poem – Page 46 – The BeZine

At-risk Youth

You are 13, 15, 16 and at risk,
of failing, of flunking,
of dropping out forever.

You are at risk
each time you do meth,
of losing your free will,
of losing your mind.

You are at risk,
of living in the streets,
under a bridge,
of freezing to death.

You are at risk,
of getting sick,
of being raped,
of losing yourself.

You are at risk
of going hungry,
of getting arrested,
of disappearing into the system.

You are at risk
of being bullied, of being sold,
of being killed by gangsta gun violence
in the hood.

I am at risk,
of caring too much,
of getting involved,
of giving advice when it isn’t wanted.

I am at risk,
of offering hope, when it isn’t mine to give,
of seeing the person you are, of connecting,
of closing the gap between us.

I am at risk,
of forgetting myself as I laugh with you
because you are smart and funny,
of cracking open my heart.

I am at risk
of forever changing
because I know you, because I sat with you,
because I heard you.
I can never go back.

I am at risk
of understanding the injustice,
of seeing the parallel universe where you live,
right next to me,
of having to do something about it.

I felt something touch me inside here, you said,
putting a finger on your chest.
I believe in you, I said. I’ll see you next week.

© Lisa Ashley, MDiv

Not all legacies are good.
When I was a kid,
One day,
(I was 14).
Well, that day my dad
Well he got real mad,
In fact he got enraged.
And somehow or another,
Mistook my face for a punching bag.
Sullen teenage girl, I slammed my bedroom door shut.
I had no idea what was coming.
I heard footsteps pounding.
“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”
My heart raced like the terrified little rabbit that I was.
My father flung open my bedroom door and slammed his fist into the right side of my face, right on the jaw.
So hard he literally knocked me off my feet.
24 years later the physical pain of that incident is starting to rear its ugly head.
My jaw is so sad, broken, in pain all the time.
The chiropractor tells me my father displaced the first cervical vertebrae in my neck.
“Oh.” I say.
“Is that why…
“The weekly debilitating migraines for the past 17 years?”
“Yes.”
“The ear aches?”
“Yes.”
“Wait, then, the hearing loss too?”
“Yes.”
“The stabbing nerve pain?”
“Yes.”
“The inability to bite properly?”
“Yes.”
I sit, numb in shock with the news,
feeling like that lost little 14 year old girl again.
Wow. Thanks dad.
What a wonderful legacy.
You son of a bitch.

– Christina Conroy

Validating Myself

once my dreams

were my possibilities
there was no dividing line
life was, what it was
blind happiness

in a state of sleep

as I crawled, walked

and ran through life
the strides I made
some say I was a success
I succeeded

to have three baby daddies
and three children

whom I may have failed
though I was respected

among co-workers

and peers

I enabled his addiction
while I searched for my happiness
mommy overprotective me
daddy left and never looked back
he took my hand and stole my virginity
a nymphomaniac I became
addicted to touch

I wrote the words
I felt the pain and

cried the tears
never knowing who I was
stumbling through darkness
while the sun shone on me

placing blame everywhere
except for where blame belonged
I was too light
my hair too soft
my face too pretty
hated by women
lusted by boys
the pedophiles I knew
kept secrets in the open

no one told me

I didn’t hear

when I should have listened
lungs full of holes
a heart lacking oxygen
joints swollen
aches fueling my fatigue
living the short life
missing teeth
overweight
graceful and elegant I’m not
I was what I’ll never be again
regrets gather like ocean tears

a wall I build
where I hide
forgotten

– Kimberly Wilhelmina Floria

At-risk

as i dropped off
a few items
aunt bea
had requested
i found her staring
at the children
on the playground
across the street
she asked
can you
pick out
who among
that group
is at risk
they all
have the same
foundation from society
in
this neighborhood
the structure
of their future
has been created
using nothing more
than balance
and
friction
to stay upright
against the winds
of poverty
and
crime
oh i know
like the faces
on cards
a variety
of different problems
confront each child
abuse
disability
and such
and
each one
must face
unique family problems
but
who’s at risk
is it
the child
is it
the family
or
is it
the community
she said
i know
i’m not for sure
but
i do know
that each
at risk child
is stacked onto
the nation’s future
forming
a house of cards

Eli Eli lama sabachthani?

