Category: Final Drafts

The task of the creative

Liza Wolff-Francis

To those of us who write poems, create art,
our task is to lead the thirsty to the lagoon

where the water is just cool enough to test out.
First, with a dip of the toe, then cupping

our hands around it to make a small
puddle in our palms, bring puddle to lips,

between cheeks. We cannot help them
swallow, drink, or digest, but we can point out

the deepest parts and the shallow areas
where algae grows. We can show them

how to soak their bodies in an ecosystem
they didn’t know existed. We can wear a path

in the grasslands between their home and this oasis,
where a quench is mastered before it even registers

in the mind. Our task is to show them
when the hawks dive down, to alert them

to the preying wait of the crocodile. Our task
is to make them want more, so they depend on it

and are conscious of that at their very core,
beyond even understanding thirst.

Remember

Emily Bjustrom

After Joy Harjo

Remember the sky you were born under-
The light and how it shadowed
Your mother’s face

How she howled and screeched-
The two of you were Human then

Remember your feet
How they carried you
Up mountains and trees

You clung to them
Remember the breeze
How it kissed you
And blessed you with its touch

You knew then what animal you were
Remember.

March 20, 2020

“…but am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut bur—

and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the guest leaves—…”

~ Emily Dickinson

March 20, 2020

Dear _____,

…petite like an Arabian horse compared to a thoroughbred. My Hair is brunette, frizzy like a Weathered Cloud. Fiery highlights ignite Curls like a Match to Candle. Hazel eyes change color as quick as a sail upon wind during a Gale. My body mimics an hour glass, Sands of Time show a life lived—still hoping to see more. Its roundness comes from childbirth, food, and Italian genetics. My Breasts, like storm waves beneath clavicle, guard heart space. My arms are not long nor graceful like a ballerina, they are strong enough to carry pain, lithe enough to offer a hug to my children. My Eyes are wrinkled from writing and writing and editing as Poets or Teachers do. My ribs shelter breath as a Wren shelters her eggs with wing and song—nestling away from Uncertainty; wish I may hide away from Coronavirus, it’s devouring the world. It’ll Steal my lungs, it’ll Steal my loved ones. My tummy is anxious—rumbles—like soft Aftershocks from a significant Earthquake. My Nether regions aren’t Hell—they’re life and shelter protected by plump legs, muscled, robust enough to ride my horse into battle. Ankles twist like snakes and Connect to feet that carry me wherever I go—in these Uncertain Times—at this moment—a Tremendous Gift!

*This piece is inspired by an excerpt from a letter (L268) written by Emily Dickinson to her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson (July 1862)

©Gina Marselle, 2020

Numb

Katrina Kaye

I became numb
one afternoon,
essence drained
from veins

like a dried petal,
posing for pictures,
yet so close to crumble.

The thread pulled tightly,
and ribs corseted closed

unable to carry breathe
or speak the words that
scratch the top of my mouth.

Wanting to be a good woman,
I emerge mannequin,
hoping not to break
illusion with movement.

I am a clumsy masochist at best.

I continue to wake every morning.
Not a bathing beauty,

or ambitious explorer.
Not a teacher, or poet, or guide,
nor lap cat provided with secure function.

Without purpose, I only continue.

I used to trust in friendship,
assume confidence from conversations,
validations from simple smiles.

Now I cross myself in the morning
before covering my feet.
I keep my anger in an empty vase
that gathers dust on windowsill.

I could have been born a cloud

Liza Wolff-Francis

maybe float away, not leaving
any trace of image against sky,
my shadow moving across earth
into all we see once and thousands

of times, recognizable only
by its species and shape rather than
our smile or the sound of laughter
come from deep belly and throat.

The cloud does not worry about
where the wind will take it,
does not plan its next trip or its tomorrow,
it gathers its tears from the beauty

it sees below, carries its vision like song.
It rises, ready to nourish the earth,
floats like laughter across the air,
welcomes the new year’s sound like light.

