Eleven Free Verse Poems
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When we slid across the dance floor by Gwen L. Williams to a James Ingram slow groove, hip to hip, your hand at the small of my back, and how my finger rested, snug, in your belt loop; when you tackled me in the snow bank and landed on me, face to face, your stocking cap askew, the puff our down-filled parkas made on impact, and how I tossed a mitten of snow in your face; when you built a campfire from birch bark and dried pine, roasted glazed donuts as we sat against a log, and how our thighs brushed each other as we trailed our tennis shoes in the coals and ashes; when we lounged on our elbows on your couch, stocking feet entangled, and you read Neruda’s El desnudo, first in English so I would know el desnudo means standing naked, then in Spanish so my hands could feel las direcciones de la dicha on your lips, then I read his “Rain (Rapa Nui)” in English for you and you translated into Spanish for me And when I too begin falling asleep in your love, naked, leave my hand between your breasts so it can throb along with your nipples wet with rain; and when you were talking of love on the telephone, laughing in another’s ear as I sat in the next room, chain smoking cigarettes and confident of the unconventional, erotic nature of our friendship: these were when I was certain of time expanding, stretching to the limits of what is possible in this universe bound by the laws of relativity and the heart.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Karamu, 2000. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award by the editor of Karamu. Excerpt from Pablo Neruda’s la lluvia (Rapa Nui) translated by Anthony Kerrigan.
In the Sanctuary of Grief by Gwen L. Williams As the weatherman delivers tomorrow’s forecast, the woman sleeps on her davenport— kleenex wadded in the fold of her palms and reading glasses askew. Littering the coffee table at her knees: her mother’s recipes that made Fromm Bakery famous all over the northeast side. The aromas of pecan bear claws, black pumpernickel, and cinnamon rolls haunt the sanctuary of her dreams where her mother kneads dough and talks her daughter into womanhood: The way to a man’s heart. . . In her dreams she remembers the timbre of his voice, the warmth of his laugh sultry as a satin ribbon on the back of her neck, the touch of his firm hands kneading cramps from her shoulders as she stirs a pound cake batter two hundred revolutions with a wooden spoon. This is how she remembers him for in the sanctuary of grief all things become possible and miracles are commonplace and she, sifting through what was and what wasn’t and what yet could be, she is an alchemist with the power to raise him as evidence of her mother’s truth about baking from scratch and the path to belovedness.
Copyright 1998 by Gwen Williams. First published by Grasslands Review, 1998.
Bourgeois Dreams at the Kitchen Sink by Gwen L. Williams It was the black stoneware plate that she washed crusted frozen mini-delight cheese poop from its glazed surface. It was the black stoneware plate she washed. She washed black stoneware. The plate. Then a megabyte opened onto her brain and she concluded she’d been washing a lot more dishes than normal. A lot more dishes were washed. A lot more dishes needed washing. And she couldn’t scrub away the pooped on feeling that crusted, there, on her frozen glazed brain that hiring a maid would be in order as soon as she found a job.
Copyright 2002 by Gwen Williams. First published by Main Street Rag Poetry Journal, 2002.
Being snowed-in away from home by Gwen L. Williams gets old fast. You must still brush your hair. Makeup continues to be applied, brassieres continue to be worn. Correct posture becomes a vigilance. Kitchen chairs are declared comfortable and tabletops unsuitable for elbows. Coffee brews non-stop and polite skirmishes erupt over dish-washing duties. There is a furious urge to play every card game, every dice game, every board game— even the game missing pieces (the golf tee is the shoe). You cannot place the hat on the Scottie. Shame settles at the grayness of your last pair of clean socks. You vow to pack better next time. Then there’s all that talk talk talk, everyone trying to out-chuckle each other when really only Marvin tells a good joke. You pronounce made-for-TV movies outstanding art. You proclaim magazine ads astonishingly clever. You speculate on the lack of city funds for snowplows and overtime. You curse the mayor and city council and the neighbor with the monster snowblower. You obediently fill the silences of this house —with its knickknacks suddenly very dusty and quite ugly—with noise. You hope you can somehow get out of there soon, venture onto the two lane highway, treacherous and lonesome like the first stroke of charcoal on a clean sketch pad, and venture into the white white expanse toward home.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams.
Early Imprint by Gwen L. Williams Dora Lee wished she’d been born an armadillo. So that when her mother carried on —in a loud shrill voice characteristic of one who’s consumed too many gin tonics before noon— about starching oxford shirts and packing brown bag lunches; about a woman’s never ending duty (yes duty, Dora Lee) to a life of sacrifice and of picking up other people’s socks; about dreams of moving to Memphis that were crushed, simply crushed, by that notorious boy in that red convertible who later lost all his charm (never get in a backseat, Dora Lee) and turned into an ungrateful husband who gave her more children than she’d ever wanted (that’s your father); Dora Lee would’ve had somewhere to go
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams.
