poem – Page 36 – The BeZine

water

holding in my hands the small tub in which at noon i bathed my children
i look at the water in which float, benumbed by heat,
the dusty remains of their earlier game –
in some other reality, water would be carefully filtered
and then poured at the root of some apple tree whose shade and whose fruits
would be more than heavenly gifts –
in mine
it looks at the sun through eyes of foam
then slowly flows from the tub,
and the games of my children are left to return into the dust of the yard
to water there
the roots of their wings

© Liliana Negoi

the was of the will be

i open your book of poems
just like old priests open the bible
in search for masked predictions of future –

and just like those priests i find
that the future doesn’t change,
only the moment when we contemplate it

just like the heart that my child will draw on some train’s window
will always be a heart even if
my child isn’t born yet
and that window is still merely sand.

© Liliana Negoi

december mail

december unfolds its wings, unusually creamy and warm
under a lavender glazed sky, the house’s green walls allow
mild reflections of sunlight to lick them of shadows and
autumn scents, the windows are bored, posing shamelessly
in their entire nude transparency, and a pair of spiders,
having somehow escaped winter’s fangs so far, are
rejoicing upon the bliss of colonizing a dark corner
beneath the eaves, enjoying what in another time of the
year would be called “honeymoon”.
endless phrases cover pages, purposely avoiding periods
that would cut their thread too often, painting complicated
arabesques of meanings similar to some refined sensual
teasing, round and round hot spots but not quite touching
them, like a calligraphic piece of jewelry, and you come to
receive one tiny dot with the same orgasmic gratitude
smearing your smile as if it was a breath of fresh air
caressing your gasping throat.
seconds seem to play leap-frog back and forth, time’s
heartbeats are stuck in the mud and nothing helps with
ignoring the howling silence perforated here and there by
the momentary chirp of some stray sparrow in search for
crumbs, and by the time you’ve reached this line you
realize that all that i’ve actually told you so far is that i’m
alone and missing you…

© Liliana Negoi

from “The hidden well”

the splendor of blue

i planted seeds of lavender,
tiny things in the palm of my hand,
then the black soil and water,
patience . . . . and waiting
for the first signs of life,
the need for care and love
’til the splendor of blue,
the comforting fragrance,
a gift for the bumblebees and me

Utsökt blått

jag planterade frön av lavendel,
små ting vilande i min hand,

svart jord och vatten,
tålamod……väntan,
på de första tecknen av liv,
skötsel och kärlek,

och så….det utsökt blå,
den tröstande doften,

en gåva till humlorna och mig själv.

– Inger Morgan

The Silence in the Garden

for Dilys*

No rule forbids speech but no one’s talking. Quiet
grows from dark densities between boughs,
from heart-shaped leaves covering the ground,
their tight creamwhite umbrellas, flows

from spheres, spirals, hollows, undulations.
We come upon a hooded figure, trace spaces
that so poignantly speak her body. With hands
in a scoop that’s river, wordlessly we unlace

the emerald hair of splayed weeds, silts
where fleshy roots bed, black threads
squirming from eggs. We don’t need to name
the moment when twined swirls of bronze read

as petals unfolding outwards – corollas
frail as small birds’ wings and as strong –
or the moment when a surge beneath the lid
makes the box of possibility spring

open. As if placing shoes outside a temple
we left our voices in the street by the gate,
entered another language. And now, sitting
by the untroubled waters, we dip feet.

Written after visiting Sculptor Barbara Hepworth’s garden, St. Ives

© Myra Schneider

This poem is from Circling The Core, Enitharmon 2008 and featured here with the permission of the poet and publisher.

* Dilys is Dilys Wood, an accomplished poet and anthologist. She is the founder of Second Light Network of Women Poets.