where were you
when the embryo
hatched and was formed
by blood-spattered hyenas
tearing hope from
limb to limb and
laughing gleefully
at the mockery

where were you
when the embryo
fell and love
offered a hit
of a crack pipe
covered in symbols
flashing through
the ghetto offering
escape from the
desolate heat

the hands that
should be reaching
out are cut off at
the wrists bleeding
sanctimonious tripe
in defiance of the call
to love the
least , lost, and lonely
while sentencing each
embryo to death

guilty rings through
the room as we
continue to bleed the
embryo out with
ignorance born of
fear and shame and
the lie of the only way
being my way standing
on the corner shouting
belligerently to
repent or die

revelation rings through
the cosmos as the
embryo marches the
guilty to sheol while
silent tears are birthed
wresting the stumbling
breath of hope into a
silent scream reaching
to the ramparts and
calling forth the final
battle fought with
easter lilies

©vPoem and Photo by Terri Stewart

Knife Notes – a poem

Worked at a drop-in center
in the basement of a church,
oh, years ago.
Street kids
played pool and foosball
two nights a week—
mostly Anishinabe, some Dakota,
a couple of Blacks, and
very few whites.

Tried to go into the church
the first night:
a little Anishinabe boy pulled a knife,
waved it at my stomach,
sort of “how you doing
get the fuck out of here.”

Scandinavian, sandy-haired Breck
slid up from behind all calm,
slight southern drawl,
“Give me that, Jimmy Dean.
You know you’re too young to be here.
Pull another stunt like that and you won’t
ever, I mean ever, be coming here again.”
The seven year-old sauntered off.

Among the names from then:
PJ, a Dakota boy.
Came in one night,
hand polishing
his just bandaged
stomach. “It ain’t no big deal.
Some ‘nigger’ shoved in front of me in line.
You shoulda seen what I did to him
after he cut me.”

Another name: Joe—
part Dakota, part Anishinabe,
tall, skinny, distinct Dakota features—
Talked about going to school in a horse wagon
on the reservation,
told about his grandfather
a Dakota Medicine Man.
“That Indian heritage crap’s
off the wall,” Breck snickered once.
“More excuses.”

Actually saw Joe about ten years later.
Heard he was in the hospital,
cut up in a fight. Went in to see him.
He hadn’t grown much taller since then,
almost short now. Almost old. Medicine
dripping into his arm from a plastic tube.

—Michael Dickel

True Story

Children fight for their lives every
day. But this one child, she fought extra
hard to escape her home that was filled
with a drunken father and an absent
mother. So traumatic that at the age of
twelve she left. Living with

a man who traded sex for safety and
sex for drugs. She was twelve. She
blocked it out of her mind as much
as she could and took the path of
drug addiction. Using and abusing
until she was locked up. Living with

the man who caged her trading her
freedom for safety and freedom for
an education that she never received–
not even a GED was completed by
the time she left. Living with

whoever would put her on a couch
at the age of seventeen. Safety
abandoned and trading her body
for love that she has never been
able to feel for herself. Until she
was eighteen and pregnant. Surfing
trailers and friends until birth.

Children fight for their lives every
day and children of children fight
to find just one place of safety but it is
too hard when children are living with

children. No service came to bring
a car seat or food or education or
a future. The safety net has holes
so large that children fall through,
drowning. The hospital judged them
a drain on resources and sent them
home to surf one last night. Children
are no longer living with

children. There is one less at-risk child.

In Memory of Baby T.

– Terri Stewart

Heading Home

3 p.m. and excited, I am heading home little realizing she is too,
packing my bag with that refined sense of glorious freedom that
comes on Fridays, knowing that there will be no classes, none –
for two days – no classes, freedom – packing my dark-blue cloth bag
pocketing a pink lipstick to put on once past the convent grounds,
happy in a shuttle bus to the Long Island Rail Road and Flatbush.
Tickets are two-something and the sites and smells of Brooklyn beckon.
I look forward to the Hudson and concrete sidewalks and city parks
and the mulberry trees that stand guard outside our apartment complex.
I think of her, Teresa Margaret, not realizing she too is heading home.

I think of her thick dark curls and wide purple lips, clear olive skin
and hands that flit like a hummingbirds from this to that to this again,
her sensible flat-heeled shoes, pastel shirtwaist dresses, and red lipstick,
the jodhpurs, brown boots, crop for riding, a thing she did and excelled at.
Who paid for that, I wondered, and for the stash of stone and plaster horses
that stand and wait mostly abandoned at our grandmother’s one block away.
I remember when I saw her laugh, eyes sparkling, curly pony tail bopping –
it seemed to jiggle with delight, the smiles that seemed foreign to her face
but were nice to see. So I put on my lipstick, thinking how skinny my lips are
not bold and generous like hers. My hair is fine and silky, not thick and frizzy
and coarse like hers. I am fine-boned. She is big-boned. My big sister is big.

