Writing poetry does not require a local cafe, a prairie skirt or a neighborhood filled with hillbillies, lawn art or discarded needles/condoms, so I took up residence in Norwalk, Iowa, a decade ago. I bought a twelve pack of Bic medium point ball-points and a case of recycled paper to practice what I learned in the creative writing program at Drake University. My mother (God rest her busy soul!) tried convincing me I'd starve trying to make ends meet (meat) writing and she was correct, as is usually the case with mothers' advice. I practice the art of writing to retain my sanity in a world where (even) sunshine burns, if you get too much. Stop, look, then listen. Poems wait fertilization in rusted coffee cans, faces of people we've yet to meet, in aisle 3 at the local Walmart and in the limp of the old dog along a stretch of highway that eventually, kills him.
My Terminal Tree
The tree is Stage IV.
There is no Stage V.
Bare to the branch,
combfuls of parched bark
in piles at its feet, like hair.
There are no monitors,
feeding tubes, no morphine.
A bird wearing scarlet
balances on a frail finger
of branch, swaying
through the final rasps of
dutch elm disease,
The chain saw of death
approaches.
Top of the Page.
On A Four Letter Word
When I came for dinner,
an arrangement of scallops, asparagus,
the gift of pears over plain, white china
like a Bellanca canvas and as modest.
You wrapped yourself around me,
a shawl the last night in Autumn.
We sat together beneath
sibylline sky, comfortable
in our extending silences.
When did we discover this
consonance in day's good night?
We became cartographers,
mapping out our recluse.
When we took out seats the first dusk
of Winter, it was not frost
on my face I felt, but your hands,
warm like meditation and still
as breath held just before harmony
passes through it.
Love is a slice of blank;
it cannot distinguish when it began
or if there was a day when it was not.
for Breakfast
You rise and make your own paper
instead of bread,
and there's no one to eat it.
Pens line the tray in the drawer
where silverware goes
and you stir your coffee with a red one
advertising pharmaceuticals.
There is fever in this rhythm
rocking you across pages,
through morning,
and your hands tremble
signing this covenant with text.
Top of the Page.
and behind the curtain call of his eyes
a lost count of leading ladies
and the children they wore
beneath costumes
the knife he used to cut himself
free and exit stage left
through manmade sunsets
his mother's smile
and her chromatic hands
exercising along viola strings
then flaccid in the middle
of Brahms Hungarian Dance 5
the lover he came to know
with eyes the color of glaciers
against flawless sky
who as beautifully
made the call back
and prompted his disappearance
from playbills permanently
Top of the Page.
Shelly placed first in the Iowa Poetry Association's 2002 World & National Events category. Her poem "Oh Nine Eleven Oh One" appears in the recently released Lyrical Iowa. Her work is scheduled for print appearance with Snow Monkey in February, 2003 and the first annual Poets-In-Tents Literary Journal. She is a regular contributor at Whistling Shade, The Twin Cities Literary Journal, 42Opus, readingdivas.com and has recent work scheduled for appearance with 2River.
(Copyright 2002 - All Rights Reserved by Shelly Reed - No reproduction without express permission from the author)Letter to the Author: Shelly Reed at SREEDF@aol.com