Caught

I am not alone here.

Fragments of unwritten poems

drift before me,

ghosts begging for language

to give them form.

Some try on tattered clichés,

parade by me like orphans

in worn out hand-me-downs,

hoping for pity.

This task seems

harder than clothing smoke,

tethering clouds to trees

or giving the evening breeze a face.

I should refuse,

tell them to haunt someone else,

these waifs who taunt me

like hungry cats.

Too late. I am caught in their familiar trap.

They believe I can conjure breath from stone,

can weave gold thread from milkweed fluff,

see the moon in my left eye,

the sun in my right,

hold fire in my bare hands

if the stars allow.

They compel me to dress them

in words spun from imagination and luck.

Finally, I have to let go,

trust that I have given enough.

They are, after all, wild spirits

who, century after century,

find poets who will weave words

into any form they desire.

© Jean Sampson

Milkweed fluff
Photo by Tony Russell

Keeping Watch

Earlier today, we wound our way 

through lush lavender and green, 

bougainvillea cascading red down terra cotta walls.

A stuccoed portico covered round tiles

that spilled like pools of smooth latte 

around the curve of the pink pebbled drive.

The path around the house 

separated hibiscus from bird of paradise, 

split this shaded view of the distant ocean 

from mid afternoon sun.

Intermittent winds gusted hard, 

turning left out of Africa.

They blew harder still on the open terrace 

where brown fingers rubbed lime and salt onto glasses, 

their rims ringing with each twist 

of the hand.  

We witnessed the sea turn 

from jade to aqua then violet

while shaved ice melted into tequila.

Mammoth rocks jutted out of the water 

where longtails and cahows rested, 

keeping watch over ebb tide,

like us.  

Steel drums beckoned us down to the beach.  

We wove along the narrow path through sea grass 

onto a long pier that met the mound of late sun 

at the horizon.

The pictures we took show us in silhouette, 

orange spreading out over the water behind us. 

You can’t see our faces, 

only that 

black wind had whipped our hair out 

like the spine of the lionfish as it slid 

among crevices of a murky cave

far below low tide.  

Strange, there’s a safe abandon this far out over the water. 

Just under us waves writhe dark, foreign,

and tufts of plants with white tendrils waver 

like ghosts in slow motion.

Earlier our glass-bottomed boat slid over 

gnarled conchs and sporadic seaweed, 

and some fish like aliens walked the ocean floor.

They are below us here too, 

and more.  

This afternoon,

we had followed the flight of two lone seagulls

winging over turquoise swells,

white caps running like fingers over a key board.   

They had swooped down to fish 

from a school of grouper on the surface, 

then retreated. 

The cloudless sky had offered 

yet another empirical look,

to keep watch

over the incessant turn of  tides

and all that belongs below. 

© Susan Muse, 2013

Lionfish
Photo by Daniel Dietrick
Wikimedia Commons

Child’s Play

She seems to me the epitome of what destiny was meant to be.

Recently, she has been challenging the frequency her brain's been traveling,

enticing the sweater of thought to come unraveling.

Third eye's released, striving to ignore hazy doors that open into cold reality.

Burning knowledge like it grows on trees.

She's 

skipping rocks on media brooks,

knocking rooks off blatantly bent balance beams,

landing on nimble feline feet,

Freedom Rides down crooked slides, a heady high created by dopamine.

Dancing through her dreams bow visions of veracity;

as tempting specialties become dishonestly concrete.

Fabricated forgeries spread thickly,

like honey on warm bread straight from love's own bakery.

Slow to face charming truth, we imprint our opinions discretely,

directly influenced by the economically replete.

We accept only the agreeable beliefs,

facts fussily side-stepped, rendering them obsolete.

Meanwhile,

Dice St. Deities treat themselves to dance with immortality

through Babylon's natural tantric heart beat

while tracks separate colorblind concrete 

from monotone bricks created to calm Uncle Tom's irrational fears of the sweetly disillusioned elite.

His vessel shows the wear of time as repeat beatings still have the stub of his wings bleeding.

Attempting a resurrection of lost meaning,

lessons form themselves like wine from twisted grape vines.

Only with the fermentation of time can we freely revive honesty.

Tempting visions drunkenly painted on torn tapestry tease the mind with hazy imagery.

