Forest

  Path July 26 2021 I stand in a long slow snake at the airport, Miles and miles until I sleep. My phone to my ear, I tell my mother “Life is a tree with burning roots and endless meaning. Everywhere I look I see a choice And find that I have lost my voice.” “I think life is a path,” she says. “One foot in front of the other.” In my forest the path winds through trees ablaze with white flame, pulsing spiderwebs strung from tree to tree like mycelium. One foot in front of the other. Then a cloud of stuffy cotton descends. Muffled sounds and hazy vision  I tear the fiber apart and crawl forward, One foot in front of the other. As the hour hand pulls me up, A sound ringing in the air, A candle in the snow, I hear myself laughing. I come back to a stream. In the clear water I see my face and know my name. I don’t ask my reflection for anything. I look up to a smiling face and outstretched arms That pull me Across the stream.

  I watch myself shift my eyes from side to side And feel words come to my lips Meaningful words Poetry And I look up to speak But hold them down Because last time they came They came and came and flooded Flooded until I choked as they came out, My eyes wide with fear, Clinging to a voice at the end of the phone In a screaming void of reality And then the words left with a sob Mired in a reality of embarrassment I shook my head to clear the fog But how could I speak when I had no thoughts? I tried to remember the sound of my own laugh, Waiting for the hour hand to lift me up. I look up to speak. Will you hold me down?

Dry Ocean A free writing exercise from around 2017 Like a tearing river of glass the rain drips down from the roof Like an invisible rainbow of curtain A red noise above the blue sky Mr. Sun shines down and the rain keeps falling but the plants are thirsty Towards the dry ocean the water flows over thirsty grass and thirsty people mouths open to the falling drops Eyes pen to the rising fog and rainbow Open weariness does not exist The rain melts it all away and people shout Fingers tingle and the cries of birds flash against pink sunset Dark but soft against the ombre Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar Her memories of tingling fingertips fade.

Change Little By Thea Clarkberg From an objective standpoint, Reality is subjective. You may be able to ceaselessly label an object or an atom or a particle or energy but at the end of the day, I can come up with another Facet to the gem of Reality. Tell me all your complicated theorems- I’d love to hear them- But at the quantum level, one particle can have two locations at the same time, If you label it by its spin. It’s called “wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.... stuff.” Reality can never be quantified as one or the other, but rather as a choice between many. A choice to look where you step,     a choice to turn a blind eye. A choice to listen to the silence,     a choice to be deaf to the cries of a child. A choice to feel pain,     a  choice to stiffen and become rigid to the wind of life against your skin. A choice to taste pure sweet water,     a choice to drown in the cloying sweetness of wine. A choice to smell the flowers and     a choice to walk past th

Wicked - some brief excerpts below By Thea Clarkberg They called us wicked and burned us at the stake. The stubborn ones, the “contentious” ones. The clever ones, The lonely ones. They called us wicked. The independent ones- Unmarried, Growing a garden of herbs. Walking alone at night, under the moonlight. They called us wicked. She forgot her place in the patriarchy, just for a little breath of power, and they called her Wicked. Back to the beginning. Back to a golden morning in April... Easter morning. The maple trees had all started to bloom. I was born at home, in the room that my mother still sleeps in. My mother tells me that When I was born, I opened my eyes, and Looked around the room Like I owned it. Elementary school. I was this little girl with blond pigtails who refused to wear pajamas and insisted on wearing a striped turtle neck and a pink corduroy dress for my school picture- the picture from kindergarten, where I have a black eye. So. Elementary school. Top of the

This is How I Survive A slithering sickly rattle Of cockroach chitin on stone Wet stale dungeon darkness Drips Echo I lay my golden hair back into Black gritty grime and the strands clump together, wet. Black spreads through my jeans like Ink in a glass of water. I let their bodies touch mine, Cold cockroach wings against my skin I close my eyes and feel them on my face, my lips. And I give my warmth freely, a release of breath, For I trust in my love of a tree. Clear water, white tile Ink in a glass in rewind Black swirls away And the water glows pearly With the light of the evening sun. I am still Still Falling in love takes time. Falling in love takes time. The last warm breath of the dying sun is here still As my pink lips kiss your beloved grey wood. The sunlight that lit up your new green leaves       And kissed my upturned face Is gone now. The moon stretches your arms into shadows That reach for me, silently, And I bow my head. Yo