Tag: love

Poems

Nimue

ROMPoetry

454px-The_Beguiling_of_Merlin_by_Edward_Burne-JonesThe place where I found to rest was thick
With chamomile. I lay my head against its spongy,
Fragile stems and closed my eyes to the ants
Intoxicated by the scent, climbing toward heaven,
Or what an ant can know of it.

Soft, soft. Come now. Leave the door ajar.
Nimue, Nimue . . . you are not swift enough
You linger, come away. Leave it.
Leave the door ajar.

The air so alive with cold
Strangling,
Suffocating,
All I could know

I drank the wine and listened.

You are too young to know but listen
Listen to each word. Then
Come away. Leave the door ajar
Learn to find the secret jolt.

Swimming across frozen water, chunks
Catching in my hair, my feet whales
Stuck again and again, my arms logs
Weighted by soot, dark and swirling
In the whirlpool my body was creating
Strangling
Suffocating

Like powder
The smell of a rich woman ready
For her lover
The chamomile woke me
My limbs were stiff with dawn

I had barely began to walk the soreness out
When I found him.

–Shaun Perkins

Poems

Elaine

ROMPoetry

head-of-a-young-woman-with-tousled-hair-ledaAs a girl I gathered the gooseberries
effortlessly and helped my mother bake the pies.
I knew just how much sugar was needed
for the berries—and I could sense
their taste by lightly squeezing them
and measure the tautness or softness
against the sugar. I was always right.
Women paid my mother to have me
make the pies for their festival
offerings or weddings or homecoming feasts. Continue reading “Elaine” →

Poems

Exploding Seashells

ROMPoetry

Quaker-Oats-4321“CIA assassination plots included poisoning a box of Castro’s favorite cigars with botulinus toxin and placing explosive seashells in his favorite diving spots.”

The box of oatmeal broke apart
In my hands, the Quaker man
Decapitated, his smile
An unreturned greeting
Forever.

One wonders how chance
And plan intersect. I found
A missing earring when I bent
To scoop up the oats.

What if he had not been drawn
To the purple drupa
And instead reached
For the virgin murex? Continue reading “Exploding Seashells” →

Musings

Today, Remember Edna

ROMPoetry
millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay protesting the execution of Sacco & Vanzetti

I first encountered Edna St. Vincent Millay in an old high school literature textbook. Parked like a shiny convertible amongst the hearses of early twentieth century American literature, she called to me. Now granted “Renascence” wasn’t a horn-honking kind of poem, and it was certainly death-haunted, but it was written by a woman, one of only twenty at that, and it sang of possibilities.

High school textbooks, of course, would not publish some of Millay’s best works that came later, poems about sexuality, love, and longing, that were certainly ground-breaking topics for a female writer in the early twentieth century. She lived life on her own terms, had many affairs, was openly bi-sexual, went to jail for supporting Sacco and Vanzetti,  and traveled extensively.

Today, February 22, in 1892, Millay was born. Her friends called her “Vincent.” Continue reading “Today, Remember Edna” →

Poems

Holding Your Hand

ROMPoetry

KensHandsWe parked the truck and stepped out
Onto the road that used to be a highway
Of my childhood, winding through Mayes County
To the Grand River bluffs, where my mother
Said hobos made cave camps and where a train
Ran a solitary line amidst the blackjack
And sawbriar. I am holding your hand. Continue reading “Holding Your Hand” →