Interstate

Half-eaten fries, the remains of hash browns,
fill the table’s distance between them.
She scoops the car-keys, says she’ll not be long.

In the washroom mirror she checks her face
close up; sees years of wearied waiting.
She steps into a sticky afternoon.

How long before he’ll notice, before he’ll ask –
the forecourt is nauseous with diesel and ocean –
ask if anyone’s seen a woman in middle years.

She’s onto the freeway, jittering across lanes.
And why, he’ll wonder, now that the kids are gone,
now that they’re free to hit the road each spring.

She overtakes on automatic, clearing Carolina –
recalls the one dream he has left, of building a boat;
upriver in summer; dry dock in winter. The two of them.

An unforeseen calm settles with sundown: she longs
for nightfall on unbroken stretches of highway.
It’s clear ahead as far as her eyes can see

- Anne-Marie Fyfe

Image: Arsenic and Old Lace… by !Vintage-Vixen

When the cotton flower blooms,
O noble father.
Bring that season back for me,
O noble father.

It was in that season that I lost my song.
Separation choked its throat,
Sorrow ravaged its face,
Like water in ruined wells were its eyes.
It was a song that brought to lips,
The scent of musk.
O noble father.
Bring back that song for me.
O noble father.

One day my song and I,
In that enchanted season,
Ploughed the earth of my heart,
Sowed it with seeds of undefiled dreams.
No matter how many tears I poured on it,
No flower bloomed.
O noble father.
Bring back one flower for me,
O noble father.

What use your fertile lands
If daughters wilt?
What use your lakes
If the swans are parched?
What use your ample wealth
Your granary of pearls,
O noble father,
If you cannot bring back the season,
When the cotton flower blooms.
O noble father.

- Shiv Kumar Batalvi
Transl. Suman Kashyap

Image: The Cotton Bud Flower by `emmil

Love Poem

See the swallows quit the eaves
And fall the yellow walnut leaves,
The vines with autumn frost are numb,
Why don’t you come, why don’t you come?

 Oh, come into my arms’ embrace
That I may gaze upon your face,
And lay my head in grateful rest
Against your breast, against your breast!

 Do you remember when we strayed
The meadows and the secret glade,
I kissed you midst flowering thyme
How many a time, how many a time?

 Some women on the earth there are
Whose eyes shine as the evening star,
But be their charm no matter what,
Like you they’re not, like you they’re not!

 For you shine in my soul always
More softly than the starlight blaze,
More splendid than the risen sun,
Beloved one, beloved one!

 But it is late in autumn now,
The leaves have fallen from the bough,
The fields are bare, the birds are dumb.
Why don’t you come, why don’t you come?

 - Mihai Eminescu

1850-1889
Romania

 Image: Come Cuddle Please by =AndersonPhotography

I hate breaking my habits.I hate eing dependant.I hate being angry.I hate being insane.I hate losing my values.I hate losing respect for myself.I hate losing my controls.I hate seing my happiness in another person,I hate not accepting the other personAs they are.I hate living in dread of losing the one I love.I hate to want my love dead.But everything I hate is nothing but me.A mirror always shows what lies in front.I thank love for showing me myself.

- Bharat Thakur

Image: Mirror by ~Subryna

Walking Away 

Cold fingers
Wrapped around my wrist
They’re yours
No longer do I feel warmth with you.

Black tears
Full of regret fall
They’re mine
Sometimes its difficult, these things we do.

Icy glares
Like darts to my heart
They’re ours
Painful like drawing blood from a dove.

Walking away
The only way out
It’s gone
That crazy little thing we called love.

 - tearingmascara

Image: Walking Away by ~charbee

Old photographs

On my desk is a photograph of you
taken by the woman who loved you then.

In some photos her shadow falls
in the foreground. In this one,
her body is not that far from yours.

Did you hold your head that way
because she loved it?

