Wednesday Morning Sweats

I pretend I’m blind so they won’t bother me, but I have been alive just long

enough

To read men even with my eyes closed, hands out, fingers reading the Braille

of sweat

On skin. If Joey wants to talk to me about how I killed his brother,

That’s just fine. Joey can come in and sit beside me, here, on the prison

cot. I would love

To share with him about how the world looks when everything you see is

tinted red,

How even flowers looks suspicious when you’ve just killed a man.

I pretend I’m deaf so they won’t talk to me, but I have been alive just long

enough

To feel someone coming at me through the soles of my feet, to know exactly

When to strike at invisible things. If Joey wants to talk to me about how I

killed his brother,

That’s just fine. Joey can come in and lay down beside me, here, beneath

the stiff white sheets of the prison cot, and I’ll tell him

About how the world sounds when your ears are full of blood

And how even songbirds sound suspicious

when you’ve just killed a man

— Holly Day 

I Remember

I Remember the Morning I realized I was not a priority

that my mother had other obligations.

Standing in our kitchen of green cabinets and yellow wallpaper

confined in school clothes and socks

cold cereal sloshing around in my belly.

The worn cast iron skillet sitting empty atop the stove.

I Remember the Afternoon I realized shame

that feeling of humility and longing.

Staring down at the cracked asphalt near the school building.

Not picked to play kickball with the boys

not welcomed with open arms and glee to cheer with the girls.

Left leaning against the metal bearings of the swing set.

I Remember the Evening I realized I was not treasured

that he was not on his way.

Gripping the phone in anticipation of his excuse

teeth tearing my nails to the quick

as her voice came through the receiver

bubbling over with giggles and cruelty.

She had been a friend.

I Remember the Night I grew up

drinking down the bitterness of the past

pushing away childish wishes of white horses, pumpkin carriages, and ugly ducklings.

Cutting off my wounded limbs

and concealing myself inside a crypt of self preservation.

I remember I barricaded the entrance well.

No one can enter. No one can touch me.

Not even me.

— Deanna M. Jessup

Paddy Murphy's Wake

The priest had been here earlier and the rosary was said
and relatives and friends in single file were offering condolences.
“Sorry for your troubles,” one by one they said, 
bending over Maggie Murphy, silent in her rocker, 
a foot or so from Paddy, resplendent in his casket,
the two of them much closer now than they had ever been. 
A silent guest of honor, Paddy now had nothing more to say,
waked in aspic, if you will, in front of his gothic fireplace.
 
But the hour was getting late and still the widow hadn’t wept.
Her eyes were swept Saharas and the mourners wanted tears.
They had fields to plow come morning and they needed sleep 
but the custom in County Kerry was  
no one leaves a wake until the widow weeps.
 
Fair Maggie could have married any man in Kerry,
according to her mother, who almost every day reminded her of that.
“Maggie,” she would say, “you should have married Mickey. 
His limp was not that bad,” but Maggie wouldn’t listen. 
Instead, she married Paddy, “that pestilence out walking” 
as her mother often called him
even on a Sunday but only after Mass. 
 
Maggie married Paddy the day he scored the only goal 
the year that Kerry took the trophy back from Galway.
That goal was no small thing, Paddy would remind us all forever
until one of us would gag and buy him another drink. 
That goal, he’d shout, was something historians would one day note, 
even if they hadn’t yet, and every time he’d mention it, 
which was almost daily, Maggie’s mother would remind her daughter
that she should have married Mickey and had a better life.
The final time her mother praised poor Mickey,
a screaming match ensued, so loud it woke the rooster 
the day before her mother, feverish in bed, 
gurgled like a frog and died. 
 
This evening, though, as the wake wore on, 
the mourners grew more weary 
waiting for the tears the widow hadn’t shed.
Restless in his folding chair, Mickey put his bottle down 
and rose to give the eulogy it had taken days to memorize. 
“Folks,” he said, “if all of us would holler down to Paddy now, 
he’d holler back, I’m sure, and tell us, 
despite the flames and all that smoke, that Kerry 
winning over Galway is all that ever mattered, even now.
We’ll always have cold Paddy over there to thank for that.” 
 
The Widow Murphy hadn’t moved all evening, 
but after hearing Mickey speak, she began to rock with fury
as she raised a purple fist, shook it to the heavens
and then began to hum her favorite dirge.
The mourners all joined in and hummed along until
midnight pealed on the mantel clock and then, 
as if released by God Himself, the mourners one by one 
rose from folding chairs and left in single file, let loose   
by a hurricane of the Widow Murphy’s tears. 
 

