Can’t wait to get my copy! Looking forward. Saludos y gracias.
#12 Summer
photo is copyright: Taste of Isha e-book
banana popsicles
at the corner store
sweet summer sticky
and you
a back alley vagabond
boa constrictor
slithering through my door
in tortoise shell
shades
Copyright © 2016 Sharon Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
March Senryū 2016
we visit you here | in this place we can’t fathom | with beautiful flowers
grand love
fathers \ daughters.
some, almost perfect, no . . .
there are those who could tell you truths —
to shame
when you’re proud to know | the boy you raised who grew wise | way beyond his years
that kiss was kismet | some past life holdover | now to get over it
wild blackbird warning | then car’s back door flies open | wallet on the ground | Good Samaritan noticed | comes to your rescue saves day
old Havana | has her secrets hidden deep | in layers of paint
mysticwoman | she who sees beyond eyes | who hears the longtime voices
there are don’t ride trains | ones that are going down wrong | sidetracked forever
the eyes have it | true windows to the heart/soul | what do yours say
she works in the dark | hands need no light to create | smooth and soothe the lines
people block the hate | with their bodies and prayers | close down the clown’s cars | until the streets can be safe | once more from this war on us
ancestral knowledge | sure as sunshine and moon rise | we are all welcomed
my dream peeps | are keepers and are not me | have their own lives to live
in shackles and chained | no respect for human beings | illegal they’re not
kindness of strangers | takes you by the arm | welcomes you like family
sad for that hurt feeling | don’t know why people hate | ocean bottom deep
in the morning | she will give thanks for being | for one more day | to become a better human | to pray for health and kindness
tongues for justice | will never be silenced | from ashes rises fire
we geography | the maps and myths of our lives | places and people
beauty of the blush | of new flower bud just born | of sacred promise
new flood warnings | morning woke late and foggy | turned off her alarm
thunder beings roar | gulf waters jump up the shore | downpour on the brink
going inward | to reflect on no reflection | mirror the darkness | seeking out those specks of stars | your love that’s become so small
hair clip
on the sidewalk~
rusty as the years long,
held up some beautiful tresses
back when.
so we dis-agree | about presidents and such | aren’t we family | we’re not that divided | we both want peace and justice
land where you were made | where ancestors lived and died | a full life circle | you piece together the songs | the wrongs no longer matter
a book is a world | enter its doors and go | journeying the unknown
the mother in her | makes them feel comfortable | is what makes them talk | they open up like windows | on a bright sunny day
so much love is soup | simmered steamy with good will | veggies and chicken
hunger food for thought | and a quiet place in woods | where the raven calls
denial does no good | in friendship one must see | their own shortcomings
Copyright © 2016 Odilia Galván Rodríguez. All Rights Reserved.
Under the Mist Moon
bless your bones
dance them merrie
papery waves
blue winter reigns
in dark middle night
the worth
of salt
beckons
Copyright © 2016 Sharon Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
inspired by Ronnie Robertson’s photo
Journey Home
For FXA, February 21, 1954 – January 15, 2015
our mother water | cleared this day a greener path | came down in thick ropes
ayer rituales | from that cradle where you grew | all your traditions
rooted in some strong | long ago red earth pregnant | possibilities
of that son you are | true to all you have become | in this world of spines
that would sooner pierce | than heal soul bodies with food | sacrificed from flesh
and the heart of it | is that life is just like that | thorny to shield soft
and vulnerable | though we mimic the strongest | ones rooted firme
deep in the forest | of our lives that don’t last long | we make our own way
don’t regret the turns | taken to get to ends | that always come too soon
watch you breathe ragged | breaths from their shallow nests | you eye me and see
my soul reaching out | to soothe you hermano | as you struggle through
a warriors death | you are present for it all | strong in your resolve
to experience | your passing like your life | to the fullest
now you have taught me | one more thing eye didn’t know | to die with courage
worn out your machine | called a body a temple | and you want to dream
we demand dreaming | to take you into next world | light to guide your way
we pray for comfort | want no fear for your journey | in that place that calls you
near or far not gone | now the people want to flock | to your side to touch
that flame before it goes out | but not everyone | can be invited
to witness your flight | only the very dearest | for it’s your journey
eye am close but far | or a little distant | for fear of trampling
yesterday as you slept | eye read you Snake Poems | your eyes flew open
you recognized | your own incantations | spilling into the room
like watercolors | of our mother blue | splashing the walls
with our laughter | we chased away the shadows | tears became happy
eye am writing this | how we communicate | curando con palabra
changing their lead | into spun golden prayers | showers of pollen
to sprinkle hope | onto the heads of this world | some so hard can’t see
you take your book | out of my hands and recite | you channel from there
body in flames | a different sort of burning | you down to ashes
| waiting to fly out of them | resplendent in your journey
eye can’t imagine | a world without you in it | brother born of word
you a love warrior | fighting to stay present | to your last breath
eye struggle to know | what to say now that words | no longer matter
| except as prayers | except as incantations
we communicate by breaths | each one marks pain and promise | you still here with us
when eye read your words | tears spring to my eyes and fall | silently streaming
we are about the word | a business that is not one | blessings upon all
you’ve left Francisco | body that housed your spirit | now you’re all angel
beyond borders | you fly home to ancestors | who wait with open arms
Davis, CA 12 – 15, Enero
Copyright © 2016 Odilia Galván Rodríguez. All Rights Reserved.
