Jen Hughes
Mercury
I am and always have been on the periphery
And every now and then I’m reminded that I’m ignored.
That I’m not the shining light people are drawn to
But the secondary thing that orbits it.
Just close enough to be obscured by something superior
Just close enough to feel the glow on my face
Not close enough to be enveloped into it.
Maybe it is a good thing
That my sense of self is of rock and not candlewax
That it doesn’t melt into People Who Seem More than me
Who are louder than me
I’m not a liquid metal,
Who drives people mad.
I’m not a lifeless rock
I’m so much more than that
I’m so much more than that
His
Beloved,
I was once a sinner man
No angel promised
Sorry eyes spoke not
My long nights lone
An empty bed. But persecuting
Private childhood secrets
Some blues I’ve had
Falling down on me like rain
Phenomenally
I met a Lady Poet
Too sentimental, and much too gentle
Someone to care
Exchanging dreams with
For fear of flying
Taking my chances in a dangerous world
I don’t tremble in your arms
Then can I greedily consume
Your laughter brave?
Grinning
In golden riot. Each day is
Going some place
On other worlds some
Masterchart of old ideas erased. The
Tender evening poignancies of
Love linger between
Your hands
Lay stretching until the dawn
And grinning still.
How long will
I hear again the laughter?
Those sweet excesses that
Screams, races my heart?
You, your brash insolent beauty
Brightening my days with the light in your eyes
Lying in green grass
But until I see you
Let me humbly say
I’ve never been so strong.
NOTE: With snippets from And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou (1986) reassembled with love by Jen Hughes on a late Thursday night in February 2016.
Hers
Play me a game like Blind Man’s Dance
Your hands easy
With a kind of
Peace
Love by nature exacts a pain
We, unaccustomed to courage,
Watch behind the curtains
I wait in silence
To stay between the unsung notes of night
Dreams are petted like
A psalm to love
Have I known your lips
Had I known that the heart
After a period of peace blooms
We can be. Be and be
Knowing something
Cascades of brilliance, astrally
Dare us new dreams, Columbus
Love arrives
I wait in silence
Beside you, prone
To liberate us to life.
NOTE: Made lovingly with snippets from Maya Angelou’s 1986 collection And Still I Rise plus poems Touched by An Angel, and When Great Trees Fall, viewed online. Reassembled into a cento in February 2016.