Donal Mahoney

PTSD

In the waiting room, I squeeze 
this old rosary a nun gave me 
the day I got back from Iraq.
 
I was still in a daze on a gurney
and I still had sand in my hair.
Some of it remains, no matter 
 
how many showers I take. 
Sand from Iraq lingers, I’m told,
until you go bald, and then
 
you are able to concentrate
on other things.
What might they be, I wonder.
 
But today, in this waiting room,
I squeeze the rosary tighter  
when I hear, louder than 
 
the gunshots crackling in my dreams, 
the real screams of that little boy 
right over there, the one who’s 
 
rapped his elbow off the radiator.
Lord, listen to him scream! 
Each week he comes with his mother 
 
for her follow-up appointment. 
He sounds like the jet 
that takes me back at night
 
to that little village in Iraq
where the sand puffs up  
in mushroom clouds
 
above the bullets
as the children scream 
in their hovels louder 
 
than that little boy  
screaming over there.
Maybe everyone 
 
in this waiting room
listening to him scream  
can come with me now 
 
to that village in Iraq.
Sitting here, I know 
that boy’s pain so well 
 
that in my fist 
this rosary no longer
knows my prayers. 
 
 
Donal Mahoney

The House of Love

There’s a spy in the house of love
cloaked by the specter of lost loves
              he thinks i can’t see him
 
but i’ve seen the skin stretched
transparent taut over swollen veins
throbbing with the heat of rage
 
i’ve glimpsed him in the moonlight
crouched wearily on trembling haunches
sniffing at the air
for the scent of a primal urge
 
There’s a spy in the house of love
he thinks i didn’t hear him
on a certain night
lapping at his wounds
             he thinks i didn’t see
 
the sweat glistened footsteps
that circled bedposts
territory marked
 
he steals lightly his way
watching her from unlit corners
waiting…
 
waiting for her
to
laugh a little louder
look a little prettier
smile a little easier

 — Katharine Hollister 

Winner, First Place, Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011

No Apologies

 
Awake I’m jaded
Asleep I’m a ruby
Maiden, on a voyage
In the sea
Of possibility
 
Awake I’m heavy
Asleep I’m floating
Light as dandelion fluff
That lands in your hair
 
Awake there are rivers
Between us
Asleep we swim them
Together
Sun and shadow
Play across
Our bodies
We glide
Under
Green
canopies, waving
To lizards, squirrels and toads
Lichen-blanket
Ancestral bones
Cradled
In their river beds,
Mammatus, and cumulus
Shape-shift
Just for us
Sssh… look!
Pygmy in the Bush
We’re crossing the Great Water
 
Awake I write
Asleep I sing
A circle of voices
‘round your head
Tell tales of golden fish,
                   green snakes
            and sky blue skies
 
Awake I’m sorry
Asleep I’m not. 

— Katharine Hollister 

Double Honorable Mention, Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 

She Speaks Bee

“I know how to speak
bee,” you announce
standing naked
in the kitchen
swinging your striped
cotton dress
back and forth
 
An impromptu relevé
and you flit
from the old pine chest
to the desk
and back again 
like the honey bee
whose language
you now understand
 
“Do they die
after
they sting you?” 
 
Hope fills your eyes. 
 
Sometimes I look
at you,
my daughter,
and I know,
like me,
there are moments
when you are
filled
with the
madness
of the
moon.  

— Katharine Hollister 

Honorable Mention, Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 

The Curve of Your Mouth

i woke just now
dreaming
the curve of your mouth
 
staring up at the ceiling
i imagine how
we would hold hands
and hang
off the couch
laughing
at how strangely cool
everything looks
upside down
 
i imagine being
close to you and
how your mouth
draws me in.
 
but like so many seasons,
those uncensorable
and randy days
have too quickly
come and gone
 
that dusty fan
in the window
blows
a fervent fluttering
of pigeon’s wings
up from the damp
gangway
 
it grazes my
sweat soaked hair
while you –
unknowing –
tap dance
your way
‘round your own
private everest
and in more ways
than one,
you
cannot
be
reached.
 
still,
sometimes
ther are those
stirrings…
that’s right — 
over there –
beneath the ashes
and you know
we coulda rode
that phoenix
right out of arizona
 
and the real truth?
you weren’t
the one
i truly loved…
but you were
the one
i wanted.  

