Category: Poetry

Billboard People

Terah Van Dusen5 Comments
Instead of regurgitating facts
why not digest the knowledge
Instead of claiming ideas as your own
shoving them down my throat
like capsules of lead
let them collect around you
and carefully handle the wisdom
grow to understand it …
before you accept it
Everything has a label now
most of all, our own persons
are we not all tagged as this
or that?
Who am I if I do not
promote myself to you?
Do I exist at all?
Have I no life if
I am not on display?
Have I got no education if
I don’t wear it like a badge?
Have I got no past if
I don’t carry my albums
in my mouth
spilling them out
on the floor at every change
waiting for you to stop
talking so that I might
do my dance
How old are we anyway?
Still young enough for
Show and Tell?
Are my bones
my breath
my eyes
my body
all lost on you?
Is my presence
not enough?
I forgot my billboard
at home
You forgot my
address
my phone number
You forgot I’m
a person
not a number
Not friend
number 362
but a soul
a spirit
a woman
begging
authenticity
from
you

Fiber

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

I am everywhere
I am sitting on your head
I am raining on your home
I don’t even try
I shower but I
smell
I keep mum but I
shout
I chipper ‘good morning’at your placemate
he mumbles inaudibly in return
I play my music
and I play it loud
the birds seem to
sing to me
a hummingbird stares
treading the air
a breath of hope
like a dragonfly
or a new moon
I sit on the porch and write
I am everywhere
but I wouldn’t dare
my hair clogs your drain
my saliva is yours
your coffee
is my coffee
I fear
I beg
behind my mask
I am an open slice in my flesh
I am addicted to love
and unsure of its meaning
I am attached to you
lecherous and brave
I sink into the corners
come in from under the door
give myself too much power
take myself too high
stare in the mirror
too much or not enough
think too much
think all over your house
spill my selfy-ness
on the counters and floors
Am I cleaning anything up
when I scrub?
Or am I pounding myself
into the fibers that were
just you

Esther

Terah Van Dusen6 Comments

Did I dream her up?
I met her in the vegetable garden. It was sometime near my fifth birthday. I was fingering the dense pumpkin stocks and their broad leaves like wall insulation to the touch–misleadingly soft and cozy. Like a five year old herself.
She appeared there beyond the ripe orange globes.
She stared at me,  reached out to touch the vines.
She was my age. Her eyes spoke to me but her childmouth never moved. I admired her wetsand-colored curls as she told me that we were Identical. That he touched her too. That he came for her when he was done with me, that he came for me when he was done with her. She told me her name was Esther. Before I could respond, he pulled up in his Chevrolet. I crouched down in the path in my Autumn dress. I peeked my eyes above the garden greens as he pointed to the passenger door instructing her to get in. My eyes got big and wet, her dress was caught in the door, they drove down the dirt lane toward Hunter Creek and I shook but it wasn’t cold outside.

Too Much So Soon

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

He is alive and well. Warm. He breathes in, he breathes out. He is inside his mind, mulling over manchoices underneath the loud chant of a tractor, a mower, a tiller. He must have 9 hours a day inside his mind. Yet he doesn’t have much to say. He doesn’t let on with me–just asks me out again and again, and again and again. I’m barking up his tree, I’m tugging at my heart, I’m wanting him to choose me, I’ve already chosen him. He is alive and well. I did not know.

I thought he might not exist at all. And then I saw him, standing, breathing, talking. I thought I might have missed him. With my birth, his death. I thought, I am too different for love. I am not chosen. I am pick-eee, but I met him, breathing and talking. Now, now I need him to pick me, to keep me.

If not well it’s back to the drawing board, numb hands, no ink in my pen, well run dry, stiff, deadlove girl. He moves me. Makes me come alive. Takes my breath away. This is. This is it.

 

No Title

Terah Van Dusen1 Comment

For how long
can we
trapeze this love?
Before falling
     f
       a
            l l
               i
                   n
                           g
with I love you’s
and titles.
We run from
those words,
playing hide
and go seek
For surely
those words
lead to
   I don’t love you
             any
                 more.

For how long
can we babystep
this desire?
Knowing All-grown Up
desire is
dumb.

For how long
can you go
without
calling me Yours?
For how long
can I?

Shadows

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

Mystery
I can live with
I live within it too
You can have me and
I can have you but
many are the parts of us
that cannot be reached
Touched upon only in
fantasy
Crumbling like pillars
slowly as the years build
stories told and held
do not hold up well in
reality
We try to escape,
the both of us,
the glaring truths of us
I think I think more about it
than you do
I think you
prioritize,
instinctively
not a worry on your
wide…open…mind
I know from how
easily you fall to sleep
cow-licked head on the
pillow then you’re out
I think you must care
little of me
could watch me
come and go
Me,
I walk backwards
when I walk away
from you
You
You do not speak
You withhold and smile,
patient
…as if you’ll never die
and there is the difference
in you and I
You care not of the
dream
Care not of
reality
Only fantasy
trouble-maker
Lazy, sleeping
guard of my heart
Unaware your power?
What would it take
to get you to put
up a fight?
You prioritize
your trees
your meat
your greenery
Would would it take
to prioritize me?

You can keep
your shadows
if that’s what
concerns you

Ganesha
of my
heart

Keeper
of my
dreams

Hunt

Terah Van Dusen9 Comments

How many would
love to see me
like this
how many
ex-lovers that
I shorted,
traded in
for one another
I am pained,
it is true
my insides ache
my face is blue
my smile frowns
eyebrows down
not flattering
in the least
I strip
I beg
I claw at
the windows
in my red slip
I try it all
candles
scents
lipsticks
I try so
to summon you
with my mind
I beg
I wonder
where you are
I am red
I am done
I am in for
the kill
I am hunting
and you
are hunted

Nest

Terah Van Dusen5 Comments

If I were a
parcel of land
wide open and shady
blue-skied, forested green
If I were acreage in a place
that you loved,
would you buy me?
Pay any price?
Would you try for cheap?
What kind of deal would
you make?
On a place like me?

Imposter Blond

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

Imposter blond
So good and pure
You took me and
you had me
you bored me
before long
I let myself get
snowed in
white outside
black inside
my cave
You tasted like
water
Imposter blond
Tasteless
I spit you out and
walked along
Could my gut
be so wrong
Imposter blond?

Animal Instincts

Terah Van Dusen1 Comment

Every now and then
Desire forces in
No attention to timing,
she settles in for many
days and nights
Feet up
stockings on
not timid in the least
“Oh Lordy,”
her twin Gemini
Just in time for Spring —
everybody’s doing it…
Desire is more animal
than anything