Poetry!

"The Indian Beauty"

I saw a picture. Framed.

In a dear friend’s home,

admired by all.

She was called…

“The Indian Beauty.”

She was clothed in soft white wrinkled buckskin,

fringe hanging off her breasts and sleeves.

Snow cascaded around her, fading out the forest behind.

Beads decorated her hair. She had one of those furtive stares.

Because that’s what we look like.

We lie half clothed on buffalo skins.

 In some state’s gift shop or country store.

 With hands that are brown soft.

As if we don’t work,

as if our calloused life styles haven’t marked us just yet.

We are all as thin as willows;

legs limber as green wood in spring.

Like we don’t eat or cook.

In fact we all have a Native lover or some John Smith

You see us twisted up in a loving embrace,

vulnerable and sensuous.

Barely brown, almost white.

White enough to be admired.

White enough to be accepted

The flurries speckle out tradition.

But when I look into the eyes of my mother

I don’t see this.

I see hands mangled by arthritis.

Wrinkles web her tired face.

My mother is creased with a tradition that is heavy to carry.

So she has a broad back and sturdy arms.

Thick legs to carry on.

How else would we cross the threshold?

With our children on our backs.

To teach them not be laden by the thickness of a blizzard cold past. 

*
This next poem is a "cut up poem" in which I took some of my favorite books and took sentences and juxtaposed them together to make sense. This is a cut up of: Hunger Games, Under the Feet of Jesus, and Dubliners. 

“Hunger”

(Cut-Up Poem)

They found her in a few bones.

Openly standing for something he had

 repressed and denied.

She whispered in sepia tones to him.

Fingers outstretched seeking warmth

only to find a cold canvas companion.

She no longer acted as the child

he expected her to be. Bonier now, 

he crushed her like an aluminum can.

Simple as a stomp of his shoe.

He didn’t mince words.

His hands were big for his

wiry body. An expert on hunger,

But this was an entirely new kind

Emotion and romantic fantasy

Against the judgmental voice of

Conscience. 

*

“Putty Faced Baby”

(Original Poem )

A puffy snowsuit overwhelms my chubby frame.

Thick snow blankets the back of the truck.

I am two. My eyes peer past the chub of my cheeks.

I share an innocent gaze with the camera.

Putty faced baby molded by the hands of circumstance.

I know nothing about you, mother.

I didn’t know that he had come in under the cloak of the night,

Dried eager hands on you like you were a towel and

Wrung you until you were dry.

I didn’t know.

You’d tell me on my sixth birthday.

And I would watch as smoke

Smoldered, fueled by melted stubs of candles.

Wax hardening on my cake.

*

“Cache Valley”

(Nature Poem)

Cable lines thread through needle eyes of poles.

Yellow gold light, dapples the valley.

Catching on the feminine curve of

a mountain slope,

The tree tops are turning.

Smears of ocher and sienna

 through the canyon.

Like Autumn swept her pallet

knife through them.

Sun kisses Autumn

Making green blush. 

*
This is my attempt at writing a love poem. It didn't work out so well, in my honest opinion it kind of sounds creepy, but it was super fun to write. 

“Scorch”

(Original Poem)

Baked black brown

Charcoal edges.

Heat melded down my corners

I’m nearly welded to you.

Like coal or banked fire.

Fuel me and I flame

Deny me and my heat leaches.

A faint flicker in your eye,

Pick me up or tread upon me.

Allow me to sear your feet. Burn you.

Can I scorch you? Please?

I wish to scar you.

Cause your fragile skin to welt with a sweet liquid beneath.

That stinging is my name.

Let me burn you.

Scorch your skin dry.

Crack your knees, lips, palms.

Allow me to consume.

Consume you. Make you brilliant with my flames.

Till’ all that’s left is ashes.

Ashes.

Ashes.

*

“Grandma”

Original Poem

Grandma wears a broach,

A turquoise beetle that rests on her collar,

It lolls when she falls asleep.

Grandma’s eyes are milky white.

Her hair hangs over her face, cobwebs.

Cobwebs filled with silver strands of our history.

Grandma’s face is sun spotted.

Dark marks claiming a stake on her face.

Just like they did her to her land.

Grandma’s finger is continually pricked.

The bald finger riddled with needle holes.

She still loves fried chicken.

Grandma rests, in the earth.

Leaving a world that never claimed her as its own.

Backwards tradition, left in the midst, of unsettled dust.