Nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, Corrine De Winter's poetry, fiction,
essays and interviews have appeared worldwide in publications such as the
The New York Quarterly, Imago, Phoebe, Plainsongs, Yankee, Sacred Journey,
Interim, The Chrysalis Reader, The Lucid Stone, Fate ,Press, Sulphur River
Literary Review, Modern Poetry, The Lyric, Atom Mind, The Writer, The Lyric
and over 600 other publications. She has been the recipient of awards from
Triton College of Arts & Sciences, Writer's Digest, The Esme Bradberry
Award, The Madeline Sadin Award, The Rhysling Award, and has been featured
in Poet's Market 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 & 2000. Her work is featured
in the much praised collections Bless the Day, Heal Your Soul, Heal the
World, Get Well Wishes, Essential Love, The Language of Prayer , Mothers And
Daughters, and in Bedside Prayers, now in its 11th printing.
Ms. De Winter is a member of HWA (Horror Writer's Association) and is a resident of Western Massachusetts.
De Winter is the author of 7 collections of poetry & prose including Like Eve, The Half Moon Hotel, and Touching The Wound, which sold over 3000 copies in its first year.
The Carving Of Hours
In my dreams I am wrapped
In 29 veils: scarlet, lavender,
Peridot green and powder blue
Pulled from the throat
Of a dead magician.
On the smooth marble counter I dance,
Peeling away layers of secrets
Like ancient papyrus.
My heels click like an incantation,
A perfect timing in the flesh.
Black skeletons of tulips fall
With the vase and crash on the floor.
I am a deer emerging from the woods
To feed out of your hand,
To taste the salt of your skin,
To kiss your wrist where the veins
Are the color of Neptune.
Move past cloudy holy water
And lambs locked in stained glass fields.
Wild papillon refuse to have me,
To make a red mark in your Book of Hours.
I know that you will save me in a jar,
Use my limbs for kindling and later
For sacred charms.
My idea of you is a pale bud
Striving to unfold under a cheetah sun.
God listens to every word and motion
And makes a neat note of them.
Now I sing a sticky lullaby
Of how lust has a smell, a warning.
How death is a flowerbed of forget-me-nots.
The life of a rose proves how beauty
Disassembles petal by petal.
So move past the stone gardens,
The sewers of valentines stitched
With fishing line and frozen needles.
A natural magic is pulled
From the marshes and shallow water
That causes even the holiest
To cut their sky blue ties to heaven.
Move past the night blooming San Pedro cactus,
Past wild horses, past your solitary hours
Where the jungle gym is warm with innocent hands.
And I dance for you, and all of this happens.
A little sawdust settles in the bowels
Of the grandfather clock.
You cannot feel the 9 worlds
And each world within these worlds
Rattling like dollhouses in the wind.
Love calls you out from the black,
Blindfolding you for its sly fraternity.
All of this happens.
Leaden sparrows collect human hair
To weave their nests, to warm
The trembling eggs dreaming of flight.
Move past the hypnotic, the eyes
Squirming like confusion.
Move past these words.
There is worshiping and songs rising
From the rivers and white falls.
There is dancing and streets flooded with words.
They spin in sidereal time, burning
Like a bonfire of stars.
Top of the Page.
Graces
We walk toward where
The crows are gathering,
Past the toppled street lights
That are now only shells.
In twelve places at once
Virgin Mary graces a ghetto
For one holy minute
Before causing a scene
And hitching a ride
Out of town.
The consummation of muse
And laughter
Is love.
If the trees and clouds
Could speak, they would say
'We are dying'
And once
Is never enough.
Top of the Page.
The Virgin Mary Speaks
Gold and full of warmth
the chapel winks
in the November night.
Virgin Mary presses dried leaves
to her heart,
a crisp reminder
of piety.
The folds of her robe,
fluent statuary, say
"I come only once to be discovered."
You have met me dancing
beneath a Spring moon,
the girl in white linen
who would not look you in the eye.
And now,
here you are
in your sensual world,
frozen before the pale idol,
able to worship desire only.
