relationships
Mary Fae Smith
What Woman Wants
“Go deeper, Go deeper, Go deeper”
He told her.
He questioned her.
He begged her.
He pleaded her.
Not her. Him. Him Him. Always him. Deeper into her but never into him. What did he want from her? WHat was he excavating inside the mine field of her soul?
Entering through her womanhood and moving in.
Out…out. Out! She wanted out. She wanted him out. Out in the open. THat is where she wanted him. No longer insider her. In front. Standing. Staring. Revealing.
He was no longer allowed to hide in the Woman.
She forbid it. Gave him no respite. Gave him no solace. Gave him no home until he built her one first…
And let her go inside. Go deeper and deeper and DEEPER into he man.
All the longing in her soul craved entry within.
How does woman enter a man?
How does she penetrate and plant her seeds?
How does she build a life within his love?
Serious now. She meant it. Meant it down to the fibers holding her together suspended in time.
“Leave me. Leave me be. I want you to go. Go far away. I can no longer be your home. You must find your own. I cannot replace what’s been lost in your soul. You cannot infiltrate mine and play parasitic host to mine either. Be yourself for once, you slob. Be Man. Not A Man. Be Man. I need Man. All of Man. In one man.
Let me enter into that.”
She cried in her pillow.
© 2013
“Secret Beaches” by David Romero
Secret beaches
Tend not to live up to their name
But they often mean a lot
To those who name them
Secret
Today we walk your secret beach together
The meaning is not lost on me
Today we walk
Like mad and innocent children
You make me feel ancient
We have a history
Years ago I took you to a secret beach
Where we shared our first kiss
Under a shining sun
The crashing of waves as our soundtrack
You’ve brought me here
So that I could hear it playing again
Irresistible, I pull you towards me again
Once more
Like the surf falling from the seashore
This all seems inevitable
Your body still fitting into mine
Comfortable in my arms
Our lips and our tongues finally part ways
I look into your face
No longer seeing the woman you have become
The girl you once were
The girl I once found
The sweet princess
With a heart surrounded by barbed wire
A castle surrounded by landmines
You placed them there yourself
Part defense mechanism
Part masochism
Cynicism and sarcasm
I loved it all
I love to see you smile
You are mine again
Like you never left
The secret beach is playing our soundtrack
It keeps on skipping on this track
With sounds jarring
Tears
Father
Pity
Tears
Father
Pity
“Son, I never want to see you like this again.”
Again and again
In the past
My friends come up a hill
Something in their slow approach highly suggestive
Heavy with bad news
Unfaithful
Unfaithful
I know
You stand upon this beach
Asking for forgiveness
When you don’t have anything nice to say
You shouldn’t say anything at all
So, I am silent
Fuck you
Your smile, is beautiful
Vulnerable and open
My smile is there too
Closed
Impatient
Full of hate
We have a history
You are comfortable in my arms
A girl I once found
A woman who would be mine
Part sadism
Part masochism
Cynicism and sarcasm
I once loved it all
As I love the beach
I will never love you again
Will never believe in secret beaches again
You are not a girl any longer
You are a woman
I am a man
Secrets are not kept
Others will walk this beach
David Romero
© 2011
“Stories Replace People” by Herbert T. Schmidt, Jr.
He said something that hurt her
She reacted angrily
He raised his voice
She spoke louder than he
He told her she was acting like a child
She said he was being manipulative
He shook a finger at her
She said she was leaving without him
He said there’s no leaving in love
She said you watch me
He was overwhelmed by a sense of great loss
She slammed the door on the way out
He had seen the look in her eye
She hated him during their argument
He grew very cold and shook for hours
She did not reappear or call
He was alone
She was gone
He sent her flowers
She said thank you I want to talk to you
He was afraid of what she would say
She knocked on his door later
He opened it
She asked him if he was going to hug her
He hugged her
She sat down and began to tell him how much he had taught her, etc.
He asked her if she had come to break up with him
She said yes she had stopped loving him during their argument
He said there was nothing else to talk about and left the room
She left her ring on the table and closed the door softly as she left
He told the story to his friends
She told the story to her friends
His story stressed how childishly she had behaved
Her story stressed how he had hurt her
Where she had been in his life there was now a story
Where he had been in her life there was now a story
There is nothing in life sadder than when
Stories replace people
© 2010
“Power” by L. K. Thayer
I have cramps.
I thought the period thing was over.
Period.
I have no energy, I don’t want to speak to anyone, or show up for anything. I’m tired of showing up. I’m tired of showing. I’m tired, period.
Trying to make something happen. Trying to make it.
That damn word, it. The it thing, the it girl …it can go suck it! Fuck it… Fuck it’s self!!
I wear an art mask. Masking taped together with thumbtacks and glue. I don’t want to take care of anybody or anything…I don’t want to take care of myself.
I feel like a loser. A hamster on a ferris wheel, I don’t wanna be the sideshow, the second wheel, the second fiddle…I want to open. Be the one who they pay to see.
The phone rings…I see it has a blocked number. I reach for the sound to turn it off. There was a time when I would’ve given anything for him to call. Just to hear his deep voice would send shivers in all the right places. Knowing we would spend hours sharing saliva and other bodily juices. I miss that feeling of really wanting someone, the way my heart rushed at the thought of him, wanting to look good for him, kiss him, smell him, stroke his hair, lay my head on his chest. He broke my heart for a while, but I got it back and he wants to see me again and Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don’t Care…
I turn the sound on the cell down to vibrate and feel my power, the power I gave away… and I feel good.
