Tuesday, 04/05/22: Lynn Bronstein's poem "Ronnie Spector Hugged Me"

Ronnie Spector Hugged Me

     

This is what it looked like to an insecure teen.

Three girls with enormous hair and amazingly made-up eyes,

Wearing sequined dresses and spiky heels,

Looking up at me from the sleeve of a 45.

The label said her name was Veronica

But we called her Ronnie.

I wanted to be like her

With hair piled high and that

Little tremble in her voice,

And that aura of a Gang Deb

That I secretly wished I could have.

I didn’t know about her life beyond the vinyl.

The stress, the abuse,

Living both sides of the color line,

The bottle of Manischewitz that

She hid in a toilet tank,

The man she loved keeping her a prisoner

And blurring her reality,

So that for years, the rest of us

Could sing her songs in a karaoke bar

But she could not.

When we finally met

I knew

I just had to tell her.

I had read her book, learned about her struggle.

What could I say to the sequined siren

Who’d danced in her spike heels

But fled her hipster tyrant husband

In her bare feet?

I think I said that I related, that I felt for her.

I wanted her to know

That she was special, that she had survived

So much more than I could ever understand.

And she just hugged me.

I found myself enveloped

In her famous long black hair

In a moment many men would have traded gold for.

What passed between us in each other’s arms

Had a value that could never be sold as a souvenir.

Our lives, so dissimilar, briefly touched.

The night we met we knew we

Needed each other

So.

                            

© 2022 Lynne Bronstein         

                                       

                         

           

Bio: Lynne Bronstein is a veteran poet, fiction writer, and journalist. She has published five books,including Nasty Girls from Four Feathers Publishing. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in everything from Playgirl to Chiron Review, from underground newspapers to National Public Radio. She writes the column Show Biz Cats, seen on Facebook.

Women's History Month: Monday, March 29, 2021: Maria A. Arana's two poems "hungry fire" and "self terror"

                                                © 2021 marie c lecrivain

hungry fire…

 

hungry fire

quiet mist

dangerous goddess

come heave elaborate words

© 2021 Maria A. Arana

 

 

 

self-terror

 

diamond is bitter juice

metallic bang

instead of

mechanical worship

problem

machine before flesh

previous play

 

© 2021 Maria A. Arana

Maria A. Arana is a teacher, writer, poet, and proofreader. Her poetry has been published in various journals including Spectrum, Big Windows Review, The Kleksograph, and Cholla Needles Magazine. You can find her at https://twitter.com/m_a_Arana

Women's History Month: Thursday, March 25, 2021: Ann Tweedy's Poem "Night Strains"

 

                                              image from Shutterstock

Night Strains

 

last night, the nutria in the river interrupted 

my contemplation of the swooping little brown bat’s 

jagged ellipses and riffling wings. 

i wanted to stand on the bank and watch bat skim 

until night blended her completely in. 

 

but the nutria swam a little past me, then circled back, 

slapping her tail hard as she dove, then swam further off and back again 

to the small clearing i had climbed down to, repeating herself 

until i grasped my unwelcomeness and knew-- 

looking down at my smooth, bare legs-- 

i wanted no part of any battle. so i climbed back up the dike, 

dodging blackberry brambles. 

 

today, i learn of the campaign 

to trap and euthanize nutria and how aggressively 

they bite and scratch. in my mind, the guinea pig ears 

and upturned nose ride above the current, comical profile 

unaware of the danger i might pose or knowing 

that she has the better of me. 

© 2021 ann tweedy

Ann Tweedy's first full-length book, The Body's Alphabet, was published by Headmistress Press in 2016. It earned a Bisexual Book Award and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks: Beleaguered Oases (2nd ed. Seven Kitchens Press 2020); A Registry of Survival (Last Word Press 2020); and White Out (Green Fuse Poetic Arts 2013). She currently serves as a law professor specializing in the laws relating to Native American Tribes. Read more about her at www.anntweedy.com.

Women's History Month: Wednesday, March 24, 2021: Nydia Rojas' poem "Until This Moment"

                                                   © 2021 marie c lecrivain
 

Until This Moment

 

Forget everything you’ve known

until this moment- the unblemished

apples- smooth and shiny-

 

the tempting oranges- their peel

bright and warm as if sunshine

had just discovered them-

 

the luscious strawberries, their deep

red, looking as if it had just come

from a farm located at the edge

 

of town, not from distances

involving days of traveling

through several highways.

 

Forget breathing is the task

that keeps you alive- what helps

you face each day-

 

your face exposed to rain, to snow,

to chilling winds, to a warm spring

carrying a kiss-

 

Forget that breathing used to be

what you did naturally, besides those

other busy tasks- going

 

to the grocery store for milk

and bread- always aplenty- until

this moment – or the drugstore

 

if you needed refills or beauty

products- or the hair dresser-

another way of buying beauty

 

or walking to the park without

having to worry about doing the math-

particularly measurements.

 

You walked- end of the story.

Summer had the added beaty

of wild sunflowers

 

in bloom- but now you must look back

and front, measure and keep your distance

and when you come to the sunflowers,

 

they seem to be the only ones around,

the only ones that will hear your voice-

and the wind swirls around the blossoms

 

as if gathering strength to echo your thoughts-

Thank God for blooming things

that do not mind our touch.