She rides horses, did I say that? I’m headed home. The train sings as it passes
town after town along its way until we arrive at Jamaica, Queens – a hub –
where I change trains. I’m headed home where mom will serve up her anger in
bowls of pressure cooked chicken and potatoes, where plaster falls like mana,
water pipes rattle and shower water is icy, sometimes rusty. I’m headed home,
little realizing Teresa Margaret is headed home too, winging her way on a DC10
from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, cold in a wooden box, colder bullet in her head.

Youth (aged 10-24 years) Suicide Statistics:

For middle and high school age youth (ages 12-18), suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death.

For college age youth (ages 18-22), suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death.
Over-all, suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for our youth ages 10-24.
(*2013 CDC WISQARS)

In ages 10-14, we have seen an alarming 128% increase in suicides since 1980, making it the third leading cause of death for that age group.

More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED.

Each day in [the United States alone], there are an average of over 5,400 attempts by young people grades 7-12.

Statistics Courtesy of The Jason Foundation established by Jason Flatt’s parents in his memory. Jason’s father write’s, “I will never hug my son again. But I can and will work alongside you…perhaps to save your friend, your neighbor’s child, a relative or even your own son or daughter. Thank you for your support of any kind . . . “

How Can I Justify My Life If I Do Not Justify My Own?

unnamed The world represented to me is a mirror of the space
I care to see, a reflection of the fallibility I am.
My tendency is to close the window from oppressive noise
And beat a drum to drown out the excessive silence that I hear.
All of it would slip beneath my door
In the smoke of the building burning around me
As I go about my toast and jam
Disregarding what papers say
Of a man’s uncompromising attitude in fighting with himself.
I say, “I do not have the time.”
When in truth all my life is time I have
But do not take it to use with the where withal
Of any talents steeped in an honest assessment
Of my humanity and how I might define it if asked.
At some point we are all put on trial for our lives
Being defendant, plaintiff, prosecutor and judge.
What we lack is the jury of our peers we will accept as being adept
To live their ways as I might live mine
And arbitrate the differences that do and must take place
In order the earth does not tip more than it does.
At every station we congregate our faces are more
Than merely petals on a wet black bough;
With ears that hear and eyes that see and lips to voice
What may be hidden in our hearts longing to come out
Though we may not even know such things exist.
We are a funny, perhaps even a silly species
We put so much thinking into what to wear
And so little at times what to care about
That may have some meaning and connect us to a stranger
Though that person live ten thousand miles away
And does not see things as we do and still give credence to the thought
“How can I justify my life if I cannot justify his own?”

– K.A. Bryce

a beautiful enigma

if you ask
she will
not
answer
nor
will
staring into
her eyes
help you
find
the answer
for she
already knows
the answer
it was
placed
within her
when time began
and
hidden
from all men
what it means
to be
feminine

her power leaps ~

she’s present
returned to bite through the umbilical of tradition,
to flick her tongue
and cut loose the animus-god of our parents,
like a panther she roams the earth, she is eve wild in the night,
freeing minds from hard shells
and hearts from the confines of their cages,
she’s entwined in the woodlands of our psyches
and offers her silken locks to the sacred forests of our souls ~
naked but for her righteousness,
she stands in primal light,
in the untrammeled river of dreams
the yin to balance yang
the cup of peace to uncross the swords of war ~
through the eons she’s been waiting for her time
her quiet numinosity hiding in the phenomenal world,
in the cyclical renewal of mother earth,
whispering to us in the silver intuition of grandmother moon
watching us as the loving vigilance of grandfather sun ~
she, omen of peace birthed out of the dark,
even as tradition tries to block her return,
her power leaps from the cleavage of time

*Original water color by Gretchen Del Rio, All rights reserved*

Illustration ~ this lovely watercolor painting by Gretchen Del Rio with its girl-tree, panther and other spirit animals was the perfect inspiration for a poem on the spiritual return of the feminine. The real back-story on the painting is just as interesting. Gretchen says, “I painted this for a 14 year old Navaho girl. It is for her protection and her power. She sees auras and is very disturbed by this. She is just amazing. Beauty beyond any words. You can see into the soul of the universe when you look at her eyes. She has no idea. I loved her the moment I saw her. My blessings for her well being are woven into the art.” Such a delightful piece. I purposely posted it full-size so that everyone can enjoy the detail. Bravo, Gretchen, and thank you.

