Tag: women

Never Take Rain for Granted

When you live in the torrid desert
Play in the dry, dirt like sand
Algid rain is miraculous

Flash flooding inevitable
Clouds unearthly 
Forming into mythical mountains

You’ll see shadows and light
Tug in play
As if, God is cracking

Open a window into Paradise
A promise to internal happiness
Gifting aqua pura 

To believe in the heavens or not
Never take rain for granted
Because in an hour, it may disappear

© GM @musings_by_gina (instagram)
02 June 2023

© GM @musings_by_gina (instagram) | 02 June 2023 | Edgewood, New Mexico

Muse

Katrina Kaye

She returns as shards
of glass in heel
hindering escape.

She takes the breath
from my mouth
and blows it back
in my face.

She makes my
eyes sting.

She whittled words
into my skin
and left me there
to scratch at the scabs
till they scarred
in the shape of tin can,
brown boots, bad luck,

a promise made and then
unwoven like a web
on a cracked window.

I am not sorry
I took her home
that first night.

The way she
enveloped every
part of me,
the way she
recklessed through
my unconscious

filling the empty
inside my chest,
rekindling a spark
that had long
gone to ash.

I know now
she always remained close,
waiting for the time
when I was brave
enough to call on
her again.

Andromache

Katrina Kaye

I was not made of metal
but there was iron in my hold.

It took a tamer of horses,
but once bridled,
I absorbed my part
like husband’s body.

I dressed him,
helmet and breast plate,
securing sword and shield
with a kiss too genuine and devout
to be any less than natural wife.

A woman of battlement,
I never pleaded the gods for his return,
I demanded it.

I waited for him,
patient in bed chamber,
silently sewing white to purple,
knowing,
once screams dried
and red sun subsided,
he would need me
to sooth dirt from face and eyes,
tend split scabs,
bandage newly broken skin.

I was tenderness
to a tyrannical time.

But not all husbands
return from battle.
Front doors receive knocks
instead of familiar sways,
armor remains on front line,
flags are folded and delivered,
bath water ripples cold.

The last sensation I felt
was husband ripped from arms.

Resonating through me
was the tangle of limbs
dangled from Achilles’ chariot,
skin scraping from face in laps
around Trojan Walls.

I regressed to wide eyed beast
as child tore from hip,
body reined, and
led from home.

I didn’t stomp my hooves
as smoke slithered fortress walls,
brick collapsed to dust,
glory crumbled to ash.

Inside husband’s skin,
as though it were my own,
I was struck down,
desecrated,
traded for gold.

As though strapped to Hector’s chest,
I burned atop his body.

Clay molded as wife
and kilned;
I was made
a woman of Troy.
I was made for this.

Tell me the sky

by Gina Marselle

@musings_by_gina

Tell me the sky…

Tell me the sky 

isn’t carved 

from lapis lazuli,

and I’ll tell you 

the clouds are not 

God’s whispered breath.

Butterflies dream 

in the quiet breeze, 

fluttering without fear. 

Their time is limited,

and they do not cry 

or feel pain. 

The birds chirp happily 

welcoming in the warmth. 

The sun is Joy 

wrapped in yellow.

Quiet city sounds 

in the distance, 

Humming of vehicles.

The quiet sounds of a neighborhood—

A few hellos, 

Someone watering their yard.

A jogger.

The postal carrier 

bringing the mail. 

A dog barking.

I welcome this 

tranquil moment  

it is as if 

the universe knows 

I’d need nothing.

Unfinished

Katrina Kaye

there is a trench
dug against my navel

running between breasts
concaving into clavicle

a ravine
through the center of me

this is where
I need to be filled

it doesn’t matter
if it is love that floods the chasm

or pebbles of hope piled
one upon the other

it doesn’t matter if it is a spell
to resurrect the dead

or songs which conjure oceans
and summon the mountains

it could be the sweetness of sunrise
kaleidoscoping before my eyes

displayed against bare ceiling
while last’s night coda repeats in my head

it could be anything that is pure
simple and peaceful

it only needs to complete me
fill me, make me whole

but these fleeting sentiments 
have yet to fill the hollow

for now, I remain gutted 
with little hope of being finished

 

Chocolate Spring

This chocolate smells like Easter as a child,

a holiday whose scent, to me, is not of grass 

or black patent leather shoes restricting 

my feet with white tights, or strips of palm

leaves made into small crosses pinned to dresses 

the week before on Palm Sunday. This scent

is of cheap chocolate, milked down water 

hollowed out shapes of spring bunnies. 

