Category Archives: poetry

Still plugging away.

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I’m sending out Letters to the Editor and OpEd pieces promoting the petition to whatever publications I think might accept them.  Please feel free to send your own Letter to the Editor to your own local newspaper.  Meanwhile, inspired by “…they paved paradise and put in a parking lot…” from Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi.

Revenant

Under a dark moon,
she hunts the land for what
she cannot leave behind:

the scent of marigold
crushed on skin;
the fragile grace
of seedling maples;
the soft acceptance
of lambs ear leaves —

all lost to the dark,
to a place too ruined
for digging.

Tirelessly, she wrestles
the ghosts she has come
to free from the hold
of reluctant stone,

from the evil spell
binding the earth once
worked with the patient
need of her hands.

Held by the moment,
I breathe deeply
the sharp-scented air,
search for signs
of moon in the sky,

pray to find
what has been lost
from her night
and from my own.

I remember a little boy.

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I remember a little boy
with a heavy brow
framing a careful gaze.

I don’t remember
where I lost him.
Maybe
it was at that fuel pump,
where I absentmindedly
drove off, only to see him,
in hindsight, running
down the road after me,
crying. Both of us
crying.

Maybe
it was during that
black and white
winter night, when
the only light was
moon on snow,
and I left him, alone
powerless, not knowing
that the dark house
would overtake him.

Maybe
I didn’t really lose him.
Maybe
it shouldn’t matter.

What matters is that
I still dream about
a little boy with
a heavy brow
and a dark gaze,
who is always reaching,
reeling, and running.

No Charm School Charmer #2

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A version in poetry, in contrast to the prose version. This is a good example of how my poetry comes from a much deeper and more honest place than my prose.

Charm School

They sent me to Charm School
that graduation summer.
Each day I dressed for Park Avenue:
black high heels and gartered hose,
dress hemmed below my pristine knees.
Even white gloves, the eternal symbol
of lady-like correctness.

They sent me to Charm School
to smooth my ragged edges,
remove me from the music
and the bad boys who played it
and give me the face that they
wanted to show the world.
And I went, my last concession.

The sent me to Charm School,
where I learned to sit with ankles,
(not knees) crossed, hands cupped
demurely in a lap that never opened.
They amended my eyebrows, hair,
tried to dislodge my unpleasant
speech, bearing, attitude.

They send me to Charm School.
And the one thing I remember
is how Loretta Young could open
a door into crowded room and
gracefully turn her back
on her eager audience.

They sent me to Charm School,
but their bright fantasies and
those charming illusions,
could not defuse the dark fire
that fuels my recalcitrant soul.

While I’m Waiting

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While I’m waiting for the signatures on the Improve Senior Housing petition to reach 100, I’m poking around in my old poetry. This from pre-Covid:

The Senior Center Singer

Hair white as winter,
face aligned with 91 years:

Seconds slow to match her
shambling gait secured
with sturdy black cane
and orthopedic shoes
as she moves to the mic
in the room’s easy silence.

As the soft piano tones,
her eyes glow like summer
mornings, bright and vital;
the plains of her face revive
as the clear soprano of her voice
reclaims the joys of Summertime,
recalls when living was easy
and babies hushed to the touch
of her melancholy lullaby.

My Fan Crush and Why

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I have a fan crush on young Vincent D’Onofrio.  As I lay in bed tonight, I finally realized why.  He reminds me of an old flame.  Something about the tall body type, the surrounding air of intense creative energy. 

Ed was an artist.  Well, he still is, since he is still alive.  Lives in Bangor Maine and still teaches art. D’Onofrio no longer looks anything like the young man he once was, although I still watch the old “Criminal Intent” reruns from decades ago, in which he plays Detective Robert Goren.

One summer weekend, Ed and I drove out to Boston. We stayed at Copley Square and roamed the surrounding streets of Boston, meandering galleries and shop windows, never at a loss for conversation and delight.

That night, as we prepared for sleep, he asked me to get up and pose, with my arms out, in the light from the window. He pondered the pose for a minute, and that was it.

So, when I saw this painting on his website, I wondered if that image of me stuck somewhere in his subconscious and wound up in this painting.

Probably not, but I can fantasize, can’t I?

If you’ve the mind to, check out the paintings on his website.  His spirituality (he’s an ex-priest) comes out in his paintings, capturing the very essences of his subjects.  His paintings are full of the kind of beauty and energy with which he lives.

Here are two poems that resulted from that weekend in Boston.

Stone Cold Demon

I hear the silent scream
of the demon in the shop
on Newbury Street,
teeth bared, hunkering in
some primal isolation.
I want to hold him to my heart,
warm the stone that molds him
in his place, sing him
soft with lullabies
and promises I will keep.

I taste his fear in the tears
that mark my cheek.
“Love me, love me!” he cries.
“Love!”
“Me!

 

Pan Makes a Personal Appearance

To think it was you I summoned!
All those incantations,
those spells dispatched
to shift the stars, returned
as this immortal face,
this ancient tale.

To think the gods still answer prayers!
Make bright, deft-handed landings
right before my eyes,
fall haloed and goat-footed
deep into my mark,
breathing mischief and mayhem,
and bold bewildering dreams.

