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Other Poets Elizabeth Kelso
Lori Williams
Danny P. Barbare Elizabeth Kelso
Madness, Madness
Didn't you know eccentric women
Repeat the pattern of madness?
Didn't they tell you that we comb our hair
Then stare into darkness?
I'll tell you then. I'm the eccentric woman of
hermitage
Who talks to the rain that falls
And ask my plants why they don't grow
Into strong little boys and girls
I'll tell you then, I'm the quaint woman of yesteryear
Quintessentially mad to the masses
But to the legion that guards my brain
I'm not insane
Didn't you know eccentric women
Repeat the pattern of madness?
Copyright ©2003 Elizabeth Kelso
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Shamed by our Condition
My wrists were small
but the cuffs were smaller
as they bit at my skin
Shoved into the car head first
my body contorted to fit
in a space not fit for small children or wildlife
CLANK went the door of the holding cell
Piss scented air engulfed me as I sat
alone and cold on the hard metal bench
(chipping paint and artful profanity)
Cries of women
echoed through the corridor
and out the window
falling on merciless ears
I would not cry
for anger caressed my lips
He took away everything I had
He took away my freedom
He was used to the cage
but prison is no place for a woman
We were round up
an assortment of motley women
chained together by circumstance
I was not a criminal
just a woman and a mother
who would not submit to the will
of another
We were led out like dogs pulling a sled
Heads down and shamed by our condition
My cellmate was a crack addict
though she preferred the term "diabetic"
Her long, crack-eaten body draped over the entire
bench
I studied her features
(emaciated)
There was no doubt she took her insulin through a
pipe.
Copyright ©2003 by Elizabeth Kelso
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Bio:
Elizabeth Kelso is a native New Yorker who has been writing poetry for 17 years. She won 2nd prize in the 2000 "No Experience Required: A Literary
Magazine Contest for her poem "She Fed Me Kimchi". Her work can be seen at zuzu.com.
Lori Williams
Crazy is a Place
Crazy is a mean place to be -
piranhas swim through saliva, teeth
pressure your tongue to tell a son
you wish he were never born, that your eggs
should have caught fire, burned black
like the ones he tries to make, ruining all the skillets,
before that drunken cum staggered its way
into your fucked-up Easter basket.
There is so much blood in the daydreams.
His and yours run together, a dysfunctional river
that covers baby pictures making cowlicks glisten,
making his Sesame Street romper orange.
In the night dreams, you cry.
How you've neglected the knife set!
The one from four Christmas' ago - they've dulled
like your hair, your eyes. Flat. Matte like the shadows
you wear as disguise. People don't look into them now,
and you know the men you'll never have.
Things like making toast and manicures become projects,
make you think of slots that pop out what you are so hungry for,
and fingernails small as sprinkles, so you drop the bread
to the floor, leave the polish open to dry.
With dead eyes it all seems funny.
Crazy is an interesting place to be, if someone notices.
Then there are pink and blue pills that you line up
on the counter like pairs of eyes winking all is well,
and doctors you picture naked with hairy balls,
which makes you laugh, and laughter is
the best medicine. If someone notices,
maybe sons will see the error of their ways,
become priests or even love you again, hold your hand.
But crazy is usually alone, going to six stores to find
the Schick straight razors dad used to use. Then you see
him shaving at the sink, nicking his cheek, sticking a piece
of tissue on it. Oh, how you fretted! The worst worry
in your life was his wound. You wonder why
he doesn't answer your prayers.
Crazy is a place where the doves never come home.
Copyright ©2003 Lori Williams
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Breaking Down, Making Soup
A pockmarked life, ugly and filled
with flimsy notions of altered states
is reason enough to shed skin dead
a while, since the year full of holes.
Hung on bone (tired), teasing
like a tongue that circles pouting lips
and misses the point.
Fifteen thousand three hundred thirty
mistakes atoned for - promises, deals,
firstborn son. Like a pot of soup they simmer
until the whole schmear becomes something
with a name. Carrot shavings
and chicken feet are nothing on their own.
Sometimes he listens and forgives
but we pay with our sanity,
going crazy as we slurp poison
that does not quite reach the heart.
Copyright ©2003 Lori Williams
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Bio:
Just your typical depressed poet from New York. I think I've had some sort of depression for most of my adult life, maybe even since childhood. People were always telling me "snap out of it", " you're so moody" and the worst one..."smile!". At age 43, I have finally put a name to it, stopped thinking I was just a miserable person. My poetry has been published in over 30 print and web zines and journals, including The Melic Review, Niederngasse, The Dakota House Journal, BlueFifth Review and is upcoming in Wicked Alice and Unlikely Stories. I've used poetry as my therapy for many years, but it's not quite enough anymore.
Danny P. Barbare
Stormy Night
Drops of rain
Glisten on the wooden steps.
The wind blows
And the field answers
As everything else listens.
Copyright ©2003 Danny P. Barbare
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Sleep
At the edge of the pond
It is like that dip and then tug
Into the darkness.
The line runs with that shiny scaled dream
That can never be fiction.
Copyright ©2003 Danny P. Barbare
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Bio:
Danny P. Barbare's poetry has appeared in Pittsburgh Quarterly, Writing Ulster, Santa Barbara Review, California Quarterly, and many other publications and journals. He has struggle with manic-depression since his early teens. He started writing at the age of 20 and has written a poem everyday for the past 20 years. He works as a custodian and attends Greenville Technical College when able. He has a deep Southern accent, having travelled very little from the area where he was born.
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