The World in the Cracks

“Once we create imagery that honestly represents how life feels from the inside, there is a deep sense of personal empowerment and a new degree of private certainty as a result of having finally touched down to the original bedrock of our original self.”
Peter London, No More Second Hand Art

World in the Cracks

I believe they are waiting
I see them when my dreams splinter
their feet happy
splashing in a green pool
flower rings around open tresses
goldened by the sun
tender thighs fearlessly open
they recline with easy laughter
stretching graceful limbs
proud bosoms thrown to the wind
idly looking over bare shoulders
waiting for the next to arrive
Soft fabrics flow along their curves
green, gold, maroon
richly embroidered with bird wings
not really designed to cover
for here candour is the touchstone

This dell of delayed life
hums a happiness that never threatens
All of which are to me familiar
Curls, cascades and this well-loved lushness
beautiful forever
Loveliness that never deserved a cold earth
which knows not what to do with its treasures
They are waiting and to see them often
I live more in my beleaguered dreams

©Reena Prasad

Writing to stay alive …

I write on things I do not know about
or know but can’t get to them
or can get there but with lesser perfection
or it may be perfect
but I can’t live with such perfection
so I make them
all over again
to know more about them
to get to their core
to make their beauty bearable
so that I can live there
or keep them forever as raw materials
to build my no-so-perfect but beautiful world
whenever this one ejects me out

©Reena Prasad

Birthing to Earthing

When I was in utero
my mother’s heart
would soothe me.
Then came that violent
disconnection,
an event known as
birthing.
Now I walk barefoot
soaking up electrons
from Mother Earth,
a process some call
earthing.
Creation is a violent
act, life explodes
into being.
It requires an equal
and opposable force,
a Peace,
to soothe the rawness
of all the pain
We are seeing.
The disconnection
from the self
and others,
the body,
to which the soul
does cleave,
is rendered
out of balance,
skewed,
on the mind, body, spirit
continuum
from forces that would
reeve.
Rob us of vitality
and like a cancer,
metastasize,
until we are no more than
protoplasmic automatons

waiting for
our time to die.
Life is the result
of billions of things
that must happen
precisely,
and against enormous
odds.
We all must make
our peace with existence
whether through
nothingness,
God,
or gods.

– M. Zane McClellan

A Laying On of Hands

Rip off the bandage
plunge me into analysis,
with your immediacy,
well-intentioned desire,
snap me out of my paralysis.
Your sympathy,
a well crafted ruse.
Soft spoken kindnesses
can only confuse.
I look for the trap,
the rationale, the bait.
The healing more painful
than this crisis I hate.
You slap my hand,
admonish me,
don’t pick at the scars,
stay in the moment,
don’t dwell in the past,
nor look too long
at the stars.
You would pray for me,
have me pray for myself,
but my pain doesn’t understand.
You drag me about
to houses of worship
for a laying on of hands.
I would have all this
done and over,
you stress the importance,
necessity to heal.
But you can’t rush me
through myself
Your professionally detached
empathy
has its limits
and you don’t fully understand
how I feel.

– M. Zane McClellan

the poet’s prescription

unnamed i am
bathing
in the words
of poets
washing away
the ash
of
hate
that
floats
all about
cleansing
my soul
from
this loathing
that
clings
upon
the world’s skin
a pandemic
disease
pervasive
and
rampant
leaving
many dead already
and
more to die
if
we cannot
prevail
and
inoculate ignorance
with
the wisdom
of
words

The Artist’s Restorative

The visions of Pablo Amaringo
Transport us to magical wonderlands
It’s like oil & water had amazing-
Hypnotic properties & I expands.

Ayahuasca art resonates with me
But it’s short-lived, too hectic for my pleasure
Like some hallucinogenic—saree
The real beauty lies within its nectar.

… That went about healing the painter’s soul.
For me, there is a stiller-reflexion
In those water lilies – powers – enthral
Monet canvases, each flower a brethren.

Each blue eggshell brush-stroke heals like a balm,
Such are the properties of great artists
That they can find within to such aplomb,
A composure arriving, some solace.

They’ve got this almost restorative knack
Of lifting our tired, beleaguered spirits
The poet, speaking tongues elegiac;
Doesn’t he do the same, sweet and viscous?

