Category Archives: Poetry about women

Promises

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Promises

When we first made our promises, our hearts were young and gay,
and all the things we had in life we thought we would parlay
from good fortune freely given for which we’d never pay.

But though the sun that lulls us with its warming ray
does not always scorch the earth, certainly, it may,
and all the tender shoots of spring by autumn turn to hay.

And so it is with promises, no matter what you say.
What I’ve noticed about promises is that they melt away,
for those who live by promising sometimes have feet of clay.

Promises lightly given sometimes start to weigh
upon the minds of those who have held their fears at bay.
Such things may cause the truest heart later to turn fey.

The lives we take for granted, sure we’ll always be okay,
in the end life complicates by answering with “Nay.”
So what you want to share with me, please share by end of day.

The prompt word today was “Promises.”

Expert

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Expert

I used to be plucky, I used to be pert.
I used to pass muster in shorts or a skirt.
But lately my pert parts have just seemed to shift,
and various parts are in need of a lift.
Big tops are my saviors. Caftans are my friends––
obscuring my excesses, shielding my bends.
Back in my plucky days, I was a flirt,
but seduction is over now I’m an ex-pert!

 

The prompt today was “Expert.”

Flight of Fortune

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DSCF1303Flight of Fortune

Aisle seat in the third row–
a next door neighbor I do not know.
I put my seat belt on and then
look up to her all-knowing grin.
“May I tell your fortune?” is her request,
though it is not made at my behest.

A pastime really not my choosing,
still, with nothing more amusing
to pass the time, I give consent
and this is how our time is spent
in those first minutes of our flight,
until the ground is out of sight.

My fortune told, I sit and think,
ordering another drink,
pleased by some of her predictions
but finding others contradictions
to how I’ve planned my life to be.
I worry my fingers upon my knee.

Does she concoct or does she see
the lines that she relates to me?
Some things she mentions have happened, still,
I hope that others never will.
Yet I fear if I reject
the things she says, I might deflect
the good things so they’ll never be.
This is the choice that faces me.

Can the good that she foretold––
of feats accomplished and love and gold––
be accepted without the rest?
I want the warmly-feathered nest,
the stranger tall and dark and rich,
but I do not want all of her pitch.
The illness, sadness, loss of friends?
I don’t like how my fortune ends.

I press a coin into her hand,
take off my seat belt and quickly stand.
Perhaps if I just change my seat
and find a seatmate more discreet,
I’ll change my life as easily–
and react less queasily
to conversation that is not rife
with details of my future life!

 

Life Line:You’re on a long flight, and a palm reader sitting next to you insists she reads your palm. You hesitate, but agree. What does she tell you? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/life-line/

We Cannot Surrender Her

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We Cannot Surrender Her

 Try as I might, she will not go.
She sends me on to test the water
but remains on the shore.
Ankle deep and then no more.
Fingers trailing and then no more.
Having once found a false bottom,
she trusts no foothold.

The falling is the thing, I tell her,
yet she holds back from the fall.
Let me always be the one going down, I tell her.
I will always be the one bringing you up, she answers.
This is the role we alternate being the stand-in for.
What I want she keeps me from.
What she fears I pull her toward.

 Relax, I tell her,
but she fears what relaxation brings.
She cannot surrender herself.
I cannot be content until she does.
Twin sisters, we rail against each other, then hold hands.
Comforting. This is enough, she tells me.
Nothing is ever enough, I tell her.

This poem, written in yesterday’s session, loosely meets the prompt. It is about going places––that part of one’s self that wants to let go and that part that fears risk and needs to maintain safe control.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/the-wanderer/

Washing Up

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

Washing Up

The churning water brings them up.
The grounds of coffee in the cup
rise like saints to water’s top
while water runs, they do not stop.

I read their shapes like tea leaves now.
I see the future but know not how.
They swirl and change, revealing lives––
swarm like hornets from their hives.

The one I wait for comes unstuck,
careening towards his future luck.
The one that’s me caught in an eddy,
stuck for now, but holding steady.

Other remnants of finished meals––
carrot shards, potato peels––
rise up and circle, forming dreams.
Reality, or so it seems.

I see a heart and charm and lies,
a future lover in disguise,
a plane, a knoll, a tree-lined path,
a woman bound in senseless wrath.

She sends out waves that push you here––
the very thing that she most fears.
I know not who or where you are.
Are you near or are you far?

As all goes rushing down the drain,
I feel a sense of loss and pain.
And so I fill the sink again.
Will I see you one time more,
or was my vision only lore?

This poem was inspired by a comment chain on  Jane Basil’s blog. In reply to my last comment, she wrote:”You have just inspired me. When I read your comment I thought about the odd concepts writers come up with. If we didn’t think up strange plots, what would we write about? The answer came in a flash: washing up. We could write about washing up, or hanging curtains, or eating toast. I’m off to try to write a poem about washing up. Would writing about mundane activities make me boring,or odd? And is there something wrong with my thought processes?” I wrote back telling her I’d write a poem about washing up as well. This is mine and HERE is hers!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

“Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women”

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Message from Judy:  The quotation below in italics is copied from a message published on Facebook on July 7, 2015 by Charles Fishman. I am very pleased to say that my long narrative poem “Zauditu” will be included in the anthology “Veils, Halos and Shackles” that he mentions.

It’s been 31 months since Jyoti Singh Pandey was gang-raped on a private bus in Munirka, South Delhi. It was Jyoti’s rape & subsequent death from her injuries that moved Smita Sahay & me to set out on our mission: to collect & edit poems for a landmark anthology about the oppression of women & the essential need that women have for safety & empowerment. It’s been a long journey, & I’m so happy to report that *VEILS, HALOS, AND SHACKLES: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women* will be released by Kasva Press (Israel) in late April/early May 2016. I will be in Israel at that time to witness this milestone & to begin a reading tour in the Holy Land. In the meantime, I will help organize launch readings in the United States & some of the two dozen other countries where our contributors live. Smita will focus on scheduling launch readings in India.

 

This article by Sam Rappaz explains the incident and the overall state of women’s rights in India more fully. Please read it to acquaint yourself more fully with the horrendous act that led to Smita and Charles decision to assemble this women’s anthology:

https://tokillamimingbird.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/respectful-necessary-indias-daughter/