womanly poems for womanly women

[Angeline]

I could be you bit of rough on the side. The dark secret you don't want to show in public.

I've no shame.

So I see, lol.

Your poem is amazing. Well deserved E and then some.

I tried to link it, but it seems to have disappeared...

 

[bogusbrig]

So I see, lol.

Your poem is amazing. Well deserved E and then some.

I tried to link it, but it seems to have disappeared...

You're making me all flustered today. Thanks.

I prefer seeing you with your guitar on your AV. It touches the romantic in me. Yep, it's there somewhere.

 

[Angeline]

You're making me all flustered today. Thanks.

I prefer seeing you with your guitar on your AV. It touches the romantic in me. Yep, it's there somewhere.

I'll probably put it back later, but um it ain't me. It's um Kaki King. I want that blue guitar though.

 

[WickedEve]

I'll probably put it back later, but um it ain't me. It's um Kaki King. I want that blue guitar though.

You look like a million women and a million women look like you. We've talked about this before. You find so many Angeline-like avs. And you have an interesting face. I don't know how you keep finding them. No one looks like me. I'm some sort of mountain hick subbie creature.

 

[Angeline]

You look like a million women and a million women look like you. We've talked about this before. You find so many Angeline-like avs. And you have an interesting face. I don't know how you keep finding them. No one looks like me. I'm some sort of mountain hick subbie creature.

You should see me in New York City. There are entire neighborhoods (well, maybe not anymore lol) where I look related to every third woman that I pass.

A woman at my new second job (I'll pm you lol) said Friday "What's your last name? Are we related? We look related." Really.

(I'm going to put a a real me av because I feel silly now.)

And you have an interesting, beautiful face, not to mention some body. Must be all the assersize.

 

[WickedEve]

You should see me in New York City. There are entire neighborhoods (well, maybe not anymore lol) where I look related to every third woman that I pass.

A woman at my new second job (I'll pm you lol) said Friday "What's your last name? Are we related? We look related." Really.

(I'm going to put a a real me av because I feel silly now.)

And you have an interesting, beautiful face, not to mention some body. Must be all the assersize.

My ass got tired of assersizes. I only walk now. But I think I'll start a winter assersize program to prepare it for summer. Maybe aerobutts. Possibly some cheeky weightlifting. Some tush training and lowering my BMI (bun mass index).

Angeline, you are every woman.

 

[bogusbrig]

I'll probably put it back later, but um it ain't me. It's um Kaki King. I want that blue guitar though.

I've never heard of her until now. I like her too.

I'm such a slut!

 

[Angeline]

I've never heard of her until now. I like her too.

I'm such a slut!

You're adaptable.

 

[Angeline]

My ass got tired of assersizes. I only walk now. But I think I'll start a winter assersize program to prepare it for summer. Maybe aerobutts. Possibly some cheeky weightlifting. Some tush training and lowering my BMI (bun mass index).

Angeline, you are every woman.

Oh god. Me and Oprah.


Oh and I'm glad you clarified the bmi.

 

[bluerains]

I really like her...

WHAT HE THOUGHT

We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. "What does mean this 'flat drink?' someone asked.
What is "cheap date?" (Nothing we said lessened
this one's mystery). Among Italian writers we
could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen and the glib. And there was one
administrator (The Conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone
narrated sights and histories
the hired van hauled us past.
Of all he was most politic--
and least poetic-- so
it seemed. Our last
few days in Rome
I found a book of poems this
unprepossessing one had written: it was there
in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended)
where it must have been abandoned by
the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom
he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn't
read Italian either, so I put the book
back in the wardrobe's dark. We last Americans
were due to leave
tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our host chose something in a family restaurant,
and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,
sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked
"What's poetry?
Is it the fruits and vegetables
and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori
or the statue there?" Because I was
the glib one, I identified the answer
instantly, I didn't have to think-- "The truth
is both, it's both!" I blurted out. But that
was easy. That was easiest
to say. What followed taught me something
about difficulty,
for our underestimated host spoke out
all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:
The statue represents
Giordano Bruno, brought
to be burned in the public square
because of his offence against authority, which was to say
the Church. His crime was his belief
the universe does not revolve around
the human being: God is no
fixed point or central government
but rather is poured in waves, through
all things: all things
move. "If God is not the soul itself,
he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world." Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die
they feared he might incite the crowd (the man
was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors
placed upon his face
an iron mask
in which he could not speak.
That is how they burned him.
That is how he died,
without a word,
in front of everyone. And poetry--
(we'd all put down our forks by now, to listen to
the man in gray; he went on softly)-- poetry
is what he thought, but did not say.
"What He Thought" is the first poem in Heather McHugh's collection of new and selected poems Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968 - 1993, published by Wesleyan/UPNE, 1994. Book Orders: 1-800-421-1561.

New poem, addressed to God or Man or both:

 

[denis hale]

butting in... aerodynamically

Hi!

Denise here.

I was once Carolyn Forche's stenographer for two days.
Um... Does that give me any cachet, if not outright play??


BTW, what are Aerobutts?


Are they like Muk Luks?

 

[Byron In Exile]

written by men, inspired by women:


She Walks In Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade more, one ray less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

A good poem, but not a great one.

For that, read Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

 

[Angeline]

A good poem, but not a great one.

For that, read Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

Heehee. I knew you'd come in and say that.

 

[Angeline]

Hi!

Denise here.

I was once Carolyn Forche's stenographer for two days.
Um... Does that give me any cachet, if not outright play??


BTW, what are Aerobutts?


Are they like Muk Luks?

Are you wearing a dress?

