Antoinette Christensen: Favorites

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Raj Arumugam

will this love be pastoral
or gypsy
with abandon and fields and flowers?
dear heart
O dearest love
will it be Parisian
with wine and sophistication?
Will Hamlet and Juliet hold hands here
and Ophelia and Sybil and Cassandra sit in dark corners
watching and casting spells?
will this be Orpheus losing Eurydice
or the love of shepherds unheard of and un-noted in history
and loving with great lust and dying in old age and quiet…
I do not know, I do not know
for I have no power of prophecy.
Do you, sweetest love?
Perhaps you use the Book of I-Ching?

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Grandma

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Paula Swanson

Grandma

Tears
and rain,
sit upon
my eyelashes.
One shows my pain, one washes it away.

The grey clouds are one with my breaking heart.
Shedding their pain
in tune with
my souls
cry

To
accept
that Grandma
is leaving me,
is easier to say than to live through.

Each slowing beat of her heart pierces me.
My second mom,
my best friend,
dying
now.

Her
grace and
wisdom will
stay with me still.
I am, today, the woman she molded.

Touching so many, giving of herself.
Angel on earth,
soon to be
going
home.

This is written in the poetic form of "Tetractys" The scheme is a syllable count of 1,2,3,4,10...then reverse the count 10,4,3,2,1 and so on

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Rx

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

entropiK

Rx

ix.

when you were eighteen
and i was fourteen
you handed me a blindfold
teethed with razors
because you say
truth is schizophrenic:
and angels are anemic
and my eyes are sweeter
than pomegranate
but your poison did not stop at
fairytale apples or lazarus
or hellish flowerets,
it re-mastered
left its tar around
your marrows.

iii.

when you were twenty
and i was sixteen
you gave me a Glasgow smile
on my tongue:
like the pale harlequin
so i could bleed solace
and sympathetical commiseration
through every word
when ever you needed me

wheil you emitted a rosary
that encircled
clavicles, threading it to a hole you manifested
inside my sternum
because you belived
a heart was not neccessary
if a doll could
love with fingers

*

now you are ten years old
and i am seven years older
you ask me to write a poem
about you and artistry
but i am waiting
for the aestheticist
beside the violet car
with one ear and
debauchery

licking my fingers
and biting off your nails.

its for an old friend..

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

all that

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Charles Bukowski

all that

the only things I remember about
New York City
in the summer
are the fire escapes
and how the people go
out on the fire escapes
in the evening
when the sun is setting
on the other side
of the buildings
and some stretch out
and sleep there
while others sit quietly
where it's cool.

and on many
of the window sills
sit pots of geraniums or
planters filled with red
geraniums
and the half-dressed people
rest there
on the fire escapes
and there are
red geraniums
everywhere.

this is really
something to see rather
than to talk about.

it's like a great colorful
and surprising painting
not hanging anywhere
else.

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

once I die you can't make me live

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Lee Turpin

once I die you can't make me live

You never looked at me when we were driving.
I got so tired of it that I said your name out loud (just so you would look at me)
Oh god, the way that it smashed the silence,
I squinted my eyes and blinked

You picked up your eyes
turned your head
and looked at me, confusion pouring out of your open mouth
“What?”

Later as we walked down the middle of the street I reached for you and you said
“something’s come between us”
with a smile stretching over your mouth.
It was the soap in the palm of your hand

Right when you were looking down, I looked up
[ ]
when you kiss me, let it be
*let it be once

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Happy

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

Katy Sauer

Happy

So excited
And yet
So scared
Waiting, Waiting
For an answer
Close my eyes
For a whisper
See the breath
Of an angel
Dance across
The sky
Hoping that
we will
never lose
The place
We have
Gained in
This circle
of life.

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

untitled

Oct 2010 Antoinette Christensen

rochie lapoza

untitled

Don’t you cry for me
Not one tear
Don’ you cry for me

Who am I to make you cry?
Why is it me that makes you whole?
Why is it me you love so much?
You deserve better that what I give
I’m cold and dark and rude and mean
Although this was not how it used to be
But still you stay and cry for me
There is nothing here anymore
Nothing but an empty shell
My sole I fear is down in hell
And still you cry for me

There is an end you have to see
There is an end to your agony
Its coming soon
You’ll be fine
Now its here your no longer mine

And so you leave and say to me
“This is the last drop I spill for you
I’ll cry no more
I have lost all hope
I loved so much and tried so hard
My heart is smashed
Here take this shard
Hold it tight and keep it safe”

“One last kiss”
Your sweet lips press to mine
I feel you love I feel you cry
A tear runs down your cheek
Your eyes begin to swell
You take my hand and hold it tight
“I know you feel it I feel it to
I only ever wanted to be with you
So out that door you go

I know I lost in side my mind
It’s a maze I used to know
I will again find my way
Ill find my self
Then find you
We’ll live for each other
Just me and you