Angel, satyr, shepherd,
your music stirs the skin.
Play your syrinx now
for me, my kin.
We will dance, dance
to your tune.

September Sunflowers

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Valley Time

Easterly,
the winds tease the sun
toward morning
brushing aside the easy showers
of early summer clouds.
Time follows the way of the wind
through this dawn-misted valley,
filters through the blue unfoldings
of fragile morning chicory,
flows through the slow, green seekings
of those low growing vines,
breathes honeysuckle and wildrose rain
into the season’s drifting light.
Westward,
the sun leaves the high horizon,
draping a dry autumn night
over the tired faces
of September sunflowers.

© Elaine Frankonis

The Face of Pain

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My mother had passed away at age 94, after a decade of increasing dementia.

         While  Words Fail  
She was gone before she went,
slipping into that final forgetting
with each hollow breath.

I was her angel, she said
as she sat at the sunny table
picking at pancakes and coffee
while she still could smile
and think meaning.

Music kept her eyes alive
awhile, her feet remembering
thoughtless, but certain of rhythms
too deliberate to disappear.
She followed my familiar lead,
reaching for memories lost
with the fading of voice.

She didn’t believe in demons,
but I saw them slip inside her skin,
forcing pain from her pores,
folding her face in caverns
of anguish and alarm,
as, steadily, words fled, leaving
a frightened keening in their wake.

She was gone before she went,
and when she went, the world
filled again with words.

(elf 2020)

Other Aprils (05/15)

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Tank tops and shorts
on the first warm day of April,
sprawled on the dorm lawn
in adolescent abandon,
air smelling of
baby oil, iodine,
and sweet spring sweat.

The Eiffel Tower
on the first warm day of April,
arm locked with arm
among the winds of Paris,
air smelling of
wine, tulips
and a lover's sweet caress.

Boy child and ball
on the first warm day of April,
laughter on a learning curve
stumbling in wet grass,
air smelling of
new mud, wet pine,
sweet sun after rain.

Contemplating the dappled shade
on the first warm day of April,
glider swing creaking
its soft lullaby,
air smelling of
lavender, memories,
and sweet seasoned dreams.

Out of Focus

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I wote this in 2004, four years into being the full-time, live-in caregiver for my mother, who had severe dementia and the object of the abuse heaped upon me by myi brother. It is a reminder that I have been through writer’s block before.
I think I remember a time when I could focus on one thing at a time — a poem, a person, a pleasure — when the process was as important as the product. I’m trying to remember when the last time was that I felt that focus, that stillpoint. Oddly enough, I think it was was a decade ago when I used to go out on Thursday nights to dance the Hustle for hours on end. I would follow the lead with such total focus that all I was aware of was my blood humming to the rhythm of the bass and my body carving sharp arcs through the smokey air.
I think I used to know that same kind of focus when writing a really good poem, feeling the rhythm come, hearing the hum of swarming words. But that was when I lived alone, with long, quiet moments to feed my focus. That was when I would have hours of down-time at work, alone in my own office, with nothing to do but let myself succumb to the processes of dream timethink what happened is that I got really good at my job — multi-tasking, meeting deadlines, serving many masters. Scheme thinking. Quick thinking. No time to dream, alone, in a corner with a window.

I think what happened is I learned t.o care too much. I think what happened is that I let the world nibble away at my layers so that I lost my deepest secrets.

“The Many Breasted Artemis,” my shrink once noted, as I unloaded my distress at being expected to always be the nurturer, the feeder, the source of unlimited resources, the problem-solver, the responsible one.

I thought that when I retired, I would be able to find, again, that dreamy focus. Instead, it takes me until midnight to finally breathe evenly and deeply, to let go of all of the knowing. It takes me until midnight to finally feel the yearning for deep secrets.

But to have secrets, one has to have a life beyond the giving of care.

I’m waiting for my time to come again, when I will, again, simmer and stir, ladle, at last, into mounds of midnight words, that witch’s brew.

So, here I am at 2 A.M……

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While I’m waiting for that “sleep switch” to kick in, I’ve been trying to track down other bloggers around my age to see if we can develop into a virtual community of kindred spirits. That’s what I had back in the 2000s, and I miss the virtual camaraderie.

As part of my efforts to lesson my feelings of isolation, I am working with my local senior center to try to put together a weekly Zoom group of older folks who are disabled or are self quarantined. I only go out when I have to — medical appointments or grocery shopping. I would love to make new friends, and these days, Zoom is the way to do it.

I did spend most of my afternoon sending out my poetry in response to several “call for entries.” I have been pretty successful getting my poetry published, but it is three years since I have sent any out. At some point I will add a “Poetry” link to my primary menu.

Beginning next week, I will be part of a Zoom-based poetry group. I just love when synchronicities kick in and I become aware of the ongoing spirals that my life is on. I dreamed of a married couple with whom I was close friends for decades, but then they moved away. I contacted to tell them about the dream, and they put me in touch with the leader of the poetry group. The leader of the poetry group was one of my ex-husband’s college students and my daughter was a flower girl at his wedding. Circles into spirals.

Obviously, I have my depression under control. If only I could do that about my Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder.

Three or four a.m. has become my usual bedtime. Will I ever be awake again during those morning hours when the air smells fresh and the birds are just starting to sing?