You put your hands together
to conjure rainbows.
You pretend that life is indelible,
but on the morning after
there will only be ashes
and slivers of bone.
One more thing:
When you are dead
All will be forgiven.
Top of the Page.
Separating Heaven & Earth
Do not disturb us -
You who walk the stark fields
Of early Autumn
Beneath a slate sky.
You who trespass the border
Separating heaven & earth.
It has found you
Even as mortality
Waved you on.
Do not disturb we
Who have wings,
Who feed on wilderness & time.
We are thorns of wild rose.
We are wind
And white feathers.
We are running deer,
Beauty fallen
From God's palm.
And you have broken us
With your human ego.
Top of the Page.
Landscape With Heart
This landscape
with its grey snowbanks
in winter
and wispy dancers
cavorting on clotheslines
in summer
will not remember
we called it home.
When we push
from this world
to the next
with split hearts
we will carry knowledge
like a sleeping child
held close in our arms.
Top of the Page.
No Promise
The first face I loved
Had a voice that spoke
From leaves,
From horses,
From air.
The first face I loved
Was the face of God,
That white frequency
Of mystery
Which penetrates all things.
It stays in the memory
Like a faded tattoo,
Blue and fuzzy.
Only in moments of reaching
Will it come back to you.
Top of the Page.
Initiation
Remember to remember
You come from the shine
Of coincidence,
The same way a mockingbird
Cannot mimic with precision.
The same way history
Precedes a beginning.
You come from the sea
Where wisdom is a pearl
And death is shallow water.
Remember the silvery loam
Of the ocean's shadowy belly
When you slipped from the wide mouth
Into vast salt waters.
Remember your mother pushing you
Toward strange waters
So she would not eat you.
You come from the sky
Double bright with sun
And a crowd of moons
Cradled in stars.
The black folds of space
Where words, numbers, desire
And time mean nothing,
And timing is everything.
You come from a luminous cocoon
Ready to feed,
To shake hands with desire.
From chrysalis glow
To stained glass wings
Vivified orange, yellow and red.
You emerge from a flutter and move West
To steel cities
Ready to welcome you.
You come from smooth symmetry
And snow white artifacts,
Elemental dynamics and obstacles.
Internal music, pulsions.
You come from Faust's
Bones of the dead,
Voltaire's tragedies
And Dostoyevski's multitude
Of suicides.
You come from the green past,
The starry future
And the purgatory of now.
You bloom every season,
Irrepressible,
A diamond mine
Always in progress.
Top of the Page.
Recovery
Unwilling to sympathize
with the slow progress of vines
I summon birds with broad wings
to blot out the light within
a distant, narrow room,
to beat erotic patterns
against the frosted panes.
Southern warmth pulls at them.
For a moment there is hesitation.
They want to show me
the slow, sure progress of vines,
to say, in syllables
of a common language,
that it is only your own voice
which reminds you of all
you strive to forget.
Top of the Page.
What We Leave Behind
It will come as a surprise,
a day you will welcome
who you are
and forgive the ancient
misguided bones inside you.
By then you will have left behind
most of what dazzled you,
what tempted you,
what made it difficult
to remain one person.
You will have left behind
seashells collected in Maine
and the unmailed letters to old lovers.
You will have deserted
your favorite foods,
your child's first
pair of shoes.
You will have shed
the quiet regrets
that sing in hollow moments,
exhausted all the dimensions of Earth
to embrace the manna
of simply
being.
Top of the Page.
Sisters
There is memory even
In the broken voice
Of your hands.
Something tells us
We must embrace melancholy
In the same way
We welcome joy.
We must enter every depression
With grace,
Make musical the common things.
Something tells us
We must reinvent oppression,
Press faith like a rose
Between chapters.
We must learn,
And learn again
It is only natural
To bleed.
Top of the Page.
(Copyright 2002 - All Rights Reserved by Corrine De Winter - No reproduction without express permission from the author)Letter to the Author: Corrine De Winter at cnl20@javanet.com or autumnsong@rcn.com