Absence of Speed by Gwen L. Williams I regret the day we ate brie and pesto in that cedar grove as we sat between the cushion of brown pine needles and the canopy blocking the sun. The sunlight through the trees cast an evergreen hue across our skin and we were astonished into silence not by the songs of birds but by how we could no longer hear traffic speeding through the city. To slow down like that, Katarina, was heavenly. And that is why tonight, as I drive home alone through the neon tunnel of storefronts lining the street, I regret the day you took me to that grove and hushed me so that I could listen to the absence of the speed of this life. I wonder if you remember the beauty of slowness— you who laughed your throaty laugh and ordered another margarita when I wanted to leave the nightclub; you who wanted to stay, enchanted as you were by the saxophone player.
Copyright 2001 by Gwen Williams. First published by Plainsongs, 2001.
Inheritance by Gwen L. Williams As I drive down 35W I read the backs of my brown hands. The way my veins bulge and run make my hands look just like my father’s. My knuckles swell and ache, certain of the arthritis that awaits them. Nails thick and yellow, mine from Pall Malls, his from Swisher Sweets. Ice cold Grain Belts feel as easy in my hands as they did in his. Short, compact hands meant to play like wild mustangs but broke to work like a team of mules. I never read my palms. I fear I will read that my hands are truly my father’s hands. That they will drive this Chevy right off this cloverleaf and into the Mississippi below.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Half Tones to Jubilee, 2000.
Visiting My Uncle Julian at Abbott-Northwestern by Gwen L. Williams “Your hands are warm,” my uncle said, plastic tubes running in his nose wrinkled and pinched from the cancer twenty years ago, over his ears, down across the front of his hospital gown covering the incision over his breastbone, and into the bedside oxygen tank. My sister, mother, and aunt discuss surgeons and doctors who never come at the same time each day, nurses who give sponge baths and breathing advice, stitches, the vein removed from his leg (they took it from his right leg this time) and the resulting bruised thigh, dry mouth, chapped lips, $5 booties, and my uncle’s weight as if he wasn’t there. “Is mine cold?” he asks, ashen face framed by thin strands of hair soft as stretched out cotton batting. White wisps of eyelashes blink around pools of thick black oil–– dull reminders of the sharp obsidian that sparkled at all the ladies and winked at me when I bummed him the forbidden: a cigarette, Camel no filter. “No,” I said squeezing his brown-spotted hand that felt taunt and smooth as saddle leather. “Mine are just warm is all.” He squeezed back, fell asleep.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Half Tones to Jubilee, 2000.
It seemed only yesterday he told me by Gwen L. Williams how he found her one night: standing in the bathtub after twenty minutes the washrag in her hand still dry. She asked him how to turn on the faucet. Her condition changed everything: one day they are pruning the shrubs and the next day he can’t leave her alone in the kitchen to fry eggs, afraid she might forget the potholder again. The doctors didn’t know then what caused spaces in her memory to vanish and others to remain, her heart to fail twice, her kidneys to poison her. But it wasn’t yesterday he told me that, it was twelve months ago. Twelve months of explaining how to open the sliding glass door. Twelve months of calming her when he approached with a bristled tool she didn’t recognize: a hairbrush for brushing her hair. And now that she’s died, the doctors still don’t know. Maybe that’s what’s most frightening about it all, that no one can name what happened to her. As if naming it would make it solid and material like the coat rack that laid tipped over on its side for one year, because she liked the looks of it that way and believed it to be a sculpture he’d given her. As if naming it could give him something to hang his grief on.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams.
The Schoenberg waltz by Gwen L. Williams
wafting through dusty slats of sunlight entices the bridge players from naugahide chairs, teakwood card tables. Sneakers, penny loafers, leather-soled slippers shuffle to the center of the recreation room as arthritic shoulders lift inviting arms; hands clasp left in right, bands of silver and gold wristwatches, past betrothals rest on shoulders of twilled cottons, tartan plaids, shell-crocheted backs. The waltz transforms the stilled afternoon air, crocheted cardigans, and polyester trousers into pinstriped cuffs glancing off shiny winged-tips and starched chiffon dresses— bustles of rainbow gathered at satin-sashed waists—twirling in triple time like bright umbrellas splashing prisms of particles through the air and across a ballroom floor waxed, scattered with talcum for slide. Two bifocal rims click together: a momentary break in rhythm, a quiet chuckle, a brief, fleeting reminder of afternoon bridge, dust particles suspended motionless in slanting rays of sun.