Pat Gaines/Flickr Creative Commons
August Senryū 2015
For all life’s ups and downs
dream and dance | the blues remind us of joy | life is a see-saw
he says he is next | to go with the ancestors | there’s resignation | in his voice so full of tears | at the last loss of loved ones
his family gone | mother father brother gone | only he remains
there is beauty | in surviving past thirty | in growing older |
in knowing you are knowing | life gives you grays and wisdom
love is better | than bitterness or hate | even when you lose |
you win having had the joy | tremendous in all its pain
she would rather see | instead of be blinded | by sweet talk all lies
be blinded sometimes | revel in the fortune | of his love for you
on her walk today | the crows called not in warning | more of a heads up
in love and war | love is the high road | leads to the heart of what matters
the enemy camp | lonely when you don’t know why | it’s time to escape
the grandest love of all | lasts for eternity | nothing can crush it
eye release you | as you are not mine to bind | free as a bird
she lied to herself | easier than facing truth | which hurts more sometimes
tasting her tears he feels | her heart trembles for him | in echos of time
we sing to the stars | in gratitude for our lives | we sing for life
we are pollen blessed | take flight for our lives | blessed in earth mother’s beauty
she has a broken heart | for the world that bleeds | from being eaten alive
painful regrets | of an unrequited love | misdirected
those who’ve crossed lines | too many times to return | to sanity or love
thunder beings walk | loudly announce the rain | brighten blackest night
extreme pain and joy | two sides of the same love | better to have had both
tries to say with heart | what she knows with her whole being | though mouth wants to scream
she dreams she drinks his tears | dreams his grief as ashes | the wind carries them far
life’s uncertainty | balanced by waking up | healthy and in love
she will wish upon stars | the way her grandmothers have | fire streaking skies
his life seems over | reaching final chapters | but it’s beginning
a story of lost | and found love that won’t die | trying to find balance
an ache for his loss | while feeling her own inside | outcomes uncertain
we should take care | the nature is important | creeks become rivers
six year old wisdom | compassion before judgment | love counts the most
she was in between | here – there mostly there | now she’s gone to ancestors
Copyright © 2015 Odilia Galván Rodríguez. All Rights Reserved.