© 2021 Nydia Rojas

Nydia Rojas’ work has been published, among many other literary magazines, in the Wisconsin Academy Review, International Poetry Review, Revista/ Review Interamericana, and Palabra. Her work has also appeared on line in poeticdiversity, Your Daily Poem and Rigorous and in the anthologies Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest and I didn’t know there were Latinos in Wisconsin. She is the author of the chapbook Stealing Daylight.

Women's History Month: Tuesday, March 23, 2021: Ilari Pass' poem "Cloudy With a Chance of Cello"

 

Cloudy With a Chance of Cello

      

I sit in the living room with my mother to work out

my anxiety

the way it tastes and feels, I thought I wanted to be everything

all at once

my teacher brags that she’s found

that Golden Ticket

my peers listen in for rumors, launch them as a curse

when chocolates

not passed around It’s just for show, I explain to my mother,

explaining nothing

last night

I was out of my skin to try on my favorite dress 

Crazy,

I thought. I laugh when my mother stares at me

on stage

everything all at once: mise-en-scène behind me holy

I miss my cue

when the conductor breathes; her baton a semaphore;

a single note

struck upon my cello; my mother smiles, grateful that I wasn’t aware

was out of tune

of all the ways to enter, my mother

calls for

Cloudy with a Chance of Cello, and I am ready to go home.

© 2021 Ilari Pass

Ilari Pass holds a BA in English from Guilford College of Greensboro, NC, and an MA in English, with a concentration in literature, from Gardner-Webb University of Boiling Springs, NC. Her work appears or forthcoming in Rat's Ass Review, As It Ought To Be, Triggerfish Critical Review, Kissing Dynamite, The Daily Drunk, Unlikely Stories, Rigorous Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, Common Ground Review, Free State Review, Rejection Letters, and others.

Women's History Month: Monday, March 22, 2021: Fay Loomis' poem "I Will Go Politely"

I Will Go Politely

I have clung to the earth’s surface for 80 odd years.

Congratulations, you are blessed, how lucky to be alive.

Meaningless number, vacuous words

run fluid through my brain.

To augured aches and pains

I sent no invitation.

With stealth

they crashed the party.

 

Lest I stiffen like old leather

I practice yoga;

walk a half mile to my mailbox;

ride my bike, even after toppling to the pavement.

 

Sleep, once blessed, is punctuated

by bathroom bladder patrols.

I no longer lie in the arms of Morpheus;

he has found another lover.

 

Pills and doctors’ visits irritate my life

like sand on a beach blanket.

Mental power outages surge

through thoughts, memories.

 

Nature is my plastic surgeon:

pendulous breasts, cellulite dimpled thighs.

Tattoos insult my resculptured body:

wrinkles, brown spots, varicose veins.

 

The artifice of heart stents, implants,

forestall entropy, a shrouded word for death.

Grumblings enumerated, I am packing my suitcase with gratitude.

Alone, not lonely, I will go politely.

 

© 2021 Fay Loomis

Fay L. Loomis was a nemophilist (haunter of the woods) until her hikes in upstate New York were abruptly ended by a stroke three years ago. With an additional nudge from the pandemic, she now lives a particularly quiet life. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers, her poems and prose recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Closed Eye Open, Love Me, Love My Belly, Rat’s Ass Review, Ruminate Magazine, HerStry, and Sanctuary Magazine.
 

Women's History Month: Saturday, March 20, 2021: Gabriella Garafalo's poem "Hard Times"

Hard Times

Hard times on the horizon,

Hush everyone, the deranged clerk

Threw his ‘nope’ at the CEO-

And now the houses ablaze in blue

Are shunted into shards of disdain,

And now young women on a night out

Are hopping on their heels,

Think they look smashing,

Yeah right-

Same old, same old,

There she goes,

Her stranded soul

Amongst cold stars,

Marooned on desert skies,

Chanting God feeds you

Even though he let books,

And burning souls wander around,

Chanting Odysseus and his mates

Gorge on your mind-

Her soul, sure, why not,

Once you met her, she’d got an ASBO

After setting ablaze men, blue,

Scrap, dissension,

Bless her, she couldn’t let go

Of times, creeds, and rites-

Got it now? And her shades, now,

The ungodly shades rhythm or grace

Always shunned- look at them,

Still hooking up with electric blue eyes,

Still hunting down words, while anger

Scars her with cider, flowers, glazes-

Great for mothers only, aren’t we, my days?

Keep clear, then, don’t trust birth, time,

As only waves, only skies

Slake their thirst in her mind’s cafés,

Adrenaline spiking and raped winters

If you ever chance on them-

Such shady guys, and starving to boot-

Thank God hypermnesic stones can help,

So, rage as hard as you want,

But your light’s dying, I’m afraid,

She’s lighting fires on her way out,

And yes, the CEO gave us such nice treats,

Limbs, and free will, so what?

Women will show up as electric shocks,

With their shrieking voices,

Men as sudden blackouts,

With their silence-

‘Course the last word shall be yours,

My darling, to spite you rotten,

And make you choke on fizzies and pies

You fancy a lot-

Good for you, oh and so sorry

My life’s confort food for you starving rotten,

O darling demise

© 2021 Gabriella Garafalo

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six and is the author of Lo sguardo di Orfeo; L’inverno di vetro; Di altre stelle polari; Blue Branches, and  A Blue Soul.