New Poem

At the moment, I have not as of yet been able to think of a title for this one.  Please let me know your feedback or thoughts.  They are always appreciated.

Thanks,
Jan

 

It was a feeling of mindfulness,

what mystics call that flash of time

a mind’s thoughts are centered,

focused, and no room is left for

injustice, desires, and sorrows.

 

There were no verbalizations

about the world and friends around us,

no stories or tales that fill up

the volumes of a person’s days.

 

We reveled in Handel’s Hallelujah

sung with the pain and promise of youth

aware of this ephemeral happening

when one is totally present,

satisfied with music and a lover’s eyes.

 

If life were filled with moments,
you would never know you had one.

Wild Turkey Surprise…

Well, this has been quite the eventful week.  I am now officially a co-ed again majoring in Professional Writing.  We’ll see if this degree turns out to be as useless as my degree in Opera Performance.  Why can’t I be passionate about accounting or real estate?

So driving home from class today, I learned something new.  I learned that turkeys fly.  Yes, they fly.  One flew up out of a ditch in Oakland (like with the traffic in Oakland, why would a turkey want to live there?) and broke my driver side mirror.  Unfortunately, my husband’s car is dead and has been so for a week because we can’t afford to fix it.  But now its illegal to drive my car because I have no mirror.  Now if Garth’s Saturn were working, I could drive and get a mirror…sigh…you get the picture.

Damn that turkey anyway…

GRRRRR….

I haven’t written too much since the last three poems I posted, hence, no recent post.  This post will be more of a gripe actually, so my apologies. 

If you remember, a few posts ago I mentioned I sent out 18 poems to 6 different magazines.  That was a little over a week ago.  Well, on Monday I received a rejection notice.  I’ve received twice as many rejects as I have accepts so its merely a fact of life and I’m normally pretty thick skinned about it.  However, in this case, they snapped it back within a week with a slip of paper (not even a form letter) stating they were rejected and not read because of the large number of submissions received.  They also did not send the poems back even though I included a SASE with ample postage to do so.  Now, I can handle a reject if they don’t like the poems, the poems aren’t right for the magazine, or if they’ve received too many poems.  But if I buy a stamp, at least look at them!  And please, send them back so that I don’t have to spend money and ink reprinting them each time they are submitted somewhere.  Is that too much to ask? 

Okay, done griping.  I guess this sort of goes with a post a friend of mine did recently .  Oh well.  I guess I’ll reprint them and send them to another journal.  My little ritual is to print them up with a cover letter and give them a little prayer.  Then, just before I drop them in the mailbox, I kiss the envelope and cross my fingers.  So, even if they are not read upon arrival, they are still blessed when they leave the house.

The Muse works in Mysterious ways…

Never underestimate the power of art.  This evening, I found myself with the itch to write something.  To help stimulate some inspiration, I pulled out a book called “Klimt’s Women” which features the paintings and ladies that helped bring him to fame and also helped usher in the modern age of painting.

The following three poems were written this evening, inspired by some of his painted women:

Garden of Life

They were a study of hope
and their naked bodies glistened
clean and fresh from the bath
water and bubbles dripping from
their scrubbed extremities.

He rubbed his large brown hand
over her swollen abdomen
gently teasing the protruding navel
stooping finally to put his ear
to the universe in her womb.

She looked like Mother Earth incarnate,
her belly full of child
breasts succulent, enticing,
heavy with nourishing milk,
a goddess in the garden of life.

 

Danae in Repose

Her very name was rapture
and her strawberry curls
were a loose tangle of color,
the ends deep brown from
dipping in the water below.

The bath became a
steamy sensuous cauldron,
her creamy skin blushing
as her dainty fingers danced
to the music of the spheres.

Her very name was bliss
as she sang her song to heaven
her voice lifted like an angel’s prayer
reaching the throne of Paradise
with a contented sigh.

 

Mermaid

This was no mythic creature
but a goddess beautiful and terrible,
her skin silver and wet
as she combed her platinum locks.

Her steely eyes chilled the heart
as the fisherman dropped his net
disturbing her moment of solitude
on the white sands of his island.

Her movement was quick and fluid
like water in motion and
he shaded his eyes from the gleam
of her sepentine tail.

Her laughter was all around him
as she shimmered into the crystalline depths
to frolic with her sisters
and dine on the rich blood of fish.

 

 

 

New poem…

Together We Die

As we laid face to face
beside each other, I thought
on how the Victorians called
an orgasm “the little death.”

You curled a sleepy hand
around my hip and struggled
to keep drooping eyes open
while mumbling an apology.

My lover, I’ll not think you insensitive
if you drowse but a short while,
for I know “the little death”
can cause a death-like sleep.

Is this what old feels like?

