Poems Hoping for Peace etc.

********TO ACCESS THE ENTIRE COLLECTION FOR VIEWING OR DOWNLOAD, OR AS A BOUND BOOK, OR IF YOU SHOULD BE INTERESTED IN PUBLISHING THE COLLECTION OR USING THE WORK FOR WHATEVER REASON, PLEASE CONTACT ME AT: dobbiejoan@yahoo.com*******

Following are the first few poems from my chapbook, Mother Earth Takes to Smoking, 1988

****************************************************************************
In The Woods Of The Working World

I tried to find my scrambled
way, I snagged on roots, I hit the ground.
The branches scratched and tore my
face. I tripped. I stumbled. I fell
down. While on they marched. All around.
They marched around me all around.
They were straight.
They were tall.
Not one of them would ever fall.
They said to me, “How big you are.
You must be taller than a star.
Surely you must know the way.
Lead us out at once, we say.”
“Oh yes,” I said, “It’s right past there.
The sign says it’s not anywhere.”
They read the words, a graph it was,
with plusses, minuses and lines.
“Surely you must know this graph.
Read it back, then cut in half.”
“Oh yes,” I said, “Of course I know.”
But that was when I stubbed my toe.
So then to help me hide the blood,
I pushed my foot down in the mud.
They never noticed, never saw.
They marched around me straight
and tall. They laughed, “We saw somebody
fall.” I laughed, “I saw somebody fall.

**************************************
Mother Earth Takes To Smoking

MY GOD it’s a fragile
little world we live on
just like a roast apple
i read one day
in a kid’s science book
cooling so the skin cracks
up into mountains
& what with volcanoes
& so on
especially the horses
in california
(so my sister tells me)
sense an earthquake
in the air & their skins
begin to tremble
& their eyes roll around
in their heads
& they pace
just like i do that too
sometimes
& what if it did
all crack into pieces
or what if i cracked
out of my skull
or any of us did
or all f us
in one big white
bang out explosion
like the poster says

MOTHER EARTH POSSIBLY
CRACKING UP

in fact just last week
some man made a joke about
buttons

while a woman cried over ashes
i saw her in the atrium
or some restaurant like that
she was hunched over
her coffee
(that came from el salvador
or guatemala or someplace
like that)
she was pumping a cigarette
in & out between her lips
& the air around her
was heavy like sulfur
& her face was cracked into
patterns
like old gray lava fields
& it was excruciatingly obvious
that in this vast wide
many peopled universe
this woman was altogether
alone
**************************************
THE REMEMBERING POEM
(An October Song For The Woodstock Generation)

REMEMBER THE MASK
THAT YOU NOW WEAR
COULD MOLD YOUR FACE
BEWARE! BEWARE!

