PADDY GILLARD-BENTLEY

March 2002 | back-issues, poetry

[b]the dark ages[/b]

sitting at the cafe
caressing piquant coffee
a decadent slice of cake
half eaten
it is essential
I do not finish the coffee
before the cake
the cafe was crowded
my mind was crowded too
swarming with thoughts and ideas
napkins and empty cigarette packages
the usual evidence of my fervent tirades
but the napkins here are linen

I looked up
just as you entered
I’ve seen you here,
at the Mediterranean Cafe
many times
and I wonder who you were
what you did in your life
what were your passions
I didn’t have the luxury of knowing
my grandparents
so age is an enigma to me
you are an enigma to me

you sit in silence at your own table
in your own world
something like David Bowie in
‘The Hunger’
you are always alone
sometimes you sit with people you don’t know
during a moment when you don’t know your name
so what’s the difference
I suppose they notice the drool
in the corner of your mouth
and I would be amused at their discomfort
if I didn’t feel so damn sorry for you

they sure pick up the pace
when you join them.
any coffee, or dessert?
quickly wiping mouths with linen napkins
pushing half-eaten lunch at the waitress
no thanks, really have to go
that’s okay, we’ll pay at the counter
they collect their possessions hurriedly
you do not notice, nor take offence
there is some peculiar safeguard
residing in oblivion
you use your napkin to wipe your nose

that day, after you finished your lunch
you shuffled right by my table on your way out
I looked directly into your blank eyes
such sorrow
amid such nothingness
for a moment, a very brief moment
there was a glint
something that looked like amusement
and then you forgot what you were doing
and sat down at another table
staring around the room confused
the people at the table looked confused too

I couldn’t help watching
wondering what life has become for you
did you achieve all your dreams?
do you have children?
did you hold your first grand-child in your arms,
still warm from his mother’s womb,
and weep at the wonder of new life
before you no longer recognized your daughter?
age is eating your brain old man
and you don’t notice,
because when it feeds
you are not there

[b]therapy junkie[/b]

she is not dead
yet
but for the twenty years
I have known her
I have waited
for news of the inevitable
I’m so sorry
Suzanne wrapped her car
around a huge oak tree last night
and?
instantly
better I think than
she hit a van
carrying seven children
to a summer camp
no survivors
either way
she would be drunk
again
so many times I’ve heard
Tso kay, em nod drunch
I can drive perfechly.
you can only elude fate
for so long

Now
her driving
no longer my fear
after years of complicated m�l�es
riddled with twist and turns
sexual abuse
physical abuse
mental – emotional
did I miss any?
depression has conquered her
amid sleep deprivation
anxiety attacks
and physical assaults
committed by her own hand
while she sleeps
never reaching REM
this
revealed in dream therapy
one of the many
that occupy her days
therapy junkie

Now
she stays in her house
hostage of her own fears
pots of coffee
peter jacksons in smoking chains
a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals
that often beckon to her
on darker days
to consume the entire collection
and forget
countless failed attempts
now-she may be too weak
curled into defensive fetus
seeking protection from mother
who looked the other way
when her father in law
made her daughter a woman
at ten

And all I know
is the place where she now lives
ebony filled terror
it is no world of mine
and she is there alone
rocking her self back and forth
like the child she should have been
I offer her my hand
through the darkness
that in her madness
might seem the vicious head
of a dragon – breathing fire
her teeth are honed

[b]full circle[/b]

she held me
small sick child
with tender loving hands
endless hours
through long nights
never enough air
so much effort to breathe

rocking
back and forth
back and forth
breathing

all this
prone at the threshold
of vague memories
but drenched with
emotional certainty
I recall the warmth
her touch
soft elegant hands
on my back
persuading lungs
to better air

twenty-two years
consumed by life
and I held my mother
with tender hands
endless hours
through the long night
never enough air
so much effort to breathe
I miss my dignity
she sighs
I’m only fifty-three
I smile
ah, Mum
you still have much dignity
and where did you learn
to face death with such grace?
from you Love
she whispered
and I cried

as I rocked her
back and forth
back and forth
breathing

[b]If I Could Have These Moments Back[/b]

she told me
on a day
that had no right
to be drenched in sun
‘they are concerned
peripheral flashes
headaches’
I didn’t know
what an ophthalmologist was
everything will be fine
I lied
in some way
I knew
nothing would

aneurysm coiled
like a snake
waiting to strike
bringer of death
devastator of dreams
knife cuts deep
always casualties
where the brain is concerned
the snake annihilated
but vicious venom remains
‘lung cancer’
she whispered
in a voice so small
‘terminal’

I wish.
I had made her go
to England then
instead of
as she said
waiting until she felt better
back home to England
with her boyfriend
seventeen years younger
eyebrows would have arched
funny
there is no male version
of the word mistress
she never felt better
than that day