I’m driving home from the bank in my banky banker suit.  As I’m driving home and flipping through the stations, I come across a song that was a favorite of mine in college but I hadn’t heard in years:  Head Like a Hole by Nine Inch Nails (yes, I’m a closet metal-head.)  I turn up the radio real loud and bob my head to the music with the window rolled down.  One of my clients noticed me as he walked on the sidewalk and after waving, gave me the traditional head-banger salute (you know the one where your index and pinky are extended…)

I’m laughing and enjoying the loud, noisy music.  Then, after the song ends, the terror begins.  The DJ announces that I’m listening to WRRK, Pittsburgh’s classic rock station.  I think to myself…when did Nine Inch Nails become classic rock?  I’m not ready for my music to be classic rock yet.  When did my life become someone else’s nostalgia?  I’m only 32!!!

Sigh.  Guess I’ll put my down-payment on my walker.

Signing off for now,

Janette

Haven’t done too much writing over the weekend.  Actually, I haven’t done any writing over the weekend.  I sent out 18 different poems to 6 different magazines.  I hate the waiting process, but when you strike gold, it makes it all worthwhile except that you still want to say what took you so flipping long!!!

Oh well.  I think that’s all for today.  I have a sink full of dirty dishes attracting flies.  But I did answer an important question:  How long will the dishes have to sit before my husband actually does them or I crack?  Apparently the answer is six weeks… 

Dish pan hands suck,

Janette

PS:  Don’t just write there…SUBMIT IT FOR CRYIN’ OUT LOUD!!!

Regarding my last post…you ladies are fabulous!  Kudos to Cassildra and Lady_Songbird for helping to name that poem “Lie…A Rolling Stone.” 

Sometimes, when I have the urge to write but find I am struggling with ideas, I look at artwork to see if I can find inspiration there.  This one is from last night.  I love Frida Kahlo and her work.  Her paintings not only move me deeply, but also helped inspire me to find out more about hispanic painters and their contributions to the art world.  One of her most disturbing and powerful paintings is “The Suicide of Dorothy Hale,” a retablo of the suicide of a close friend. 

Dorothy’s husband had died and she was unable to find any kind of work.  Her money dwindled and she found herself rapidly becoming destitute.  One “friend” gave her $1000 to buy herself a nice dress so she could get another husband.  She bought the dress and threw a going away party, saying she was departing for a long journey overseas.  After her guests had left, still wearing the expensive dress, she lept over her balcony to her death.

The Suicide of Dorothy Hale

She stood transfixed on the balcony
gazing over the ledge at
the city bellowing as it teemed
with treachery and life.

As she lept through this
makeshift portal to eternity
her hair fanned out, its strands
glimmering from reflected neon light.

Her limbs scattered as she dropped
and tumbled like a child’s ragdoll,
rolling and flopping in the night air
like flower petals in the breeze.

She seemed more broken than dead
her pleasing face untouched and frozen
while her bones shattered and
fragmented on the unforgiving pavement.

Its been a good week for writing poems.  Special thanks to Lady_Songbird.  I think I’ll use the title “The Singer in the Cards” for yesterday’s poem.  Also thanks to Cassildra and TenTwelve, we’ll see how the shift key trick works in the poem I am posting for today.  It was also written just before I went to sleep.  The question I have for any readers who check it out is that I am using some repetition on purpose in this poem to get across a specific idea.  I want to see if it works or if it is just annoying.

Thanks,

Jan

PS:  And if you can help me think of a title for this one, I’ll buy you ice cream.

 

I spun the word around
in my head, in my head
a weak word, a mighty connotation,
okay, baby, are we okay?
and I thought of this latest lie
this newest vow broken
and I worked out the meaning
in my head, in my head,
turned it over in fear and trembling
are we okay, baby, okay?
its just another word, really
doesn’t mean much
so I nodded my head
and nodded my head, yes okay
and made a little promise
to pacify, to satisfy, to mollify,
and noticed it was not so hard
to tell a lie with my head.

Here is a poem I wrote last night…also, if anyone knows how to not make it skip a line after you hit enter, please tell me because it is driving me nuts, I don’t like the way a poem looks double spaced, maybe I’m too sensitive but I feel like the look of a poem sort of affects a person’s interpretation of it.

Anyway, I can’t think of a name, which is also driving me crazy, so enough bitching already and here is the poem.

 

The seer caressed his cards

which seemed to be tiny paintings

shuffling through as if they were

old friends, wise and wonderful,

turning and shifting them

into formations older than

prophecies written down.

 

He shared to believe in

celestial guidance for

angels were holding my hand,

to chant and lift my prayers

to the higher powers and wait

for a manifestation of

the right path to follow

while trusting in faith and temperance.

 

They looked so lovely, these cards

and they seemed to hum beneath his hand

and I wanted to hear their music

to find some measure of relief and comfort

from the spiritual crisis

besetting my every turn

so I gave them a melody

and asked them to sing.