Splinters 2001 - 2002
Green Gold
By Joanne Mendes
Grand Prize
Creative Writing Contest 2003
Lora Lee sat at the kitchen
table and chewed on the end of her pen. Her long black hair prematurely streaked
with gray was pulled back revealing a sharp angular face. Three kids, two
ex-husbands, and a lifetime of want had aged her well beyond her thirty-four
years. Spread out before her were pamphlets and forms, those that had already
been painstakingly completed were stacked in a neat pile to her right. The
cluttered kitchen was barely large enough to hold the table, a crusted avocado
green stove, the broken oven crammed with cast-iron skillets and dented pots,
and a counter littered with mail, canned goods, and dirty dishes. Her mother
was bent over the sink. Soap bubbles flew as she vigorously scrubbed an aluminum
pan. On the back porch hummed an ancient refrigerator, an orange extension
cord snaked through the window tethering it to the kitchen. Lora Lee was tired,
having started the day early with an 8 a.m. appointment at the public aid
office. While she waited to renew her children's medical cards she read a
flyer from the US Department of Forestry about a training program for low-income
families in the area. An introductory seminar was being held that afternoon
at the University of West Virginia's extension branch a few miles north in
Bluefield.
Curious, she had gone and learned that the program was about farming ginseng.
Lora Lee knew about the plant. Folks in this area called it green gold because
it could bring in anywhere from $100 to $250 a pound. Wild ginseng plants
produced long thick roots that twisted into shapes that looked almost human.
These were highly prized on the Asian market and buyers had been known to
pay foragers up to $600 for a single root. Lora Lee had foraged by her mother's
side since she had been old enough to walk. Nadine had shown her how to look
for the blood red berries that grew close to the forest floor and how to gauge
a plant's age by the number of prongs that grew off of the main stem. The
older the plant the more roots it had. Lora Lee learned how to use the sengin'
stick to loosen the soil and then gently work the plant out of the earth with
her fingers, careful not to damage the thick network of roots. They had foraged
together for years until Nadine became too arthritic to clamber through brambles,
ford streams, and scale mountain ridges. She had passed her sengin' stick
on to her daughter with little fanfare and a lot of advice.
Nadine, seventy-two years old, lean and weathered from years spent working
on the farm, salt and pepper hair twisted in a knot on the top of her head,
set aside the pan she was working on and turned to face her daughter at the
kitchen table. She wiped her hands on her faded flower print apron and said,
"You're gonna sit there and tell me that you're gonna make seventy thousand
dollars a year raising roots that grow in the hills free for the taking."
"Yeah, Mama," Lora Lee said without looking up from the form she
was filling out.
"And somebody is gonna pay you seventy thousand dollars a year for roots."
Nadine walked around the table and adjusted her glasses as she peered over
her daughter's shoulder at the paper she was working on. "Roots that
they can get for free."
"They won't be able to get them free much longer. It says here that the
federal government is going to declare ginseng an endangered species and make
it illegal to dig it up." Lora Lee set down her pen and rubbed her eyes.
"So the only way that folks will be able to buy it is from farms. They're
gonna teach me how to raise wild simulated ginseng."
"What the hell does wild simulated mean?"
"It means it's grown on a farm like its wild."
"What? Say that again."
"Mama, please. I gotta finish these papers for tomorrow," Lora Lee
said as she picked her pen up. "The faster I get the papers in the faster
I can get started."
"Fine," said Nadine as she walked over to the sink. "I don't
want to be the one to stand in the way of progress." She picked up a
pan and began to scrub it. After a minute she began talking to herself in
a low voice. "You know what some peoples problem is that they ain't happy
with what the good Lord gives 'em. Always thinking that they better than they
is." She sloshed the soapy water in the pan for emphasis. "Not me,
I thank Jesus everyday for what he seen fit to give me."
"Yeah, what did Jesus give you, mama?"
Nadine spun from the sink and shook a wet plastic spatula at her daughter;
droplets of water pockmarked the papers on the table. "Don't you talk
about the Lord in that tone of voice, young lady. The good Lord gives us plenty.
He gave me your daddy, God rest his soul. That man never raised a hand to
me in thirty-three years of marriage and He gave me seven healthy children,
all of them alive and well."
