December - Poem 17

Dec 17

Great Balls of Fire / Kate Bowers

For Kalliopy ABRACADABRA

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain /Too much love drives a man insane/You broke my will but what a thrill/goodness, gracious…—Jerry Lee Lewis, 1961

Incandesce Fannie Longfellow’s gauze overlay ignited when she brushed against a candle flame while sealing locks of her children’s hair in wax, July, 9, 1861. She died the next day. Henry, her husband lived but suffered severe burns from attempting to save her. He never remarried.

Glow with heat.

There is a burden on women to think about their bodies in space in a way that men don’t have to. The only fire I found for men really was a guy who left a lit pipe in his suit because woolen suits were pretty flameproof.”

—Alison Mathew David, author of Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present, quoted in Racked. 2017

Radiant Marie Taglione dancing a ballet in 1832 while wearing white tulle erupted into a ball of flame before her audience, a full house, after dancing too close to the footlights. Ballerinas were considered loose women.

Sending out light; shining or glowing brightly

“It’s not a build-up like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re smoking, let me tamp that out.’ It’s like, ‘Ahh!’ Your girlfriend beside you is a ball of fire, and you’re now a ball of fire, and boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, they’re all balls of fire.”

— Deirdre Kelly, Ballerina: Sex, Scandal, and Suffering Behind the Symbol of Perfection, Quoted in Racked, 2017

Aflame Oscar Wilde’s half sisters Mary and Emily attended a Halloween party in 1871. While dancing, one sister’s dress caught fire. The other rushed to help. Both perished after weeks of suffering from third degree burns. Oscar never spoke publicly about this loss.

In flames burning

So long as gentlemen admire small waists and praise those figures the most which approach the nearest to the shape of a wasp, or an hour-glass, it is in vain to tell young ladies that the practice is destructive of health, and that there is no real beauty in the small dimensions at which they are aiming. . . .

—Mrs. John Farrar in The Young Ladies Friend (1853)

Glowing Archduchess Mathilde of Austria, age 18, put on a gauze dress to attend the theater on June 6, 1867, then erupted into a ball of flame when her father came to get her, and she tried to hide her lit cigarette from him behind her back. She died before her father’s eyes.

Giving out steady light without flame

“The appeal of the large skirt was that it made you look more slender from the waist up”— Colleen Hill, a curator at the Museum at FIT commenting on the popular bell-shaped skirt of the 1850s which created a perfect cone for fire to escalate. Quoted in Racked, 2017

Brilliant In 1860, the British medical journal Lancet documented 3,000 women perished by fire. 165 years later, women still get burned from the choices they and others make around appearance more so than the fabric or design of their clothing. Love, attraction, sex, rules of relationships continue to be a factor. And love’s language.

Very bright , radiant

This bed is on fire with passionate love, The neighbors complain about the noises above. . . Dressed me up in women’s clothes, Messed around with gender roles, Line my eyes and call me pretty. . . . You’re driving me crazy, when are you coming home?

—James, Lyrics to Laid, 1993

Sleep / Katie Collins

I want to close my eyes
But the work is piling up
How can I sleep with the laundry undone?
How can I sleep with dishes in the sink?
How can I sleep with databases to compile?
So I keep going.
If I collapse,
Will that feel like rest?

Upgrade / Ellen Ferguson

We've decided you qualify for an upgrade
See you upstairs in the lounge
New terms take effect immediately
Alternate side street parking rules are suspended

Pack light
Carry it on
Let's go
Sky's the limit

First she loved Let's Go books
Then, The Best Places to Kiss
Then, AARP Recommends. Now,
Family plots ignite Duraflames.

Tenderness Theory / Chris Fong Chew

Theorize the soft flesh of the human
bending to the harshness of the world.
Like the tree that bends in the wind
is the one that weathers the storm

Theorize that in the collapse of humanity
that some remnant of our humanity
will continue to exist.
The animals that coexist
survive longer than those alone

Theorize tenderness, imagine
a better world where kindness
is at the center of all things.

Theorize peaceful coexistence
thriving abundance
and prosperity for us all.

Theorize tenderness
believe in the goodness of the heart
it may be our only way forward in this world.

The Pop Quiz that lives on my bed / Davis Hicks

Swelter / Victor Barnuevo Velasco

Swelters our labor and tears our grief --
Tattoo water on my arms as if it is
a covenant for fourteen generations.
The fires are everywhere, the bushes

are ashes. The streets are landmines
where once barrels of milk and jars
of honey were traded for passage.
Everywhere, someone is mourning.

You ask of my origin. I have no
certainty of ancestors before me.
They did not map deserts or name
oceans, as if every day was the Third Day

of creation. But I crossed waters.
Carrying neither my father nor his
father on my back, I became my own
nation -- my people dwell inside me.

We are here now and always, somewhere
else. My mother the hurricane whispers,
Anything that can be observed is temporary.
Tomorrow the past will change once again.

The Inbetween / Jen Wagner

In the midst of midlife
in the inbetween
Contemplating What’s to come
Reminiscing on What has been

I watched an old man
Quietly Sitting in his chair.
Watching children running freely
Without a single care.

His eyes were wise with age.
His body thin and frail.
But I can only imagine
The stories he could tell.

I knew he sat there dreaming.
I could see in his eyes.
Remembering himself as a boy
Hopes to the skies.

My gaze shifted as his did
To the boys in the street.
Carrying no thoughts with any weight
And nimble on their feet.

Careless and agile
Their futures untold
But someday if they’re lucky
They too will grow old.

In that chair they will sit
Only memories to share
Energy expended
Who around them will care?

As I observe this beginning
And I witness this end.
I sit here In The inbetween
Of what’s to come and what has been Sent from my iPhone

Word Games / Stacy Walker

Trauma,
Pain,
And suffering
Have taken up
Enough space
In my notebook
And my heart.

Ever-present,
Ready to be called upon
To feel deeply
Or fill a page,

But for today,
I’ll dig deeper
To find what’s harder
To garner,
To see what else
Can fill the space.

What if

JOY

HOPE

CONTENTEDNESS

Yes,

CONTENTEDNESS

Could take up the space.

The word feels
Too long,
Made up,
Like the letters
Are jumbled,
Just trying to string
The word along,

But for today,
I’ll let the letters
Do as they please,
As they fill space
With something other than
Grief.

SUFFICIENT

RELAXATION

ACCEPTANCE

FULFILLMENT

EASE

Words that summon
Something more
Than what I’m used to.

Today,
Despite all
That’s happening
In the background,
I will let