Al-Khemia Poetica: A Women's Arts and Writing Journal: International Wordbank

Showing posts with label International Wordbank. Show all posts

Friday, March 5, 2021

Women's History Month: Friday, March 5, 2021: BC Petrakos's poem "That Song No One Sang"

That Song Noone Sang

I am woman

I am an object - and it pisses me off

Unless the man is hot

Then I forgot

Any sense I ever knew

I am woman

I will give my self away

To any one who will say

The things I want hear

So the tale repeats

Year after year

I am woman

And as I age

Unsettled rage

Flows into the corner of my mind

Until I exhaust myself and find

I did it all

It was the choices that I made

Pretence and vain charade

I lost and never saved

How big the fall

And now a crone

Dyed hair over the grey

Alive an still afraid

Did I learn?

It’s all a game

And it must be well played

Your body and soul saved

As time is like a candle

Burned

Bio: B.C. Petrakos is a playwright, author, performance artist, and has the honor t

o have been published in various literary publications. She’s the co-founder of

International Word Bank Publications, and has the privilege to be part of

publishing award-winning poets, nationally, and internationally.

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Thursday, March 12, 2020: National Women's Month: BC Petrakos' poem "Brave"

Brave

Sis Women

Disappointed? Disconnected, oh so busy AND "Brave"

So Very Fucking Brave baby,

So Fucking "Brave"

Ladies ain't

Ladies

no more

We "Brave"

Don't open the doors for us

Dont help us fix the flat on the side of the road

Don't help us at all

Oh… what? Weren't going to help?

Oh?... that’s cool

We don't need anyone

We got this

We ALL " Brave" now

Like the Trannies

that be Replacing us

We Got rainbow eyeshadow, now

We all "Brave"

"Brave"

Like a Movie Date with

Your Dog in a neck scarf -

"Brave"

Talk to yourself in the kitchen at midnight- "Brave"

Another glass of wine, make it two

"Brave"

"I Date Girls now, no really I do"

"Brave"

Fat Girls In Spandex

Desperate and Easy,

We all be

"Brave" now

So, very "Brave"

Aren't we just?

In our

Shout-y face

Pink and Bright Red

"Look at me" hair

Swipe right for Mr. Wrong

We all be "Brave" now

Protesting, starving, screaming and Yesss Queen..."Brave"

We are

"Brave" now baby

We ALL "Brave" Now

All us Women be

Roaring- just like the songs say

And We "Brave"

But ain't

"Brave" just another word for

Scared

Just a Band-aid

For the bleeding wound of

Regret

Scared of being invisible

Scared of being alone

Scared of being forgotten

Scared of our own choices

And the devastating results,

thereof

No, no,

never mind

Forget

Not scared, lonely, forgotten,

Silly, self-abusing, no, no,no,

Women be

"Brave"

Bio: B.C. Petrakos is a playwright, author, performance artist, and has the honor t

o have been published in various literary publications. She’s the co-founder of

International Word Bank Publications, and has the privilege to be part of

publishing award-winning poets, nationally, and internationally.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

David McIntire's No One Will Believe You: Songs of the Aftermath

“Poets are, in fact, the only real time travelers that our culture has ever managed to produce.” - David McIntire/No One Will Believe You: Songs of the Aftermath

I’m sure the above quote has been written/will be a thousand different ways by poets past/present/future, but there is truth in these words, just as there is truth in all good writing - it takes the Reader (universal) into a place and time where they’ve not previously occupied. Poetry brings the reader into the truth of the moment, sometimes euphemistically, other times approximately, but the poems in McIntire’s new chapbook, No One WIll Believe You: Songs of the Aftermath (copyright 2016 International Word Bank Press), put the reader square into the savage, instant, raw pain of death and loss.

According to McIntire, No One is centered around two simultaneous incidents: the death of his marriage, and the death of his ex-wife, poet, Cat Angelique McIntire. McIntire states that these poems do not need to be read in a linear fashion, and he’s correct, as death and loss are not a linear experience. Open any page in No One, and the theme of death and loss, the grief that binds them together, is also the fuel that powers McIntire’s passionate poems. This is not an easy chapbook to sink into, and it’s not supposed to be, but the strong and unvarnished tone of McIntire’s words makes it an unforgettable experience, as in the poem “Dark Wind,” which expresses loss that is happening in the moment, and the loss that is yet to come:

the loosened threads should not be pulled

and yet

we pull

we think we know better this time

we do not know better this time

the tatters we call memory

are cruel and sharp

the dregs we call love

are bitter

we simply do not know any better

than the last time we stood

on the edge of this strange darkness

this mourning that ruffles our hair

and loosened threads

and the tatters…

and we pull

and watch as our world flutters to the ground

wet with our regrets

No One is not just about death and loss, but it also answers the question, at least for McIntire, and more likely, for the reader, how/ what the person becomes as grief shapes them into something, or someone else. In a sense, the poems in No One document the rebirth of McIntire as a poet, as he, and the reader, rediscover that part of us which cannot be overcome - our humanity - which, in the end, is all that’s really needed to keep moving forward in life, as in the poem “Death Poem #9”:

i have been instructed

to weep

to wail

to tear the skies

from the broken willows

upon which they drape so sadly

so darkly

i have been instructed

to lean into the grief

to roll the confusion into balls

and learn to juggle

meanwhile

i smile at strangers

and talk to seagulls

this is how I know I am still alive

No One Will Believe You: Songs of the Aftermath, leaves me with only one question. Who will McIntire become, ultimately, as a poet, and as a human being, a question that we all must ask ourselves, if we are to become better than what we are, at any given moment. I look forward to reading more of McIntire’s work in the future.