticipation
Hush before orchestral sun

(c)Anne Darrison          2010

Like the Essence of Fine Wine

She strolled down the garden path.

Inhaling, she smelled the red roses,

the pink carnations,

the purple isrises.

They all had their own fragrance,

their own allure,

their own mystique.

Not unlike a woman-

With her "pink" days,

fresh hopes, dreams,

maybe shelved by

growing kids, but still there.

Or a woman in red-

a rebirth-

new hobbies,

a devil may care attitude

a littlle rebellion,

followed by purple days-

a strong sense of self-

perhaps some softening of ways,

a mellowing out and yet . . .

the vase- regardless of the shape

holds a collection

of pink, red and purple blooms,

the blend of different phases

evolving over time-

like the essence of fine wine.

(c)Phyllis Johnson          2007

from HOT and Bothered by It. Community Press

A Real Heart Stopper!

Hair of midnight hue,
Eyes of bright morning blue
Had always held her heart
Through and through.

For her, he always was,
And he always would be
A real heart stopper!

(c)Linda Amos          2008

Literary Archeology: Poems I've Yet to Write

From an overlook near the quiet beach
at Capri, that side opposite its rock
and boulder coastline that stares
toward once buried Pompeii,
its Roman past leveled,
elite and imprisoned alike
preserved together in volcanic ash,

I spot her, young, attractive,
alone, with a book, aloof in sunglasses,
her regal cabana fit for only one,
a sophisticated match for Sargent's
favorite model, Rosina.

Buon giorno!
She looks up.  "May I?" I'm sure
she's been schooled in English.
She does not refuse.
I drop to one knee.
"American?" she asks.

I say, "I have poems for you,
for the woman I think you are."
I pull my verse, folded,
from my shirt pocket.

"I compare your beauty
to the Sorrentine sun, your skin
to this smooth wet sand, but your eyes..."

I motion to her glasses.
I tell her what they hide, poetry
she hordes, stark
periods on my page, lines
locked in their world
like frozen women of Pompeii.

(c)B. Koplen          11/2009

Maternal Light

Her smile warms softly
the thick, hard night
her voice, a soothing song
a note of musical light
her hands are smooth pillows
bringing comfort to the weary
she is inspiration in motion
the embodiment of love.

(c)Kent Miller          2009

Sister Anne Arrives in Haiti

Blind babies will not see, the lame not walk for me,
But I can teach the deaf to dance, the lame to sing,

the blind to play the music.

I cannot light the jungle of fear,
Writhing with terror and tears of uncertain tomorrows,
But I can find its scarlet butterflies, its yellow birds

and burning blossoms,     

Fireflies and glowing eyes of gentle creatures.
I can draw back the rag that hangs at the door of Poverty's hut,
And see it grow bright with wisdom and faith and Caribbean sun.
I am too frail to halt attacking hunger of body and spirit,
Hurricane winds, battle and hatred,
Dusty thirst of restless mountains.
But I can nourish with beauty and hope and a vision,
Feel God's miraculous touch in little black fingers,
Clasping hand in hand in hand, small invincible stones

in a fortress of love.      

I cannot silence threatening drums and chanting witchcraft,
Echoed in vine-tangled calls of mysterious killers and demons,
Mourning roar and hiss of the sea on shore,
But I can lift the voices of island children,
Music the Father uses to speak to men
In loud hallelujahs that smother the funeral howling
With jingling calypso and burnished allegro, in reels and

hosannas.                 

I can give nothing; the gifts are God's and His glory;
I can but open the arms of His children to know Him.
I am one harpstring He touches, one note of the song of His
kingdom.

This poem was previously published in The Caribbean Writer

(c)Patsy Anne Bickerstaff          2000

...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