Three Poems (Italian and English)

Donatella D’Angelo

(Translations by Michael Dickel with Donatella D’Angelo)

Incoscienza

il ricordo nell’ascolto
e nella bellezza sottile
di una veglia forzata

laddove il destino lascia
il sogno scoperto
e una curva dolce
di sangue e latte materno
agli angoli della bocca

è nell’incontro tra labbro e ciglio
la verità sospesa

——

Unconsciousness

memory lies in listening
and in the subtle beauty
of a forced vigil

where fate leaves
the dream uncovered
and a gentle curve
of blood and breast milk
in the corners of the mouth

it is the encounter between the lip and brow
the truth suspended

quale strada restituisce intatto
il sapore delle fragole?

dalle mani un filo rosso
e sangue
della passione di Cristo
tra i resti di un’altra fame.

——

which path brings back intact
the taste of strawberries?

a red thread spins from hands
and blood
the Passion of Christ
among the remains of another hunger.

come scorre veloce il silenzio
mentre i colori del diluvio
riposano sulla pelle

geografia dell’assenza
e pulsazione del tempo
sono i miei stessi lividi

——

how fast the silence flows
while the colors of the downpour
rest on the skin

geography of absence
and pulse of time
I am my own bruising

————————————————

war’s cold night

in a darkened room
peace sits silently waiting
for sanity’s rise

On Regretting Its Death by Drowning

It is always interesting to me, this business of feeding – of inspiring – one another with our art and poetry . . .

Buddhist artist Paula Kuitenbrouwer (Mindful Drawing) tells a sweet tale of the near-death of a beetle at her home in the Netherlands.

The tranquil garden-drawing Paula completed to commemorate the day is lovely and the first line of her post is both an homage to her unutterable respect for life and absolute poetry filled with the promise of story.

“I found a Carabidae beetle in a bucket with water and regretted its death by drowning… “

The line put me in mind of Isak Dinesen‘s unforgettable opening for Out of Africa,

“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills . . . “

Something about those evocative sentences lets you know there’s a good story to come. And there is.

“It lay there for at least an hour and I hoped so much it would give a sign of life. Then I did the most crazy thing imaginable; I turned it on its back, squeezed it gently, and gave it heart massage (don’t ask). Three drops of water came out. I have no clue why I did such a weird thing. Would somebody tell me he or she had given cardiac massage to a beetle, I would have laughed out loud.” MORE [Paula Kuitenbrouwer]

And so the inspiration for my poem ~

the garden floating in violet and ruby hues,
by the side of the house, a beetle floats too,
so jewel-like, amethyst and brilliant against
the dull gray water, it does not move

it lies there still as the dead of noon across
a bone-colored desert, and her hand so white,
wing-like flutters against its rigor, laying it
on the table, by a pad to sketch with pencils

that minuscule life, no will to release it
into whatever beetle heaven there might be,
laying tender finger to knead a tube-like heart
holding her breath, willing air into spiracles

wishful thinking? a flicker from the antennae?
slight movement of a leg? perhaps, perhaps
some healing pressure, one gentle push,
three drops of water, success in late hours

to heal a beetle, to sketch in varied colors
with time to hug the child and sip hot tea …
a creature saved from death by drowning and
cherish the mindful drawing for a memory

– Jamie Dedes

Parallel Worlds

My world is parallel to yours.
I see what you see,
I comprehend
what you understand, but
the pace of my soul,
my mind’s chicanery,
the pattern of my life,
defeats you.
It is perhaps the magic
of the spectacles I wear
you know, the ones
that only a child can use
…effectively.

The varying spectral sensitivity
of which my eyes are capable,
sometimes miss a step
in your logic.
It’s like a missed beat
in the heart, that leads
to moistened eyes,
to anger or pain,
or simple awe at sight
of beauty,
that makes me fear
to show you how I feel,
because of how you think…

Like a garden full
of vibrant colours,
arranged according
to their botany,
not their beauty.
Like lying in a field of grass
watching a sky full of stars,
defined by astrophysics
and not by your dreams.

