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Poems from Dirt Sandwich (Press 53)

 

Appeared in VERSE DAILY:

http://www.versedaily.org/2009/aboutlindaannasfergusonds.shtml

and Nominated for Pushcart Prize

 

Journey
                See, I am making all things new....
                        Revelations 21:5
 

I see the world from behind two blades,
windshield wipers that never quite clean
the crust of an insect or let go
of a piece of leaf caught in the hinge.
The clock on the dashboard is wrong.

Music from the radio keeps time
with the rain, never breaking rhythm,
raspy song of rubber, fast on the highway.
Chi my journey, you are a distant place,
the road empty of others. I pass the dark

buildings, vacant lots; listen to my breath,
block out the pounding sounds
on the pavement, hear my own heart beat.
I know the feeling of being inside,
inside the lamplight beginning to burn

as I turn the corner of your street, inside
the cool walls of your bedroom, inside
the heat of the 40-watt bulb by your head
inside the skin of your sheets, inside
the space between desire and sleep, where

all that is fragile has entered you, spread
across your flesh like wrinkles, Wound
through your hair like gray. You whisper
"stay," to the small of my- palm, my cheek,
to all I thought was without need.


Copyright © 2009 Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved
from Dirt Sandwich / Press 53
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

Also appeared in

The Wild Goose Poetry Review
Volume 3 Issue 2

http://www.wildgoosepoetryreview.com/files/Microsoft_Word_-_summer_2008.pdf

 

Nominated for Pushcart Prize

I Wanted to Hear Her Howl


Mother rarely raised her voice,
only sighed as she picked the eyes
from raw potatoes with fingers
that never knew polish or lotion,
never whined, trapped in the to and fro
of hanging wash on the line, slapping
overalls against the wind, taking them
down again, oblivious to the coarseness
against her skin, never wept as she cleaned
the floor, never danced with a broom,
spinning around the room.
She scrubbed mud stains with its bristles,
swept dust and crumbs outside
browning the green grass beyond the steps
where others said their goodbyes.
Most days and nights, the house held her in,
although the doors were never locked.
She rose early without swearing, stared
out the window where railroad ties began.
Beyond the trance of waving weeds
train whistles declared their leaving,
roaring in her head like a scream.

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgments:

Press 53: Dirt Sandwich: http://www.press53.com/BioLindaAnnasFerguson.html

Wild Goose Poetry Review http://www.wildgoosepoetryreview.com/files/Microsoft_Word_-_summer_2008.pdf

Volume 3 Issue 2

 

 

 

 

Appeared in PIRENE'S FOUNTAIN

http://www.pirenesfountain.com/current_issue/ferguson.html

Endings

You cannot get caught
in the same rain twice.

A transparent pearl
will not cling to your lash
when you close your eyes
to drink from the sky.

The heavens will not descend
like music. Wet notes
will not shatter when they touch
the strain of your tongue.

You will not notice how rain
tastes so strangely of nothing.
Your thirst will not be quenched
if you console every cloud.

People will pass all around
but they will see only
how the sun breaks on your back
as you walk away.

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

Acknowledgments:

Pirene's Fountain: http://www.pirenesfountain.com/current_issue/ferguson.html

Press 53:    Dirt Sandwich  http://www.press53.com/BioLindaAnnasFerguson.html

Kentucky Writer's Coalition: Last Chance to Be Lost

 

 

Dance of Solitude


Dying begins with instinct,
a reflex in the womb,
slight flinch of foot,
a discontented elbow.

Born kicking air
before we can breathe,
we want all the years
we can get of dying,

not knowing how
much time we have
to practice, no
specifics on endings.

The first step we learn
is leaving, trading Edens
for uncertainties, even leaving
love when dancing feels like dying.
 
We all choreograph our separations,
two divided by two makes one-
learn to keep the rhythm, stay in step
even though there is no music.

This is the dance of solitude.
We'll show you our feet
with the sores on the soles, legs
kicking high as they will reach.


Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

Acknowledgments:

Press 53:    Dirt Sandwich  http://www.press53.com/BioLindaAnnasFerguson.html

South Carolina Poetry Initiative: University of SC: Web Anthology

http://www.sc.edu/poetry/chapbook_09web.shtml#ferguson

 

 


Nine Days at Sea


"A poet died today,"
the two-week-old newspaper reports
from beneath lifeless bodies of black bass
as I filet them, stew for the crew,

slide the slippery entrails and eyes to one side,
wash away blood, lay them out by the rail
like corpses on a slab, while others flail and lash,
shaking their small bucket of water and salt.