She is not invisible, not
my enemy, nor even the past.
I think I love the things she loved.

Of all your old photographs, I wanted
this one for its becoming. I think
you were starting to turn your head a little,
your eyes looking slightly to the side.

Was this the beginning of leaving?

- Gabeba Baderoon

Image: Old Photo by ~lemontree12

Panchali

Pulled into my husbands’ court by my uncombed hair

Thrown onto the floor where hundreds of feet touch its thick, red silk

The flowing carpet rises and falls like the mist of my lotus-laden lake

I know you are immovable in your rage Shákuni!

Your ego knows no limits, it is like a snake stalking a mouse

Quietly without remorse in its meager heart

All eyes watch me cry in anguish as you pull my ????

To the end of this room it flows like the Ga?g?

Shining with its thin, gold-laden fabric

And crippled by your greedy fingers!

Dignified beauty you tossed with your dice

Human emotions you sacrificed with your heart

Bring your eyes to mine to see one word: regret

Ha! You are the nectar’s enemy: regret!

If you spit on my chastity then K???a-Devá will smite you this instant!

His cakra?: a knife for your spineless body

All my fears that followed me at night when I visited my lord in secret

Nibbling on the black pearls around my neck while I watched the roses rise

They are you…a shadow that rapes Sóma-Devá

I cannot give you my body for it belongs to Ke?ava!!

My life will one day be returned to his village

To live as a cowherd while churning milk for his hungry pink lips

The boyish smile and curly hair barely touches his shoulders

Eyes so wide yet shaped like the waning moon

Little specks in the corner of both are galaxies unknown to us

So far away where other people exist for whom K???a-Devá is their mah?r?ja

If I am his then he is my ruler too!

Shákuni, you are the drunken ego: a corrupted seed for humanity!

My body is a vase holding the virtues of S?rya-Devá

He touched my spirit to give me a bit of his own

Disrobing me in front of my husbands and all the ?ryas of their kingdom

is a sacrilege!

I beg you to stop this great injustice!!!

Can’t you see I have sunken into a sea of distress!?

No, you are busy drowning my voice with your wicked laughter

Brahm?-Devá gave you a boon that protects your life from any physical or divine harm

Yet, has he no shame when seeing this monstrous deed?

Ma! You are Sarv?suravin???-Dev?, come to my rescue!!!

Show your terrifying face to this savage

Make him cower under your crippling stare, ma!

Turn his limbs into brittle sticks so he will stop treating my honor like a toy

Sunil P. Narayan

Image: Radha alone by ~shyam108

I’ll see you, again

the clean silver lining rushes down and
splashes into the depths of the Earthly water
what it once contained has slipped away.
mother’s purity enters, and tickles my innards with cold
sprinkles of water,
folding in and out
over the rocks and under the rocks

the wind breezes through the chilly night air
blessings, enfolded in my breast, clinging to the dark stone,
awash with waves, cold and burning,
the object of my contemplation -
the object of my obsession, of
where a question comes to mind:
a longing to be held,
as the innards get tickled
by sprinkles of water

pure and harsh, tender and stern,
that lash my rocking soul with cords of love.

Goodbye, my love. I’ll see you, again.

- Celine Berghmans and Zachary Esterson

Image: You’ll See Colors Again by ~Asilwen

That woman who to me seems most a woman
I do not compare to angels–or digress on schismatic Popes–
or exalt above the terrestrial or consider a madonna.
Nor do I search in others for her lineaments,
or wish for Death to free me from desire,
or consider Love an archer; or see her as a Daphne,
fleeing the embraces of Apollo, transformed into a laurel.
I am not lost in the amorous wood of Virgil.

But although I do not rhyme or use the soft Italian,
my love is a strong love, and for a certain person.
Human beings are human; I can see a man might envy
her bath water as it envelops her completely.
That’s what my love would like to do; and Petrarch
can take a running jump at himself–or (perhaps?) agree.