When dreams at last are given release, we find the fallen king recuperating sweetly,

residing among Hawai'ian tides, his heart is tied from distance over sea, 

his cravings for familial connection appear obsolete

due to the importance of breaking free from the prison of self induced disease.

Meantime she's stumbling through closed doors, breaking through screens, and running away from responsibility.

Carrying children within worried womb, daylight's gleam

forces glazed eyes open though her instinct is for eternal retreat,

hiding beneath sheets has become as second nature as crying to christian savior when in need.

More than once now God has aborted the ones created to give her someone she thinks will never leave.

She misunderstands that consuming for two requires her to actually eat, 

and through this we find haunting familiarity between

current proceedings and mother's erratic routines while raising the one called she.

Culturally cut off from her elders, even minimum wage seems to be out of reach.

If only this floundering girl could make it out to sea,

perhaps joining her fallen angel father could calm the storms; set her weary mind at ease,

albeit he is living on the beach. 

As romantic as that image might seem to you and me,

it is stability that is needed for this filter fish, while high tides flow and recede.

She is tuned into the Earth Mother's sensitivity,

and wonders why she is drowning when Gaia's heart beat is becoming more fleeting. 

And I am reaching, reaching.

I am trying so desperately, asking for wisdom that continues to elude me.

How can this scattered ohana once again become a "we"?

What will it take to help this lost Goddess to succeed?

Where is the answer we all so desperately seek?

It seems so hard to accept our own potency, 

because that frees us from self induced captivity.

I pray for you, child, may you learn the lessons you so obviously need.

May your cravings for something to nurture turn into nurturing received.

May your hunger be satiated, and your worries all relieved.

May you continue taking breaths, and may you learn eventually to breathe.

I pray the browbeat expressions prepare you for what you will eventually be,

As I am of the mind that every experience is the planting of a seed.

And baby girl I truly do believe,

When the garden you are growing blossoms, 

the bounty will be beautiful indeed.

© SABRe, 2013

Feuerbach's Gaia
from Wikimedia Commons

Last Train of My Childhood Dream

In this tunnel

where fear is an animal

smothering me

with unbearable fur,

I feel earth tremble

as if an ocean,

trapped beneath trees and rocks,

is pounding hard

against roots,

the way my heart hammers

against its own roots of dread.

I have heard the same roar--

tornados thundering toward me

like stampeding buffalo

until terror slams me awake.

Now this darkness

opens its one bright eye.

Light that does not mean hope

drives the future 

at me fast,

your death a black train

filling the space

between me and escape.

© Jean Sampson, 2012

Locomotive 45212
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Look at Me

I invite you to look at me.

Really. Look at me.

Close your eyes.

Let your mind see what they would never let you.

See beyond these walls made of flesh.

Peer through the open doorway of this corporeal tabernacle.

Like a child, stealing a glimpse of some forbidden secret.

I ask you 

To look at me.

Really look at me.

Come to that place where my hidden me awaits your inquisitive you,

That place inside us where fears toss and turn,

Where passions live and burn,

Where God’s fingertips can be seen plucking at heartstrings.

Look at me.

Look into me.

Learn me.

Recognize yourself in me and myself in you.

Understand that inside of us burns a brilliant moon,

Watcher of dreams,

Stirrer of souls,

That perfect yet simple light

Desperate for a release.

Longing,

Longing to be seen, if only for a moment.

Give in to it.

Let it show its true worth.

Let yours find, glowing inside me, its equal.

In that inner solitude within each of us where a little piece of the universe has found for itself a dwelling place,

We find ourselves.

Truly aware of what, who, and why we are:

Supple sparks flung from a singular seminal flame 

Truth from beauty, and beauty from truth,

Musician and instrument,

They are as one.

Here I stand:

A hopelessly flawed masterpiece

Molded by the hands of my father, under the watch of my mother,

Anxiously offering myself to you.

You need to just look at me.

Join me.

Know that there are days.

There are days when I feel like I no longer know myself.

Know that, like you, I too have my coarse edges,

Glorious imperfections,

Giving this world something to grasp onto.

Giving us all something to grasp

Onto.

Share this with me.

See what I see.

Feel my thoughts, like an idle breeze or a familiar presence.

Wed your curiosities to my peculiarities.

