Time For Some Poems

Depression

The stereo

has put on some headphones,

complaining that my constant talking

makes it feel sad,

And I find myself propped on my pillows

fighting bed sheets

as they attempt to hold me down.

This one particular bed sheet

keeps tying up my heart beat, invasively

answering in metaphors,

(this could get ugly)

Beauty stumbles along

smelling of lilac flowers

and fresh spring water,

wearing mascara

that has bled down the sides

of her lovely cheeks

and in her hand a mirror that talks

like the voice of God.

I have begun to bottle my silence,

in time it will serve

as my new song

and all the melody

of my emotion

are now rainbows

on my horizon

Graciously I wait

for the clouds to clear

So I can sing

Once more.

Panic Attack

This is you as seen by them,

Undone, forsaken, broken, in tiny pieces

scattered amidst the graves of insanity.

Time, god's own nakedness, has revealed

the truth.

There is a quiet noise that screams

 inside my head ,but I am asleep.  

Comatose, Catatonic, confused 

I wonder about the stones as the 

darkness hides in mid afternoon.

My smile, plastic, painted like a portrait 

on a face of glass.  I vent openly,

sobbing as harrowing flashbacks invade

the tiny spaces in limbo.  In my hands 

I hold the stethoscope of terror, taunting

suffocating, inside unable to breathe 

the memories in.

Panic seizes the night as shards of words

pierce the secrets, packaged in beautiful

boxes with colorful bows, deception, as

the unquestionable odor of death escapes.

The darkness has become a forest of words

in which I lose myself.  I stutter and advance

in slow motion as I miss an o clock passing,

and miss now.

Me, my friend, my foe, and my opposite

all emerge as one in a bottomless black

hole.  The way out is lost, hidden, covered

by madness.

 

By Jennifer Smith

Lupus

Wolf, your image is graceful stealth, but
my fatigue settles like darkness at winter dusk,
clumsy as wet wool weighting my limbs.

It sifts through my brain -
like soot from a damp chimney,
massing in spongy drifts.

Cast from the pack –
you den beneath my skin and
eat my sleep –  marking
your passage with marrow-ache.
My mornings trail the scent of my exhaustion.

Defective beast, you still have teeth enough to chew fresh bone.
Sick-sweet pain of exile, tasting death.

Asleep

I was asleep, when garbed in green, he entered me.
I was not awake to share his intimacies, and
I shall never have his knowledge of me.

To his gloved hand, you were not unique.
Diseased under your burden of aberrant tissue –
a routine nuisance to be studied and discarded.

But to me, you were the engine of my purpose -
mystical reservoir of feminine essence.
Programmed to create, you turned upon yourself
to yield unstifled growth.

If I had held you, it would have been with tenderness and
elegiac regret for my deliberate disuse of you.

If awake, I would have marveled at your generosity –
the grantor of my only child,
the roller of dice for my immortality.

To him, you were a useless part of an aging woman.
To me, you were a dynasty of children never born.

He touched me as no lover ever could.
With skillful hands, he removed you
and sent you to a lab where
many hands would touch you,
many eyes would see you.

Only never mine.

By Kerry  Holjes    

Life

this is a life

expressed in words,

a lifetime of words,

visual words

of soft red sunrises,

happy words

of sunny spring days,

filled with laughing children at play,

sad words

of death's indignities,

the debasement of a man,

once vital as a boxing contender,

a potent pugilist

now horrified and helpless

hooked to a hospital machine

giving his every breath,

yet taking his life away,

sorrowful words

inadequate to express

the pain of loss,

the finality of the granite slab

glistening in the last rays of a distant sun.

by

Jacqueline Seewald