Slightly Used Poem VII

Night Talk

She said, "tonight let's talk of things untrue."

He said, “ like black is white and night is day

And up is down and in is out?”

She said, "yeah, things like that.

Those things we know for sure.

Things like... well,

You could say, 'I really love you.'"

And I could say, "Yes, I know you do."

Souvenir Des Choses du Passé

Used Poem VI

    Requiem for a Mind

Hands trembling hold the chair
Across her forehead knots of hair
Concealed her dying brain within,
Each tiny cell a requiem.

The vigorous spark of life no more.
Each dendron slack, still, a silent door;
Behind the curve of cranial bone
Knowledge lies without a home

The mind that once directed one,
Decisive action planned and done,
Now thrashes in ragged disarray
To dull her glance with sad dismay.

This central power, this wondrous map
Of buzzing chemistry and magnetic zap
Will die and so, too, end all her confusion.
Her life gone, so then that mind’s occlusion.

DNJ

Used Poem V

Foster Woman             

Her needful body’s chain of custody 
Was often passed around.
And she sometimes called herself 
The Isle of Man. 

Her magic, bold and Circean eyes   
Promised a warm harbor.
She bid the Manships berth
To offload generous seed.

Not one of these off-loaded vessels
Stayed beyond a night.    
She only paused at each
To accept proffered bounty.

She said she only found
The life she needed.
She said she never found
The life she wanted. 

DNJ                     

Used Poem IV

Two Different Worlds

The boy was sure of something,
She was just the one.
The girl was sure of nothing,
Her life had just begun.

For him, he'd found his partner,
There was never any doubt.
For her, he was fine for now,
But there was more to learn about.

He thought it was a perfect start,
Something bound to surely grow.
She thought it may be but a pause,
But had no words to tell him so.

DNJ

Used Poem III

Silence Is The Perfect Answer

For days, she painted blue.
She painted until she was drunk with blue,
Until lines grew thick, like Picasso’s blue—
Not bones, but the shadows of bones
In desert's harsh light. 

She was painting in the place of making
And unmaking. Everything spilled 
Open, tugging loose, breaking the dry river
Stones until their geode hearts bled, not red,
But with the cerulean she chose to use. 

She heard the hawk cry thief, thief, 
Marking the air. In the silence after, 
She could almost trace the sound
Back to the beginning, to blue lines, 
Liquid with light, She named them. 

The Canyon. The Sediment. The Layers of Rock. 
Then she dropped the hawk’s feather from high 
Above and waited for the echo when it touched 
The canyon floor. She waited forever and forever 
And forever. No echo ever came.

DNJ

Used Poem

Sometimes In Late Evening

When the quiet is the rule, I can
sense
some sounds inside me. Always the
feral
voice of a woman. A woman wild, not
tamed.

Loving her was easy. What is it, I
wonder,
that we had before but have no more?
Why
is it we were one before and are no
more?

It seemed perfect to be alive back
then.
In time, it might be scant memory’s
trace.
But always in quiet, the voice will be
hers.

DNJ