Issue 9
December 2001
Phyllis Jean Greene
Phyllis Jean Green's poetry has appeared in over 100 publications, including Buffalo Spree, Paper Radio, Impetus, Sulphur River LR, Floating Holiday, Sensations, Wordwrights!, Moonwort Review, Three Candles, and The Book Lover's Haven. American Literary Magazine awarded the Sensations' Coney Island Issue in which her two prize-winning [1st & 3rd] long-poems appeared a first-of-category in 1998. They have since been performed in 22 American states. Phyllis is the author of Spinning Straw: the Jeff Apple Story [Diverse City Press, 1999] and Associate Editor of L'Intrigue, and "was lucky enough to be chosen to edit Peter Tomassi's book, Mixing Cement [Thunder Rain, 2000]". She invites us to join her at her interactive educational site, CREATED EQUAL @http://www.spinningstraw.com.
Tree Shadows
play at being ballerinas.
Whisper-whisper-whisper.
Delicate net graces their limbs.
Whisper-whis--. . .shhhhhhh.
Someones coming.
Mustnt mustnt let them see.
They will want to take our music
and replace it with shouts.
Think us wrong to follow nature.
That we should all stand like deadwood
until grace and rhythm play out
and a plant is nothing but a plant,
creature even less.
Oh how lovely the light is.
Oh how soft the day.
Let us glide always
across the fairness
of this sweet green stage.
Always hold hands
and tiptoe the polka dots
light and shadow display.
For this is the only heaven
where ballerinas dance.
Shhhhhhhhhh
Count on It
We walk about, counting
on the ground to hold still.
On the sky to stay up.
On the moon to talk to the tides.
On the stars, on the sun.
So we fall.
Friends only count
on each other.
Some among us cannot walk
or remember numbers.
Others have been torn
by rages. More
limp for fear their feelings
will be stamped sentimental
by to-be-pitied lemmings
who can only make fun.
Friends:
if we sometimes fail
to help each other,
we suffer the attempt.
Do our best to make up
knowing that when the ground folds
and the sky and the moon
and the stars and the sun,
we are all.
Coming 'round
Shuffling into a soft summer night
sweetened by every petal
of ninety-year-old gardenias
who grizzled and drooping though they are
still knew how to glow,
and the gentle tapping of an overdue shower,
Something in me shifts.
Maybe, a breeze whispers,
life is worth fighting for, after all.
When the first star parts the lace
knitted by maples lean with age,
it lights a space I had no idea
was still for rent within.
As the rain begins falling for real
so, at last, do my tears.
Rain as Long as You Like
I ache for the steadiness
of a good, long rain.
For the cover it provides.
Sun glares with silent contempt
but rain makes a racket
so tears have someplace to hide.
Hums a lullaby so insistent
thought ceases straining
and whispers along.
Sun sports yellow, red or orange.
Rain allows you grey.
I love the way it taps
between sighs. Pounds sudden,
drumming rages that shake
the ground fresh. Love
its shushing, but most of all
that it promises not to drown
all the way. Unlike some
it would be easy to name,
knows that coming back
is the sign of a good song..
Changing Philosophies
Not every sadness washes off,
but nature knows how to air and bathe
our wounds. Old scars
are not just tough, they are magnets
for the kind of shell that staves off
rape. Going back inside,
strong dark wood spines me tall.
Sight and hearing are back
and the scent I have on is a knock-out.