  — Katharine Hollister

The Boys in Their Woolen Caps

Laughter filled
the woods
with every silvery
breath
of the crimson-cheeked
boys
in their woolen caps
on those
bright
sunny days
 
Fearless
winter warriors
held tight
to snow sprayed
toboggans,
down glassy hilltops
their chariots
charged
into the
glistening
unknown
 
— © Katharine Hollister

Dear Albert

i read some poems
by you today
how i wish
you hadn’t died
before our lives
collided
 
you know
they would have
but for that timing…
 
with any inter-section
it’s always the timing.
that not so split second
decision, who
will get
the right-of-way
i guess you just
up and claimed it
 
and now you’re gone
and moments
of your life
sit neatly stacked on my bed
 
it’s my third reading
and you were right,
who could blame you
if you wrote all day?
 
i read one more
and wonder
if you finally
woke up
in the morning light
standing beside
that one road
 
i’m jealous
of those who knew you
and of that one girl
who will feel
your ghostly fingers
tonight,
between her thighs.  

— Katharine Hollister 

Romancing Shakespeare

Tinker dances with the dusk of shadows

Drinking in the darkness of birth

Glimmering portals covered in cob webs

Smoke gives way to the mirror’s illusion

A locked key slipping through door ways

Planets orbiting in the wrong fashion

Longing for home

Words romance me

Wondering if your shrew can ever be tamed

Wishing for strength to put his hands upon me

And caress the hidden corners of my mind

But aye, I am left here

To awaken to naught

Lusting leaves me in an empty bed whispering your name

Wish me upon a stage where we have writ the words

To play out an ancient verse

The curtain drops

Upon my naked flesh

Let me die under the stars

And utter sweet nothings to your ear’s devotion

Surrendering to silence

Til the years bleed out madness

And the seas are calmed to tears

— Melissa Diana

Winner, Second Place, Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011

Burnt Angel

Romantic words are sharp

Your rose of a tear I kept years

Before I had the courage to drive the blade in

I drip my blood on your words

On your eternal love for another

Etching your ink deeper and deeper into my skin

Carving your love from the net you cast for muses in your past

How many goddesses of your soul has the moon shed light upon

Pray tell my dear poet

What are you chained to as you roam the earth seeking love

My heart is stilled in the night where magic sleeps

Buried in the winters past

Playing with your flame as you burn my scars

I lay bleeding to death reaching for the farthest star

You murder me with your confusion

Bury me not 6 feet under but in the deepest part of the earth

To remember her power

Dancing and dancing to spark light within chaos

While you play the orchestrator of divine silence

Why did the wind bring you to me

To draw me from my curse to bind me with your own

To look upon the mirror and see a wasted youth

A womb that killed the fruit with fear

I bleed all over what I keep you in my thoughts to be

My heart rages war with my mind

To destroy the shadows

Your love is a thousand prisons of blinding snow

Each locked with a love song to your muse

I smash the mirror of madness

Before the night swallows my dance and death consumes me

I surrender

To remember

A harp has the power to unleash heaven into hell

Caressing the strings of my heart as flames surround me

Burnt wings keep my body from turning into ash

I wish only

To see the face of the angel that protects me

— Melissa Diana 

Honorable Mention, Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 

Blue for Best

I am in my mother’s house
the landscape familiar
past the Blessed Virgin
no reservoir of holy water
now, doors lead to ghost song
the close of blinds, a scent
of self that never left

On the coffee table
a month of dust, a mug
lies empty, I look for lipstick
stains, find your small make-up bag
tucked in the corner of a worn
armchair that fastened itself
to the turn of years

In the kitchen a radio
in the bedroom blue slippers
your favourite colour runs
through the wardrobe
giving life to the clothes
you kept for best but best is gone
and what remains mine to fathom.

— Eileen Carney Hulme

Letter To Anybody

Please find enclosed-
 
a Bob Marley badge in the shape
of a guitar, worn once
pinned a heart together
on the night he left
 
the miraculous medal attached
to my mother’s marcasite watch
as a child I marvelled at the sparkling
sensation of time on my hands
 
the bones of my father
strong and mended
running backwards
gathering lost years
 
a small stone polished
by returning waves
kept in the pocket
of my favourite green coat
 
the summer of ‘91
sea-spun walks, names spell-bound
in sand and the breath of angels
who carried me here.