 

[bogusbrig]

I was once Carolyn Forche's stenographer for two days.
Um... Does that give me any cachet, if not outright play??

Now she is a poet! Why are we discussing Plath when there is her to discuss!

 

[flyguy69]

My Husband Discovers Poetry
by Diane Lockwood

Because my husband would not read my poems,
I wrote one about how I did not love him.
In lines of strict iambic pentameter,
I detailed his coldness, his lack of humor.
It felt good to do this.

Stanza by stanza, I grew bolder and bolder.
Towards the end, struck by inspiration,
I wrote about my old boyfriend,
a boy I had not loved enough to marry
but who could make me laugh and laugh.
I wrote about a night years after we parted
when my husband’s coldness drove me from the house
and back to my old boyfriend.
I even included the name of a seedy motel
well known for hosting quickies.
I have a talent for verisimilitude.

In sensuous images, I described
how my boyfriend and I stripped off our clothes,
got into bed, and kissed and kissed,
then spent half the night telling jokes,
many of them about my husband.
I left the ending deliberately ambiguous,
then hid the poem away
in an old trunk in the basement.

You know how this story ends,
how my husband one day loses something,
goes into the basement,
and rummages through the old trunk,
how he uncovers the hidden poem
and sits down to read it.

But do you hear the strange sounds
that floated up the stairs that day,
the sounds of an animal, its paw caught
in one of those traps with teeth of steel?
Do you see the wounded creature
at the bottom of the stairs,
his shoulders hunched over and shaking,
fist in his mouth and choking back sobs?
It was my husband paying tribute to my art.

 

[BooMerengue]

That was a great read, Fly!! Thank you!

 

[flyguy69]

That was a great read, Fly!! Thank you!

You have a very, very wicked streak in you!

 

[wildsweetone]

otoh

A Letter To Daphnis

This to the crown and blessing of my life,
The much loved husband of a happy wife;
To him whose constant passion found the art
To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart,
And to the world by tenderest proof discovers
They err, who say that husbands can't be lovers.
With such return of passion as is due,
Daphnis I love, Daphnis my thoughts pursue;
Daphnis my hopes and joys are bounded all in you,
Even I, for Daphnis' and my promise sake,
What I in woman censure, undertake.
But this from love, not vanity, proceeds;
You know who writes, and I who 'tis that reads.
Judge not my passion by my want of skill:
Many love well, though they express it ill;
And I your censure could with pleasure bear,
Would you but soon return, and speak it here.

by Anne Finch

 

[BooMerengue]

You have a very, very wicked streak in you!

I do not! I am a truly gentle soul.

But she really did get not only the point, but the emotion, across. Thats what I love.

[SIZE=-4]I do have 1 little mean streak for sassy boys, though![/SIZE]

 

[flyguy69]

I do not! I am a truly gentle soul.

But she really did get not only the point, but the emotion, across. Thats what I love.

[SIZE=-4]I do have 1 little mean streak for sassy boys, though![/SIZE]

So if I am sassy enough you'll streak for me?

 

[Angeline]

My Husband Discovers Poetry
by Diane Lockwood

Because my husband would not read my poems,
I wrote one about how I did not love him.
In lines of strict iambic pentameter,
I detailed his coldness, his lack of humor.
It felt good to do this.

Stanza by stanza, I grew bolder and bolder.
Towards the end, struck by inspiration,
I wrote about my old boyfriend,
a boy I had not loved enough to marry
but who could make me laugh and laugh.
I wrote about a night years after we parted
when my husband’s coldness drove me from the house
and back to my old boyfriend.
I even included the name of a seedy motel
well known for hosting quickies.
I have a talent for verisimilitude.

In sensuous images, I described
how my boyfriend and I stripped off our clothes,
got into bed, and kissed and kissed,
then spent half the night telling jokes,
many of them about my husband.
I left the ending deliberately ambiguous,
then hid the poem away
in an old trunk in the basement.

You know how this story ends,
how my husband one day loses something,
goes into the basement,
and rummages through the old trunk,
how he uncovers the hidden poem
and sits down to read it.

But do you hear the strange sounds
that floated up the stairs that day,
the sounds of an animal, its paw caught
in one of those traps with teeth of steel?
Do you see the wounded creature
at the bottom of the stairs,
his shoulders hunched over and shaking,
fist in his mouth and choking back sobs?
It was my husband paying tribute to my art.

Ya gotta love a poem that uses verisimilitude.

 

[PatCarrington]

The Cossacks by Linda Pastun


For Jews, the Cossacks are always coming.
Therefore I think the sun spot on my arm
is melanoma. Therefore I celebrate
New Year's Eve by counting
my annual dead.

My mother, when she was dying,
spoke to her visitors of books
and travel, displaying serenity
as a form of manners, though
I could tell the difference.

But when I watched you planning
for a life you knew
you'd never have, I couldn't explain
your genuine smile in the face
of disaster. Was it denial

laced with acceptance? Or was it
generations of being English--
Brontë's Lucy in Villette
living as if no fire raged
beneath her dun-colored dress.

I want to live the way you did,
preparing for next year's famine with wine
and music as if it were a ten-course banquet.
But listen: those are hoofbeats
on the frosty autumn air.

 

[flyguy69]

Ya gotta love a poem that uses verisimilitude.

And end-stops a strophe with it! Maybe her talent overshadows her transgression.

 

[Angeline]

I wish I could find more poems online by this poet

I lose her prose, too.

You Bring Out the Mexican in Me
Sandra Cisneros

You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila lagrimas on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.

You are the one I'd let go the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.