REMEMBER THE HEAT
REMEMBER THE CRYING
REMEMBER THE FACT
THAT YOUR DREAM IS DYING

REMEMBER THE DREAM
REMEMBER THE AIR
REMEMBER THE PINK MIST
EVERYWHERE

WHEN MORNING WAS FRESH
AND YOU FLOATED ALONE
DOWN THE VERY OWN STREETS
OF YOUR VERY OWN TOWN

WHEN YOU FLEW WITH THE BIRDS
OVER STEEPLE & DALE
AND YOU KNEW EVERY WORD
AND BELIEVED EVERY TALE

REMEMBER THE AIR
THAT WS FRESH WITH DEW
THAT COOLED EVERY GRASSBLADE
WHERE BUTTERFLIES FLEW

AND YOU KNEW THERE WAS GOD
BECAUSE YOU HAD FOUND GOD
AND YOU KNEW IT WAS TRUE
AND IT ALL WAS IN YOU

REMEMBER THE DREAM
IT WAS MORE PURE THAN CLEVER
YOU LAUGHED LIKE THE WILD LOON
MAKING LOVE TO THE RIVER

REMEMBER THE AIR --
HOW IT THICKENED WITH SMOKE
AS “RESPONSIBLE” PEOPLE
TURNED & WOKE

AND JUSTIFIED NIGHTMARE
WITH WORDS LIKE “MUST”
AND BURIED YOUR DREAM
UNDER LAYERS OF DUST

REMEMBER THE SUN
COME RAGING DOWN
TO SMOTHER YOUR STRUGGLING
FACTORY TOWN

REMEMBER THE HEAT
IT’S YOU WHO ARE CRYING
IF YOU LET YOUR DREAM DIE
YOUR SOUL DOES THE DYING

REMEMBER THE MASK
THAT YOU NOW WEAR
COULD MOLD YOUR FACE
BEWARE! BEWARE!

******************************
Three Questions
(Concerning God & The Bomb)

Can you imagine
yourself
with a woman
giving birth
to your child
with huge eyes
& your child
is beautiful?

But somebody makes
a mistake
something slips
the child falls
to the floor
like a doll
it is broken.

Everything breaks.

Have you ever
created something
so precious
that it seemed to you
the thing had a soul
& then seen it
broken?

Everything can be
broken.

Can you imagine
yourself
creating a world
rich with vegetation
lush
wet
round as a woman’s breast

abounding with life &
laughing with such a
multitude
of children
& each child
is beautiful?

& it seems to you that
your world has a soul.

But somebody makes
a mistake
something falls
to the ground

& everything
is broken.
**************************************
Peace Poem 1983

Peace begins in the streets
And my child is going to war
Because kids in the street
Are full of war.
And this is 1983.
My Dawn, born one year past Woodstock
Now 13
She’s half Jew & she’s half atheist
She’s never been a Christian
But jesus would be proud of her
think
My girl, whose name is Dawn
Like the beginning of something new.
She with her pink hair
And a tear on her cheek
And 5 holes in each earlobe
Self-pierced & black leather boots.
She thinks peace marches & freedom
Are “old-fashioned hippy stuff”
But she goes where she wants
Free on the street
And yesterday she came home
From somewhere all bloody & beat up
Because a girl --
Who was there on the street --
said, “I hear you called me a slut.
I want to fight you.”
And Dawn said, “Hit me if you want to,
But I won’t fight.”
So the girl hit her. And the girl hit her.
And she tried to walk away.
And then the girl knocked her on the ground.
And then the girl’s sister came.
“I hear you called my sister a slut,” she said.
And the girl’s sister hit her again.
And the girl’s sister hit her again.
“I won’t fight,” said Dawn.
And her mouth was bleeding.
“I won’t fight,” she said.
“You can only just hurt my body.”
And her eye was puffing shut.
And the girl kicked her.
And the girl’s sister kicked her.
And Ed, who used to be her boyfriend
Stood and watched.
Later, at home, I said, “Maybe you should
Learn Karate or Self Defense or something.”
“I won’t learn how to fight,” she said.
“I don’t want to learn how to hurt people.”
“Maybe we should tell the authorities,” I said.
“They’ve been through that,” she said.
“It’ll only make them hate more.”
“Dawn, please don’t go back there today,” I said.
“But I won! She has to know that I won.
Don’t worry, Mom, she can only hurt my body.”

And just like anybody’s mother
I can only just sit here.
But if I had an army I’d want to send it out
With all its hate and with all its guns
To fight that girl.
And to fight that girl’s sister.

These poems were written between 1978 & 1988. A version of “In the Woods...” appeared in the CETA TIMES, 1970; “Three Questions” in POETIC SPACE, 1985 & CONNECTIONS, 1986. “Peace Poem,” in A TRIP THROUGH MAMA KALI’S ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN, 1984;

********TO ACCESS THE ENTIRE COLLECTION FOR VIEWING OR DOWNLOAD, OR AS A BOUND BOOK, OR IF YOU SHOULD BE INTERESTED IN PUBLISHING THE COLLECTION OR USING THE WORK FOR WHATEVER REASON, PLEASE CONTACT ME AT: dobbiejoan@yahoo.com*******

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home