The time of year is not a memory of Jesus dying 

or gone missing and reappearing, not the story

of an execution like the ones happening in Iran,

in Ukraine, Mississippi, Texas, not a story 

of freedom or belief, not either is it the fragrance 

of a holiday ham. It is a scent and memory of sugar, 

one of the next most addictive religions. Feed me 

sweet cheap chocolate in the shape of a rabbit, 

rainbow colored pastel plastic eggs stuffed 

with jelly beans hiding in the yard behind bushes, 

in the caverns of low tree branches, amidst

grass greening for this occasion. This time of year 

includes a day with a rabbit leaving treats 

for children to realize that if you look, there are  

sugar eggs hidden within reach. Candy that waits 

to belong to someone’s mouth’s desire 

like a last wish, a last meal, sweet memory.

-Liza Wolff-Francis

Look at the sky

poem and photo by @musings_by_gina

January 01, 2023 | Sunset

“Look at the sky / It’s the colour of love…” ~Sade

Setting in firecracker fashion, she bursts wide. Orange glow burns—life is her philosophy since time first wandered over desert seas like an eagle soars looking for prey. Sun’s watchful eye sees New Year’s Joy for some. Heartache for others. Hear the saxophone blues play one note at a time.

Mule

Katrina Kaye

I am mule.

My bay, an obnoxious yap
from graying muzzle,
as I move from under master’s whip.

My velvet ears twitch
with distrust for the acts of man.

I will not be owned
and have grown impatient
with the repeated deeds of
those who claim to know what’s best,

so I become obstinate
with mud to my knees
rebelling by standing still,
immovable in open stall
despite the whistle on the wind.

I want only a gentle hand, but deny
those offered me as though
their compassion was insult or pity.

No longer do I hold plough forward,
but I long to safeguard the moments
as they are gifted: one sunset, one thoughtful word,
one cube of sugar, one kindness at a time.

Surely, this perseverance
will lead me to dry pastures where only
the occasional fly distracts from
solitude and peace.

Becoming

-Gina

I marvel at these old cottonwoods
Some with gold and brown leaves
Few still with green
Branches misshapen
Broken
Scorched
Age has only made this Bosque
More engrossed, tangled, wise
Small shoots regrow, becoming
Reaching for bird and sun

I cannot filter the trees into perfection
I can only wonder at their time in history
The chipmunks and squirrels who have
Made their home in the hollows
Of these old tree bones
Worn with time

My feet walk the path unseen
Comforted by this space in nature
This Bosque along the timeless Rio Grande
I stop to feel the grooves of a downed tree
I too am as worn
Wrinkled
An age spot on my right cheek
Gray hairs have rooted
I am fortunate to have reached this age
Still standing
Still becoming
Reaching for bird and sun

(C) 2022


Photo by my daughter, M.J.M. | “Becoming” | Taken in the Bosque

Everyone has a Summer

Katrina Kaye

Mine involved boys and alcohol,
late nights, loud music and bonfires,
a little red dress I bought on sale.

I balanced on platform shoes,
etched black eyeliner around lashes,
eager to be a little more than what I was.

I used to smoke cigarettes.
It was an excuse to make
eye contact, slip away with someone,

discuss poetry — or was it
philosophy? — share a strawberry flavored
kiss, and whisper a secret or two.

There was a summer I danced
on a block at the Pulse nightclub
to Siouxsie and the Banshees

almost every Thursday night
in that little red dress with the open back
and side slit, neon light and billowing smoke.

Everyone has a summer,
but there is no reason to be dismayed
when the fall comes.

Even in autumn months,
a night or two may recapture me
to a place of little consequence.

There are still late nights
when I have a drink too many,
kiss the boys on the patio,

kiss the girls on the neck.
Smoke a cigarette from
the brand I quit years ago.

But then I watch myself in mirrors
shadowed with soot, see my city lie in dust,
wondering who else feels the chill in the air.

I’ve grown past the green of my prime,
and, although I wilt, there is a young woman
with a too loud laugh wearing a red dress

who still exists somewhere in the pit of me,
because giving in to the animal
until the sun rises can be so breathtaking.