Let that life-giving breath of God that whispers in each of your breasts find its echo reverberating in mine.

I need you to look at me.

Understand that this dance,

It cannot be danced alone. 

Understand that the space between you and me

Is no bigger or more meaningful than the space between the oceans,

Or between the days,

Or between the fingers, on the hands

On the hands that raise us up.

Join me.

Like the streams join the rivers join the sea,

Join me,

Where I end and us begins.

Listen,

If we want, we can take a stroll through a dream.

With bare backs and naked feet,

Forget all the things we carry by day;

Move beyond the visible.

Leave your understanding behind – like that last fleeting thought that slips your grasp as sunlight coaxes you from slumber.

Unfetter your raw self.

Flex those muscles which we seldom use.

Contort and squeeze your inner dreamer into the spaces this world tells us we cannot fit.

Through the keyhole, past the dam, lies the real world.

We will find us there.

We will find us there.

If you would join me…

© Axel Cooper, 2012

View Through the Keyhole, at Cooper's Wood
Photo by David Antiss from Wikimedia Commons

Paradelle for the Rio Grande

I walk down to the river each visit home. 

I walk down to the river each visit home. 

Always thinking of the flow of life.

Always thinking of the flow of life. 

I visit each flow home thinking always of 

Of life to the river walk down the 

Following the path of the Rio Grande. 

Following the path of the Rio Grande. 

Where we once played amongst the cattails. 

Where we once played amongst the cattails. 

Cattails of the Rio Grande played once. 

Where we, following the path amongst the 

I remember once swimming there.

I remember once swimming there.

The current strong, the mud rich water. 

The current strong, the mud rich water. 

Remember I the water mud current. 

Once rich swimming there strong the. 

I visit swimming the life current. 

Cattails of the Rio Grande of home I remember. 

Where we played, always thinking of following. 

The water once amongst the rich. 

Each flow there strong. 

The mud walk down the river path the to. 

© Anne Cressin, 2013 

Santa Elena Canyon rises above the Rio Grande
Photo by Blair Pittman, EPA
from the National Archives and Records Administration

Victory for Obama and America: Obama is Still the One

Obama has been scandalized and

assaulted

by fiendish ideologues;

His character and

American citizenship have

been questioned.

They done tried to make him stop

fightin', stop lovin', stop leadin',

-- But we all can see, "He's still the one."

Now that he has been re-elected
to serve another
four years as the President
of the United
States he's gonna shine brighter for us
than the North Star.
They done tried to make him be
angry, be vengeful, be feeble
-- But we all can see, "He's still the one."

Obama, we trust you and believe
in justice for all
just as you do, and we pledge
anew our support
to help move America toward
justice for all.
They done tried to make him stop
fightin', stop lovin', stop leadin',
-- But we all can see, "He’s still the one." 

     © Uriah J. Fields, 2012

Photo: The Obamas Dancing,
by Daniel J. Calderon, USN, at Wikimedia Commons

A House Retires

A house is melting into its leisure.

The green tin roof bends itself into fanciful angles,

achieving arches and curves

with corners dripping

like cool summer pleasure

laid thoughtlessly in the sun. 

Creeping plants previously prohibited 

rise slowly through the shrubbery,

slide up the siding

to find windows waiting open and smiling. 

So the vines pour themselves in, filling the rooms with a leafy slosh. 

And the ceiling beams are dizzy to touch green life again.

The walls welcome

the brush of tendrils,

the pressure of clinging roots,

the ticklish cracking of the rigid plane they have courteously held 

since they were put just so.

Now their orderly particles shake loose,

dusting plaster like sugar

for beetles and flies 

who will join the celebration 

or trip away, sparkling in the breeze on their way to some new ground. 

At last

wooden posts succumb. 

They soften their knees and shoulders to test relief,

then let their work go,

curving into smiles of anticipation as the floor below them also relaxes,

and all the edified parts sink closer,

dip their toes into the cool earth cellar,

waiting for the plunge.

© Laura Seale, 2012

Abandoned House; photo by Daniel Leininger
from Wikimedia Commons

Lucretia ...after Rembrandt van Rijn’s painting

I.

I will tell you because

only you will understand:

Sextus had me first.

with me, he was silent;

he offered no threat,

did not fool me--

I just gave in.

gave in.

what do you call it, Lucretia?

surrender?

submission?

choice?

now we both know: there is no choice.

