perceptions fall 2004

women's poetry for a change

issue # 62 fall 2004

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when you take the cross away from jesus, he looks like he's flying
temi rose

the weight of memory and past defeat overwhelms

a sunny Sunday
i live near a church
bells ring and remind me of the heinous and the glorious
childhood. adolescence. maternity.
well within the range of normal, filled with torment and poverty
is this our world?
excellence forgotten a mass of indifference and greed

what makes the world heavy on me today?
turgid, stagnant romances ache
unshed bliss
send me home alone
unveil it
dawn empty
wander without meaning to the end of all beginnings
and not a christmas light in sight
no new flowers budding in soft dewy spring sunshines
no wind caressing
all money mammon mammoth
refusal
tickling transcendence
music a shallow conduit but sound makes it possible to continue
tempt me
contemplate love, peace, romance, happiness, and forgiveness
hope makes it ok
temptation - the only worthwhile exploration
love - the vastest, most irredeemable temptation
chance transcendence
hail the heinous
the glorious
temptations all
temi rose

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	hope is gone all i ever hoped for - gone possibility dies here is there a way to live i can learn every step on shards of glass shredding my intestines bursting from horror if i had not loved him it's inconceivable - to see him was to love him an ecstatic reality i lived on an island friends and lovers were easy on me i was aaking's daughter but i never felt my power til i saw him standing there the sun shining on his shoulders all i could be was to fall inside his shoulders into his heart lifted carried - he smiled every gesture my hopefulness when he kissed me when we lay together he showed me a depth in me a spirit of wild hunger i would do anything for him and he he never said he would do anything for me he said i could come with him and then my will vanished don't blame him i did the killing he took the spoils the texture is he never loved me i see that feel its devastation now temi rose
					bits of glass turn up in the yard religiously along the path and they remind me as i gently lift them to the waste basket away from my daughter's tiny little feet they remind me of all the times i didn't slit my wrists temi rose

					hopelessly grey, he said really? she said absolutely. no solutions should we just die then? she said i don't see why not, he said there really isn't much to live for if it's all about consumption and dress up ending up achingly, wretchedly alone inhabiting a series of social rituals avoiding taboos discovering nothing sharing the creation of nothing same old more of the same old shit temi rose




		Mars Café: Out of this World better than church bells ringing three corned beef hash with rye two up and one over easy butter please, on the side three good friends awaiting breakfast on Sunday the weather snowing and blowing the extent scarcely to be borne still, the church on one side chiding, beckoning to bless out of this world! On the other just the same more or less it's the food of life or Jesus Mars Café comes with coffee and cream the other, 2000 years stale eat up and continue your dream 2000 years of selling the payment, heaven or hell no changes please on the menu leave a tip and you've paid your bill Eleanor Kodofsky
	this feels like loneliness silent sitting dark press my heart strange juices flood my chest rise eyes swell overflow temi rose

Innocence Betrayed my mind is scarred with thousands of whips each time this thought eclipsed my youth the sight by accident sown for i was afraid to be in the house alone and lifting the trap in the attic door observed, unnoticed the act of a thousand years and more a helpless head held down and innocence mown a flower 'neath a scythe as he did rise - and she did moan - to be free as he in rhythm in her mouth did come i closed the trap backed down the stairs wondering why I didn't speak how do children sense wrong knowledge by instinct when havoc wreaks? Eleanor Kodofsky

			A Man is my Enemy i cannot stroll the streets of the city in which I was born fear prowls me when I leave my car i am never safe. I am a target my fear does not lie on the chance some tiger will leap on me man is my enemy man with his secret weapon cocked i fear this weapon that gluts the egos of men towering over cowering women destroyers of dignity, home, children the innate rapist each man is Eleanor Kodofsky




Civilization 1945 don't picture the shallow grave of human bones bulldozed in mass graves people caught in the maelstrom of a country at war a different form of justice gas, bullets, or having too many dead falling, suffocating the only-wounded to death don't imagine the stench the polluting flesh don't think of the grimacing skulls think of the flame of literature music, art, philosophy all of the culture in graves that will never come to life Eleanor Kodofsky
		this is a silly em remember ... the song starts here a coupla things tips if ur interested if not don't read on intimacy is not a monologue intimacy is not two monologues intimacy is not dialogue intimacy is not intercourse, verbal, financial or body fluidical intimacy is not balanced intimacy is not cold intimacy is companionship intimacy is private intimacy is meaning-full to the parties involved people in intimacy are partying in it intimacy is the aura of the party of the intimates so even tho fallen from paradise we must work to create the energy that becomes the aura the shadow and the dewy radiance encompassing embracing once created intimacy self-sustains maintains the intimates within its living room who - turning replenish their world with energy mingling intimacy is the ecology of growing people take it easy baby love is fundamental temi rose

	marriage is a miserable bargain for women on the other hand highly recommended without reservation to men what does the word marriage mean? a bond? a promise? uniting? i think a true tourney of endurance Eleanor Kodofsky