"Travis ain't doing that well. He's doing time in the penitentiary,"
Lora Lee mumbled.
"He's doing just fine. Just last week he wrote and told me he found Jesus."
"He finds Jesus every time he goes to jail."
Nadine ignored the last comment and continued: "And the good Lord gave
me this house that my daddy built with his own two hands so my grandbabies
and my ungrateful daughter can stay warm and dry. Your problem is that you
ain't satisfied with what you was meant to be and you ain't never gone to
be happy till you figure that out."
Exasperated Lora Lee threw down her pen. "And what was I meant to be,
mama? Poor? I'm tired of being poor. I'm tired of scratching by trying to
make ends meet. I'm tired of always worrying about bills and trying to make
the food stamps last till the end of the month and trying to find money so
that the kids can have new clothes for school. I'm tired, mama. I want something
better."
"Poor is what you were born and that is what you were meant to be. If
the good Lord had meant for you to be rich he'd have you born in New York
or Los Angeles, not in these hills. People that are born poor here stay poor,
that's just the way it is. Those who have something keep it for their own.
The government has been bringing programs around here for years. Don't nothing
change except the name. Don't you roll your eyes at me, girl. I'm trying to
tell you something. You can dream all you want, that don't hurt nothing. It
only hurts when you start believing in those dreams." Nadine looked up
at the kitchen clock. "It's time for Wheel of Fortune, don't bother me
no more," she said as she left the room.
Lora Lee signed up for the program. First she had to go through GED classes
at the community center in Gap Mills. After three months she received her
'good enough' diploma and enrolled at the extension college. Every morning
at 5:25 a.m. Lora Lee waited at the Gap Mill Bridge to catch a ride with her
uncle who worked at the mill outside of Bluefield. He'd drop her off at the
college and pick her up on his way home at 3 pm. After six months she learned
how to grow ginseng organically to bring in a better price, how to make a
rich mulch by mixing sawdust and bark, what to do when aphids, mites, and
white flies attacked the plants, how to irrigate the crops without letting
the roots get too wet so rot wouldn't set in, how to stagger plantings so
that every year a batch would be ready for harvest, and how to rotate companion
plants like echinacea and solomon seal with the ginseng to keep nutrients
in the soil during the five to eight years that it would take for her first
batch to mature. Upon graduation she received a check from the state for start-up
costs and a package of ginseng seeds from the U.S. Department of Forestry.
Lora Lee sterilized the seeds in one part bleach and nine parts rain water
and spread them in the sun to dry. Nadine relented on her view that this entire
endeavor was a waste of time after she saw how much time and energy Lora Lee
put into the project. She took her daughter up the mountain behind their house
to find a place to plant.
"I don't know," Lora Lee said. "At the agriculture school they
said a east facing slope is best. This here is facing west."
"That agriculture school don't know its ass from a hole in the ground,"
Nadine replied. "You see these oak trees? They make it shady and they
make the ground sweet. You plant your seeds here."
Over the next few years Lora Lee tended her crops. In the summer her children
and mother worked next to her. They picked pests off the plants, learned which
weeds to pull and which ones to let grow, and hauled buckets of water up from
the creek during dry spells. She didn't make much money those years; a few
dollars from the dried leaves of the companion plants, her public aid check,
and Nadine's Social Security check saw them through. In the wintertime when
the earth slept, Lora Lee spent her time making lists of how she was going
to spend the money from her first harvest. She wasn't going to go crazy and
spend it on foolishness like jewelry or trips to Disney World like her children
suggested. Lora Lee planned on buying a used pickup truck, put away a little
money for the kids' college, and moving her family out of their drafty old
house with its sagging front porch and leaky roof. She got brochures from
a dealer of manufactured homes over in Covington and showed Nadine pictures
of kitchens filled with shiny new appliances and living rooms with wall-to-wall
royal blue shag carpeting.
"Ain't nothing wrong with this house," Nadine sniffed. "Your
granddaddy built it his self."
"I know, mama. But look, this one has four bedrooms. The girls could
have one room, Johnny Jay could have a room to himself, I wouldn't have to
sleep on the couch no more and you could have the master bedroom. It has a
bathroom all to itself."
