~
gravity persuades
silenced by the waiting by the cusp
lanterns lit in the dark
wax low
I don’t need eyes to hear light
Category Archives: Poetry
It’s the women
~
They build sturdy houses
dense
set too close together
Tactful queries like origami darts
traverse the narrow spaces
~
It’s the women
the older ones first
I bring them warm water
They look in their silk panties for one drop of blood. A sign?
I smell
only urine
~
My powder blue coat has stains from breakfast.
I remember when my sheets smelled like cheese
wrapped around my swollen breasts every time I dreamt
of my stolen child.
~
A mirror is still flat
even if
in it
I can see what is behind me.
~
I have left my face on the wall
no one can see my terror
~
It’s the women….the older ones first
I am young
I am nothing
~
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Hear me
~
You cannot return
to defile
the birthing of intimacy
within you.
~
My body is not a graffiti wall
absorbing the mark
of your disconnect.
~
The lack of boundaries you impose
will never dissuade the love
that takes us continually back to itself
as it births us anew.
~
Hear me
~
I am you.
But in this act
of willful indifference
you
are
not
me
~
this seed, so stung
germinating without sun
grown from biting roots
ungrounded in pain
birthing emptiness
returns to earth as dust
as dust
as dust
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
One Billion Rising
This poem was written for everyone who has been sexually abused….men, women and children. It is also for the abusers…those who clothe their own sorrow in indifference.
It is not a poem of exclusion. It is statement of strength and a prayer for the return to a sense of self and connection.
All aspects of sexual abuse come from the same seed. A seed that needs to lay fallow, bleach in the sun, and return to the earth as dust.
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/henrygrey/1202156133/”>henry grey</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>cc</a>
Rapt in winter
~
Our bodies rapt
in humus
scenting of decay
sounding under frost.
Sun of winter
breathing low
into branches of sky.
Leaves transparent and tart
cover my breasts
my sighs
sinking
touched
into
your
warmth
~
This perfect decent
down down
below
the lilt of meaning
rising and falling
we may never
be found
again
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
~
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/shelbob/65095407/”>Janesdead</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
The position of gray
~
After so many years
it grays me to see
how often we enter into
an agreement of unkindness,
each day a choice of persuasion,
where shadows of unmet desires
play against the walls
of our routines
sung by the low hum
of tuneless notes.
~
no apologies
aching hearts
~
we are both waiting
to be
apart
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/133146861/”>striatic</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>
Brain lights
~
Heart upended
sight suspended
shattering
light
~
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Migraine auras. They’d come in sequences of three days, lasting for about twenty minutes each time. Just the auras. Not the headaches. For the most part.
Crossing a bridge, the pungent smell of rosemary, walking away from the house…the triggers were identifiable.
It’s been a few years now since the perpetuating upheaval of estrangement. No more auras. They were a physicality of the moment.
The heart in the picture is new and looks like it comes from a teenage notebook. Most definitely.
I added the edges surrounding the heart, cut from an old sketch book where I’d drawn the auras.
Glued together
I look at this picture
as an old tattoo on my
perfectly elastic body
absorbing the sun in the salt spray.
Aye
I’m a sailor
in the sea of love.
Revelation
You were imprinted on my fingertips
A legacy of refusals?
written as a dim memory
in line and skin
I kept you at arms length
or balled you into a fist
~
As a child
it is true
I was taught
to expect some relationship
~
So impressed into the feverish
tribe of Jesus watching
pale lipped men create
tension bells ringing
and climaxing with a tiny chaste taste
~
Who clothed me in this rag tag skin of living words?
Held hostage
~
until falling into the well
of memory is not
a relative of time
~
there is no measure in kinship
~
renascence
so unexpected
is mine
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Just a note…the word renascence popped into my head while in my own fever of writing this poem. I’ve had to look it up over and over again as, for some reason, not being familiar with it, I continually forget its meaning. The dictionary says it means birth or rebirth, which fits perfectly. Words just seem to have lives of their own sometimes….
Thaw
the smallest hole
in the ice
of a dense winter
~
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
© J H. White
Microbes
Apparently our own bodies are small walking planets…or verdant jungles or distinctive arboretums. Really… Newest scientific findings show we have an estimated ten times more microbes than human cells in our own bodies. We are all teaming with unique colonies of microbes living symbiotically. Continue reading
The deep
~
small rusted tacks 
holding my toughened skin
to bone
to muscle
like pictures cut from a magazine
pinned to the wall
~
I’ve given up looking for saviors,
no messengers with bright news.
~
I see only inside
this heart
cocooned
deep
in the warm darkness
listening to the words spun
from the silk of the stories
we’ve given wings.
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/133146861/”>striatic</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>
The Poetics of Light 