Janet Wilson

Rapture

Memories of you are carved
into my heart with indigo
and slices of rose-colored
sunsets. Tempered with
pearlized moons your image
is engraved forever in my soul.

schizophrenia

life without words
words without song
song rife with feeling
feeling seems all wrong
time for emotion
emotions tags along
to a song rife with feeling
but the feeling seems all wrong

Luckey's Club Cigar Shop

(mirror cinquain)

Rhythmic
Beat. Petulant
Sax floats through the velvet
Fog. Lazy notes hang, harmonic
Voices
Belt the blues with hints of gospel.
A deep throated bass fills
The room, warm notes
Dancing.

On the Existence of Whitecaps

The mouth.
A treacherous and beckoning
surface with caps of froth
writhing in oceanic blue.
I sit, staring, as I'm drawn
closer to the gaping hole.

Try as I might, the
strength of these tows
overpower my small self,
pulling me closer and closer
to the dividing line between
innocent and tainted,
protected and wild. Bounding between
valleys of blue-green and peaks
of white linen, I fear being
clenched in the yawning maw,
losing my battle for freedom.

The struggle now turns to a dance
with death as peaks and valleys
turn upside down, and I can no longer
feel the cold, white breath of life.
Drowning in sea, fighting an upward
current away from the depths, I lose
and drift, spiraling away from
consciousness, from my spirit, into
the murky garden below. Icy fingers
grab my soul, leaving the shell to
erode into the sandy bottom.

Quoting Janet: "I was born in Seattle, living and working there until 1990, when I decided the time had come to follow my bliss. I moved to the Oregon Coast, knowing if I could see the ocean when I got up every morning and hear it when I went to bed every night, I could handle anything. After losing my car in the widespread flooding Tillamook County had in 1996, I was forced to back to Seattle for a few years. In 2001 I finally was able to return to my ocean, where I now reside with Bruno, my wonderful kitty. I spend my time writing, taking photographs and creating mosaics with beach glass. At 50 I am going to college for the first time, and hope to receive my BS in Human Services within two years."