Poetry – Page 12 – Modern Creative Life

June 6, 2016

The Ambition of Brides – by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

New boss from Santa Fe, young husband,
and me determined to help him shine.
I refused the council of wiser heads,
planned the whole meal myself,
took a day that was no utopian dream
to cook the feast.

I mixed batter for chile rellenos,
dipped and deep-fried the soggy mess.
Rolled out tortillas the way my mother-
in-law taught, they looked like road maps.
I made New Mexico chile for our New Mexico-
style stacked enchiladas with egg on top,
enough for a legion of invaders.
Beans bubbled on the stove all day
until they turned to tasty sludge.

Just before the boss was due
I washed the sweat off my face,
combed my frazzled hair, settled
my invisible coronet on my aching head
and sallied forth to graciously greet
our taken-aback guest.

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Patricia Wellingham-Jones is a widely published former psychology researcher and writer/editor. She has a special interest in healing writing, with poems recently in The Widow’s Handbook (Kent State University Press). Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: poems about breast cancer, End-Cycle: poems about caregiving, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level, Voices on the Land and Hormone Stew.

May 26, 2016

Rite of Farewell – by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

We choose Indian Break
where the mountains
cup a stream-fed valley
to say a belated farewell.
Evocative of an ancient rite
we try to cauterize
long-seeping spirit-wounds.
We stand in waterfall spray,
let our tears rain
before walking
on separate paths.

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

May 9, 2016

just start something, by Æverett

just start something and let it go. let it grow and become, like a disturbed child. spill onto the page every word or phrase or image that occurs – and don’t allow anything to be censored or hidden. allow it to be raw and so full of emotion that it threatens to rend you limb from limb and leave you strewn asunder over valleys and mountains. allow the tears to smear the ink on the page. let yourself bleed out onto the paper. because when this thing has grown into a roaring beast – a horrid dragon of toothy maw and flame – all sex and pain and the deepest love imaginable, then have you created something perfect, so flawed and beautiful beyond imagining.

About the Author: Æverett

Æverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

Image Copyright: issaystudio / 123RF Stock Photo

May 2, 2016

Powerful Weakness by A.R. Hadley

Silently asking
Reaching
Cheerleader from afar
Spurring me on
With your constant presence

No one inside my head to push
Enough just to listen
Can you hear the tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
Inside my head
In my insides

The pressure
The explosion
The need
Can you validate me
Can you make it real
Is anything real
What is real
The close kind of love is real
The kind that smothers
Infiltrates
Suffocates
The kind that doesn’t leave you to die

Giving without knowing
My place is easier because of it
My stance is solid
Even when I’m weak

Take it from me
Give it back
I’m strong
I’m strong
I’m weak

Connection has the power
To feed
To give
To unite
To strengthen

May the days that I’m stronger be more than when I am weak
Ah
But I am stronger
on the days
I’m weakest
Meekest
And open

About the Author: A.R. Hadley

A.R. Hadley has been a creative writer since elementary school, however, she all but gave it up after her children were born, devoting herself to the lovely little creatures, forgetting the pleasure and happiness derived from being imaginative.

No more.

She rediscovered her passion in 2014, and has not stopped since — writing essays, poetry, and fiction. A.R is currently working on a set of novels as part of a romantic trilogy, and also dabbles in penning short stories.

Day or night, words float around inside her brain. She hears dialogue when awakening from sleep. She is the one who has been awakened. Writing is her oxygen.

Connect on Twitter and Facebook.

April 28, 2016

Family Date – by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

The family goes on its regular date,
this time to a thrift shop
out of the neighborhood.
Dad gives each child a dollar bill,
says spend wisely. Mom heads toward
the shelves of household items,
fingers the waffle iron, sees the frayed cord,
moves on. She laughs over lava lamp memories,
chooses an intact game of Monopoly.
Dad and son gravitate to guy things.
The dollar bill goes at once to a samurai sword
with enough left over for the lone boxing glove –
he might luck onto its mate. Dad hefts
the bowling ball, decides it might do. Little sister
falls in love with a rubber ducky in hockey clothes.
At the register she solemnly hands
her change back to Daddy. Each happy
with the results of the spree they top off
the celebration with ice cream cones.

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

April 25, 2016

So You Won’t Wonder by Pat West

Twenty years from now,
you might be the one
to empty my house.
The dishes can go
to Goodwill, they’re not fine china.
I know you never liked
the mocha brown coffee mugs,
but find someone who appreciates
well-crafted pottery. For years,
they’ve been something
to hold onto in the morning.

