Category: Poems

For Barbara

dianarenee2 Comments

My friend Barbara disappeared three years ago this week.
Whereas on one hand we pretty much know what happened to her and where she is, no one ever found her.  I am not convinced that anyone truly looked.  But I, for one, refuse to forget her or pretend that everything is alright. 

where are you barbara
with your tame dogs and
bright strings tied
about your wrists?
where are your brown arms
swirling skirts
and painted toes?

the wind is your breath;
your gray eyes are
rain clouds.
spiders are spinning
locks of your hair.

open your mouth and
speak, barbara.
tell me a story,
draw me a picture.

the ocean is salty and
warm like
your blood.

does it mutter
your secrets?  it is
guarding your bones?

Hielo

dianareneeLeave a comment

otra vez
me esperaste
detrás de la cortina
del sueño

te sentaste
en el suelo
cerca de la puerta
volviéndome a ver
con esos ojos
pozos

me hablaste por
primera vez
por fin después
de tantas

en verdad
me has estado siguiendo estos
veinte años sólo
para pedirme
hielo?

 

Everything But the Words / Todo Menos las Palabras

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(The same poem first in  English, then in Spanish because I try to pick my favorite one and I can only pick both)

i remember the night you
borrowed flavio’s blue car
the bottom halves of trees i
could see through the
window where
we stopped along the
dusty road

what did we say to
each other
that night i
remember it all but
the words

* * * * *

recuerdo la noche en que
prestaste el coche azul de flavio
los troncos de los árboles que
veía por la
ventana donde
paramos en el
camino polvoroso

qué nos dijimos
esa noche yo lo
recuerdo todo menos
las palabras

(from Tell Me About The Telaraña, 2012)

Glass Windows

dianarenee2 Comments

trapped inside
i stare through glass windows
at the sky
separated
from the sun and rain

i would give my life
to be a leaf
making sugar from sunshine
even only for a season

i would be a bee, my
face buried in flowers and
let winter kill me
once and for all
when it comes,
dissolve my little wings
in its rain that
taps chilly fingers against
glass windows

blue blankets

dianareneeLeave a comment

she wants grandchildren,
dreams of our bellies
swelling with babies –
her inexplicable daughters
safely sealed in matrimony
and we get cats
get dogs

she sees my first wrinkle
with panic
her time runs out with mine

shall I cut paper hands
for my poems?
pin the pages of stories
to dolls she can hold?
shall I name my notebooks, wrap them in
blue blankets,
bounce them on my hip and
sing them songs?

(an old poem from sometime before my nieces and nephews were born to partially absolve me,  but the questions remain.)

The Queen of Banshees

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One day I will free
this wild whoop
boiling in my belly
scream out my laughter
ride my wild elephants
to wherever they go.
Lost, laughing
I will never look back.
Painted face and
tangled hair
I will become
the Queen of Banshees.
I will be as loud as I am
and as bright.

(from Tell Me About The Telaraña, 2012)