Category: Uncategorized

For the women butchered
with clitoridectomies
not to feel intimacy
passion or mutuality in sex
but mutilated
I grieve.

For the women forced
into loveless marriages,
custom be damned, to be
slaves to men who care little
for them or their bodies or
personhood
I grieve.

For the countless, innocent
female victims of war started
by men to advance their egos,
who have been raped, defiled,
left as untouchables
I grieve.

For the silent victims of domestic
abuse, beaten, left with broken bones,
internal injuries, splenectomies, who
cover for cruel spouses out of fear and
misplaced loyalty
I grieve.

These women do not whimper
They speak without a sound.

Barren no is the land that once flourished

through harsh and unpredictable weather.

Dusty is the floor, and deadly is the air that feels

so calm.

Oh, how the years have rearranged the

gentle landscape that I once knew so well,

now I hear wind songs in a far-off distance

it sounds like and Indian’s cry.

I pray for the scattered clouds to release

Its cleansing laughter,

I lift my hands skyward to heal all that has

been consumed.

Stand tall my crimson mountain, and the

Sun will rise again.

Have faith my little cactus, for the rains

promise new life.

Hard times are before you, but soon

they will become smooth like the face

of a pebble, hidden on the rivers bottom.

Your eyes have disguised

The pain you’ve kept inside

But I’m not blind to see

As kind as I am you are to me

Truth is what I seek and have received

I’m drowning in the deep blue waters

Masqueraded through your eyes

They’ve got me hypnotized

So I’ll dive into the shallow waters

Knowing I may not make it out alive

Though cool to the touch

You would penetrate as I burn til I’m dust

As the waves crash behind my back

And I’m washed upon your shore

I don’t know how I can stay afloat

For every breath I hold while under your spell

I pray it would last before I’d need to come up for air

I have exposed myself my soul lie bare

Yet I’m like a capsized boat that lost its sail

And it’s flooded me and I cannot bail myself out

And I cannot control the way I feel

Awake from this dream

Oh how I wish it could be real

So surreal yet I must be imagining

It doesn’t matter if I lose or win

Til I figure this out I’ll float til I learn how to swim

Like your holocaust,
We are led to the slaughter.
Food and drink at a cost,
Your milk is taken from sons and daughters.
Ribs and racks,
Straight from our backs.
But it doesn’t stop there,
For food so fine,
You put your own people through wear,
Standing at the line,
Working for the perfect rind.
In a cold fridge they labor,
8 to 12 hours a day,
Oh what a bore,
All their days just wasting away.
And for what?
A taste of my butt?!
Enjoy my meat,
But while you eat,
Just remember the sacrifices,
As you gnaw on our carcasses.

Tufts of new and old grasses
The living and the lived
Chipped and chimed and chowed
Down by new growth

Multi-colored leaves, leaving
Musty, misty, moist and mossed
Resting place of the mulched
Making mewing, mushy sounds

Sticks and stones and broken bones
Of bark and branch and briar
New flowering, ripening to the ripest
Old falls and fallen rising

Forests of forgotten fires
Black, blackened and blown
Winds that whine and winge
About the burnished breezes

Gradual, grading and growing
Light at the end of the funnel
Of roots, roomed and running
Rings around new bows and branch

Sprouting, sporting the new looks
Of leaves, leaning and lowing
To summer, suns and songs
Of the fierce, unforgiving out back

She used to live in the city,
Amidst opportunity and fortuitous lights.
Then its underworld consumed her,
Shattered her sanity, tossed her into a pit of disillusionment.

She grabbed her bags and wandered.
Drifted, shifted, strayed.
Set up in the country,
In a gated house, down a quiet lane.

But the wolves began their prowling,
Detecting the aroma of a soul once lost.
Melodious, hypnotic howls captivated her curiosity.
She knew she shouldn’t open the door…

When the savagery had ended,
The bedroom ripped and torn,
She dragged her beaten body
And headed for the shore.

A lighthouse, a moonlit pier.
Lovers walking hand in hand.
…she cries…
So much vulnerability here, too exposed.
She dims her light, fearful …

High on a mountainous rock,
Solace is found in silence.
She builds her stonewall tower,
And here the pain stops.

The cliffs are steep,
The air is thin…
…and no-­one can get in.
No­-one can penetrate her skin.

By Tina Barnes

Shadows speak from the corners
Insects spread their frosty wings
There’s a strange silence I hear
It’s too loud for me
The crickets chirp away
making a merry racket
like a steel drum player in full cry
Catch the precious streaks of light
of solitude and second sight.

Poem by Chandrani Banerjee

A wish granted, a wish received
The most beautiful danger I’ve ever perceived
Mouth saying no, eyes whisper yes
Carnal desire for our bodies pressed
To steal a taste, no permission received
Our tongues writing memoirs for our bodies that plead
For release and for answers our minds do present
But restrained by the shackles that make you repent
For acceptance into the warm arms of flesh
I wait bated breath for your mouth to say ‘yes’.

Sing to me! Oh my lover, sing with joy and excitement!
Sing to me!, Oh my dear, contemplate the turmoil inside,
Bring to me!, Oh my wonderful, manifest a glory in peace,
Bring to me!, Oh my counselor, the fragrance of wisdom,
Incite in me!, Oh my dearest, the innocence of childhood,
Ignite in me!, Oh my colorful, the scent of creation,
Let me be someone!, let me bring something, so I too,
can return to you with honor and humility, incomplete,
truthful and thankful.
Grant me the days ahead with love and tenderness in submission,
in the swaying grass above all the waves in the sea,
for pale is my soul in the vast greatness!.

I poured out my eyes to the naked trees
they understand rain

My soul hollow like their insides
they stare back bold and trusting

the forest of them agreeing to hold it sacred
my secret. The quiet suffering

they know. It’s there as they hold their branches up
shrugging to say we see it

we’ll hold it for you.

–Leslie DuFresne