The Poetry of Maureen Neville

Maureen Neville lives and works in New Jersey near the Delaware River with her two cats. Off and on since 1978 she has intermittently joined with other writers and performance artists in producing and contributing to a performance troupe, readings, film series, and mail art/literary newsletters. A fan of quotations, her most recent favorite is Greta Garbo's statement "life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it."

Resurrection Cancelled

This year there is no
awakening, only the
stubborn remains-a stale
crust of bread and the
sour, too warm juice of
sorrow spilled on a mournful feast.
The hostess sits in the corner,
no ecstasy of her dark dress
swirling around her.
Outside the earth's landscape
even shuns spring's start.
The Gothic pathos, the
incessant brooding and mindfulness
leaves you astonished. Now it's
my turn-were you also
hoping for the dawn?

Hers

(Dedicated to JK)

Little Miss Firecracker
in the Saturday sun
beamed in her star
spangled beaded leotard,
shiny iridescent cape, and
white boots.
Purposefully she grabbed
the back ladder rings
and jumped aboard the
truck as it
pulled away from
the simmering station
(unconcerned about highway patrol
she wanted a ride
free from taunting
conversation and audible smirks).
Her concern was now strength-
would she be able to hold on,
soaring down the interstate,
the open road rolling
beneath her at 65 miles per hour?
Fortunately the circus man on
the trapeze had trained
her well, her legs and
arms strong from
the swing and the grip.
Slowly the truck gathered
speed, a shining silver
bullet moving past
the concrete overpasses,
the golden arches,
the shaded rest areas,
the suburban Moms in Land Rovers
carrying soccer kids, and
the rooftops of shopping centers
and mall America.
The spirit of George M. Cohen,
a Yankee Doodle legacy,
rushed through her veins-
with one arm and leg extended
she performed as a highway acrobat
for all her fellow travelers to behold.
With the sky and the land providing
rebirth, she hungrily swallowed
the enveloping air as her thirst for
freedom washed over and over and over her,
a testament to the exuberance of this, her life,
and the life "on the road."

Still Another Counting

It must offer consolation-
one-two-three and
on and on.
Funny it seems to happen
where there is the
most uncertainty,
when the dance of life
is interrupted, an
unexpected detour in
a familiar route,
when moving around the periphery
of a situation
we have been thrown off course.
And so the left brain takes over
and mathematics is the rescuer,
an anchor in a world
that provides none.
Later, we begin to think that
as we dance and then count,
we find in abstract
precision relief.
And as we dance and as
we count we also see.
Is this a truth amidst
the movement of this life?

Another After

After I am gone, you said, I want no tears on my grave.
And now, I sit here, pen in hand, and think of how it could've
been different.
How could it have been? the one voice asks. All her decks
were stacked.
Time, there was never enough of it, and time, it brought hidden
illness, and time,
there was always plenty of it that we wasted.

Too much of my own self-immersion, maybe that's what it was.
I didn't see where you were, where you might've been, where nothing
and everything was going to take you.
I didn't think of you that often because you were always there.
"Mothers are like that, yeah, they are"-what a slogan.

You were never Wonder Bread or Donna Reed or Debbie Reynolds.
Stronger than your iron industrial Midwestern roots, you
escaped.
While mortally wounded by commitment and love, you cautiously
embraced a new life.
Your journey was long and hard and often sad, yet you found
laughter in something odd or endearing or absurd.
In the final days it was my depression that drowned your hope,
your daughter sunken on a life raft you tried to build,
her stupidity perhaps outweighing all prayer for rescue.

Time, there was never enough of it, and time, it brought hidden
illness, and time,
there was always plenty of it that we wasted.

Untitled

The dark line,
there it is
far away.
I look, I remember.
In it I spent
many months-
did the others know?
It was the despair, the cry,
the leap, the drowning,
Better now, I know
it looms still.
Many, sadly,
know its doom.

The dark line,
there it is
far away.
I look. I remember.
Some people see its
emergence, flee somehow
before it strikes
or when it hits.
Some run towards it,
nearly embracing,
then charge at it
with all their
strength against it-
some win this way.
Others, weary,
succumb and their life
force is swallowed whole.
Myself, a coward, I do
not rage enough-
instead I bray pathetically at
an innocent bystander,
a bully in sheep's attire,
not knowing how to
feel the muscle of integrity.

The dark line,
there it is
far away.
I look. I remember
a life time caught
in it clutches.

© Maureen Neville 1994-1999

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