Outside The Lines,

A literary column,

By Marcia Diane

No takers. No surprise. Folks are shy to display their talents. We will continue to offer this space to the wealth of creative readers out there. We know you are out there.

So then if the very young among us will be patient for this month…I am going to feature a poet who I found in an anthology entitled: When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. Her name is Michele Wolf. The poem first appeared in Conversations During Sleep, a chapbook here described by the poet:

“Does it have a spine?” the bookseller

Chided, reluctant to stock a collection

With less evident heft than its stonier kin.

“It has a thin but determined spine,

Staple-bound,” I replied. “It stands

On its own. And when you open it, its mottled

White wings will carry you, high on that spine,

Across echoing, dry-river canyons riddled

With petroglyphs, beyond hidden cabins

Dotting tree-glutted mountaintops, a gray spired

City indulgent to street-corner marionettists

And blaring traffic that hugs the square,

Until it lands you, past miles of sea as subtle

As twilight, upon your doorstep, with your

Heart wanting to open its spare room

To strangers, everything crisp.”

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For My Mother

I sharpen more and more to your

Likeness every year, your mirror

In height, autonomous

Flying cloud of hair,

In torso, curve of the leg,

In high-arched, prim, meticulous

Feet. I watch my aging face,

In a speeding time lapse,

Become yours. Notice the eyes,

Their heavy inherited sadness,

The inertia that sags the cheeks,

The sense of limits that sets

The groves along the mouth.

Grip my hand.

Let me show you the way

To revolt against what

We are born to,

To bash through the walls,

To burn a warning torch

In the darkness,

To leave home.

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Read her here: Michele Wolf: The Poetry Foundation

And in the spirit of full disclosure or exposure here’s one of mine.

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Border Lands

In a remote area

only rusting orange posts

and sagging barbed wire

mark our idea

of division

The mountain range

across which we’ve cut

this path renders our

efforts insignificant.

Flowing upward

over and down

for all time

belonging inexorably

to themselves.

M. Diane

@6.9.15

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Ok, now you try…we’re waiting on you. Send a sample of your work to us at:

m.diane.writeon@gmail.com