A Woman's Prayer/ War Cry

A poem of two parts or two separate entities, I haven't decided. But the same topic, nevertheless.



I want to enter
the world of harmony and beauty
of the human heart.

The world
free of men and their petty
squabbles,
their envy, hatred, polluting
the sanctity
of Mother Earth's belly.

The world
where my sisters, mothers, daughters
cleanse in the same pool of tears
for millennia.

The world
where the size of love
is not equal
to the blow of a fist
a husband bestows
on his betrothed.

The world
not ruled by
the unzipped ego.
Where no one thinks of me
as a seductress, bitch or whore.

The world
where my worth
is not measured by
the size of my breasts,
the number of my offspring,
or the purity of my intact
hymen.

The world where there's
no class, no power,
no better, no worse.

The world where I can be
myself
and bask in my own
womanhood.

My strength
My weakness
My gentleness
My courage

My freedom.

******

I don't want to be
a prize to win,
a beauty to protect.

I don't want to live
for my father's pride,
or brother's virtue,
but only for myself.

I am me,
same as anyone else -
a collection of cells,
emotions,
and stardust.

Another bad poem (so why the heck am I sharing it?)

I carry many places inside my soul

But at the same time I feel empty

Secluded in my 3 bdrms 2 baths brick ranch

Lost in the middle of Americana

Behind white picket fences

Among generic faces

Always dreaming of

Scarlet sunset walks

Along cypress alleys

Ancient stucco walls

Aligning narrow streets

Housing echoes of time

A Really Bad Poem

They come to you
the bad poems
and assault your senses
with regurgitated
cliches

They whisper into your ear
to write them down
to breathe life into their
broken promises of greatness

And you obey

And then after sobering up
in the light of a sensible morning
you look in disgust on
what has written itself
on the shreds of your old existence

Welcome to insanity, my boy
You are an unpaid bad poet

Ramblings and Complaints

Ok, I never took upon me to use this blog to freewrite from my stream of consciousness, and complain bitterly.  But there's a new beginning for everything.  Here it goes:

Why on Earth did I think that I could handle TWO Creative Writing courses in addition to my job, and why on Earth did I think that writing poetry in English would be a breeze?!!!  This is the hardest thing I had to do in my life, except taking a Statistics course and struggling with the concept of Probability.  Even Quantum Mechanics that I read about FOR PLEASURE in my own free time did not seem as hard as Probability.  Now Poetry?

Who in their right mind calls Free Verse FREE?  It has more restrictions than the rhyme and rhythm poetry.  At least keeping the rhythm is completely natural to me, rhyming is much harder, for I have a hard time finding words to rhyme in the language that is not my own.  But in Russian I produced the gems of poetry! When I was 18! What happened since then?  Why now am I struggling so much?  My brain is literally splitting up, and some new areas are at work that have never been used.  I feel the connections between the neurons forming painfully with each new poetic exercise that the instructor throws at us. 

One of the assignments is to write a SONNET!  I am not Shakespeare, I'm just a beginner, as well as some other students taking that class.  As far as I remember from the good old Russian school days, the sonnet form was considered hard even for experienced poets.  So far I have gotten first four lines. With the PERFECT rhyme and rhythm and even making sense,  but continuing with more seems impossible.

On top of that, I have to come up with a prose poem, a poem about an event I heard on the news about and assignments from a new lesson that I haven't even read yet for the fear of stressing myself out.  In addition to that, I am extremely behind my creativity training prose class, where assignments are much more comfortable and easy for me, but no less time consuming.  I have to write about a word of choice and about a writing day in a perfect world, and conduct Internet research on a subject I am not familiar with.  The last one I feel the most comfortable with, because my profession as an ESL teacher have made me an expert in Internet research on almost any subject, including an academic one. Oh Lord, please don't remind me about doing research in grad school in the Cybrary into the wee hours.

As though all these responsibilities I put on myself are not enough, I also set my mind on finishing or restarting for the millionth time the story about Shibshib getting lost for the publication in Chicken Soup for the Soul, which is due MAY 31, which is like in TWO days!  Oh, yeah, look at me, I'm a Superman, I can do it all AND successfully plan lessons. 

And to top all this off, my writing and communicative ability, as well as cognitive skills are almost non-existent now.  It is Friday, I've been struggling with the cold, lack of sleep and adjusting to the work schedule the whole week, and my brain is on strike, or vacation.  So, I declare today a NOWRITE DAY, and I am NOT writing.  As in not writing anything that needs to be written.  I can't deal with requirements and expectations of being judged right now, so I am just rambling on aimlessly in my blog that no one will read anyway.

So, tomorrow, I will go on another Wine Tasting class, and then on a mindless shopping trip at the mall with a friend.  Sunday, I will buy materials for our patio project with my husband, and have a  barbecue dinner at another friend's house.  To Hell with the writing which seems like a nightmare now.  After recharging my brain cells, I will produce yet another masterpiece, as I have always done in the past.

Just have faith and let go.