I wish I hadn’t been so afraid
to touch her back
with its landmines
tumors
I wish I had asked her
straight out
is he really my dad?
I wish I had purchased
illegal fireworks
and set them off
outside her window
for fun

when I brought her
to the hospital
that Sunday night in April
the doctor whispered
‘she is very close’
I knew
that is why I brought her

down the hall
a man cries out
demanding his dentures
‘poor old soul’
she managed through her pain
I wish I had known
I could have stayed that night
in the hospital
reading Shakespeare, Shelley
holding her
but I didn’t

the next morning
I arrive
they were calling her Theresa
I wish I had told them
no one called her Theresa
they called her Tess

an hour later
she was struggling for breath
as they cleared her lungs of fluid
I couldn’t listen
to the loud sucking noise
of that machine
I left the room

and I wish
in those last
few minutes of her life
that I wasn’t talking about floor wax
with the janitor
I wish instead,
I had been brave enough
to endure
and hold her hand
and whisper love
into her perfect ear

by Paddy Gillard-Bentley (c) 2002
([email]skydragon [at] sympatico [dot] ca[/email])

[b]Author’s Notes:[/b] Paddy Gillard-Bentley is the author of two published children’s books. At twenty-two, she wrote for a Rock magazine, and since then, has had several poems, short stories, reviews and articles published in magazines and e-zines. She is a member and board trustee of The International Centre for Women Playwrights, and an associate member of The Playwrights Union of Canada. She is also the Poetry Editor of Painted Moon Review. Paddy was in her first play, Bringing up Ginger, when her mother was four months pregnant with her, and has been involved in most aspects of theatre since. Paddy is in her third year of Writer’s Bloc, a playwright’s group affiliated with Theatre & Company, where her play, White Noise, was professionally produced. She lives near Toronto with her husband, artist J. Caz Bentley and her ten-year old thespian son, Samuel.

YUN WEI

March 2002 | back-issues, poetry

[b]RUNNING RED[/b]

Blood doesn’t drip,
It runs
Like a river of fugitives.

A blanket is music notes,
Warmed and feathered
Until an eight-year old cheek
Can sing its softness
My cheek
As my mother’s lips poured a story
The story of my great-grandmother
In the Cultural Revolution
The officials had raided the house
But it wasn’t enough
So they took needles of sleek bamboo
And pricked her fingers
One by one
It was a common use of torture in those days
Effective
They found the secret stash of opium and jewels

My mother’s lips had become soundless
But I could see the words roll on the blanket

I squeezed my eyes closed
Lashes embedded in skin
And tried to imagine what it
Would feel like, having my fingers pricked
One by one
All I can see are the splinters on the needles
Then flesh sagging under grief
A fear that crawls and scratches
From the heart
Peeking through the ribs
It spreads like a virus
Higher, colder
I want to swallow it before it shows its face

Skin rips.

Blood doesn’t drip
It runs
Like a river of fugitives
In a slow trickle down my arms
It makes roads, streets, and avenues
Each running to a different place
The patterns look so bright
Red lantern of marriage
Binding of a book
Wide mouth of a clown
They all laugh at me
Sleek bamboo eyes
Laugh at me
Laugh at my red fingers
Laugh at my soundless lips
Laugh at the people who will never
Touch my hands again

Except, maybe
My great-granddaughter

[b]THE PLAYGROUND AFTER RAIN[/b]

Slash across the skin. Black.
As an accidental murder of ink;
Dropped pen stabbing into sand
The playground after rain,
Where the only thing that could move
Stiff, wet air is the sound of a swing,
Its chains dipped in rust
Screams drip down and through metallic prison circles
Screams of Peace being raped
Slash, slash, slash the skin.

I swing higher to dizziness,
past rushing pictures of spray-painted green
Because I do not want to see.

This moment.
A room filled with the thick breathing of anger I can
Feel crawling up my leg 5000 miles away
I smell the impatient smoke
Circling above these men’s heads
The oil they sweat, the blood they use for sautéed fish in
Holiness
“Terrorist bombing at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon today.”

I lose my glasses into the gray mass above
Because I do not want to see.

This second.
Small brown eyes so easily punctured with a knife
Cotton-candy flesh so perfectly carved into pieces
To drench a navy-and-white uniform
Waterfall, black pigtails devoured by the thick
Eyebrows of a brain swimming in storms.
“In Japan, eight elementary students slain by mentally unbalanced man.”

I hang my head back to let my hair suffocate in the sand
Because I do not want to see.

This breath.
Last of many last ones shakes, singing in front of a fan
A paper cut infected into scabs of hate sawed at songs of
Mother and son, father and son, sister and brother?
Mouths gaped open spit, glaze the streets of disbelief,
Paint fists with red frustration, protest the death of gods.
“Nepal’s royal family was massacred by Crown Prince Dipendra, who then
committed suicide.”

