CUTTING
Louise Annarino
4-23-2013
The bucket of water
weighs down
my arm below the knee,
its handle biting my palm
in small,grasping bites
too numerous to count
until my hand,
this hand meant to
pull weeds and cut flowers
is grazed and bloody,
too swollen to hold scissors
or trace the lines of your face
and carry them to my cheek.
The only cutting today
is of self.
Filed under POETRY
Buried Memories of Drought,By Louise Annarino,3-9-2013
The fly rests on a stone chip
laid bare by melting snow
creating easements
of rivulets channeled
into multiple streams
by snowdrops scattered
across the garden bed,
dropped petals
become holding ponds
for the streams’ runoff.
Each giant step I take
across the border
of miniature boulders
leaves behind bare lakes
which soon
will fill
with the mist of
early morning fog,
a final snow melt,
and spring rains.
There is no lack of water now,
no need for hoses,
water buckets,
sprinklers nor rain barrels
to bring life to my garden.
Melons and berries
and squash yet hold
faith in my planting
against the buried memory
of last year’s drought.
Filed under POETRY
Teenage Signals,Louise Annarino,January 30,2013
We take street lights for granted.
Green,yellow,red
syncronized swimmers
against the traffic tide
bringing order from confusion,
organizing patterns
of construction,
avoiding accidental
destruction
of our pride.
You are not mine.
Independence fuels
your journey,but you
are never alone.
You have me,
a streetlight,
one of many,
often unnoticed
and many unknown,
at every intersection,
seeing you safely
on your way
from youth
to adulthood
and beyond.
Filed under POETRY
Rockslide,Louise Annarino,1-26-2013
Another day started late
beyond the time to contemplate
justification for the time spent
writing a poem
few will read.
Nerves on edge
of a precipice built
with loose gravel,
not a sturdy life,
but shortened breaths
encased in gossamer
wings no longer
able to fly.
And, again
I ask “why?”
Why energy fled
before the keep was taken,before
the soul was shaken
like a tambourine’s
tinny sound,
uneven like my steps
placed in fear
of falling down
on my own,
or in the rockslide
my life is built upon.
Filed under POETRY
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,Louise Annarino,1-14-2013
Stolen nights
give way to
give-away days
where nothing goes right
and no one
can be good
or enough
for me.
The air seems too thin
to inflate
the ego of distaste
for a body too frail
to tolerate
a push
of caffeine.
One bag of tea
and one old bag
of me
are not a good mix
and nix any dreams
of normalcy.
To be free
to sleep
to dream
to rise with the dawn
and the stamina
to go on
and make a day
so strong
illness cannot make
me give it away
for nothing.
Is that too much to ask?
Filed under POETRY
FORGIVEN,Louise Annarino,1-12-2013
Stripped away,
guilt lay
a plutonium ash
across the top of my shoes.
“i’m sorry” too heavy
a phrase to free me
from your tears.
But, your hydrogen
laughter bubbling
over my feet
is strong enough
to lift the weight
of my guilt
and I rise
toe over heel
in stockinged feet
weightless,
guiltless,
forgiven.
Filed under POETRY
LIBERAL’S LAMENT, By Louise Annarino, JAnuary 3,2013
It is difficult
to be
around me,
a round me
trying to fit
in a square hole,
not allowed to be
whole
within a fractured space
of give it your all
and take what’s Left
by those in control
who are always
Right.
They are so tight
and hard to take
with their
“might makes Right”;
with their
“you get what you deserve”
and
“we deserve what you get”;
taking away our pay
to play,
and locking the doors
against the poor.
Our common DNA
shames my ancestry,
and visits hate
on who I am.
I am a liberal!
Filed under POETRY
NEW YEAR,By Louise Annrino,January 2013
There are no new years,
recycled ones perhaps,
fragments of our memory lapse.
We separate our plastic smiles
from the newspapers journalling
our recent trials.
Our emptied bins grow bitter
with cast-offs and litter
of what we never needed or wanted.
Resolutions fail to impress,
and lacking duress,
wander along our lost history.
Are we lost then, empty and alone
self-formed clay thoughtlessly left out to dry,
hardened into stone?
No, we are stronger building blocks
for a new year of growth and art
which can support those we hold near our heart.
Thus, we celebrate through a long,dark night
with friends and family by our side,
all we hope to be and have become,with gratitude and pride.
Filed under POETRY
WATERFALL IN DROUGHT
Louise Annarino
June 26, 2012
Cascades balance the flow
over the edge
water goes
down to the stream far on
beyond the gate
water goes
past neighbors’ barns and homes
from the fall
water goes
and I
remain
still
dry.
Filed under POLITICS
annarino writes 