— Eileen Carney Hulme 

Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 Honorable Mention 

Bloom Where You Are Planted

Here nothing has been weighed
the copper canisters
contain no tags
no names, no stigma
 
In this sacred space
five thousand one hundred
and twenty one souls
have found their freedom
 
Rainbow framed
crushed like petals
they are multi-coloured
ghosts edging the light
 
Azure seas, verdigris forests
places never known
are now expressed
within their dreams
 
No apportioning of blame
no retribution-
karma captured
in a silent scream.

 — Eileen Carney Hulme 

Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 Honorable Mention

N.B. From 1913 to 1971 five thousand one hundred and twenty one mentally ill patients were cremated on the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital. Their remains were sealed in copper canisters and virtually forgotten until Artist and photograher David Maisel heard of their existence and photographed some of them. The colours of the canisters were so intensely vibrant as not to seem real.

She Drew

she made a filthy old woman
stop her boozing
she drew her a worm
 
its beautiful line had no need
to know one end from the other
and in love would lubricate
all along its lovely
length
 
baby boy withered
day by day
she sat him in the sun
and drew him how
a flower grows
 
for her father
she went back home
didn’t even wake him
left a picture of a sandal
he closed his house and
never looked back
 
(it smacks of the black arts
or dandelions
how they slip in
through the cracks)
 
she drew lions and leaflets
and lepers and loss
kept right on going
south-south-west
til she hit the ocean
 
drew down the sun for
a fish out of water
he kissed her throat
and swam away
 
at the equator
she drew for the 
cousinswithout voices
pictures of themselves
they needed nothing else
 
drew sleep over a madman
so he had somewhere nice to go
 
she drew
speed for a snail
 
a highway for
a motorcycle
 
she drew
ants without plans
 
she drew
a contagion of happiness
 
she drew light
my god how
she drew light.

— Terrianne Swift 

Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 Third Place Winner 

Pando

You send up aspens as mouths, lungs, skin
opening and closing like flowers.
Long years of thousands-of-years
you’ve squatted under earth.
We call you delicate, fair,
a quaking trembler;
you breathe trees in and out
like a bellows.

— Terrianne Swift 

How To Have Animal Grace

Bite to get attention

Change colors if possible

Build a home; hold on

Try up and down as well as

Back and forth

If hiding doesn’t work,

Imitate someone dangerous

Look surprised when you sneeze

Hold very still

— Terrianne Swift 

Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 Honorable Mention

Epiphany

One


An intrusion paralyzes my left side.  It rests inside my cheekbone, denying access
to whatever intelligence
exists within the left brain.
Void of temporal, methodical, sequential thought I exist within intuitive space.
Mine is a random existence,
concrete and in the moment,
tempered with patterns, tones, touch. I would cry easily yet I never cry for myself.
 What is there to cry about?  Each moment reveals new life.  I shut off ticking
seconds of past
pain, erased from memory.
Repressed, I disconnect my right brain, clamp it down
like a stressed jaw Void of industry.


Two


I enter a glistening cave;
a rich chamber round, cool, dark, shimmering with
calcium carbonate crystals.
A distant echo of trickling water.  A hospitable spirit guide with feelers.  All
tasks equal, my ant wends its way
past stalagmites and pillars, releasing pheromones of honor and respect, despite my
inability to process information systematically.
Digging a tunnel where past tectonic incidents caused collapse, treading softly
within cracks, feeding me
organic feces, hefting me upon its bony spine, persevering even as I stumble and whine;
demonstrating one on one, one by one, that one and one together transform dream into
reality.


Three


I enter the Queen’s nest with trepidation but the Queen Ant shrugs off my
interruption, kissing me with rainbow perfume.  In this moment I understand; We are
the same.  She rips her fairy wings; first the left
and then the right.  A great sadness overwhelms me.
Hers is a strange but gentle ego.  She fills the space with sensual pheromones. I
inhale this communication,
happy to explore my inclusion.
I am not a caterpillar Queen
wound tight into her chrysalis.  I will not emerge a butterfly.  We Ant Queens
diminish ourselves so we might uplift the children.

— Barbara Steinhauser 

Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 Honorable Mention 

Linked to Perfection

I reach for them

beads that cascade through my fingers.

Descending so gently

that merely the grasp of their casing

leaves me

wiser,

stronger,

inching nearer to a reflection I hope to see,

a me I yearn to be.

Realizing—

that each day their splendor greets my hands

I hold truth

— Cheryl Sommese 

Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 Honorable Mention