When I am in
a hypnopompic state,
I tarry not with reason.
I see why your reality
is not what makes me tick.
What turns me on is
an alternative view
of sights and sounds
that sing to me,
in harmony
with Mother Nature’s Earth.
That is, the earth,
the other worldly earth,
of which we are a part.
Try to understand it,
as I do you.

Framed

Crooked picture? (Photo credit: L. Marie)

Through the doorway, across the room,
look out the window, focussing behind
these glasses, I see so much of existence
bound within frames, a life waged
within four corners or, at best,
an odd oval of confinement. Of course,
that could just be Monday talking,
that second small frame from the left
in this third long cluster down
from where it says March,
hanging here on the green wall.

Maybe we all exist within some grand
cosmic gallery, each in our own painting,
our own Rembrandt, Gauguin, Van Gogh,
Caravaggio, Dali, or Bosch. We provide
some kind of aesthetic entertainment
for ethereal patrons of the art of being.
I’m not sure I wish to just be, though.
So today I’m rocking back and forth
on my wall to become unplumb, off-center,
just to piss off those posh Olympian suits.
If you grab hold, we can slip these hooks
altogether.

Cassandra

♥

our Cassandra’s agony

torments

in poems of prophecy

and breaks our hearts

upon the stone of her insanity

she calls on death to visit one self-appointed night

and we, her guardian angels, wearied by the fight

still

we soldier on with all our might

♥

White Angel Feathers

three ekphrastic poems

after photographs by Donatella D’Angelo

White

White. Don’t mistake this for blank.
She hides in it. The black forest
rises from snow, curving down
a hill. Don’t mistake this for shape.
It masks her true form. The hints
erase. Don’t mistake this for absence.
Her image emerges from between—

a suggestion of emptiness and lines—

I can’t see her there. Her shadow
evades understanding. The empty
line holds all of the meaning. Drops
of water splash beyond the frame
of the window. Someone calls her
name. She hides in it. It masks
her true form. White erases a hill.

—Michael Dickel

hiding in the bush L’erotismo è dare al corpo le suggestioni della mente. (Georges Perros, Papier collés, 1960) Lavoro autobiografico ©Donatella D’Angelo 2011 — hiding in the bush
L’erotismo è dare al corpo le suggestioni della mente. (Georges Perros, Papier collés, 1960) 
Lavoro autobiografico ©Donatella D’Angelo 2011

Angel

Photo of woman lying on the floor with white cloth — Sintesi Degli Opposti B1
©Donatella D’Angelo

A ghost angel flutters across
the image—naked truth,
an acceptance of time, place.
Absence gains shape from breath,
a beating heart that sings songs

ghostly images of a woman and man climbing stairs — from Los respiros del alma
Doppio autoscatto
Lavoro autobiografico in collaborazione con José Lascerai @2013

from overexposed light, transparent
while form begins in color as
a hint of the person emerges,
more solid than any pretense
of carved stone or identity.

The photographer floats
across her page—possibility,
a moment, a promise to herself—
flowing like water, revealed in a brush
of skin tones blushed across canvass.

Her spirit glimmers, a bit of mystery.

—Michael Dickel

Self portrait Non si può scindere l’anima dal corpo che la contiene Lavoro autobiografico ©Donatella D’Angelo 2013 — Self portrait
Non si può scindere l’anima dal corpo che la contiene
Lavoro autobiografico ©Donatella D’Angelo 2013

Feathers

I want to write you as feathers,
the way you paint yourself in light—
as though you could reduce self to a
transparent tone of skin caught
in a patch of sun falling across
a sofa while you lay there naked.

I want you to paint me as words
erased from a photograph before
taking the picture, like a breeze
that whispers through the room
and touches your skin when
you start to dance into the image.

What I want doesn’t matter, as you know.
Such wishes merely reflect in water—
imitations of sky, cloud, and tree—
they shimmer and vibrate without
substance or form. They project
a you and me that we cannot touch.

—Michael Dickel

Los respiros del alma Doppio autoscatto Lavoro autobiografico in collaborazione con José Lascerai @2013 — from Los respiros del alma
Doppio autoscatto
Lavoro autobiografico in collaborazione con José Lasheras @2013

Project Tag: poem

At-risk Youth

Legacy

Validating Myself

At-risk

Eli Eli lama sabachthani?

Knife Notes – a poem

True Story

Heading Home

How Can I Justify My Life If I Do Not Justify My Own?

a beautiful enigma

her power leaps ~