Maryann Hazen

Maryann submitted a collection of poems which have been published in various on-line and print venues during the past year. She has a variety of voices in her poems, and I found her poem "Breasts" (the last one in this Portrait) to be a particularly cogent reflection. I am pleased to present a selection of her work this month. (Her poem "Toilers and Warriors" was published in last month's Gryphon's Nest.) Living in New York state, married and with two teenage daughters, Maryann goes on to say:

I'm a Poet, Medical Transcriptionist and some-times college student. I enjoy Renaissance Fairs, gardening, painting birdhouses, needlepoint and poeting-more-than-anything-else. I do not enjoy cleaning the kitchen, driving for more than an hour, gnats, or thong underwear. I have submitted my poems for a little over a year and have enjoyed the good fortune to see 100+ published, both in print and electronically, from Nov '97 to Nov '98. Poetry is simply a passion of which there is nothing that would not lend itself as inspiration.

I have read much of my work on the local public radio station and have enjoyed a guest appearance on a local TV program last fall. I have also appeared with four other poets/editors in a round table discussion in "Perihelion Magazine" which was a lot of fun to participate in!

I listen intently to hear myself inside.
Instinct will guide the way they say.
Trust in my intuition - trust.
Rely on inner truth and beauty.
I seek my unique, personal vision within.
I am inspired, enlightened,
emotionally alive.
I am fully developed and ripe
to pick. I offer myself sincerely.
I am creation, illumination,
true worth. Look here; I am grace.
I approach each situation
with expertise and efficiency.
I am the prize. I hone the edge.
I serve stability and structure
on pretty paper doilies.
I grant freedom, fortune
and fame. I pinch the crease. I fulfill
the images of wildest dreams.
I dry torrents of tears on my back.
I lick the wrinkle. I suck the galaxy up
between my tingling thighs
and spit it back in the gutter.
I am the exotic, erotic exposure
of negatives. I bleed through my skin like sweat.
I fly over hungry heads through breathless brains.
I am so alive I could scream and scream.
I primly zipper trousers. I taste burning
wants on my fingertips.
I can have. I can handle.
I can hold.

A darkness tramples over horizon
lassoed by a mystic moon.
Tumbleweeds tremble in the night
puffed about beneath a star-shot sky.
Faces pale upon pin-cushion prairie
to stampede this symbol of sanity.
To scratch open our sky with flaming fire-sticks
in a jangle of jealousy and judgement.

Dream catcher blows for Little Dark Breeze.
Fearless feathers flutter in flight
to snatch that nightmare straight
from thin air - arrow head true -
'lest dagger days besiege
the outpost in his head.

Warring hands praying
for bombs, books and backbones.
Shedding the skin of damned nobility.
Dancing in the dust of tin destiny.
Begging with a copper penny pot
in a wooden nickel world where,
the Great Spirit's president rides
the back side of our blessed buffalo.
A riotous rodeo of sorrow.

A fresh fever blush
blazes about morning melt,
every secret breeze brings peace.
A delicious desire of fools fire.
Remember brilliant blue urging through,
and her moment rose to speak.
Almost breathing salt skin whispers.
Spring dream beneath her belly,
naked night's for velvet deep.
Linger smiling lips like wind,
dress together and warm joy run.

Nana never got naked
Wouldn't think of tellin' a lie
From her head to her toes
She was covered in clothes
Now you know, she was painfully shy

Nana never got naked
Her hubby would say this is true
Married all of that time
Never glimpsed her behind
Which she kept strictly hidden from view

Nana never got naked
She came into this world fully dressed
No, not one of her kin
Ever caught her in skin
And her birthday suit never got pressed

Nana never got naked
Not even when nana was young
Never swam without hose
Or her skin would expose
Couldn't guess what to do with a thong

Nana never got naked
She stubbornly claims to this day
She sticks to her guns
She don't show off her buns
Like those hootchy-koo girls do, they say

Nana never got naked
Or so she would have us believe
But then how I am here
Is a little unclear
Or a trick that she pulled from her sleeve

Nana never got naked
And, at this point, nobody cares
I think that I speak
For the bold and the meek
She don't hafta be peddlin' them wares

Your eyes pull cinder blocks down
like venetian blinds,
your back straight as steel
up against the wall.
Crimped lips line your mouth,
haven't shed a smile in quite some time.
I watch you wonder, "Where's the sense?"

"Be at peace," I want to whisper.
"Never you mind," tottles my tongue.
Such easy words to say,
hardly make it right.

Yet this one creature warms to tell you,
"There is always hope."
Ordinary magic to loosen
that pesky pebble, stone, or rock.
That mighty mountain on your back.
Yes, we wade the world.
Now let us begin.
Joy.

You know- just once I'd like to say,
"These are breasts.
Most females have them
in one form or another.
They are filled with mammary glands
whose function is to sustain an infant."
(Incredible experience it was.)

CAUTION!
It seems these handfuls of flesh
may induce temporary idiocy in men!
Breasts have been known to cause one
to stare hypnotically at a women's chest
while trying to speak to her face
(which may as well be on the back of her head)
after which, he may walk away
not knowing what-the-hell he said
or what her response was. Oh yeah.

Beautiful breasts may even determine
the status of employment.
Big-Boobs/Big-Bucks as it were.
Yes, let me entertain you,
let me make you smile.

A man will glance at breasts before
he decides whether or not
to continue on up to the face.
Will it be worth the effort? Or not?

Perhaps breasts need names
for more formal introductions,
as if they were triamese triplets;
the woman and each breast,
together, yet separate entities.
You know what I mean?

For those women who may wear
the delicate, silver cross
that dangles just between
the mysteriously, entrancing junction
where the breasts meet;
(might even cause a man
of the cloth to peak)
can we have an Amen?

In the modern world we may coddle them
in colored cups with bows and lace,
buckles and straps, fiber-filled elastic,
to lift and separate,
cross your heart, not tell a lie,
(stick a nipple in your eye).

They may be sliced open
like melons on a May day
and packed with puffy, plastic pillows.
All the better to entice you with, my Dear.
A temporary effort to become "more" of a woman.
How sad; does it help I wonder?
I wish. Even so, I wish.

If we lived in mud-thatch huts
with dark, dusty, dry feet,
and short, lacquer-free fingernails,
breasts would be as natural
as elbows or ears.
We would be respected for our
abilities (whatever they may be).

Those poor, backward savages.
How I envy them.
Might they not use a brassiere
to hold wooden beads, poison darts,
bony tools or arrow heads?

Perhaps worn around the waist
to fill with nuts and berries?
A scooper? A slingshot?
Or maybe to cover crouching knees
as they search
for roots beneath the soil.