The poet's name was Barbara,
biology maintaining she was mostly water,
connected to all leaving things by the sea,
by rain and rivers, sweat and saliva.

The ocean and sky have glared at me so long
I feel bodiless. The deep, a communal soup,
watches all my motions, the surge and ebb of me.

Gray backs of dolphin surface
and disappear. Light, slight as a minnow,
dives into the dark of the liquid horizon.

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

Press 53:    Dirt Sandwich  http://www.press53.com/BioLindaAnnasFerguson.html

South Carolina Poetry Initiative: University of SC: Web Anthology

http://www.sc.edu/poetry/chapbook_09web.shtml#ferguson

 

 

 

 

 

Poems from Bird Missing from One Shoulder

 

 

 My Mother Doesn’t Know Me

 

 

To her, I’m the mild-mannered woman

who cooks her meals.

She is going to leave me a tip

when she finds her purse.

 

She sits for hours, eyebrow

cocked in a wrinkled study

as if she could fathom

the distance between us,

 

saves pieces of thread

in a coffee can,

picked from her afghan all day

while both our lives unravel.

 

Thanksgiving, she put a hammer

in the oven at 400 degrees,

spent the rest of the day

on the back porch step,

 

wanting only to leave

this strange house,

silently wringing her hands

as if her body could not contain her.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgments:

Finishing Line Press: Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk

Twenty: South Carolina Poetry Fellows, Hub City Press

The Ellen Douglas Everett Carruthers Memorial Prize: Poetry Society of SC

Word Tech Editions: Bird Missing from One Shoulder

Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease (Kent State University Press).

 

 

Laid Off

 

 

The machines weep their noise

as Father offers his card to the clock

on his last night at the cotton mill.

Time stares with one eye,

transfixed on him.

 

Cold shocks his lungs

as the metal door behind him shrugs

itself closed.  The black windows

of the factory watch him walk home

as they have every dawn for 30 years.

 

They do not see him as I do

as he enters our door,

white lint clinging to his hair

like a disintegrating halo, dying

 

for an undemanding bed,

the joy of his aching body

twisted in the cogs of sleep.

 

I can hear the rasp of his throat,

disgruntled snore,

the gasp,

the letting go.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgment:

Finishing Line Press: Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk

Word Tech Editions: Bird Missing from One Shoulder

 

 

 

Poems from Stepping on Cracks in The Sidewalk

 

 

What Would Jesus Say

 

if I asked him about the dream

I had last night of people falling

through my bedroom ceiling?

 

Would He explain in parables and metaphors

how the soft losses of the heart

break through the thick rind of the mind

 

or would he say nothing, only show me

clouds that form puzzles in the sky,

make thunder rumble in the distance,

his words sighing their meaning?

 

 

The dirt we were has nothing to tell us

as we bury our dead,

make tombstones that read,

Here lie music, art, and poetry.

 

Gardeners come to cut weeds

that tumble with gravity.

On our way back to sleeping and waking

we step on cracks in the sidewalk

 

that could be a warning

we might be falling toward God.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgments: 

WordTech Editions: Bird Missing from One Shoulder

Finishing Line Press: Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk

Aftershocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events

 

 

 

Cold Black Water

 

Pretend there is no blue hen

drowned in the horse's trough

when you wake from your dream

of breaking eggs, not death

 

to surprise you, no black mirror

to swallow your reflection

when you look long

into the wakeless water

 

as if something valuable were lost,

the morning sun rising

like a floating heart

over the abandoned cornfield

 

while a cock dusts his feathers

in the dirt, pecks grit

to grind in his gizzard, sizes up

a mate to pick from the flock,

crows in another day.

 

The ghost of a weightless god

haunts the heat of your hand,

as you stare into ordinary air,

stir the lifeless flies.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

Acknowledgment:

Press 53:    Dirt Sandwich  http://www.press53.com/BioLindaAnnasFerguson.html

Finishing Line Press: Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk

 

 

 

Poems from Last Chance to Be Lost

 

 

 

Choices

 

 

I search through my closet,

try to decide what to wear,

go through the house

luring mirrors to myself.

 

Clothes make me think of mama,

hanging wash outside on the line.

Choice to her was a hard wire

 

stretched across the yard.

When she looked down it,

all she could see was its vanishing point.

