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

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

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 

Word into Light

I was taught as a child that

Every book was as sacred as Bibles.

There would be no writing in them,

No tearing or bending of pages.

There would only be the reverence of reading,

Of epiphanies waiting for seekers between the lines,

Of new chapters opening in the face of closed doors.

There would only be the reward of seeing libraries as temples,

As spaces where chapter and verse minister to every unknowing,

Of seeing bookshelves as sanctuary where God begins as word 

and transforms into the light.

 

© Camisha Jones, 2012

Book of Kells, 8th Century; from Wikimedia Commons
Now in Trinity College Library, Dublin

Small Town

My childhood self

still walks the streets of the village

where I loved to visit

a grandmother, dead long ago.

Her aged friends

are still vivid in my mind.

One had a parrot that nipped my nose

and a goldfish pond

where the brilliant fish

eluded my childish grasp.

Another came to tea

and was given elderberry wine

because “the doctor ordered it.”

A glowering distant cousin 

with a crippled foot who came to visit

preferred to sleep on a feather bed,

so in the heat of summer

I dragged the dusty thing from the attic,

grumbling and resentful of that gloomy relative.

A box of demi-tasse cups

was given me by one of those women.

“Don’t wait too long to marry,”

was her advice.  -- ”I did.”

I sensed the sorrow of her life.

Unmarried women of uncertain age

seemed prevalent.

Why did they never wed?

Did the young men leave

for livelier towns?

Or did their beaux

go off to war and die?

Their locked trunks in the attic

were seldom opened,

holding treasures (I supposed)

for which they had no room

in the straitened circumstances

to which they had come.

Now aging as well,

I return to find

old houses remain,

still beautiful and cared for,

and the county courthouse

with the Civil War cannonball

still lodged in its pillar

looks solid and unchanged.

But busy stores

that then sold thread

and shoes and ice cream

now stand empty and forlorn,

and the ghosts of my childhood friends

walk the silent streets.

© Peggy Latham, 2012

County Courthouse; photo by Tony Russell

Ancient Conversations

The river of our tongues has dried to cracked earth.  

Too long since wear, crawfish pronunciations,

and bullfrog syllables are shells and lumps of sand now.

Ē kapuna, make wai ‘ia au.

I am thirsty for the metaphors of our grandmothers,

their every breath a prayer for peace and unchecked giving,

and receiving was as easy as a nap with a pole in my hand on a warm day.

I crave the torrents from times when women were gardens

and there was only one table to put a vase on.

Yet in place of flowers, homework, and electronic debris,

bountiful food prepared with god in mind was served

to strangers passing through the channel.

© Sarah Bordeau-Rigterink, 2012

Hawaiians eating poi, c. 1896
Photo by Strohmeyer & Wyman
From Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress