Poetry: Waterproof

 

Oh Darling, How I love you

When you slip beneath the waves,

Curls swaying in the winter surf

Drift and sink, and rise no more.

In days gone by, I would have died

As I tried to pull you to the shore.

The siren song of being a hero

Bashing my head upon the rocks.

How I love you now, as you slide

Into the cool of the Kraken's embrace,

Many-tentacled, silent in the deep

Down where the sunbeams diffuse in tears.

How I want to dive, even now

To pull you by the wrist to the surface spray, 

Grasp you tight, kiss the life into your lips,

Rescue you with my mighty wrath.

Darling, rest easy, I will recall

With Rum and shanties, I will regale:

Tell the tale, how in the gale,

I let you drown to save my soul

10-9-2021

Poetry-The Other Side of the Coin

Fierce Warrior Mother

Sword and dagger, fists clenched

Against the world’s injustice

Run into the flames when others run out.

Sharp barbs fly from acid tongue

Defending and offending alike

Bristle and shoulder against the storm

Endure it when the brimstone rains.

But also, wounded healer

Living with losses that leave glacial craters

Untouchable places and unloved faces

Barely breathing sometimes.

Trying to embrace the grotesque

The inner wretch that sees no light

The pressing madness at the window

The burden of all that truth.

Some people can only handle one of me

They choose sides, adamantly demand

That I be only that-an avenging force

Or something they can save with love.

I live on the dancing edge of the coin

As it rolls toward uncertain ends.

Balanced with laughter and force of will

A world of wonder in my hands.

4-15-11

Poetry-Mirror Image

I sit in the bookstore coffee shop
Writing something so raw and true
That tears flow slow and unchecked
Into my corporate coffee.


Collecting myself and wiping my eye
I return to this world of dirt
Perception clearing, I look up
And see you, pen in hand, looking back.

Have you been writing about me?
My auburn hair in tangled curls
As I bents over my notebook, weeping
Silent, heedless, trance-like?

Does my pain only exist
In your world of fiction as a background piece?
Am I the peculiar detailed figure
Your protagonist notices before his path diverges?

I stretch, I yawn. You watch, you scribble.
Makes me want to pick my nose
Or scratch my ass to see if you follow,
To see how far I can take you with me.

Or could I stand and strip myself bare
Walk over to you and plant a kiss
On your astonished lips, and say
Thank you for seeing me at all?

4-5-11

Poetry: Fading

Fading

From dizzying heights I watch myself fade.

Falling out of your thoughts like a lost star.

No longer illuminating your world with love

I scarcely have a reason to shine.

You won’t forget me all at once,

But little by little you’ll think of me less

Until one day you’ll stop and wonder

When I last crossed your mind.

Maybe you’ll convince yourself

That I never loved you so fiercely

If I was able to walk away from you.

You might think it, but you’ll be wrong.

Inside my orbit, I burn and inward turn.

Despairing, I am a singularity.

My light can’t reach your lush blue world.

 And I’m forced to admit I no longer exist.

Please don’t believe such slander.

Though I fade in your mind you never leave mine.

My hand still reaches for yours in vain.

To offer safety and strength to you.

I may be  fading now.

I may seem translucent now.

I may seem far away now.

But I’m here, as close as a breath on your cheek.

Stacie Ferrante

6-28-10

Poetry-Dreaming of Trees

I dreamed I owned a giant house
With room enough for everything
And tall trees living monuments around it
With whole societies of fauna therein.

I dreamed my life was lush with love
And I took each step in validation
That my existence was cherished and adored
And that my love was returned full measure.

I dreamed about a sumptuous feast
Surrounded by loved ones with raised glasses
Toasting our good fortune in a golden sunset
Letting the air echo with our laughter.

I dreamed this, and on awakening,
I was suffering a terrible thirst.
I hungered for a loving touch on my skin.
I was alone in a hungry world.

The color drained from my vision.
So that all I could see was the black and white
Of my endless to do lists and mundane chores
To even gain a fraction of my dream.

I long for dreams and untroubled sleep
For a glimpse of what my Heaven holds
But equally, I dread the nightly shadows
That stretch long into my waking days.

Oh Pieta! Have pity on my soul!
Begone, Morpheus, and your tormenting visions!
Unless you are here to place the tools in my hand
And help me, to the temple build.

Unless these things can all be mine,
Unless I can earn them through my patient industry,
Don’t instill me with such hunger and longing,
So that every day I burn with want.

I can shine in gratitude, now, for all my blessings.
I will work harder, now, for the things I need.
For in my dreams, I am larger than life.
In my dreams, I am the authentic me.

Stacie Ferrante 2-26-10

Poetry-Grey Dove

Soft and grey, on branch of evergreen.

Your voice low and mournful in the morning stillness.

Sweet peace, perhaps in your avian heart

As you call the filtering dawn’s rays by name.

What do you long for? Such simple things.

Shelter from the rain and wind.

A place to anchor your downy bed.

And a future for your nascent progeny.

Only the spare economy of winter fruit

And rare desert dewdrops concern your consciousness

If they concern it at all, as you thrill to fly

Over the rooftops of worried men.

Stacie Ferrante

2-26-10

Poetry-A Fork in the Roman Road

In every soul there lies a mountain

Where Protean infants are left to die

But never perish, crying out

Until picked up and raised by wolves.

Lost causes, best laid plans laid waste

Our deformed and wretched thoughts

Unloved but undestroyable, untamed

Running a step behind us with snapping jaws.

Our lost children, our genius forsaken

With hands like claws that grasp at flesh

But angelic faces caked with clay

Begging to be remolded and remade.

What if there was love-spun silk

With which to make a winding sheet

To wrap around with ties that bind

And heal with soft-spoken incantations?

What if that bereft mountain pass

Was not a place to mourn and forget

But a place to dance and celebrate

Our incandescent, transcendent failures?

What if whatever our journey created

Were held sacred even if unfinished or grotesque?

What if the faces of all the Gods

Were reflected in perfect imperfections?

Could you embrace your fears with love

And feed them at the table next to your joys?

Would others hand you a cigar

To celebrate the birth of your disappointment?

If there were no bad outcomes

And every thought was safe to have

And every act was safe to try

Then the hell of self judgment falls.

Cradle your sweet tormented heart

For it is the hero of its own tale.

Soothe the brow of your weary world

For the universe can’t spin without it.

Each in turn, the foul and the fair

Deserve a measure of air and sky.

Soft breath or brimstone-laden deeds

Each needs love no matter how lost.

Perhaps all angels fallen and fine

Need to at least be able to try to fly.

And each may reach the height of their nature

Hearing a voice from whatever God cares.

If I can love my malformed pieces

And hold dark and light alike inside

So that shining through the shadows

I can project playful movement into the world.

If I can refrain from casting out my doubts

And embrace the days I weep with loss

Then I can see beauty even in the place

Where others go to lose themselves.

I can be whole: wretched and pure.

Saint and Sinner, blood and bone,

Desire and its sweet fulfillment

Content as a baby in welcoming arms.

Stacie Ferrante

12-29-09

Poetry-Talk to Me

Deep thinker, contemplate me.
Wonder what my opinion is
Ask my existential input
Help me sharpen the finer points.

Don't instruct me, lead me
Down ancient paths, into unlit caves
Spread light and find, perfectly preserved
Wordless art in the womb of the world.

Take my hand even as it grows,
Filling your palm but still willing to be held.
Beckon me to behold in watercolor hue
The Impressionism of your heart.

Ask me why the dogma chafes
And why I shrug off my small town church.
Keep welcoming me to the conversation
Even if I never change my mind.

Over tea and Mozart bend
In tete a tete in foreign tongues.
Buttered batard and charcuterie
Precious currant jam now lost in time.

Wisdom passed hand to hand
And whisper kisses on my fevered brow.
I need it now, as ever and as strong
As when I was bundled in old country wool.

Eternity is now, time swirls and slides.
Folding like croissant dough and hearth-warmed.
Is there some talisman to open my ear
So I hear beyond my faulty filter?

Even if I don't understand.
Even if I cry out in pain.
I yearn to hear you murmur softly.
Talk to me, just talk to me.

Stacie Ferrante
10-30-09

Poetry-Frail Flowering Words

They call it a rib cage so my heart can’t escape.
Trapped against straining strings, beating feebly,
Stretched against bonds that keep it from flying forth
In search of the cherished other, leaving its home.

Protest songs from a coal mine canary.
High and sweet, echoing into the deep.
Longing for fresh air, pure as dreaming,
Scented familiar and laced with memory.

Words woven, a gentle bower made,
Illusory as incense smoke wafted prayerfully.
Even scorched earth pressed to my lips
Tastes of home beneath the burning landscape.

Pole-star driven through shifting winds.
Reaching blindly to finger the raw edges
Gingerly binding, close the wound
Leaving a scar that rises as proud flesh.

My mind keeps touching that empty place
Like an old soldier with a missing limb.
No matter how gently I approach
It still startles like a filly at the starting gun.

Restless pacing and losing the race
Crying out from behind muscle and bone
Muffled but still clear enough to hear:
“Forget me not, I beat for thee.”

© Stacie Ferrante
6-22-09

Poetry-Evolve/Devolve

Evolve/Devolve

Current swollen, rushing, amniotic

Carry downstream over rocks and roots.

With springtime glacier melt, bank breaching.

Cries of loons as the cutthroats jump.

Lacking paddle, upstream swimming

Habit-formed fight, bereft of control

Limbs burning under freezing foam

Before letting go to avoid going under.

Free-floating, like falling sideways

Through mossy shores and windswept boughs.

Uncharted wilds that stir with life:

Whitetail hoof beats, grizzly’s paw print.

Current-carried, is this my destination?

Do I climb out and shake like a wolf in the sun,

Or float a little longer hoping for a better view

And let the river carry me, perhaps to the sea?

Devolving in the delta, grow fins and gills.

Submerge and fill my lungs, dark and cool.

Into the mysterious briny deep swim faster

Iridescent tail fluke the last thing you see.

© Stacie Ferrante

5-6-09

Poetry-Drink Me

Drink Me

Waves crash in tidal relentlessness

Grind me into fine white sand.

Emotions blend so that one to the next

Flows , teeming with life in between grains.

Churn me now so even I can’t say

Whether I am animal, vegetable, mineral.

Am I sea or storm-swept sky?

Am I plankton or vast blue whale?

Am I fierce avenging God,

Or trembling sack of sinful flesh?

Am I my good intention’s deeds,

Or a cork tossed while the message bottle sinks?

Can I contain all, be all?

Be shells and mollusks, crab and coral?

Be the moon’s seductive pull

And the battered cliffs at the water’s edge.

Scoop me into a jar and prize me.

Sift my being for the valuable effluvia.

Crucible those contents that will serve

To blow some glass for your banquet table.

Into that crystal goblet pour hopes

To overflowing, and bitter poison too.

And love, love everlasting and pure,

Until the drink tastes of life, and of tears.

© Stacie Ferrante

4-25-09