Fern Woodward

Fern Woodward Jan 2014

MY SPINE
a crooked tree and you the moss that covers it.
A blanket of comfort encloaking my mind and numbing time.

How is it that we admire trees yet they are not immune to our plague of advantage?
and neither are we to the sickness of adjustment,
slowly accustoming our eyes and minds until what one tree used to awe us with a forest could not excite.

SO YOU
are not only the moss but the avid rain.
Feeding my growth and cleansing my

rotten,

crooked

spine.

Fern Woodward Jan 2014

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The greatest sign of love perhaps
is taking the words out of your mouth,
and stringing them across my shoulders for all to see.

Like a chain of verbs and linked perceptions
stuttered to anyone and everyone who has the time to listen but
rarely do they have enough to understand.

A declaration of dependence
for the sake of our sanity.

A dependence on declaring
for a reason unknown to our egos.

and slowly these premeditated meditations will sink into our skin,
tattoos of our words engulfing the private eye.
Ones that only we can see.

Fern Woodward Dec 2013

Below the influence.

I hope it’s not obvious.

My eyes glazed over with admiration.

Bloodshot with determination.

My mouth parched from an open mouth smile,

Unmotivated except when you’re on my mind.

I can’t live above your influence.

Fern Woodward Sep 2013

I Am the Iris

The effort's mundane and we are dedicated participations.
A simple string of words exchanged,
Letters beamed up to satellite and scribbled on page.
Numbers and lines decoding our blind conversations.

Proximity proves that the heart is immune to location.
A scratch in your voice and a beep from the other line,
Pixel-ized faces only numb the passing time.
The lack off emotion masks a lonely frustration.

We are lacking what our connection needs most.
A fickle flicker that exchanges what we need to know.
Doomed by imprisonment behind screens and phones,
and I am acting as the predators host.

I vibe what should be felt up close,
The most transparent thing to see.
Commonly focused on something other than me,
the eye has no agenda to boast.

Utterly infected by this exuberant virus,
holding my court,
preventing distort,
I am the Iris.

(possibly, maybe, not finished)

This is a similar subject matter to my poem Anti-Scientist. Basically about how eye contact and the connection people get in person can never be replicated through any other form of communication. In many of the long distance friendships I have, I feel like I have to act as that unseen force that is extremely delicate and has to be felt with the heart and mind. It's weird that writing a poem can seem to crave a longing and solve a negative feeling, yet the same feeling I had years ago is back. and in the form of an Iris. Enjoy.

Fern Woodward Mar 2013

Navigation

My moral compass is delicately crooked,
always pointing East even when aware of the descending sun.
I need to deconstruct this internal locus and reassemble cell by cell,
until I am unaffected by the magnetic people and their vigorous pull.
So subtle is the change of direction that happens every day.
So obvious is the need for control in solely my own way.

But to reject all other poles is irrational,
because in the end,I would be a slender silver needle spinning wildly with no direction.
Even the voluntary can seem controlled by an unspeakable force,
or the nudge of a voice whispering the next move into my ear.
Should I follow the South of my ancestors or the East of my peers,
the West of society? The North of my fears?

A push one way fails to answer any questions,
disorienting my lead and un-aligning the poles.
For now I will pause in the grey area of each direction ,
silently waiting for a queue from within
a neutral force in a battle I can not win.

Yet, I can not wait here forever .
Eventually the needle will stop spinning,
and the navigation will begin.

Fern Woodward Nov 2012

The most difficult question; Who am I?

I am a lover.
Falling in love every day.
The stars are the flirtiest, constellations constantly reeling me in,
and the people on Earth who prove me wrong with their inviting charm.

I am a teacher.
Erasing the corrupt.
Making attempts to prevent my mothers ways
and instructing never to think of tomorrow.

I am an artist.
Either that or I have no taste.
For I find beauty in almost everything,
and would be lost without a pen and paper.

I am a dreamer.
Even awake, my reality is stretched.
I rattle the sane thoughts out of my head
and replace them with the unknown.

I could tell you my thoughts, yet you would be confused at best.
I would paint you, but you are alluring even without this test.
I could inform you to what I've discovered, yet to you it might be bad.
I would love you un preventably, much to my dismay, I already have.

assignment

Fern Woodward Nov 2012

Belief in the truth

A pale yellow butterfly weaves in-between the legs of Plai-Jum Pui.
In the middle of the Thai jungle the hard sun beating down,
it tempts this angelic beast with its life.
Trusting in an elephant not to step on you,
Rocking back and forth on the bones of his back.
I guess I've done the same.

A Boeing jet, double decker.
Five hundred and twenty five people balancing on its wings.
The turbulence cradles us back to sleep,
finding motherly comfort in the foreign flight attendants reassuring words.
Having faith in aluminum sheets,
we all drift back to sleep.

A knock on the door and a call from the neighbor,
complaints of boundaries being resisted and property abused.
Fences acting as a seam to a fiery feud.
Guardian of their own selfish wills.
The worst war is fought from within,
a fight with your own kin.

A naive creature is spared its life,
confiding in the unsure and unreliable.
lacking trust for each other,
and burdening these winged seraphs and mothers.
The assumed minor species rely on one another,
having no need for metal protection and a religious buffer.

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