Cheryl Snell's Blog, page 36

NaPo 29

The Body is a Throwaway Thing

Curved spine
snaking
through her jungles.
Shoulders,a pair
of birds. One
soars, the other
plunges to where
feet drop
and drag at the end
of twisting tributaries --
but every night
the seam-stitched sails
of her two arms
fill with wind
billowing
over the bridge in her mind
toward the sea
leaping with miracle.

NaPo 28

No key
No door
No room
No bed

Just this carpet pad.

Carpet already stolen.

No valuables
in the blanket

This picture was in the trash
It's worth nothing.

Picket fence Spiky sun
Stick-figure people

Nothing worth having

No people
No house
No

Please do not steal anything.
This is my home.

NaPo 27

Illumination

When I sit alone
in the light
it is clear
I am blind

How else is darkness known
but by its absences

NaPo 26

Scales Fall from His Eyes

From an eclipsing sky
he tumbles down a well
thinking about the bereaved,
how they line up at ticket counters
looking for their own way out.
What would they do for the chance
to walk away from their skins? Smoke
alarms fail, insurance expires. You can lose
yourself in love and wake as a stranger's revelation.
And because epiphany loves a well, because
it storms the half-glimpsed memory, it rises
to meet the sliver of light that burns eyes awake
while the body keeps on drowning.

NaPo 25

Because She Could Not Wait for Spring

Brush by dripping brush
the woman laved pastels
over the winter weary kitchen.
White-winged counters drifted
amid the blush of seashells.
Cupboards rocked off their hinges
with the idea of orange
and the chairs knocked knees
under a bee-bright table.
The floorboards clamored
for reinvention, to be swiped
with intimations of moss,
until at effort's end,
the tongue-drag of green
would hold the painter fast
with the knowledge
that she'd never leave the kitchen now.

NaPo 24

The silence
the moment before
the child cries.
The stillness in the words
that come out of the silence
that is not still, moving
with the child
when she turns to run away.
Silence speaks
and can stand at the door
long past the hour
that quiet should have been broken,
shot through with syllables
like a prayer
before it sings itself extinct.

NaPo 23

BAD BLOOD

The taste of iron,
the eroticism of
someone else's pain.
None of it is our fault.
We are true
to our natures.
We wrap sins
previously paid for
in butcher paper
and pray to the figurines
in the attic.

We need something to lean on
and the groaning in the eaves
makes us believe that
someone still comes here.
Someone still sees.

NaPo 22

SPIN

We are attracted to round--
hot sun and cold moon
wavy light from lamps
the red coals of cigarettes.
The O is a point of fixation:
pairs of breasts, Frisbees,
football. A waxed head.
The spin of this mad blue globe
supports a cycle of chase.
We use wheels to go out
on our tangents. Sometimes
a ring to bring us back in place.

NaPo 21

we measure the meaning of forever

you move
through me,
and light
bounces
from one
skin
to the other.
dark hides
from light as light
pursues it
but it's dangerous
to stand this
close
to that
truth
while the clouds are
erasing the sun.

"Rarely do I encounter authenticity, humbleness, life in ...

"Rarely do I encounter authenticity, humbleness, life in a poem or a painting. Usually, it is an encounter with the glib, the ostentatious, the moribund. Gestures toward the unremarkable. Painter Janet Snell and poet Cheryl Snell create from genuine depths. How do I know this? Because time quivers when I experience their work."

Our heartfelt thanks to Tim Buck!