May 2022
Bio Note: It has been said, both in poem and song, that “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” I mention this because the optional theme this month has to do with how war affects us personally. For me the month of May is all about mothers and how they shape us: the great Earth mother giving naissance to creation again, both her creatures and bounty of the fields, as well as the May 8th recollection of our own birth mothers. My take on this led me to intertwine these two perhaps not so divergent ideas in poem choices for this month.
At Auction
The ancient sorrel stallion hears the whir of voices wants to fly off the cliff following blackberry dreams feels in a breeze the lick of his mother’s tongue against his newborn coat.
Originally published in Medicinal Purposes
Spiders
have woven a cupola over my night stand lamp thin as the skin of a butterfly wing. The liquid silk is spun from center to sides then crisscrossed into spiral mesh sticky enough to trap the unawakened. My eye traces the maze of concentric circles leading nowhere, a resilient crazy quilt of velvet ties ballooning in the breeze. The story of the good girl is embedded in its cautious patterns passed down from mother to daughter. The cocoon of a female wolf spider becomes attached to her spinnerets. She carries it around with her demanding her spiderlings spend the long, cold winter in the cocoon. When they leave, they do the same. This web is silver spun to look like gold. I want to brush it away with a careless stroke. I can’t. Patiently I unravel each convoluted link; to struggle against the gossamer strands entangles you all the more. Now I am alone with a web of my own weaving spinning from my pen as fast as I can write running away on paper as far as it will take me. Thin lines emerge crisscrossing in a net of thoughts. Over and over I spin trying to catch the words before they fly away.
Originally published in Z Miscellaneous
Family Front
You can’t have it
both ways, brother.
When you maim your prey
don’t expect them to stay
and be grateful.
Your aim was always off:
shooting down support troops
while the real villains went
scot-free. Was your spirit too
wounded to see who was who?
As the casualties of your war
with yourself limp out of sight,
cruel words carve a border
even I, your earliest ally,
dare not cross.
I hug space and kiss air
at the side of your cheek
before I leave; the emptiness
weighs a ton,
crushes
my heart.
©2022 Arlene Gay Levine
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