Copyright 2001 by Gwen Williams. First published by Karamu, 2001.
Snowbound by Gwen L. Williams What joy is a two foot blizzard that descends and freezes the earth at home: cars stalled and buried, people hunkered down, cans of soup opened up, cream of tomato, and hot grilled cheese sandwiches. Drifts appear created by the invisible wings of angels—scalloped, curved, and barring the front door. Naps become the only order of the day. We peer from windows and watch the snow, as if it were planning on doing something. As if it were fixing to go. See that white whirling tornado? That’s Gabriel kicking up crystals.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Poetry Motel, 2002.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Karamu, 2000. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award by the editor of Karamu. Excerpt from Pablo Neruda’s la lluvia (Rapa Nui) translated by Anthony Kerrigan.
In the Sanctuary of Grief by Gwen L. Williams As the weatherman delivers tomorrow’s forecast, the woman sleeps on her davenport— kleenex wadded in the fold of her palms and reading glasses askew. Littering the coffee table at her knees: her mother’s recipes that made Fromm Bakery famous all over the northeast side. The aromas of pecan bear claws, black pumpernickel, and cinnamon rolls haunt the sanctuary of her dreams where her mother kneads dough and talks her daughter into womanhood: The way to a man’s heart. . . In her dreams she remembers the timbre of his voice, the warmth of his laugh sultry as a satin ribbon on the back of her neck, the touch of his firm hands kneading cramps from her shoulders as she stirs a pound cake batter two hundred revolutions with a wooden spoon. This is how she remembers him for in the sanctuary of grief all things become possible and miracles are commonplace and she, sifting through what was and what wasn’t and what yet could be, she is an alchemist with the power to raise him as evidence of her mother’s truth about baking from scratch and the path to belovedness.
Copyright 1998 by Gwen Williams. First published by Grasslands Review, 1998.
Bourgeois Dreams at the Kitchen Sink by Gwen L. Williams It was the black stoneware plate that she washed crusted frozen mini-delight cheese poop from its glazed surface. It was the black stoneware plate she washed. She washed black stoneware. The plate. Then a megabyte opened onto her brain and she concluded she’d been washing a lot more dishes than normal. A lot more dishes were washed. A lot more dishes needed washing. And she couldn’t scrub away the pooped on feeling that crusted, there, on her frozen glazed brain that hiring a maid would be in order as soon as she found a job.
Copyright 2002 by Gwen Williams. First published by Main Street Rag Poetry Journal, 2002.
Being snowed-in away from home by Gwen L. Williams gets old fast. You must still brush your hair. Makeup continues to be applied, brassieres continue to be worn. Correct posture becomes a vigilance. Kitchen chairs are declared comfortable and tabletops unsuitable for elbows. Coffee brews non-stop and polite skirmishes erupt over dish-washing duties. There is a furious urge to play every card game, every dice game, every board game— even the game missing pieces (the golf tee is the shoe). You cannot place the hat on the Scottie. Shame settles at the grayness of your last pair of clean socks. You vow to pack better next time. Then there’s all that talk talk talk, everyone trying to out-chuckle each other when really only Marvin tells a good joke. You pronounce made-for-TV movies outstanding art. You proclaim magazine ads astonishingly clever. You speculate on the lack of city funds for snowplows and overtime. You curse the mayor and city council and the neighbor with the monster snowblower. You obediently fill the silences of this house —with its knickknacks suddenly very dusty and quite ugly—with noise. You hope you can somehow get out of there soon, venture onto the two lane highway, treacherous and lonesome like the first stroke of charcoal on a clean sketch pad, and venture into the white white expanse toward home.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams.
Early Imprint by Gwen L. Williams Dora Lee wished she’d been born an armadillo. So that when her mother carried on —in a loud shrill voice characteristic of one who’s consumed too many gin tonics before noon— about starching oxford shirts and packing brown bag lunches; about a woman’s never ending duty (yes duty, Dora Lee) to a life of sacrifice and of picking up other people’s socks; about dreams of moving to Memphis that were crushed, simply crushed, by that notorious boy in that red convertible who later lost all his charm (never get in a backseat, Dora Lee) and turned into an ungrateful husband who gave her more children than she’d ever wanted (that’s your father); Dora Lee would’ve had somewhere to go
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams.
Absence of Speed by Gwen L. Williams I regret the day we ate brie and pesto in that cedar grove as we sat between the cushion of brown pine needles and the canopy blocking the sun. The sunlight through the trees cast an evergreen hue across our skin and we were astonished into silence not by the songs of birds but by how we could no longer hear traffic speeding through the city. To slow down like that, Katarina, was heavenly. And that is why tonight, as I drive home alone through the neon tunnel of storefronts lining the street, I regret the day you took me to that grove and hushed me so that I could listen to the absence of the speed of this life. I wonder if you remember the beauty of slowness— you who laughed your throaty laugh and ordered another margarita when I wanted to leave the nightclub; you who wanted to stay, enchanted as you were by the saxophone player.