Nadine huffed that when she was a girl the bathroom was outside and that she
sure didn't need another room to clean but Lora Lee noticed when she woke
up the next morning that the brochures had mysteriously moved from the kitchen
table to Nadine's night stand.
The sun was beginning to dip behind the blue-ridged mountains as Nadine and
Lora Lee sat on the front porch swing, a pitcher of tea on the table next
to them. A tire hanging from a gnarled apple tree twisted lazily in the evening
breeze. A calico cat nursed her kittens on a car seat at the other end of
the porch. Geraniums planted in Maxwell House coffee cans lined the chipped
porch railing.
"She pulled that last jack out of her pocket, I just know it. Norma Baker
has always been a sneaky one," said Nadine. "She tried to steal
your papa when we was courting."
"That was over fifty years ago, mama."
"Don't make any difference. Sneaky is a character trait that just gets
worse with age. I had that poker game won and out she comes with four of a
kind. Then she goes and buys a new hat with the winnings and wears it to church.
A yellow monstrosity with peacock feathers bobbing up and down. Looked like
a damn chicken was roosting on her head. She comes up to me after the service
all sweet as pie asking if I'll be at the next meeting of the Ladies Restorative
Society. 'Oh Nadine,' she said to me, 'Memorial Day is just around the corner
and we just have to do something about the veteran's graveyard.' She just
wanted to make sure I seen that hat is all." Nadine coughed and dug around
in her apron pocket for a tissue. "Oh you better believe I'll be there.
After we attend to business I intend to show Norma Baker a thing or two about
playing poker." Nadine wheezed and then spit into her tissue.
"You okay, mama?"
"Just a cold. Pour me some more sweet tea, honey. Like I was saying,
her whole family's always been sneaky. Sneaking around up there on Ballard's
Ridge running whiskey and whatnot for years. She can't help it, it's in her
blood."
Lora Lee thought a subject change was in order. "While you were at church
I checked on the ginseng. I think that it'll be ready to harvest this fall."
"It's about time." Nadine blew her nose.
"You want me to get you some medicine, mama? We got some Vicks."
"I don't need no vapor rub. Look at that sky, it looks like rose-colored
glass. Same color as that carnival-glass plate your papa won for me at the
county fair. He used to say to me, 'Nadine, a sunset is a gift from God.'"
She paused and looked out over the mountains. "Many a times I thought
about moving away from here. Especially after they closed the mines and your
daddy lost his job. Seemed like half the county moved up north that year.
It was as though something held me here. Our family has lived in these hills
for over a hundred years, hard lives scratched out of coalmines and dirt farms."
The women sat silent, lost in thought. The sweet mountain air that whispered
through the hollow had chilled as the evening light faded. Whippoorwills called
to each other in the thick brush. An owl swept down from the sky and scooped
up an unfortunate field mouse and disappeared into the forest deep.
Nadine stood up and stretched. "I think I'll go lay down awhile. Make
sure I'm up in time for 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.' That Regis is just
the cutest thing."
Nadine's cold settled in her lungs and eventually turned into bronchitis.
By the time Lora Lee could convince her mother to see the doctor over in Union
the bronchitis had turned into full-blown pneumonia. The doctor called for
an ambulance to come to the clinic and Nadine was rushed to the hospital in
Princeton where she died three days later.
A cloud of relatives descended upon the small house. Neighbors came from miles
around laden with casserole dishes and pots of beans. Lora Lee walked around
in a daze, perfunctorily accepted the condolences, planned the arrangements,
and fed the guests.
Thunder rolled through the hills and rain began to fall after the funeral.
Lora Lee headed up the mountain heedless of the weather, anxious to escape
the claustrophobic house and the sadness that enveloped it. The path became
harder to follow as the storm intensified; rivulets quickly turned the trail
into a thick sucking mire. Wind whipped through the trees and the driving
rain temporarily blinded her as she stumbled into the clearing. Lora Lee pushed
back the wet strand of hair stuck to her face and stared in numb disbelief.