More Than a Gift

The gift arrived in my twelfth year
while I was being taught
the accumulation of others’
knowledge in books

during the course of another day
bright sun rays dancing
off concrete and asphalt
dust devils creating havoc
in the schoolyard

the joy on my face evident
upon seeing the Spinet
a large red bow dressing
its glossy maple surface
waiting for me
beckoning me

playing the white and black keys
that struck the harp within
a euphoria like no other
healing hidden pain

she had no idea of what time spent
scrimping pennies had done
to raise hopes in a world
changed forever
the year I was ten

the station wagon had lingered
a massive tangled wreck
on the cement driveway
a constant reminder
that a body cannot
always be fixed

I played the Spinet as though
my life depended on it
the music resonating
louder than my heart

the gift arrived in my twelfth year
cradling my hands
as though warm loving arms
helping me to breathe
to lift a wounded spirit
giving space to heal

Wabi Sabi

if only i knew
what the artist knows

about the great perfection
in imperfection

i would sip grace slowly
at the ragged edges of the creek

kiss the pitted
face of the moon

befriend the sea
though it can be a danger

embrace the thunder of a waterfall
as if its strains were a symphony

prostrate myself atop the rank dregs on the forest floor,
worshiping them as compost for fertile seeds
and the breeding ground for a million small lives

if i knew what the artist knows,
then i wouldn’t be afraid to die,
to leave everyone

i would be sure that some part of me
would remain present
and that one day you would join me
as the wind howling on its journey
or the bright moment of a flowering desert

if i knew what the artist knows,
i would surely respond soul and body
to the echo of the Ineffable in rough earthy things

i would not fear decay or work left undone
i would travel like the river through its rugged, irregular channels
comfortable with this life; imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete

– Jamie Dedes

Dark over Light Earth / Violet and Yellow in Rose

ROTHKO NO. 9
Dark over Light Earth / Violet and Yellow in Rose

The violet appears black at first—
a night without stars,
a lake of ink my body could float
on—cradled, rocked, by
wavelet upon wavelet. But it’s violet,
a quiet

violet room I can walk into—
rest—and find my own
way into the dark expanse within:
the still, bottomless
stretch, where the descent is no drop, but a soft
unfolding.

Just below, there’s breath and heat: the sun
below my ribs, day’s
bright middle light as it slips into
afternoon. This yellow
ground gives forth a glow fit to pierce the abyss.
Then there’s rose—

two colors contained in rose—a place,
a cloister, witness
to a process of blossoming.
It’s the rose of adobe
walls in Santa Fe: Holy Faith. It’s the rust-
orange warmth

of dusty trails in hidden canyons.
It’s the clay unearthed
from water’s silence—rock, minerals,
transformed—slip thrown on
the spinning potter’s wheel, soon shaped by movements
of careful

hands. The vessel’s round belly and wide
mouth yield to fire.

© Laura Braverman

Mahler’s Ninth

for Mary MacRae*

No music in Le Pain Quotidien. Voices clatter,
crockery shrills white but the raspberries in my tartlet
are unblemished, lucent as the red in your poem.

‘If it wasn’t for the noise this would be perfect,’
I say, ‘but we can’t have everything.’
And at once I see you, my dear friend,

in a coma, hour by hour your life slipping away –
you can’t have anything. I stay with you
as we join the pilgrims trailing down Exhibition Road.

In the Albert Hall everyone waits for the symphony
Mahler composed when he learnt he had an illness
doctors couldn’t cure, a symphony he never heard.

Its beginning is tentative as if the instruments
are trying to find a way to talk to one another.
Phrases quiver into findings which become losings

but as the movement closes harmony’s found.
Now, somewhere in the surge of strings, the poignancy
of woodwind is you, Mary, and the brightness of red

you want to be inside. All too soon we arrive
at the finale. The music opens out and soars
but each time it nears a climax it retreats.

How will this end – with orchestra and audience
lifting to those waterlily circles spanning
the dome? No, the instruments are quietening,

their hushed voices hover, fall away.
There isn’t anything now but the five thousand
held together in a silence larger than sound.

This poem is from The Door to Colour and published here with the permission of the poet and publisher.

