Darlene Zagata

Comic Strip

We met one evening when
your brother invited me to dinner.
I wasn't impressed by your charm
but you reeled me in quickly with
your contagious sense of humor.


You made me laugh and
that was an accomplishment
since I didn't find too much
of anything very amusing.


You drove all the way to town
stopped by my apartment and said
you just happened to be in the neighborhood
and could you bum a cigarette.


I knew you didn't smoke so
I turned my head to giggle when
you lit it up and turned green
like the color of dying grass
amidst the changing seasons.


Even then, choking and coughing
you laughed at your own embarrassment.


After you joked your way into
my life, my heart and my bed
we spent seven years on the comic strip
then threw it all away.


The worst part of it is..
you're still the one laughing.

Frail Pottery

I feel your presence everywhere.
Your scent lingers in the emptiness
where grey illness clung onto
every pore of wrinkled skin.


I see your reflection in my mirror.
Your strands of salt and pepper hair
still in the silver-handled brush.
I feel the shadow of your touch.


Words out of place in present time.
Worn out threads of memory
disembarked from clarity.
I hunger for what used to be.


This aging flesh of time's ascent-
a frail vessel's cracked pottery.
weathered by the blowing wind.
takes my thoughts to you again.

Frozen World

I look out the window at
a frozen, barren world.
It was just spring yesterday.


The sky descends in innocence
naked in it's stark white skin
as the wind howls outside the door
waiting like a ravenous wolf.


Tree limbs against an ivory background
reach out like fingers of the dead
to grasp at the final remnants of life.


Sad beauty takes a momentary pause
breathing in the stillness of cool slumber
wondering if spring will be back tomorrow.

Lost

Lost among thunder's voice,
searching for the truth she seeks.
Inside each lightning flash
she feels the bloodless energy
coarsing through her angry veins.


She is anger wrapped in beauty
performing on a crowded stage
lost among the sea of faces
grasping remnants of herself.


Life's become a rescue mission
searching for the pieces lost.
Remnants of what used to be.
Scattered dust upon the wind.

Mistakes

Mouth opened, teeth clenched
ready and waiting for the prey.
I feel helpless as bits of flesh
fall into their pointed beaks.


They ascend with the flap of a wing
only to swoop down again,
these vultures of consciousness.


I grind my teeth with ineptitude.
My head aches with "I'm sorry."
Held hostage by my mistakes,
I succumb to my captors as
they feed from the flesh of my regret.


How many lifetimes shall I live
in order to amend the past,
losing a bit more of myself
in each revolution of destiny?


My sorrow fills the flask of time
dripping over with fullness.
Shall I drown in the water of remorse
consumed by the fire of my own heart?


I look for deliverance yet
even that which emerges from
the cocoon of life ignites a fear
with which I can't contend.


Let the beasts of prey
feast on the heart in turmoil
until peace is finally found.
The past banished to oblivion.

Paper Doll

It seems like just yesterday that I
was playing on the living room floor
with barbie dolls and paper dolls
and those colorforms I loved so much.


You were there doing your best
as you always did-scraping at
plans of existence one day to the next,
reading the newspaper's black print
against yellow wallpaper and coffee stains.


And she was doing the dishes
praying soap suds, rinsing plastic
lives down the drain, rubbing dry
her hands, reached for the rosary beads
and returned to praying.


She would come back from berry picking
trudge across the field, tin pail in her hand
scarf knotted around her head like the day's
problems wrapped around her heart.
You would laugh; so would she.


The dolls whispered to me about the hardness of life
about the goodness-- what I was destined for.


But I didn't understand then,
her legacy--my legacy.
The dolls and I, we were content.


You're gone now and she lies
trapped in a paper body, like the dolls
in that plastic world of semi-reality.


I stand at the sink rinsing and praying
reaching for the past, fearing the present,
hoping for a future but I know now
my world is a memory
and I am a paper doll.

Darlene Zagata is a struggling writer, poet and mother of four children and two young grandchildren. Her work has appeared in several publications both electronic and print. She has also had work published in various anthologies. Darlene is a columnist for Child Care Magazine, editor of the Health department at RITRO.com and she co-authors a column with her son for Raising A Son.com. She is the editor of Thought Fragments, a poetry ezine for the new and emerging poet.