LONGING
I long to return where my heart’s song began
The quaint city by the ocean I once knew so well
How I long to play along her sugar white shore
Swim in her ocean as deep and as blue as my longing
I long to jump up and down amidst her ocean floor with it’s scattered sea shells that tumble and stumble, all the while, tickling the tips of my toes
Crash about in her ocean waves as if I were a discarded cork, bobbing freely, just me…
©2011 Angela C. Soelzer Ragosa
“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly despairing, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
-Agatha Christie, An Autobiography
photo: Getty Images
No excuse
by Samantha Reynolds
Don’t tell me
you are not inspired.
That is no excuse.
Creativity doesn’t land;
it is earned.
So wrench your eyelids open
cackle at the keyboard
stomp your feet
Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you?
Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you?
Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you?
Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you?
Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you?
Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you?
You said, “I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is — like a corpse — buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted.”
New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land — do not hope –
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh … And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
e.e. cummings
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Let’s say I’m sitting in that room with you now. Take out a pad and pen, your favorite pen—the one that just slides across the paper. Be sure you have an hour or so, so you can take your time with each prompt.
Hello, lovely disguise. Come swing short and loose
around my thighs. Cowl my neckline, let my throat
rise out of your yellow folds like a virgin.
Cup my shoulders; cling to my breasts so closely
that my skin accepts you, sister, knit and pieced
by strangers’ hands, but closer to my body
than my own husband. You absorb in your stitching
my wrist’s vanilla and anise, the sweat of anxiety,
a hasty last morsel of soup, or blood from a bandage
pulled off too soon. And those gazes I scorned
when I was younger—I accept them so eagerly now,
not knowing how long my face will stay,
how long I’ll be able to walk on these legs, slim
in black tights, before sickness forces me down.
When no man will want me for a lover, or dream
of pulling you over my head, you’ll caress me,
won’t you? You’ll be with me, faithful friend,
when my body starts to turn.
Anya Silver
