EARLY WINTER
I cup the first snow
as it beads—
the knife edge blue-streak
the white-rush
is not less solid
(spare us from our bodies)
things turn—
No voice
can cradle stillness,
the air hues green again,
the hand hues green again,
an appetite again
again, prayer, again—
my misshaped mouth—
keep us from the heat
of new mornings.
*
Who scattered these oranges
in this field?
Now the snow
is sweet as Naples—
Now lips blister
in the pulpy cold—
Who would trust citrus
in December?
They’re clustered suns,
faceless heads,
all the violence
of seasonless place,
then snow,
then hard ground,
then deep bulbs,
then here,
rest a little—
*
My lungs
are all Decembered
with one patch
of left over grass.
This morning
dogs traced my body
to the mulch,
field and snow.
Things
are a little sketchy—
A gloved hand
brushes wet hair
from my eyes,
my bracelet
in a plastic bag,
a tooth
for a name.
Now it’s all
the inside eye,
the broken black
of ice
at the thaw.
--Elizabeth Cohan
Untitled
As bored as the hellish sky in the east I loved and I lost in one fatal release.
I have pined and have pinned myself to the ground
On which torture and sorrow have ever yet found.
I love and I loose and knew as it played out, that the love that I loved
was the wrong one.
I have never forgotten the love I loved first, for the love I felt first
was a strong one.
We were of the same heart
We were of the same mould
We were sailors of life with like joys of the soul
We were friends of the brothers of mankind, the traitors
Of a new breed of bakers of fishes and loaves
I have loathed thee for loving me
Loved thee for loathing
Parted and pardoned my own dying soul
But I am not lost now
Nor even forsaken
Deep burn you dealt
No longer a hole
Save me in fleeting
Bank me in shadows
Dance with me sing with me
Toss me to skies
Blue and alluring
Blue and assuring
Blue and appealing
They'll endure my cries
--Katie Rehm
The Truth
Incandescent with white-hot rage,
I lie here in my furious grave.
You think I am gone.
Safely locked in my box.
My eyes won’t see. My ears won’t hear.
You think you are free
to spin your tales of fate,
to spin our lives into a web
of lies that catch our souls like flies.
But I was there, darling,
when you wrote those letters.
I stood behind you and watched
your pen leak excuses, ink made from our blood.
Weaving your pages of myths.
I, your first wife. I inevitably died.
Mad thing that I was.
How else could it end?
Like a puppet I jerked into hatred of her.
But now I have seen. Now I have heard.
I wrote the rival. You wrote the other.
Now the unlikely partnership forms
and we, we write the truth.
Look over your shoulder, dear, at all times.
Keep a watch in every mirror you see.
Be afraid every time that the telephone rings.
Listen out for unexpected knocks at the door.
One of these days, my love, one of these days.
We will rise from the ashes. We will have our revenge.
We will write the final chapter of this myth.
Two suicides will drag this God to his death.
One of these days, my love, one of these days.
© Morney Wilson
Your Blue Hour
In your blue hour, before the world awoke,
You were pristine, shining white, sharp and straight as an arrow.
You wrote like never before
Like pen and paper were invented just for you
Just for these hours.
You wrote like never before.
Oh yes these poems will make your name –
Forged in fierce flames, furious, fighting, frightened genius.
Giving birth to immortal verse
In that blue hour.
In your blue hour, driven by freezing fever,
You turned inside-out, spewing your ghosts across the pages.
Creating a new art –
Never before. Never since. Never never again.
The moon hid behind a cloud, awed and afraid, watching you
Creating a new art.
Oh yes you have it in you.
Sitting alone, abandoned, adrift in an abyss apart.
Giving birth to immortal verse
In that blue hour.
In your blue hour, the colour soothed you,
Moved you to say the unsayable, write the unwriteable.
Red would have hurt you.
Ghostly, he places a red tulip beside you.
But the tulip turns to dust. You are too powerful for it.
Red would have hurt you.
Oh yes you are writing the best poems of your life.
In the worst winter weeks when weather wounds without warmth.
Giving birth to immortal verse
In that blue hour.
But later -
In your blue hour, you paced and paced.
Right on the edge, did you mean to do it?
Making your kitchen your Auschwitz.
You did it too exceptionally well this time.
You gambled your life and you lost – or did you win?
Making your kitchen your Auschwitz.
Oh yes you did it so it felt real. It was real.
Betrayed, bereft, beaten black blue, burnt to the bare bones.
Giving birth to immortal verse
Wasn't enough to keep you from dying
In that blue hour.
I have read your daughter’s poem 'Readers,'
And I have felt ashamed.
I have read your husband’s poem 'The Dogs Are Eating Your Mother,'
And I have felt ashamed.
Empathy, connections, dreams, love, aching pain for you.
All of this I feel and yet: what of it?
Strip it bare and all that remains is this:
I am a reader. I am a dog.
But still
I will
Still I will sing this song:
In your blue hour, when pain shrank you to nothing
You created your most terrifying art ever: your death.
No Lady Lazarus you, no rising from the ashes this time.
But I fancy your blue hour held its arms out to you -
Held you close, calmed you, soothed you, made you safe.
I see it cradling you and carrying you to a beautiful place.
Not lying in your chamber, your head in the oven –
But riding Ariel bareback.
Free, joyful, tossing your mane, your jewel eyes glittering.
This is what I sing for you
In that blue hour.
© Morney Wilson
Poet Biographies:
Christopher Bock is a M.F.A. candidate at Lesley University. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review. He lives in Boston.
Elizabeth Cohan holds a B.A. in English Literature from New York University. She lives in Manhattan.
Jennifer Fleischer is a M.F.A. candidate at Lesley University. Her poems are forthcoming in Harvard Review. She lives in Arlington, MA.
Katie Rehm is a poet living in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Mourney Wilson's poems have been published by Forward Press in the U.K. where she lives.