Being Super

I am not
the small, lone girl who
runs and jumps
on her lawn.
I am strong: beyond hurt. I
am power now. Me.

My cloak floats
out from my shoulders.
One leap and
I fly high,
up, up and AWA-A-A-A-Y — oh yes,
I am Superman!

Submitted for dVerse Poetics - going Comic challenge. (The form is a double shadorma.)

Published in BEYOND THE DARK ROOM, 2012

Violence

You were glaring through the window

when your face broke like crazy paving.

Zig-zag lines and angles fragmented the planes,

just missing your eyes and your nostrils

but cutting across your lips and severing both ears.

Then, as the glass shattered and fell,

jagged pieces crumbling slow to the ground,

your face was smooth again except for the scowl.

Your knuckles, though, still raised, were bloody.

Not a recent event, people, and not directly involving me. A poem from early 2009, just revised. Submitted to dVerse Open Link Night 6 

Published in BEYOND THE DARK ROOM, 2012

I Start My Evening Walks

I start my evening walks again

after a long gap,

plodding tired and heavy

at the end of the day

in a still chilly dusk.

Head down, I’m surprised

by clover dotting the grass,

little happy faces.

A lone ibis flies,

stretching in a straight line

for the hills of home.

Only ten minutes today.

I turn about

and the round moon confronts me

low in the sky, bright white.

Now I am peaceful.


Published in BEYOND THE DARK ROOM, 2012

Dear Bogeyman

You missed! I got away
time after time after time,
leaping on the bed
from the middle of the floor,
flying in a flurry
of cotton nightgown,
to land soft and safe
from your sneaky hands
that reached to grab
my naked ankles
and pull me down
into the darkness
of your nether regions.

I never met you in the flesh
though some of my friends did.
I wonder now about those tales,
that fear — where did it come from?
Did fear or tales come first?
Are both an age-old way
of keeping children safe
from real-live bogeymen
who really lie in wait
for unwary children, and who
might even be in your own house,
hiding, ready to pounce,
under your own bed?


Day 17 - Someone from your childhood

Published in BEYOND THE DARK ROOM, 2012

Growing Old Disgracefully

‘A nude woman!’
he shouts with joy,
encountering me moving
thus unencumbered
from bedroom to bath,
bathroom to bed.

‘Aren’t you lucky!’ I say.
‘How many men of 82
have nude women
wandering their homes?’
‘Not too many,’ he guesses,
and grins. ‘Yes, I am lucky.’

And I think to myself,
How many women of 71
have their nudity greeted
by men shouting for joy?
Not too many, I think.
I know who’s lucky.


Published in BEYOND THE DARK ROOM, 2012