© 2010
“This Life” by Jack Grapes
My wife is getting dressed,
rushing off to see her clients.
She puts a top on that comes down past her navel,
barely covering her pubic hair.
But when she sits on the bed to pull up socks,
the chemise rises up, exposing hair between her legs.
She puts one leg up, resting her heel on the bed’s edge.
Her legs a few inches apart.
Her pubic hair and mound clearly visible.
It’s enough.
This altar. This sacred, secret, sanctified,
whatchamacallit.
I stop by the TV and ask her
when she’s coming home,
do I pick up Josh today,
are we going to David & Gina’s for dinner on Saturday,
should I get bread and milk at J-Market
or what?
“What,” she says.
I’m talking, she’s got her head down working on the sock,
no, I think it’s panty hose or tights,
something like that,
something complicated that requires her full attention
I’m talking but I’m really looking at her pubic hair, her sacred
whatchamacallit, that is . . . . and is not . . . . her,
the embodiment of everything,
the symbol of nothing but itself.
This is when . . . . I think . . . . maybe not . . . . but probably so.
this is when I love her the most,
when she’s putting on socks, half-naked,
paying little attention to me.
“What?” she says.
She’s not even listening to me.
“Should I pick up Josh,” I say,
“and what about the bread and milk?”
Actually, I’m not really talking to her, either.
I’m looking at her pussy
while she struggles with this complicated long sock or something,
her head down, working it fold by fold past her heel
and ankle, then up the calf, over the knee,
up the thigh, finally standing
and jumping up and down, small little jumps,
as she tugs the last part above her pubic hair,
above the navel.
She rims the elastic with her thumb,
gives it a snap, then looks up at me,
finally. She gives her head a shake,
straightening her hair for her clients,
getting all neat and composed and psychotherapeutic,
her sacred whatchamacallit covered by a gauze curtain,
and in a minute, by the dress.
I’m looking at her,
thinking of that Grecian pottery
where Aphrodite rises from the sea,
her sandstone naked body
gravely and glistening in its classical flesh.
“What?” she asks.
“Do I pick up Josh today?”
“Yeah. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.”
We stand there, holding everything
unsaid that seems to float along with the dust motes
made visible finally by the first light of the morning
coming through the blinds.
When you coming home?” I ask.
“6:30.”
“Don’t forget my class starts at 7.”
“I won’t.”
Then she’s off, rushing from one room to another,
grabbing necessities.
I catch up to her at the door.
She kisses me.
I kiss her back. A little piece of sweet lip
in her sweet breath. I keep my eyes open
so I can see her face close-up.
“Love you,” I say.
“Love you, too.”
I stand on the front steps and watch her
get in the car, buckle-up, start the engine,
make a U-turn and come to a stop at the stop sign
at our corner. I walk to the mailbox
on the corner and give a little wave.
She sees and waves back,
then pushes off for her day, her clients.
I have things to do, too.
Have to xerox poems for my students, my fellow poets.
The sun’s not out yet; by noon, the clouds’ll break,
and it’ll be a sunny day,
and the sun will shine
on my wife and on my students
and on this blessed, sacred, sanctified life.
© 2010
“Barbed Wire Romance” by L. K. Thayer
barbed wire romance
sucked into chance
and all that is written on walls
as graffiti is sprayed
and the apple is bitten
let our love not fade
with the ashes
of burning Cinderellas
and lost slippers
sipping from big dippers
on the milky way
of what’s mine is yours
and the galaxy of
meteors and space between
our sentences, let
our pregnant pauses
birth new beginnings
from lust to trust
grounded into
submission
giving each other permission
to become
who we are
© 2010
“Emergency Exit” by L. K. Thayer
we cannot make someone
have the same feelings
for us
or have the same intensity…
it either is or it isn’t.
they either do or they don’t
things either will or they won’t.
thy will be done….
and so we stay
or move on
© 2010
“Laugh Riot” by L. K. Thayer
He said he didn’t know what he liked better
my stories or where the holes were in my pants.
We drank dollar margaritas and our memories
shot back to when were lovers.
We were goofy and laughed more than we’d ever
laughed with anyone. Holed up during the LA riots,
we drank. Trying to numb out the rivers
of hatred and desperation burning in the streets
below and wondered if we were all going to die,
a good reason to drink some more & eat a great steak.
This was before cell phones & texting & computers.
The streets were on fire with racial incineration and
kerosene hatred. We were hypnotized by the theme
song from Twin Peaks and tripped in and out of playing
house and whose ATM machine we could rely on.
We were cuddly and precocious and cut from the same
cloth. Except he needed to be mommied and I needed to be
daddied and we could no longer pacify each other.
Our playpen could no longer contain us
and the babysitter with no notice
up and quit.
All Rights Reserved
© 2010
“20 Stories” by L. K. Thayer
below the underbelly of the stretched cat winter
claws scratch what has unraveled in the tangle
of deception, sticky on your fork tongue
I watch as you slink back into your lair
waiting for the next pawn to suckle dry
your crumbs I am no longer hungry for
they don’t satisfy my well of discontentedness
your couch no longer swallows my every cell
I gasp for air in your billowing tented ego
I dangled on your charm bracelet
I dreamt of your crooked smile
I fell twenty stories to an untimely death
from our penthouse love affair
exclusion is a crushing blow
All Rights Reserved
© 2010