Category Archives: Poetry

Nudity Not Optional

Where did my clothes go?

You know,

the warm, comfortable,

perfectly fit ones

with the beautiful colors

that complimented my

every move?

When did I get so naked?

You know,

the raw and futile

belief that everything,

no matter how small,

would keep me warm?

How did I lose my skin?

You know,

the one I felt at ease within

no matter what I tried

to accomplish;

the skin that held my confidence?

Has anyone seen my hair?

You know,

the hair that curtains my face

when I don’t want you to see

that the world isn’t as kind

as I wanted to believe?

What about my feet?

My hands? My hips? My breasts?

You know,

the ones that used to run away

when things got hard?

The ones that comforted tears,

raised the roof, fledged passions?

The ones that balanced my lost clothes

at my side as a mother to a child?

The ones that begged for attention,

offering supplication to the needs?

Where did my clothes go?

Why am I saw raw and naked?

Rose colored apples

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

buds of generational history

blooms repeat to be the same

pink, red, rosy, given names

Rotten roots lay undetected

Bloody branches disrespected

Refused a haven in the storm

Beaten, battered, broken, torn

Bearing into the furious wind

Dropping seeds, again. Again.

The seeds removed found fertile lands

Grew tall and strong with loving hands

When they bloomed, with rooted shows

They bloomed into a fragrant rose.

The cycle once born is now rejected

crisis averted, genes defected.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

But that does not apply to me.

Somehow there must be A same

But there is nothing in his name

The branches torn where childhood sits

are splintered, demolished. Daddy did it.

He hacked at the bushes with angry words

clashing, lashing, striking swords

No matter what gifts that rose bush gave

it was never enough, but it remained a slave

in hopes that someday, a small reward,

would champion out, three little words.

These Are My People: Jennifer Alexander

Image

When the words of “I love you” were presumed

They lingered in the air like her patchouli perfume

With years of devotionals abloom

Decorating my hearts scarred womb

Our reverent spirits dancing under the moon

With eons of deep secrets written in the runes

Shared like naked offerings between the sister souls

Bonded by supporting hearts, one to another enrolls

These Are My People: Dawn Brinn

Together We Pray

Together We Pray

With uncomfortable self-proclaimed oddness
Brought together by a mutual willingness to share
Our hands in accommodating service to others
Building faith in unison like reciting The Lord’s Prayer
She with her beliefs in Jesus and in God
Me with my beliefs, an eclectic mixture of odd
But somehow we see each other with our many flaws
Forgiving each other’s awkwardness, overlooking social faux pas.
Although we are but humans, our spirits intertwine
With whispered prayers for one another, based in the Divine.

These Are My People: Freddie Nechtow

The Aurora Borealis promenade the northern skies
The wisdom of your lifetime animates and implies
Coaxing your stellar erudition in your voice alone
Embracing with the emotional blessing of Shalom.
Compassionate communication are not just words to you
Bringing galaxies of practicality, a gift to others imbued
They are words that you exemplify in your actions kind
A serenity of spirit, a pastoral state of mind.

These Are My People: Matthew McBee

My son and I line up at the counter
Draining blood from the coffee maker
Refilling our need for bonding
At our morning communion ritual
Not offered by a priest but by Folgers.
We settle at the dining table
Scrolling through my Facebook feed
For videos to spark heat into our spirits
Blaze them up with conversations
That can’t be repeated in public.
I don’t like the days when
It is just me standing in line
Waiting for the “good days”
Where the shame or guilt of bad decisions
Don’t hang like piñatas waiting
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Raining the inner conflicts into our laps
Tarnished with expectations of perfection
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Against one another with words
As bitter as the coffee we cream in avoidance
Of the redeeming absolution we could
But don’t usually offer to one another.

These Are My People: Linda Looney

Linda Looney's birthday friend.

Linda Looney’s birthday friend.

Each day that her phone rings
And every time she answers
A sliver of her mundane shows
In the music of her laughter.
There are so many fancy words
That could show you who she is
But they are shallow compared to her
Yet deeper than an abyss.
I could lift her up in glory
Extolling virtue and blessing
You’d believe me because I told you
But there’s so much you’d be missing.
Because my Mom is lovely,
She’s neither devil nor a saint
But she’s everything I long to be
And lots of things I ain’t.
I will tell you this much
A truth deeper than the sea
I love my perfectly human Mama
And I know that she loves me.

Happy birthday to my beloved mother. You’re Fezzes and bow ties to me.

These Are My People: Shonda

No More Violence

No More Violence


Tyrannical howls encapsulated
Intent on the destruction
Of their mutated version of devotion
personified by shattered glass while
screaming babies witness the impressionistic home
Painted in blood and bruises.
Kill me first! Kill me! Kill me first!
The begging screams for relief
from their suffering
But, fear motivates shelter
in uninhabitable relationships
with violence the language spoken
in vehement protest against their being
broken people with broken lives.

These Are My People: Avi Knight

Shutterstock
There is a crescendo in my tacenda
Where I am normally, to him,
common time and a capella
My cadenza clumsily proceeds without cadence
Without rhythm or beats
My need for espressivo
longs for a nocturne
requires harmony
but instead is a series of operettas
that fall flat in parody
We’ve played off key for so long
That this piece became, not my canon,
But the silence of my sixteenth note,
A dirge with a pianissimo possibile refrain
of Rococo design.

These Are My People: Eva May

28414-Fragile_Broken_Soul________by_zophie
She wasn’t as broken as she thought
She was, instead, held together
With ropes, strings, duct tape, and
band-aids stained with false assumptions about herself.
Her worry laden back wilted her
Against her walking stick that was decorated
With badges of survival; proofs of journey.
The winds shifted into the sunshine’s warmth.
She lifted her fatigued eyes towards the light
Surprised that the path was always there
But had been lost in the weeds of history.
With a change of clothes, a bathing of her Spirit
A back brace of hope, personal strength flooding
She stepped onto the ancient path
The Universe sighed relief for the prodigals return.