Copyright 2001 by Gwen Williams. First published by Plainsongs, 2001.
Inheritance by Gwen L. Williams As I drive down 35W I read the backs of my brown hands. The way my veins bulge and run make my hands look just like my father’s. My knuckles swell and ache, certain of the arthritis that awaits them. Nails thick and yellow, mine from Pall Malls, his from Swisher Sweets. Ice cold Grain Belts feel as easy in my hands as they did in his. Short, compact hands meant to play like wild mustangs but broke to work like a team of mules. I never read my palms. I fear I will read that my hands are truly my father’s hands. That they will drive this Chevy right off this cloverleaf and into the Mississippi below.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Half Tones to Jubilee, 2000.
Visiting My Uncle Julian at Abbott-Northwestern by Gwen L. Williams “Your hands are warm,” my uncle said, plastic tubes running in his nose wrinkled and pinched from the cancer twenty years ago, over his ears, down across the front of his hospital gown covering the incision over his breastbone, and into the bedside oxygen tank. My sister, mother, and aunt discuss surgeons and doctors who never come at the same time each day, nurses who give sponge baths and breathing advice, stitches, the vein removed from his leg (they took it from his right leg this time) and the resulting bruised thigh, dry mouth, chapped lips, $5 booties, and my uncle’s weight as if he wasn’t there. “Is mine cold?” he asks, ashen face framed by thin strands of hair soft as stretched out cotton batting. White wisps of eyelashes blink around pools of thick black oil–– dull reminders of the sharp obsidian that sparkled at all the ladies and winked at me when I bummed him the forbidden: a cigarette, Camel no filter. “No,” I said squeezing his brown-spotted hand that felt taunt and smooth as saddle leather. “Mine are just warm is all.” He squeezed back, fell asleep.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Half Tones to Jubilee, 2000.
It seemed only yesterday he told me by Gwen L. Williams how he found her one night: standing in the bathtub after twenty minutes the washrag in her hand still dry. She asked him how to turn on the faucet. Her condition changed everything: one day they are pruning the shrubs and the next day he can’t leave her alone in the kitchen to fry eggs, afraid she might forget the potholder again. The doctors didn’t know then what caused spaces in her memory to vanish and others to remain, her heart to fail twice, her kidneys to poison her. But it wasn’t yesterday he told me that, it was twelve months ago. Twelve months of explaining how to open the sliding glass door. Twelve months of calming her when he approached with a bristled tool she didn’t recognize: a hairbrush for brushing her hair. And now that she’s died, the doctors still don’t know. Maybe that’s what’s most frightening about it all, that no one can name what happened to her. As if naming it would make it solid and material like the coat rack that laid tipped over on its side for one year, because she liked the looks of it that way and believed it to be a sculpture he’d given her. As if naming it could give him something to hang his grief on.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams.
The Schoenberg waltz by Gwen L. Williams
wafting through dusty slats of sunlight entices the bridge players from naugahide chairs, teakwood card tables. Sneakers, penny loafers, leather-soled slippers shuffle to the center of the recreation room as arthritic shoulders lift inviting arms; hands clasp left in right, bands of silver and gold wristwatches, past betrothals rest on shoulders of twilled cottons, tartan plaids, shell-crocheted backs. The waltz transforms the stilled afternoon air, crocheted cardigans, and polyester trousers into pinstriped cuffs glancing off shiny winged-tips and starched chiffon dresses— bustles of rainbow gathered at satin-sashed waists—twirling in triple time like bright umbrellas splashing prisms of particles through the air and across a ballroom floor waxed, scattered with talcum for slide. Two bifocal rims click together: a momentary break in rhythm, a quiet chuckle, a brief, fleeting reminder of afternoon bridge, dust particles suspended motionless in slanting rays of sun.
Copyright 2001 by Gwen Williams. First published by Karamu, 2001.
Snowbound by Gwen L. Williams What joy is a two foot blizzard that descends and freezes the earth at home: cars stalled and buried, people hunkered down, cans of soup opened up, cream of tomato, and hot grilled cheese sandwiches. Drifts appear created by the invisible wings of angels—scalloped, curved, and barring the front door. Naps become the only order of the day. We peer from windows and watch the snow, as if it were planning on doing something. As if it were fixing to go. See that white whirling tornado? That’s Gabriel kicking up crystals.
Copyright 2000 by Gwen Williams. First published by Poetry Motel, 2002.
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