Poachers had ravaged the field; every single plant had been ripped from the
earth. Neither leaf nor stem nor root tip remained of the acre of ginseng,
just a gaping wound of raw black soil. She picked up a clot of earth and clutched
it in her hand. It melted to mud and dripped from her fingers. The storm passed
over the mountain and into the next valley. Lora Lee cried out her pain, the
desolate sound carried through the trees, down the hollows, and over the ridges
only to be swallowed by the Appalachian Mountains. Her mother's voice came
to her offering down-home homilies that brought little comfort. "All
that is lost can only be found again in dreams."
The rain stopped and a blue fog rose from the mountain streams and wrapped
the hollow in a cocoon of echoes. Shadows crept through the valley as eventide
softly fell over Brush Mountain. Lora Lee slowly followed the winding trail
home.
Awakening: a Modern Fairy Tale
The sleep of reason breeds monsters.
--Goya
By Jennifer Lawrence
Grand Prize, 2002
Petra cringed as her father flicked another half-smoked cigarette butt at
her head, the red-hot ember bouncing off her forehead. She picked up the littered
shards of the cheap thrift-store plates he had raked out of the sink and shattered
on the floor. Unspent tears burned behind her lids as she scooped up the burning
cigarette butt in trembling hands, stifling a wince as she burned her fingers,
trying very hard not to cry. Just another six days, she told herself silently,
the razored shards of china clattering together in her shaking hands. Blood
oozed slowly from several fresh cuts, pattering to the scarred and yellowing
linoleum in fat drops as she climbed up to her knees, the legs of the faded
jeans she wore soaked through with now-tepid dishwater, and dropped the broken
pieces into the trash can.
"Better finish up with th' rest of those, if ya know what's good for
ya, ya little bitch," her father muttered from the sagging, stained easy
chair in front of the ancient TV.
Canned laughter roared outward from a syndicated episode of "The Honeymooners."
She nodded mutely, climbing to her feet, not having dared to answer him back
for many years.
I am Liadan, Lady of Silences, Grey Lady, Broken Mirror…in olden times
surnamed 'Cusantain'-'Fire's Kiss.' I have returned, returned to this mortal
world incognito, have slept eighteen years in this shell of a mortal body,
beaten, burned, abused, humiliated…asleep to what I am. Asleep to what
I can be. Asleep to my true face.
But I am beginning to wake…
Petra knew things could not
stay this way forever, for which she gave silent prayers daily. Her birthday
was a week away and it was becoming harder and harder to hide the excitement
that bubbled through her veins. No more living in fear of being hit; no more
fear that the next beating would be the last. No more being told when to sleep,
when to eat…even when she could go to the bathroom. She carefully rinsed
the blood from her hands and dried them on a fragment of towel, ignoring the
stinging of the soap, then went back to washing what dishes were left in one
piece.
She tried to imagine what life alone, without the specter of her father looming
over her-out from under his thumb-would be like.
She just couldn't do it.
It was the only life she had ever known. Even knowing that things were about
to change, she could not begin to imagine a life away from such horror-freighted
tyranny--no more than a fish could imagine what it might be like to live on
dry land.
I am Liadan, and it has been more than six hundred years, I think, since I
walked this world, since my feet trod this fertile soil. I can remember only
the briefest flashes and fragments of that previous existence-the sun on my
face on a warm Spring day, the scent of the apple blossoms in the orchard,
the hum of the bees.
Oh, yes…and my beloved library, of course.
Not even an ocean of the dread, dull weight of death could rend from my thoughts
the memory of that most precious place, where every book knew my touch like
a lover and where the tomes and volumes that lined the walls were my dearest
friends.
There were some in those days-satyrs, pixies-who said I needed to drag myself
away from the books and learn how to truly live.
I look at what existence I know now and wonder…is this life? Is this
what they thought I should experience?
If so…leave me to my books.
There had been a time as
a child when she had still dared to dream that things could change. Maybe
it was a child's innate love of magic and stories, but in her mind's eye,
then, she had seen so clearly her father's ways changing. She could still
hear his rough voice as he told her how sorry he was for treating her as he
had…begging forgiveness. The dreams had been lovely…but they had
been just dreams, and dreams, she had long ago learned-the hard way-could
never be as strong as the waking world.
Dreams die.
