Moving Forward
Watery oceantide world, a voice
cries through the sun. Will she
ever know dancing again?
Rays pour down yellow gleaming,
the world's a place that can be as terrible
as a pouncing tiger at her heels,
the news of his adultery causing tears
so bitter. He treads dangerous ground,
his wife discovering many secret loves
he kept, her tears drying up now
as bees of betrayal sting her,
causing destruction and poison so
deep she will never be able to feel safe
with him. No warmth comes from this
betraying husband, breaker of promises. His hands roam
over flesh he has no right to touch.
He is featureless as starfish run
from his lines of cruelty.
No prize, no catch is he. Throw
him back into the sea of the dead;
feed him to the sting rays,
the sharks. Let the sea he loves
to dive in separate him from humans--
no pity has he for anyone.
The sky even despises his
ugliness and turns gray
in his presence. Children flee
from his sight; he is unforgivable
as he torches her jewel-brightness,
her goodness. She wanders past
his abuse and into the garden
where she no longer cries nor sees
the rivals he created for her.
The pain he inflicts no longer
touches her as she
moves forward and grows
to realize all she is and always was--
despite him.
Terror's Keeper
Fear first comes as she stands
against the waves of darkness,
sudden water pouring over her head,
waves rushing through her,
a parting or division of her life.
The beach would be a calm place
to fall upon, the deep waters
scare her, the ocean doing
all it pleases, falling and rising,
a tossing pattern she must withstand
as knowing it was not love her husband gave her,
but the crazy steaming heat of anger
and a crashing of ocean storms meant to kill her.
His daily absences apparent now--
he took ten years and spit them out,
quite aware of all the hurt he caused
since he was for days and nights of terror
in her eyes, all for stoning her heart
with his thoughtless actions.
The numbing came after some time,
and then the force of what he really is
made her feel nearly lifeless--
the darkness of the nights that followed
the flat, blunt blows of his adulterous
affairs left her with no kisses,
no one to hold, a summer of hell--
he ruined all. None of his false
stories could undo the wrongs.
He let strangers come and go
from her home, traces of them
left behind--and then the days
of winter came, aching her heart
into a black suffering
she did not deserve.
The House Breathes with Him Gone
The house breathes with the storm,
low, slow rains come down like brand
new gifts from heaven, just colder
and nearly mysterious in the shifting
from light to darkness.
Sound seems suspicious--is that the ocean or just
the door rushing over the carpet of blue?
Something opens like love, but then crashes
with missteps; excited about his lies,
about being caught, he goes down into the ocean,
crashes on stones, hears tunes of the underworld,
the water world as a clock by her bedside
ticks on and on, growing stronger
as she finds the power of the heavens.
Gulls rest on the water above him.
Once she discovers
his infidelity and forecasts the end
of the union, she hires a capable,
local lawyer, takes half
the money, sets his belongings
in the carport, has the locks changed,
stares at the nearly empty house--
his absence as vast as the ocean
he stays in. Her oneness with the moment
gives her strength. Hidden in many days
of seagoing, in a world he should have
fast abandoned, he harmonizes things
with one of his many secret whores,
stays far from his wife,
shells slicing his heels; she imagines
throwing stones at him, but she waits
and wanders through the grass,
bare feet sinking into the earth,
and reality, the house breathing a new breath.
A Poem Maker's Hours
Pills neither brought her beauty
nor caused her eyes to lose pain, nor
turn away from the sunny day.
Smiling at her own words,
the poet opens windows and shuts doors.
Parchment and pens wait for her touch.
She grasps the pen tightly, ready to reveal her
secrets, but nothing sails smoothly for her today.
Blackness comes over her like a boat;
years go by somehow, as if they glided through her
hands. She feels the cool grayness of water,
comes to hold handfuls of pebbles that
vanish as soon as she throws them;
they soar, turn, sparkle in the air and sun,
happiness plopping, one by one--and she grows
sleepy. She feels the winter in her heart,
gives into the edge of sanity she still holds,
her head heavy, her hair shining
as if she stood by a roaring fire
or under the beach sun on a summer day.
One thought of a starfish, one of candles left
unlit. Images of sunlight, stones, and shells
move through her mind at the pace of time,
hands consuming the minutes, the hours, the day.
At last some coherence spills like harmony for her,
fire, moonlight, sand all coming together,
taking one direction in her hard-won poem.
It was a riddle, then a rhyme, then had rhythm,
everything swinging open like a door on an easy hinge.
She stands inside this new poem;
she is temporarily a part of the poem;
then she lets it go.
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Maura Gage is an Associate Professor
of English at Louisiana State University at Eunice. She is also editor of The Louisiana Review. She has lived all over--Pennsylvania, Colorado, Florida, South Carolina, and, for the past four years, in Louisiana in a small town just a few exits west of Lafayette. She is a big fan of www.the-hold.com.
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Creative Writing Poetry Submissions
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Poets for the 2003 Popular Culture Association Conference
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