	Disease and Armaments how much atrocity before mankind destroys our world genocide, disease - uncontrollable famine - uncontrollable men - not primitive not military ordinary domesticated men cramming courts jails, for brutal abuse rape, murder - uncontrollable judges, police helpless in the flood of intrinsic human hatred - uncontrollable philosophers, authors, painters, composers, explorers the people of the past who made this world beautiful worked for no purpose there is no reason for the precipitous spread of the proportions of destruction to which this planet is insidiously planned for death Eleanor Kodofsky
you gotta do what you gotta do if I knew how to say what I wanted to say i would say it the thing is i don't know how to say it maybe it's because of all those people who kept telling me to shut up go away you make us uncomfortable the way you talk girls aren't supposed to be smart but when i make myself stupid i get sick and i don't like being sick it's lonely and i've done it a lot but i got smarter healthier now it's even worse fewer people want to talk to me socialized out of their senses worried about how smart they are i wonder if i'd feel differently about intelligence if i were stupid temi rose

		he desires a love he cannot be in love do not pass go do not exist in a state of loving a state of profound acceptance of mutuality murderers sever that connection abusers predators bullies temi rose




					Woman of Courage i never met this beautiful woman in the photograph her arms outflung head thrown back the wind catching her hair all glorious abandon this woman's naked body two unmatched hemispheres one pearl pink skin a swelling roseola cresting to a red tipped nipple arms outflung her other breast bared not mated mutilated scar tissue decorated - now with a painted bough only one woman not my sister all of my sisters a façade only one woman a charade arms outflung exposing avaricious science with a killing license arms outflung exulting courage - life arms outflung defying the billions of dollars to secret the cure for cancer arms outflung provoking the humiliation the bed, the dread the love-make-believe pity? hatred? women have no use for lackeys women of courage have borne all of mankind arms outflung she embraces us all she lives Eleanor Kodofsky
	How do i really feel? how do i really feel when you blame me how do i really feel when you shame me how do i really feel when you threaten me how do i really feel when you talk about my cunt my breasts, my person or my child? i feel afraid, i feel threatened, blamed and shamed and i don't like it i walk away wander into a private world of friends my heart reaches out then i must go outside meet the real world again my hand on a cool brass doorknob a black boot in my belly i fall writhe past becoming afraid i am terror terrorized by the look in your eyes i no longer trust i don't reach for too much i can be part of your support system, why can't you be part of mine? he wants to trade things for love i try to explain, we become lost in counter explanations i am beginning to feel he should find himself a woman who can be bought and buy her and then when those needs are satisfied - maybe - we can be friends i wasn't born to be a masturbation device i wasn't born to be nice i think i've been born more than twice i'm not made of sugar not made of spice i eat brown rice the puerto rican men play dice on Saturdays they play the radio and kids get dirty and their wives drinks beer and everyone knows there will be sex tonight and fighting too temi rose




	i thought you were a poem i thought you were my destiny i thought we would be together in every way every day and then i became your lover no longer a friend only a woman to fuck no longer a pal no gossiping, confiding or adventuring just your woman, no longer your friend temi rose		it's darker than usual tonight bad news floating in with the tide remains debris and sand between my toes i must allow myself to function even though it is darker than usual tonight and i am alone temi rose

dearest obstacle obviate, obfuscate me into the ashes a phoenix could be born from relieve me of the strain of standing on the edge of the abyss on tippy toe let me wander in fields of bliss - i can imagine the rest i can't inhabit heaven inside this hell we have constructed a vast monument to insurmountable torture no one wishes to realize themselves everyone hopes for annihilation so much quicker to conclusion not life with its torturously long development of story times everyone hopes for annihilation if not for themselves then for someone else if only they were gone if i only i did not have to feel this pain no longer wounded but dead temi rose
		circumstantial evidence apparently not enough but that's all i have to relate the circumstances of my life perhaps they were my fate does it matter for the story's telling whether it's the truth or a lie? a story's nature is to be believable like a river it follows the path of least resistance like a river it must sings like a river it supports life like a river it destroys life like a river it flows from its source to the see stories too closely defined stories which exculpate, alienate and terrify the authentic in a person til consciousness is a jumble of unmet needs and inhibited desires temi rose




I weep as women weep as if the whole world were bleeding floods of noisy sobs hot violent shocked tears the face working the eyes blank, wet, staring not the pain of a woman crying no it is the finality of the acceptance of wrong Eleanor Kodofsky
		5760 the stirring of a new maelstrom in my 6000 year old bones continuing cycles the rage of the bigot a clerisy of judiciary, politicians, ecclesiastics has advanced the world in mastering war, destruction, rape starvation, genocide murder, terror harsh words creating vitality on prime time too much time has passed the young men of many lands bored, bursting with blood spread the malignancy now their moment in time to abominate kill man, woman or child run wild, rampant, crazed revive horror, atrocity the accursed forever damned male-volent my six thousand year old bones Eleanor Kodofsky

	Abortion bring four hundred one dollar bills! a sum of money i could nowhere find i cried til i thought i was blind for twenty years i had produced babies my youngest in months my sons in their teens i loved them all i knew it was enough i sold and borrowed finally had all it took except courage i came to the door knocked twice on the table again in stirrups my legs spread i remained very still my body, speculum-opened waiting one cut, forty-five seconds i knew it was enough what came away after days of pain and dread was a conglomerated mass already dead Eleanor Kodofsky