July Senryū 2015
for the sweet circle of life
calabash of life | whisper your secrets in breath | of birth and of death
Clover turns over | summersaults in her belly | she’s getting ready
your son grows tired | of you moving on | without saying goodbye
now you dwell mainly there | just one foot in this world | here people wait
she is in between | worlds that call to her to wait | the seen and unseen
be-at-ti-tude | supremely blessed is she | with every heart-beat
in complex shedding | of bird’s finery we see | the simplicity
he won’t let her go | no matter how hard she tries | to pull away
citrus and terracotta | jasmine stars explode | their scent’s earth and sky
she is still here | sometimes she opens her eyes | as if she’s only slept |
not in that way when one’s self | travels to the unseen
the nature of things | being in the moment | a dance between raindrops
preparing to live | parents make nests for their egg | swollen with pride
moving through the aperture | of life and death | a love labor
union in sound | drum voices thunder singers | spiral in motion
pastel skies that pass | days fly by fast flapping wings | as time moves on
sensuous pieces | that fit together | an elaborate puzzle
an almost baby | sleeps dreams and swims inside her | she prays for the best |
all life has to offer | a blue child being born green
madrugada calls | sleep talk she thinks is a dream | it’s him from afar
new moon intentions | a wish and invocation | your heart’s desires
sun breaks through to find | brain fog that refuses to | burn off
baby overwhelm | a child trying to raise one | young woman alone
silly assumptions | about appearances | a game of all wrong
Clover dreams color | sees the world through mother’s eyes | visions the future
his mom’s on her journey | he saw E on the corner | dressed in red and black |
sharp and dapper lookin’ | all pied piperish | but he don’t want her to go |
not even with E | who’s showin’ the road | no she was the first woman |
who ever loved him | though like BB say | she could be jivin’ too
niño Fidencio | de agave espadín | medicina viva
the last was the first | on his mind he closed/opened | listened with his heart
watery spirit | now you see there now you don’t | moving between worlds
a molehill sometimes | a mountain to be climbed | feelings magnified
another run | a chance at a different life | beginning again
Bree because you’re free | you climb and tear down their hate | decry their limp rag | symbol of supremacy | of cowards that have no hearts
Poems copyright © 2015 Odilia Galván Rodríguez. All Rights Reserved.
I Am The Fifth Wind
I am the fifth wind
I am here, here, and here
Ebb tide
Dark moon
I pull the roots down deeper
Yank with my teeth
Hunt down sickness in its hiding place
Stop lying
I will level the village
Wearing fire for a skirt
I bathe in the dust
Dancing counter clockwise
Don’t follow me where I go
You, The Dead cannot trouble me
For I am the blue deer
And can capture all your medicine
From my mouth comes the fog
Fernborn
Lighting born
I gather the waste and remove it
Yerba Santa and Grindilia
combined is my Medicine
Copyright © 2015 Jolaoso Pretty Thunder. All Rights Reserved.
Artiste : Noémie Capon | Voir ses œuvres |
Time Traveling
The future is not made yet. When I try to time travel there, I just end up in some weird version of the past Uncertainty is where we live.
So a few weeks ago we rewound our relationship, turned the boat around and started heading back to the dock. We hadn’t known our destination anyway. We just hopped on for the ride. The week started abruptly.
“I don’t want to be polyamorous.” I blurted
It was a roller coaster ride. It was a boat on high seas. We are two older women so swollen with heat for each other. We decided to stop sleeping together but then started having sex in public on the dance floor – you dancing me to the edge of moaning. We kept sliding our tongues past our decision to make deep kisses off limits.
We were free floating. I listened hard in the park on a Saturday. Your words like floating icebergs against the hull of our relation-ship, breaking up or changing course. Who knew?
But now I want to wake up with you a million times, spend love for currency, be reckless, and live, be that spike thing that you pound into sheer rock, tie your rope up on in a strong knot for hauling yourself back up, hand over hand to the top when you fall into time traveling down the sad years.
“If you have to go, take some water” I say. “Water is healing.”
They say you can’t change the past but I can. The first few times I went back on purpose to that room where I was raped over and over again, I was big, and bad, and brave. I started by bringing bowls of water but then I just flooded the whole damn place. The walls couldn’t hold together. There was so much water. I just grabbed my own little girl hand, and we swam up out of there together. That’s how come I’m alive and so free to love you now.
Still I’ve been in the habit of being in more then one place at a time for too long. I finally understand when you say for the n’th time how I’m channeling ghosts, and you want to be alone with me when we make love. So here we go now walking, our uncertain footsteps into the present.
Copyright ©2015 Malke Singer. All rights reserved
A Serpent Song
I have been called wayward
for seeking the Path
that is found in the round
I have been called willful
for being driven by an energy
à rebours, not to be ignored
I have been called witch
when I refuse to keep silent
Wayward, willful, witch
I take these words as
compliments, sobriquets
for neon women in the dark
Copyright ©2015. J.A. Mitchell. All rights reserved.
Red Earth Productions & Cultural Work's Community of Writers' Café 