II.

there is a sense of self-betrayal,

a gasp in your chest

when you look at my bed;

the scent on your dress, always,

a handful of spit and sweat,

the tragic film of memory.

there is the fight to not remember

when you were younger,

when you fell asleep in the arms of God,

and he loved you more

than you will e v e r know again.

III.

here is how you work, Lucretia:

you lie

and you take it.

(but I took it, then I lied.)

like a good wife, you told your husband,

and your husband consoled you:

you did not sin because your body did not sin.

your body did not sin because your mind did not sin.

and your mind did not sin because

you did not feel pleasure.

(then pleasure must be sin)

IV.

let me tell you a secret:

some nights I dream about Sextus,

and I think I would like to love him.

I think I would like for him to love me.

here is another secret:

I wish he had kissed me.

did he kiss you, Lucretia?

I would rot with jealousy.

V.

what does sin feel like to you, Lucretia?

does it feel like pleasure?

or does it feel like guilt?

both and also something in between:

a void with anxiety

panging from within.

we’re supposed to be scared 

of these things, Lucretia:

the strong arms with the gentle hands

the breath in our ears on the verge of sleep

but to find solace,

we must find comfort.

VI.

comfort is the ghost I hold at night,

wanting, wishing it would hold me back.

fear is waking in damp sheets,

forgetting where I came from,

remembering where I am.

VII.

guilt was two weapons on the table before you:

silence and the knife

I admire you for choosing the latter, Lucretia,

because I chose the sharper,

though we both chose tools of strife.

now everything I have felt each night

you feel in this single moment

while I still have many nights left to go--

so dig that knife in hard, Lucretia

take it all in one blow

© Katherine Freeman, 2012

Rembrandt's Lucretia, 1666
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Painting in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Rank

Something there is that is rotten in the state of state

that imposes the doorman’s snappy salute to the uptown patron;

      leaves the frazzled waitress to grovel for a tip;

      requires genuflection as the lawn-mower man

scraps for yard-work from the landed

      mandates a nod of submission in the workplace.

Something there is that is rank.

Congress can pass laws yet gravity never yields.

The somebodies define the nobodies as sure as 

the earth whirls through the cosmos.

Something there is that is rotten in this state of flux

that pinches the wallet and soul as a new Lexus rolls off the lot;

        tears at the heart as the face sags and the butt balloons;

        shreds all our dignity as we don the faddish blouse made in

  sweat or slurp the coffee grown for pesos, sold for dollars;

        diminishes as we venerate the half witted celebs we see on TV.

Something there is that is rank.

Somebody will see all this status anxiety as silly. 

Somebody will realize nobody is a nobody. 

Some will some day, I am quite sure.

Something there is that is rotten in the state of affairs

that sets the wild-eyed beggar-man to spinning for the ‘bus fare’;

      demands of the happy bride a vow to love and to obey;

      forces the fragile, uniformed maid to make the careful show of

deference to her subtle employer as she dusts the tabletop;

      gnaws at the plumber as he bends over in ill fitting jeans.

Something there is that is rank.

© Byron Harris, 2012 

Waitress serving in a restaurant while wearing a chicken costume
Photo by Ross Berteig, Wikimedia Commons

The Answer for the World

What is the answer for the world?

Where do we go from here?

How can we bring peace to this troubled world?

When will we stop this violence?

All these questions make me wonder,

And I am not quite sure where to go.

I want to find the answers,

But only questions come.

Love comes to mind, and it feels so right,

And yet, its not as easy as it is said.

Why can't we stand on the shoulders of Love

And enclose ourselves with a blanket of Caring?

If we could only stand firm

And share our love with the world,

Then maybe peace could come from deep down;

But violence seems to stop us.

Oh! Violence, why are you so deeply rooted?

You hurt so many of us,

And we find it all around us,

And it seems to choke us.

So we must find a way to reach out

And bring forth the love we have,

So that we can take each day

And say, "LOVE is the answer!"

                             © Hilda Ward, 2012

Blankets and care being provided to people rescued when their boat
capsized in Baltimore's Inner Harbor
U.S. Navy photo by Machinery Repairman 2nd Class Jerry Neblett. ~Wikimedia