Maybe that's not quite right, Petra thought silently as she finished frying
and putting away the last pan. Dreams can be murdered.
She cast a single swift, wary look over at her father's back, watching him
for a quick moment where he sat, silhouetted bulk framed by the flickering
glow of the TV. She dared not stare too long, for he had in the past evinced
an eerie ability to know when she was watching, and punished her for it.
Even so…there are small blessings. He beats me, but he has never touched
me in…that way. She shuddered, grimacing, and pulled the mop out from
behind the refrigerator to finish cleaning up the last of the spilled dishwater.
I know what others of my kind are like. Almost all the Faerie Folk are passionate,
ardent, racing madly one way after another, in search of new sensations, new
faces to cherish, new games to play, new adventures, new arms to take shelter
in. It seems such a waste to me; we of Faerie are fickle things, changing
our minds and hearts on a moment's whim, leaving behind a trail of broken
lives. Perhaps I betray my own when I admit to feeling nothing but distaste
for such antics. Is it the grim gray touch of the world on my soul which permits
me to admit that I could never accept something so short-lived and fleeting?
I crave permanence; I confess it with a sad heart, for I know that the twin
stars of fidelity and constancy are not the favored guides that lead my fellows
through their lives. On the ocean of love and life, they steer their courses
by far less stable guides.
Not me, though.
Never me.
She heard the decrepit easy
chair creak as her father shifted in his seat and froze like a deer framed
in the radiance of a pair of headlights on the highway, her heart rabbitting
fiercely. If he got up and came in to "check" on her…she shuddered.
But he settled back into his seat after a thunderous belch, and she felt the
tension drain from her muscles like water as she shut off the kitchen light
and crept to the tiny closet that was her bedroom. A single dirty mattress
lay on the floor, without box springs, pillow, or sheets, only a lone, thin
blanket to wrap around her. She slipped into the closet and pulled the door
shut behind her, ducking under the half-dozen wire hangers on the rod overhead
that held the five or six thrift-shop garments that were her only clothes.
Two shirts, a sweater, three pair of faded jeans.
She did not own underwear, nor a winter coat. Too much money, her father had
said.
I have watched and endured
the travails of the mortal whose form I wear as if in a dream. My soul insinuated
itself into her shell while she yet floated in the womb, moving into a symbiosis
with her that she knows nothing of. The first faint flashes of Awakening,
the preludes to my rebirth, have been faint and missed entirely both by the
tiny child whose body I wear and her gross and violent father.
But they have not been missed by everyone…
Somewhere out there, I can sense others like myself. Brothers. Sisters. Friends.
I can sense them, they can sense me…and they are coming.
And if she could not escape?
If he found out that she intended to run away as soon as she turned l8, that
she had already finished with high school and managed to convince her guidance
counselor and the administrators at school not to tell him for fear he might
kill her?
Her mind was enveloped with such deep and boundless despair at the thought
that the idea of suicide seemed like a blissful release. If she could not
be free one way, then she could at least escape the only other way open to
her. No more pain, no more fear, no more endless nights laying in bed bleeding
and stifling her tears, knowing that even a sob overheard would bring even
worse.
There were times lately she wondered if the constant stress was driving her
insane. She had started to see…things…out of the corner of one eye
or another when she wasn't really paying attention, things that flickered
away too fast to see when she turned to look more closely. The other day,
walking home from school through the park, she could have sworn that one of
the birch trees had come to life. Dark eyes had opened in a haunting, pale-skinned
face, and the slender woman had smiled at her. And a week ago, cutting through
the park again as she walked home from school, she had half-glimpsed a flash
of movement overhead and thought for a moment that a rose-red dragon had gone
sailing by.
It was, of course, only one of Spring's first kites, caught in a tree…but
such things were enough to make her doubt her own sanity.
To endure a lifetime of pain was bad enough. To endure pain and insanity as
well was far too much to ask of anyone.
If she could not escape to college…then there were always her father's
double-edged razor blades in the bathroom cabinet.
I know the thoughts that are thought by this child as she sleeps, her mortal
mind so fearful of pain. But I have not come so far, lived so long, to allow
myself to be slain…most assuredly, not by my Host's own hand. I am not
a violent woman…but I am waking, and the one who has done this to me,
to her, deserves violence in repayment for violence.