Sunbeams

Sunbeams break empty
waves undulate into a withered desert
there is one butterfly on a 24 hour adventure
a raven, a rabbit, and a coyote–
all minding their own business
a bee searches for one purple flower
for shade and pollen

the red sun is angry, anxious
heart scorched black   
her resentment explodes into 107 degree days
cacti sweat like silent sentinels

the mountain tries to console her
let her know she is not abandoned
perhaps the universe turned its back upon her
but the stars reach to hold her
she’s not appeased 
alas, her rays

still rise in the East
and set in the West
she reflects,

4.603 billion years is a long time to be alone

© Gina Marselle, 2020

A sunbeam.

Image by Gina Marselle

April 4, 2020

In a moment of despair, there is always a ray of hope.

Image by Gina Marselle

April 4, 2020

 

Broken

Katrina Kaye

Our conversation
dried;

our time
over.
It’s not your
fault.

We never
had a chance.

You left,
emptied shelves
and dresser drawers.
All I can think
is my grandfather will never
dance with me at my wedding.

My heart is broken
broken,
broken.
My body mourning.

All it is
all of this is
a boneyard
I can’t bury.

I’ve always had trouble
with the scraps,
always found it
impossible to let go.

And now,
at 10:30 on a Tuesday night
I am more empty,
more alone
than I can ever remember.

All I want is for
my mind to rest,
my body to resign.

This is not a holy time.
There is nothing sacred
in this prayer.

Dear child of my heart,
dear landmine,
how does one rectify absence
when the only thing left is
alone
aloneness
lone ness
lonely
ness

and I am
drip
drip
dripping
on white pages again.

Metaphors are the same
as curse words are the same
as damn I miss you
is the same as damn
I miss myself is the same
as damn
damn

I miss you.

Ignite

“…sizzle like moth wings,”

~Naomi Shihab Nye

In Nye’s poem Burning the New Year,
she writes in four stanzas
a poem of beauty, letting go
metaphors and love.
I want to love myself as I love this poem,
so, I let go that I’m not enough.

What if I loved myself like
my life depended on it?
What if doubt waterfall-ed down the Sandia’s
in a year of drought—

impossible?
Never.

I have touched a waterfall once long ago
on a lonely hike to Travertine Falls
where rock, cave, tree, water and desert meet—

impossible?
Never.

Time has hidden this spot
like love in a cottonwood root
ageless and unseen.

This is love I ignite from self
to waterfall as a desert monsoon
spills from all the crevices
into a new year affirmation: I love myself.

©Gina Marselle, January 20, 2020

this bird

Katrina Kaye

never learned to nest

allowed feathers to fall
without a thought to
where they may land

I too
am on the wing

telling stories of lives
I could never take apart

this bird breaks to pieces
part of the puzzle that
wedged creation together

this birdsong
sweet as time
reaches never touches

too many nests
not enough places
to sit and stir

a myth is true only when
it is sung on morning’s breath

let the ink be ink
the guitar be guitar

let song be song

“this bird” is previously published in the Weekly Write 2020 via Swimming with Elephants Publications.

Original Art by Katrina K Guarascio

While he sleeps,

Liza Wolff-Francis

I sit in the dark of morning, inhale
the sacred silence that comes between

his breaths like a tiptoe. My body balances
on the edge of the bed as if it was to decide

which day to climb out of. His breath, even
and pacing, as if it were the day moving

through itself and an occasional animal sound,
a raccoon perhaps, a squirrel, a dog, a bear.

My bear behind me, vulnerable like all
that would kill us is far from here, far from us.

My prayers that it will stay that way hover
at the floorboard cracks, like a spell of salt

and peppermint oil to keep away dark shadows,
politicians in their masks, the America

I criticize and want to be different. Only all that I love
here in the dark right at my fingertips, holding up

the droop of my breasts, the bend of my toes,
the wild of my hair. While you sleep, the air

holds me in its dying night and I wait to remember
myself, all skin and bone, in the coming light.