 

She never noticed

how her dresses

danced with the sun,

each to their own rhythm,

 

how the bells of her skirts

captured the wind,

how her blouses struck poses,

side by side, acting out different lives.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgements:

Skirt Magazine

Last Chance to be Lost, Kentucky Writes' Coalition

WordTech Editions: Bird Missing from One Shoulder

The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume I: South Carolina

 

 

 

 

The First Night

 

 

 

As we lie

side by side,

strangers,

 

my fingers search

your back,

feel the jagged edge

 

of the rib you gave

in your sleep

to make me.

 

For this night

I want

to put it back,

 

until I am bone

of your bone

and flesh

 

of your flesh

and you feel whole again.

In the morning

 

I will open the wound

so gently

you may not hear me

 

rise

and tiptoe

out of the garden.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgments:

 

Press 53:    Dirt Sandwich  http://www.press53.com/BioLindaAnnasFerguson.html

Palanquin Press, University of SC, Aiken: It's Hard to Hate a Broken Thing

The 75th Anniversary Anthology of the Poetry Society of Georgia's: The Hester Forshaw Constantine Memorial Prize

The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume I: South Carolina

 

 

 

The River

 

 

 

Go down to the river,

put in a thin hand,

drink the reflection of stars.

 

As you gather the gold,

notice how it empties itself

of light, hold in your palm

all you never tasted.

 

Let your lips remember

the past, swallow

the dark and the cold.

 

Tell the river

how you loved me.

 

When you take back your hand

watch the ripple leave its center

and disappear.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgments:

Press 53:    Dirt Sandwich  http://www.press53.com/BioLindaAnnasFerguson.html

North Carolina Poetry Society's Award Winning Poems

Kentucky Writers' Coalition:  Last Chance to Be Lost

 

 

 

 

 

Poems from It's Hard to Hate a Broken Thing

Palanquin Press, University of SC, Aiken

 

 

Beyond the Window

 

 

The tree outside mama’s window

is filled with waiting apples

never quite right for pie.

 

Her children climb its boughs

in search of one less sour

while the ground rots the rest.

 

Petals lie at the rose’s foot.

She thinks of her husband’s love

true as a thorn,

honest as harsh noon light.

 

The unwatched potatoes on the stove

are overcooked, the water wasting away.

She stirs without looking,

tastes for salt,

 

gazes through the glass pane

cracked in a quarrel years ago

but never fixed.

 

It doesn’t bother her now.

It’s hard to hate a broken thing.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgments

WordTech Editions: Bird Missing from One Shoulder

Palanquin Press, University of South Carolina Aiken: It's Hard to Hate a Broken Thing

 

 

 

Family Reunion

 

 

I have to reach deeper each year

for all that is stored

in the pockets of this house.

 

This is a day we have to slow ourselves

to feel what time has deepened.

My own body, half-remembering,

lingers in a doorway.

 

Children pick plums

off the near-bare tree

outside the kitchen.

The day dissolves into hungry reaching.

 

Mother watches at the window

drinking in the one life she must live,

rolls lint in her apron pocket,

suffers love in the smallest of things.

 

She is tired now,

a fragile cup to be hummed into.

I can hear a familiar lullaby

in her good-byes.

 

We leave all at once

like awkward adolescents

avoiding an intimacy,

mother’s hands folded on her lap

to fill its emptiness.

 

We are already

thinking of tomorrow

as if the past

is just a house we visit.

 

Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

 

Acknowledgments:

WordTech Editions: Bird Missing from One Shoulder

Palanquin Press, University of South Carolina Aiken: It's Hard to Hate a Broken Thing

 


Rituals

It’s a quarter past four in the morning.
In every corner of the mill, screaming
machines shake old and oily floors.
The whole room vibrates. Willie pauses

at the end of an aisle, dusts cotton lint
from both sleeves, his hair. He reaches
through moving gears with his hands,
ties loose ends, fibers flying,
renegotiates the rhythm of repetition.

At five, he will have a cup of coffee,
short smoke by the time clock.
He dreams of leaving, running away
from debt and duty. It’s the loud roar
of his thoughts that keeps him here.

Later, he will remark how the sky
looks like rain as he races ahead
of a cloud, opens the door
to rented rooms, wife still asleep,

hangs his coat on the nail by the stove,
stokes coals, stirs remains
of the fire, pokes at restless flames.


Copyright ©  Linda Annas Ferguson All rights reserved

Acknowledgment:

The Post and Courier Prize

Poetry Society of SC
Winter 2008
http://www.poetrysocietysc.org/po0809/rituals.html
 
Copyright ©
Linda Annas Ferguson.
All rights reserved.
 

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