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