I am no monster, no ogre, no troll. I am no warrior. But I do not need to
be. I could punish him no more harshly than to let him see himself as she
sees him.
No. Not suicide. But what,
then? She wondered. If she could not run away, she could certainly never harm
her father. The mere thought of raising a hand against him made her feel nauseous.
She knew she would somehow blunder and end up far worse off than she was now.
He had told her a million times what a klutz she was, how stupid, how ugly,
how worthless. "A waste of air" was one of the kindest ways he had
ever described her.
She knew it was no more than the truth. He was her father; why would he lie
to her? She had killed her mother when she was born and knew he would never
forgive her for that; not a day went by when he did not scream that monstrous
truth in her ears as blows rained down upon her head. Yet even so-even knowing
she was worthless, hopeless, knowing that she had killed her mother-she still
wanted to live.
She still dreamed of freedom.
I am Liadan, Lady of the
Silences-Sidhe, Noble, Bard. Magic and story and music are my birthright,
and I will walk this world again. This grotesque, evil, abusive ogre of a
man will not stop me. In the old days Lady Luck smiled on me. Perhaps she
still does. This mortal child dreams of freedom…and I will see to it
that her dreams do not die.
Perhaps I am no warrior, no knight in shining armor. I have never slain a
dragon…but I think I could rescue a princess, though she does not see
herself as such.
Petra deserves rescue…in whichever form it takes.
Her dreams shall not die.
I shall not die.
We shall not die.
John Kendall silently eased
his bulk from the decrepit chair in the living room, moving with surprising
grace across the usually-creaky floor to the kitchen, coming to a stop in
front of the hall closet where his daughter now slept. A black scowl twisted
his features into something foul, and he rubbed his fat, stubble-specked chin
with a meaty hand. "Stupid bitch," he muttered under his breath.
"More trouble than you're worth." It didn't take much to keep the
Social Services idiots off his back-fifty dollars slipped to them discreetly
when they showed up at the door was usually enough. They were like everyone
else in New York: overworked, underpaid, stressed to the breaking point or
already burned out. No one cared about one little girl.
"Nobody gives a damn 'bout you," he murmured to himself, sneering
at the door.
As if catalyzed by his words, the door exploded outward in a soundless wave
of light. The aging wood had no hope of withstanding the force that burst
it asunder at the seams, and as John fell back, he felt his chest and belly
peppered with chunks and shards of wood. Ass met floor, and he gaped upward
in shock and disbelief at the strange figure that stood framed in the closet
doorway.
Bright-eyed, proud, slender she stood there, noble head surrounded with a
mane of silk like pale flame that flickered and trembled in an unfelt wind.
Cold grey orbs stared down at him in icy rage, and his jaw dropped as he drank
in the strange woman's beauty, so great it struck him dumb. Tears welled up
in his eyes as he gaped; she was so beautiful it hurt to look upon her, and
yet he would have rather died than look away and lose the sight.
"Wh…who th' Hell are you?" he finally managed, knuckling the
betraying wetness from his eyes. Instead of the fine silken robes that such
an amazing creature should rightfully have been clad in, she wore a pair of
faded jeans and a dirty sweater.
There was silence in her gaze, silence and sorrow and contempt. The weight
of that look was more than he could bear; in her silvery eyes his own image
was mirrored, and the sight was enough to make him want to tear out his own
eyes so he would not have to see himself as she saw him: cruel, vicious, unclean-a
savage thing more worthy of the name savage than man.
She did not answer his question, but turned away from him and stepped over
the fragments of the closet door, picking her dainty way across the rubble-littered
floor to the apartment's front door. He watched each graceful step, hauling
himself to his feet as if in a dream, and he recognized the clothes she wore
as his daughter's.
Anger burned in him then, and he started toward her, huge hands balled into
fists at his sides. "Where's Petra?" he growled, upper lip curling
in a sneer, letting the black rage take over as it was wont to do.
She turned to look at him one last time as the front door swung open. He could
see three strangers standing there, beautiful in their way as she was, slender
and wistful-eyed and smiling in welcome for a long-lost friend. He glimpsed
the pointed tips of ears peeking out from beneath the river of golden hair
on one of the young men, and blinked.
