The Poetry Of...
Anita Dahlman...............................................
legion
swept away are the shrugs of bravado,
succumbing to a weight never reckoned
on, a power of insane proportion
came screeching to a town of charm
and intrigue, peopled with the hard and fast,
boozers, gamblers, louts, the innocent alike,
all punished and strewn by a repugnancy
never envisioned, with a blind eye
and rapacious lust for sullen destruction:
the fragile newborn, the hapless elderly,
helpless indigents, the souls long
before laid to rest above ground,
all are now reduced in a stewing
sludge, trampled beyond recognition,
smeared over sodden miles,
where a beguiling city once fanned
out her lace and mystery, corrupt
in secret corners, but sweet, sweet
to touch, once tasted, quickly addictive,
an opiate at once desultory and refreshing
now scoured to nothing, scoured
but not clean, only more thoroughly
haunted by this squalling visitation,
upchurning the dead to die again
and granting habitation only
to tortured souls, who surely will
be heard for centuries, wailing,
with every wind, for their homes,
where even the homeless no longer
claim any street in a city
so lost.
Diva
364 days separate two
who might have been twins,
easily, towheaded, tousled
by sunlight, scampering pixies
delighted in the simple undressed
effort of skivvies and bare chests,
one shrieking like a caged valkyrie
testing scrawny wings,
one quietly unassuming, content
at play in a cardboard box
the other, roustabout, hell-
raiser even at that tender age
knowing every devious trick
that ever walked the boards
of theater and bathos —
look at ME! tragic waif,
little monkey, clown and noise-
maker, muckraker, willing to strip
down to bare skin, show ‘n tell
all giggles and gewgaws, upstaging
the quiet little mistress of the sun,
serene and wiser, little big sister —
biding her time—
and look! look!
which one remains
caged.
lullaby
I have planted seeds in coarse soils,
embedded among knotted roots
broken off from where life grew,
never remembering just when
each tiny unfolding began,
or how, or the place where life grew,
in countless beds, I have lain
down beside forgotten bodies
heedless and headlong where life grew
I tended nursery beds and sang
lullabies to their deep rest,
nestled in the roots where life grew
beneath my spade, twisting, tangled
roots, yielding in the evening
secret gardens, where life grew
from deep and unknown seed,
disembodied souls, gasping in the air,
would claim the light where life grew
