Jeanne Rene' Poetry

Announcing my new website Poetic Horizons:

A new writer's community embracing writer's of all backgrounds and experience. Discussions, critiques, friendly chat and more!!

Hope to see you there!

 

"My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together"

~ Desmond Tutu

myself ~ in celebration

flaunting autumn orange
I am
my mind moves
with brilliance in the season of release
I wear my gaudy colors
to trumpet to the world that I have mastered time
my apparel changed
from the simple variants of a single dye
to a handsome gown that parades
nature’s perfect gems flashing red, yellow, orange
let me wonder at my foliage
let me shake it in your face
and
let me float free in the breeze
and fly in the storm to scatter my richness on the earth
I nourish the potential
I feed the seed
my fall is the brightest of all seasons

You need to know. . .

My family and friends are my foundation

 

Recent Poetry

 

~the whistle

the whistle sings in lyric note,
beckons the lady follow, to lay down upon its rifts
lost in the swirl and twirl of melody
drifting,
bound for yesterday’s memory, drunk on love
and bent with laughter

a breathe leaves a sigh within the whistle
to call upon desire unspent,
to sing … to sing
come, lady rest upon my song,
so pale, worn your dreams,
that I may wrap you in gowns of sweet, sorrowful crescendo
come, drape regret around my music
and I will carry your name to the warbler’s nest

the whistle lifts its poem,
in ribbons of voice sharp and shrill,
and the lady rides aside her loneliness
above the barren path, above the gentle brush of grain
along the silhouette of hill and precipice
lost in the billow of passing clouds


jeannerené 03.08

Unmerciful, Because We Loved

A little scar cuts across her upper lip, Cupid’s Bow interrupted,
the thought sometimes slipped into my mind, a phrase to write
a poem upon, as I fixated midway through
conversations on front lawns of days
and ways of memory, and futures still within our reach.

Our woman songs undulating, in accents usual or syncopated,
we rung our hands of worry,
lifted our bosoms heavy with motherhood
and strutted round bottoms for all to envy.
Jingling our bangles, bobbles to rhythm of chatter
on breezy porch doorsteps,
driveways reaching over the distance of our sisterhood
with a quick and neighborly wave.

How’s the kids? How’s the kids? How’s the kids . . .

We aged on our front lawns,
standing ankle deep in plastic swimming pools,
the winds slapping our cheeks raw with yesterday’s promises,
and we braced ourselves for the unmerciful, because we loved

…the kids

All these years we’ve loved the kids
and nothing else has really mattered.

And all these years

Her meztizo contour has held its bold and rich design,
a beauty maturing within its own smooth dark skin.
She and I have moved our hips with slow, slide-to-slide satisfaction,
the phantom impression of side slung babes forever seen in our nakedness.

September afternoon,

She bits the scar across her lip. Lip quivering,
unprotected by all her love.
My hands could only cup her face
to hold this treasure of living life just as life is

. . . so unexpected

My baby
A mother cries

My

baby
Her tears,
weigh my palms with insatiable sorrow


jeanne rene 09.07

Love Song for September

September sits upon the gates,
holding hostage summer’s still, sultry shadow
under arms of evergreens, and lazy old dogs
who have forgotten how to bark at strangers

She waits with wayward affection outside our fences,
puffing little whispers through knot holes
and stirring the hues of dreamy deciduous,
awakening the brilliance of autumn’s brush

And so ….

September winks at me,
As I sit beneath umbrella’s shade.
I hear her impatient rustle rush up against the window pane
and watch her toe-tapping in little gusts across the dust.
She teases with the sweet scent of rain
old dog and I, languishing in lazy inhalations,
as we keep company in weary expectation.

Leaving only the thought of her cool fingertip
pressed against my lips,
she perches once again on the season’s threshold
and recites her calendar, in voice welcomed by me.

“September!” I call. “Let summer slip between
your days. Come kiss me with wilted rose petals.
Love me ‘neath a blanket of yellowing leaves.”

jeanne rené 08.07

Winter is my favorite season . . .

Winter
~ San José !

Tonight . . .

Winter is cruising First Street,
strutting, zoot-suited down Santa Clara,
unreliable guest at its own seasonal party.
Tonight, El Invierno comes teasing
mediterranean America . . . gazers and gawkers,
kissing their lips and the tips of lazy palms
with ice chips and artic slushies.

Cheeks puffed, he holds the wind,
ready to giggle in bursts of uproarious mirth
round corners, slapping the face of sleek high-rise
gods and goddesses.
Flirting with bare-armed lovers,
elbows latched, hip-to-hip step
gathering speed,
seeking the genius of warm mocha lattes and sushi bars.

Esta noche . . .

Winter contemplates, hovering above Orion,
who sleeps over orange grove and vine.
Seizing the Hunter’s bow; the arrow, feathered fletching spun to ice,
and under neon madness, melting,
flushing the pavement of its exhaustion,
painting petroleum prisms,
reflected in the headlights crawling route 101.

He comes . . .

El Invierno, commanding respect,
slapdash he parades lightening and thunder,
pushing summer dreams
and autumn memory off sidewalks,
beating down on the hoods of Mercedes
and muscle cars with tears of righteousness.

Ah . . . Winter inhales. Hah . . . He exhales.
¿Me recuerdas mis amigos, San José,
San Francisco y Monterey?
Soy el hijo precario de la Tierra de madre
. . . y he vuelto, Petaluma y Los Gatos.
Tonight I will bang at your pretty windows,
tomorrow return to your sandals and sun shades.
All will be forgotten.


.jeanne rené 02.07

... a poem ... for a friend ...

~ far from your poetry ~~~~~

he is writing poetry
the young man walking Sudan

and he steps with a rhythm run through his design
verse pacing across manifestos of day onto day

of slinky silky words
wanting to be parted by my aching fingertips

to look between the fractures of phrase
and slip deep into the nuances

of lazy-lid glances
slanting against the arch of bedroom doors

to press
between my hungry fingertips

and feel the weight in character
of sandals bound to immigrant dreams

dust clouds
inhaled and settled deep in the lungs

I sup on his poetry
slicing and placing delicately

on my tongue sweet morsels
of mistresses chasséing in pleated skirts

sipping the irony of mad lovers
wet on my lips

I am leaning into his poetry
Je murmure

let me be the beat of the rolled newspaper
slapping your palm

let me be the forgotten thread
torn from the hem of your shirt

and buried in the yellow sand


~~....inspired by the poetry of k.eltinae ~~

jeannerené 11.06