"You fool," the fey, exquisite young woman hissed scornfully at
him. Her delicately-sculpted features seemed to swim before his eyes, and
Petra peered out at him fearfully from those cool gray eyes. "I am your
daughter."
"What the hell-"
"Or close enough," she murmured, her voice sweet as wine, soft as
velvet. " And I am taking her away. You shall never harm her again."
He blinked again, and she slipped away from him then, moving as soundlessly
as a cat out the door to join the others. One last look she cast at him over
her slim shoulder, a look that had been divested of hatred, anger, and contempt,
and now contained only pity for the monster he had become.
Then there was only the feather-light sound of footsteps disappearing down
the hall, and they were gone.
Speculation
By Elizabeth Mares
I write because I feel things
That no other being could possibly know.
To get inside of my head and move
Things around into an endless jigsaw
Puzzle.
The last piece, never being found, just
Swept under the rug or eaten by
The dog.
To know me, is to never truly know
Me. You can't see what I see, you
Can't hear what I hear. You only
Speculate.
I only speculate.
I speculate my dreams and I lie to myself.
Hurting myself; damming myself.
Never ending like the campfire song.
Going round and around and around.
Making myself dizzy till I can't
Stand it anymore and I fall…. and I fall.
I'll shut my eyes and it'll be
Over. I'll be back in my mother's
Arms; drinking warm milk and listening
To her heartbeat:
Ga Gun, Ga Gun, Ga Gun, Ga Gun.
But I'll open my eyes and I'll see my
Reflection; tears carving tracks on my cheeks
Because I wrote words you didn't understand.
I said things you didn't understand.
But to know me, is to never
Truly know me.
My Life is like Driving Through
Sludge
By Diana López-Colón
My life is like driving through sludge
Strenuously forging to move ahead
I push and I prod; it won't budge
Too many hours confined to my bed
I struggle to move right along
I plan and I work day and night
But it's just the same eerie song
Few things seem to come out just right.
My family is the joy of my life
One son and a husband at home
That joy is too often followed by strife
Knifing pain invading my dome.
My work's always earned the highest rating
Helping students break out of that old mold
"You can do it, the world is just waiting,
Press onward and reach for the gold."
College goals and education purporting
Giving advice, staying proud and bold
Images presented are a wee bit distorted
Stories of pain kept secret and untold.
Friends and family, blinded to the truth
Seeing success as being on my path to stay
Too much reality may prove to be uncouth
Disappointments are locked safe, away.
Teaching is my one true calling
It's a goal slow in coming, I know
I get up, but constantly keep on falling
Life's like driving through sludge in blinding snow.
A Home for Winter
By Dennis Peters
1st Place Poetry 2001
Gazing through the frosted panes
To see the snow-capped pines;
Fluorescently lit by the frozen moon
Winter's breath chills not their spines.
Furry forest foragers find frozen food,
By icy light of the haloed moon,
The purest white this side of heaven
Lights the darkened cabin rooms.
Solitude, solicitously sought, seems certain
To bring recluse this time of year.
Careless crackling from the fireplace
Streaks the panes with streaming tears.
As also do the simmering onions-
To the hunter preparing his stew,
Of finely dressed venison, saged;
Potatoes, carrots, and cabbage, too.
The sacrificial buck is roasting
Inside, the cabin cries its life away;
Screech! The owl has taken a mouse,
Outside, Winter gives its life away.
Deeply do Death's daggers dirge
At this dying time of the year,
Though pain of death be soon forgot,
The challenge of new life brings fear.
Sparkley Things
By Suzanne Heath
Included on
The Sound of Poetry collection
The International Library of Poetry
Fill your life with sparkley things
Your diamond rings.
Velvet-headed pups
All kinds of tea cups
Lovers who love their mothers
Really do make better lovers.
Fill your life with sparkley things
Your diamond rings
Children who smile with their noses
Yellow roses
Sister fairies
Who are from some star.
Fill your life with sparkley things
Your diamond rings.
Books that are fluffy
Yet deep
Poetry and music
That softens your sleep.
Fill your life with sparkley things
Your diamond rings.