I watch tears blur inky words down the newspaper.
Frozen faces turned gray at the point
where two walls and a ceiling meet.
Because I do not want to see.

Tears washed over the punctured corpse of Peace.
It lies in the corner.
Insect remains on windowsills.
Hemorrhage. Truth. Beauty. Love. Freedom. Bleed.
Human eyes see, human throats swallow silence by the spoonful.
Swinging, I swallow wind and try to think in the middle of spray-painted
Death.
Green.

[b]TO SOMEONE SITTING ON THE BLUE-GLASS ROOF[/b]

Your fingers plucked hairy screams out of the window
Running along the wooden frame of a picture
Where sun melted skin with a smile

Black was air and air was black.

Glass dripping, crying to the places that blood could not reach
Every particle of contradiction, strength,
Courage under your hair follicles are
Pillars that hold the roof up over
My well-waxed baldness.

You jumped over lines of black
Barely touching the ink with your toes
Hurdled across the pages until
A fiber snapped and ripped.

Melted dreams that made a puddle at my feet were
Gathered into a bowl and painted on the roof
The blue of a sky that birds would give their wings for
The glass of a million ethereal words
Waiting
Like the final notes of Moonlight Sonata…

[b]MOTION BY THE CLOCK[/b]

Time is planted in
Centuries of dreamy storm
Arrested by deadly wisdom
Traversing among God’s birches
Delicious.

by Yun Wei (c) 2002
([email]blueprimrose [at] hotmail [dot] com[/email])

[b]Author’s Notes:[/b] Yun Wei is currently a high school senior in Illinois. Having lived in China and Canada, she is fluent in both Chinese and French. Her love for languages has also led her to pursue Spanish in school. Writing has been her passion since words were known to her. Yun is an editor on the school newspaper as well as a member of the Speech Team, experiences that have helped her greatly in the art of writing. Her awards include the 1999 Ray Bradbury Short Story Contest and the Harper College Poetry Contest. She has also won two local Poetry Slams.

CHRISTINA CROFT

March 2002 | back-issues, poetry

[b]Collision of Madness and Sin[/b]

stealth mode activated
shiny, jagged memories escape; soar
scorched blasts of my reused, mental sponge
feast upon an uneven, blood red core
which seeps with mutilated slivers
of misplaced truths, wretched acts
Sh! I dare not speak, nor even think
decomposed dreams of wailing; torment
haunt my midnight spirit; twist into a merciless rage
hindsight bites with icy fangs that slowly drip
with no one to accuse, except my unspoken name
scent of an aged soul smoldering cries out
weeps of regret forge from within
my victims now will sense my collapse
a soldier no more; not even a man
alas, I’m exiled to radically rule
dominion in my death land

[b]Blinded Twilight[/b]

Red hot, smashed phrases, spread
to burn her pale, scarred wishes
of soft, blue, cotton candy yesterdays.
Twirls of slush ridden, rotten promises
now engulf her exhausted spirit; attack her need
to feed and breathe of earthbound magic.
She craves to toss his maddening,
anger kissed words aside; drink
in soothing relief; full tide of calm slumber.
Nightscape whispers quietly laugh,
tell her to dance, join the living;
escape his soured, dark vision,
that bruises everything, anything.
Bolt of sharpened, jagged reality jolts
her to cough up some nerve and stand.
Future twilights shall not blink quickly
to be blinded from her sorrow;
she knows one life, one soul
are trapped only in this mystical flash.
Without hesitation she packs,
leaving wasted words, mind blowing fits,
and lies to slowly drown in her aftermath.

[b]Agitated Angst[/b]

Cooled, brittle magma
angrily tastes defeat; cracks.
Full moon stains
of red wine relaxed; spilt.
I peer through blackened holes,
perpetual pits
that singe my sub-zero,
yellowed bones with contempt.
Yet, you live to breathe
of glorious human tales
and lick of their mortal,
delicious, fearful wails.
I aged, rotted
in your midnight hurricanes,
no sleep; hunger buried, saturated
by your seamless terror.
I shall not weep,
nor attain you for your sins.
Feel my bottomless rage; gasp
as it begins to frantically boil,
escape, then seep
into your poisonous brew
of unjust eternal afterglow.

by Christina Croft (c)2002
([email]normal [at] bellatlantic [dot] net[/email])

[b]Author’s note:[/b]
Christina Croft was born and raised in the quiet town of Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1962. Life has been a whirlwind, as Christina married, became a teacher, freelance artist, and mother of six children. After moving all around WV, she finally settled in Canonsburg, PA.

Christina has pubished both short stories and poetry. Her writing can be found in [i]The Murder Hole, Shadowkeep Zine, Dark Moon Rising,[/i] and [i]Insolent Rudder[/i]. She will have another story in an upcoming issue of [i]Steelcaves[/i]. Christina is currently working on more poetry and the completion of two novels.