- Gavin Ewart
(1916-1995)

Image: This is real. by ~The-Horrorpunk

I have climbed a mountain

There is a mountain higher than a hill,

and all alone I must climb its high peaks

in the snowfall of the February chill.

And when I arrive at its summit

up and beyond the rainbow’s hue, I will

enter the gold and silver gates, where

swiftly I’ll be searching for you.

When our eyes meet from a distance

infused with emotion we both will be

and the “Song of Songs” will take over

sung sweetly and tenderly:

“Arise oh my darling, come hither to me

Let me see your face, feel your embrace.

I have climbed a high mountain for thee,

two hearts together is how it should be.”

- Joyce Hemsley

Image: Lover’s Leap by ~DuncanLong

A Sick Rose

Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

-  William Blake

1794

Image: Second Hand Rose by *AllieDis

The Looking Glass

Getting a man to love you is easy

Only be honest about your wants as

Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him

So that he sees himself the stronger one

And believes it so, and you so much more

Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your

Admiration. Notice the perfection

Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under

The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor,

Dropping towels, and the jerky way he

Urinates. All the fond details that make

Him male and your only man. Gift him all,

Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of

Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,

The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your

Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting

A man to love is easy, but living

Without him afterwards may have to be

Faced. A living without life when you move

Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that

Gave up their search, with ears that hear only

His last voice calling out your name and your

Body which once under his touch had gleamed

Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute.

- Kamala Das

Image: Looking Glass by ~ForNeverAndForever

O Venlo, Venlo, stedje van pleseer. This time

her body made him think of countryside,

some figure from his childhood, sun on scythe,

wind blowing shadows across the shining barley,

the milk-pail dented from use, the smell of leaf-mulch

and leather in the tack room. Soon she’d take bus

and ferry from London to Belfast, but first

the fire in her bed-sit. Her fingers traveled too,

down the raised purple scars along his vertebrae,

the flannel sheets between her thighs, his hair

trailing along her abdomen, the quill

of a feather poking through seams of the comforter,

the comforter itself. Those scars—he’d lied

to her, his time in Nicaragua, thugs cut

him coming from the fields. The bloodier fight

was with his brother, slicing tines of a pitchfork

plucked up along the flooded Maas. Everything

reduced to trinket and anecdote, the beer

and facepaint of carnival, street-dance and tuba,

beyond the muddy English roundabouts, the brown

and white waves, yellow lamps along Dutch highways,

his work at the union office pinned beneath

a glass globe paperweight—shaken

it showered silver snow over the wide

straw hat, red and green plow, the slouching body,

a campesino from days before Somoza fell.

He wondered if she were any better, smuggling

French social theory into Ulster, encounter

groups in the rec-centers of tower-block basements.

She’d just gotten the news: her last lover died

in a fire along the side of the highway, body

broken in seven places, silver chrome,

pearl and gold gas tank scorched, his bike crumpled

beneath the husk of an overturned van.

There wasn’t much to talk about. Afterwards she lay

with her back to him and he sang her carnival songs

in a language she didn’t speak, O Venlo, stedje van

pleseer. He thought of himself as the sun, kissing

her neck at the hairline, turning grey cobblestones

of the town-square silver, marshaling parades.

prima facie, gardening…
–I, on my knees,
blinded by a blistering sun,
rising over a black wall of forgetable pine.
– you, blue, lay on your side;
in the moment,
wrapped in your tender flesh,
cool and damp
from so many salty tears of disbelief.
…come a warm breath of Spring,
I’ll look for your essence,
in the smoky-blues of the Russian Sage.

- Katharena Eiermann

A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.

All tenderly his messenger he chose;

Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet —

One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;

“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”

Love long has taken for his amulet

One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet

One perfect limousine, do you suppose?

Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get

One perfect rose.

- Dorothy Parker

1926

Image: Rose, Rose, Rose, Red. by ~Lyndzie