* Mary MacRae wrote two collections of poetry As Birds Do and Inside the Brightness of Red

The Power of the Word

He lay silent, wordless
trapped in a body of pain
no movement possible
no hope of recovery.

Outside the trees sang their arias
conducted by the breeze
it was a painting of life
his eyes rested on the light.
She sat beside him stroking his hand
passing the touch of life with every stroke
as she read poetry the soft words
familiar rhythms entered his ears

brought healing peace through this sense
as the day slipped into evening’s song
the poems became prayers.

Godbody

Godbody is a slang name for the members of the urban, Black empowerment/ youth movement/ called the Nation of the Five Percent/

Or should I say Five Percenters/ who are considered/ to be a splinter/ Nation of Islam Group/ A troop/ fierce as any woman without make-up or sleep/ cold as midwinter/

At least they were in my eyes/ I was slightly older than five/ when I used to watch them organize/ the intellectual thugs in my hood with the wits to survive/

Which got me thinking about what would make the culture of poetry thrive/

Vibrate at high frequencies/ and give off good vibes/ with a philosophy that doesn’t deprive/ the inspired who keep the culture alive/

And I came up with “Godbody”

I never heard anyone argue after the statement “God is Love” Maybe that’s because/ we are all familiar with the power that binds/ even if it’s just on a subconscious level/

And if it’s easy to see/ when you apply Godbody/ in a literal sense to this philosophy/ which will always be with us like the force is to the rebels/

Now pause and think/

If the right leg and left leg constantly fought about/ who was longer or who was stronger/ Godbody wouldn’t progress/

When the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing it’s hard for Godbody to get dressed/

If there was no balance between the right side of your brain when it calculates/ and the left side when it desires to create/ quick and in a hurry you’d go crazy fast/

If the right side of your mouth kissed with love/ But the left only spoke on fear/ Your mouth would write checks that your ass couldn’t cash/

The flaw in our current philosophy/ that focuses on ME, ME, ME/ is that we view ourselves as separate/

Don’t you see? This Godbody/ philosophy/ focuses on the urgency/ of harmony/ in the art community/

The right leg and left represent the talent and the platform/ that move the culture forward which is the body/

The right hand and the left are pop culture and the underground/ reminding me of Kanye West/ and Mos Def/ how they both get down/ with one on the low and the other the life of the party/

The right side of the brain and the left represent/ the common people and the one percent/ who own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth/

One has the illusion of control/ one has true control but they ain’t so bold/ because they lack knowledge of self/

Which brings me back to the nation of the five percent/ why would I relent?/ Because when you break this shit down it really all makes sense/

Godbody/ Meaning man and woman are one body/ The promoter and the artist are one body/ Musicians and iTunes/ dope poets and packed rooms/ are all one body/

So stop frontin’/ Collaborate and build something/ be the reason for the rebirth/ of a higher sense of self worth/

I’ve been playing my part/ bleeding ink for this art/ signing off saying peace to the Gods and the Earths

Seeds of Love

A glance at the online newspaper
and I close that window
but not before several others open in me
and in each one is a different country

The numbers of those dead
would terrify a math book
All I see are1.5 million homeless
800,000 of them, children
Another opens closer to home
where dubious crusades for equality
take place between dogs and men
and where people fall like electrocuted mosquitoes
Smog from their pyres will hang as
torn washing does from choked balconies
till the next festival of communal hatred
repaints the sidewalks red

More windows fly open with alarming alacrity
I reach into me
to pull out a thorn stuck within
A thorn that plugs a hole
through which I see scattered seeds
buried like land mines around me
their distorted shapes deprived of sunlight
screaming wildly:

“Don’t mingle with him servant’s kid”
“Avoid him drunkards”
“Shoo her away beggars”
“Keep a watch on your shoes buskers”
“Don’t let him touch you lepers”
“Don’t bring her home orphaned”
Don’t fall in love with a child of a different god

These are failed seeds
They might sprout but their tentacles can never grow
the soil being barren,
intrinsically lacking the fecund humus of hatred and irrationality
This soil, prepared with wisdom and watered with care
can receive
only the seeds of love

– Reena Prasad

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