Next to the sink in the mudroom,
the red wing crock I used to brine olives,
deserves a special home.
And when you go through the boxes
in the attic, toss what you don’t want
of the LPs but keep the Pete Seeger album.

Tucked in my mother’s cedar chest,
bundles of cards and notes
from your father dating back to the sixties.
Feel free to read whatever you find.
I take them out every so often,
run my index finger over his handwriting,
communicate by Braille.
The box of his ashes,
flecked with white slivers of bone,
rests at the bottom under the flag.
They should have been scattered
long ago. You’ll know what to do
with them and mine.

In my office, you’ll find notebooks
filled with research for my many moves,
San Francisco, Miami, Carson City, Las Vegas
and Portland. Crime statistics, walkability scores,
names, numbers for realtors
and moving companies, it’s all there.
The lies I told myself because I believed
the next city would be the one
where I could finally sleep at night,
get up in the morning
and like what came next.

About the Author: Pat West

Pat Phillips West lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Haunted Waters Press, Persimmon Tree, San Pedro River Review, and Slipstream, and some have earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

April 19, 2016

and he sleeps by Æverett

(1)
and he sleeps
with the View in his Eyes
sinks into an Abyss
the safe Darkness
a numbing Cold
they kiss him goodbye
the Night is soft
a tender kiss
he dreams of that Sight
his waking Eyes remember
his Breath comes easy
but soon not at all

(2)
he sinks in the Water
cold River
the Stones kiss his nude Feet
the Current caressing his Rest
and between the Stars
the Moon is weeping
her dying Son swept away
his Skin as pale as hers
Tears hide in Water on his Face
take him to the Fall
a Roar – he cries out not
in weightless Envy his Wings don’t work
a Stone falls though Water
drenched upon the whirling Surface
the Eyes no longer open

(3)
moored upon a rocky Shoal
River-stones sing to his naked Back
his Head laid in the Grass
a Lark is singing
his Brother dead
and the Clear-river kissing
the Body run aground
eased upon the warm Bank
and he sleeps
the Reality is a lovely Nymph

Image Copyright: arsgera / 123RF Stock Photo

About the Author: Æverett

April 11, 2016

On Loss and Rejoicing by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

I grieve the loss
of the riverine forest,
the alders Nature bestowed
after the great flood.

Yesterday they were cut down,
turned into firewood,
victims of the canker disease
sweeping the globe’s northern tier.

This morning I mourn their passing,
slowly survey my changed domain
and discover that in this loss
I have cause to rejoice.

Now I see the creek stretch
from above the bridge
to more than a mile downstream,
trimmed by young sycamores left standing.

On a snag high on the far bank
a bald eagle overlooks his kingdom
and air swishes freely through the new space
to cool my flushed face.

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

April 4, 2016

I have written so often, by Æverett

I have written so often about your voice, but the feeling

remains, ever present, like a ringing in my bones. The taste of

your words as they leave your lips, like honey on my

fingertips… I wish to hear your whispering words, close

enough to feel your Tongue. The music from your mouth

amoung the sighings there in silken sheets. The sighing of my

dying Lungs, you steal my breath, with only a sound, a

whisper, a word. Your verses only make it worse.

About the Author: Æverett

March 30, 2016

The Bone Gatherer by Imelda Maguire

(in memory of Seena Frost)

She set me to gathering bones,

the ones I’d lost;
set me to travelling
old roads,
and off the roads,
into wild spaces,
long-forgotten.

My basket began to fill,
and she set me to naming the bones,
feeling the places from which
they’d fallen,
marking the spot where they landed.

She set me to minding the bones,
sitting with them,
rubbing their ridges and spurs,
looking and watching and noticing…
This is the shape of that bone,
there is the mark of its pain.

She set me to seeing the whole,
to piecing the bones together,
the slow and gentle work.

As I sit now with the bones,
look at this strange harvest
of mine, I hear a humming,
a chant, low and gentle,
and know, she is with me now,
watching over the bones.

About the Author: Imelda Maguire

Imelda Maguire has lived in all four provinces of Ireland, and now resides in Donegal, the far north-west of the country. Her poetry has been published widely in journals in Ireland, and she has read at many literary festivals and events throughout the country. A practicing counsellor, she facilitates creative and personal development activities with individuals and groups. Her first collection, Shout If You Want Me To Sing, was published in 2004 by Summer Palace Press. Her second, Serendipity, was published by Revival Press in 2015. They are both available by contacting her on Facebook or by email at imeldacmaguire@gmail.com.

Ireland Professor of Poetry, Paula Meehan, says “There are many ways Imelda Maguire will lure us into her world…”, and poet Denise Blake recommends Serendipity as a “collection to cherish, (to) keep close at hand.”