My red lipstick explains
shyly,
she is not annoyed;
she is afraid.
Afraid I will permanently abandon
her, and my rings,
and the new dress fluttering on its hanger.
Now –
and for all the roiling days
masked in the fog
of an un-normal future.
Author: joanvinallcox
Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, rabid reader and poet who has taught in both the college and university systems.
Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia.
She is a widow from a happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter.
Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry
My Red Lipstick
My red lipstick is annoyed,
muttering behind my mask,
wanting an escape.
Layered
I glance at the dead squirrel by the curb
and think of sparrows …
falling.
God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets His tender view;
If God so loves the little ones,
I know He loves me, too.
We are layered, like the crumbling red rock
cliffside with paths
by the creek of my childhood,
like the flat chunks of
shale scavenged by my parents
to create the high backyard wall.
We are layered,
DNA and birth order threaded through
the earth of our birthplace,
the winds and rains of our times,
the maps our minds draw
to trace our path to the barriers
that contain us.
We are layered
wearing rock-filled backpacks
we strain blindly to reach into,
trying to pull out
the easy changes hidden
and twinned with
the deep-rooted invasive
infective twists.
We are layered:
the work of living
tripping us, shackling
our hopes for freedom
and joy,
as we pray for the tender view
of a sparrow-watching God.
When I Lost Myself
When I lost myself:
I am extinct.
No part of me goes forward.
I am ashes
Underground.
My stories silenced.
My mutating memories
dismissed.
My sorrows and joys erased:
blankness bracketing grief.
When I First Returned
My death still bled
into a suppurating
numbness,
and terror.
It didn’t feel like a choice:
study the wound
or disappear.
I agreed to look.
Now
I stand beside the river
I came from and will return to;
I look into it,
still learning to swim.
The Memory of Smoke
The burn of the morning sun,
the memory of smoke
soften my shoulders
as I walk past,
not thinking of death
yet,
till
one almost resembling
the one I knew
(years ago, in my youth),
walks by, and
my memory blurs
as though I see through tears.
“I Am”
Remnants of other lives
invade, infest, infuse my life,
enlighten me, cling to me.
drag me down, lift me up,
surround me.
I persist
pushing the furniture
of my past,
clearing space
so I can see.
We Are Temporary
We are temporary,
fragile and vulnerable,
compelled to walk forward
in this dark culvert,
death ahead and daylight behind,
with only a small light, and
everything that we are.
***
*Composed after watching “Cardinal”, a series based on Giles Blunt’s Novels
Drifting: A Liminal Space
I find myself lost again struggling for breath in a closed up car, riding on a road not yet built invisible between two cities The undrawn map - (and breath) take shape in the dark, outlined by the headlights. The search party won't come until I am found
from Mapping The Wilderness
The Dreams I Don’t Remember
The dreams I don’t remember
disturb me:
my mother’s mink coat,
thrown on the floor,
over something.
That lover in the closet,
offering disinterested kindnesses.
The flowered skirt
I never wore.
All memories of failures
or escapes.
What Do I Believe / Know
| What do I know to be true? Hmmm… Love exists and is more than chemistry and convenience, although those can help start or reinforce it. You never know what will happen next in your life, no matter how much you try to control it. Other people are endlessly mysterious, no matter how well you think you know them. Cruelty, both unconsciously and consciously intended, is real and dangerous to both the causer and the victim. Everyone suffers sometime, and some people frequently. You never fully understand someone else’s experience of the world. What do I believe? Hmmm… How you feel about yourself correlates with how you feel about others. You can never know for sure what is true in life, but you can chose to experience life through the lens of what you believe to be true. You can never know for sure what “God” actually means, but you can chose to live “as if” “God” is “real”, because your life will be better lived that way. |
