Category: Poetry

No Title

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

I believe in it all
I see the sun is rising
but am aware of its settling
somewhere else.

I recognize the man who we all see as sick
has moments of health and clarity
and that the sweet girl, she has nasty thoughts
sometimes worse than the man’s

This poem?
It is both epic and awful
Like everything,  it has its moments
My relationship is both meant-to-be and
get out now, get out now
There is no plan
but at the same time,
the lord has steered me from danger
once,
twice,
two-hundred times.

I am a beautiful, ugly girl.
I have love to give but have
many moments
of selfishness
and at the end of my life a
handful of people will hate me.
This is being human.

My Own Personal Truth

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Why would I drop out?
Of life?
Like my daddy did?
On a mountain
In the bush
Just a bible and a pile o books
Because of people like her
The kinds with their heads up their
arses
When my heads up my arse
I just stay home
Some people need be far away.
I’m one of ’em
It’s not you, it’s me
Making all her nowhere plans
for nobody

What I truly desire
In the middle of my being
Is to hide my plastic face
From the world
And to feel the earth
From the inside out
Where instead of looking at my
reflection first thing in the a.m.,
I’ll look at it at night
And see how the day
happened to change me
Or maybe I won’t look at all
Wouldn’t that be somethin’?

I Grew A Girl

Terah Van Dusen3 Comments

There’s a margin in
which I can change
It’s shallow,
a low roof,
gnome’s entrance,
cock-pit,
dog house,
gopher’s hole,
sugar bowl,
A pore
In which I can change
I grew a girl
A girl who will never
be any other kind of rose
Who will shed and bud the
same shape of leaf
Year after year
I will be happy,
But I will never smile like
the girl-next-door,
At fourteen
I was already the
woman upstairs

Other People’s Ideas

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

There’s always some reason
To feel not good enough
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Let me be empty
I need a break
That would make it okay
Are you strong enough
To be my man?
When I’m throwin’ punches in the air
Feelin’ like there’s no one there
It’s a
Mad world
Mad world
Tears filling up our glasses
No expression
No expression
You see my old man’s got a problem
I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
It’s funny how we feel so much
But cannot say a word
Screamin’ inside ohhh but can’t be heard
It’s a
Mad world

Leftover Children

Terah Van Dusen6 Comments

 A tender little angel looks for his mother
in the body of his ten year-old sister
But her tit is too small
and not equip to support him

Tears spring to the old young old sister’s eyes
as they lie on cardboard at dusk
High-heeled women walk around them
like the faceless/upperbodyless ladies do
on old cartoons
only not maternal at all
Not for them

The children use poison to stifle their hunger
and to give them something to look forward to
Men with faces not worth seeing smack them around for
being druggies and they say “it’s my parents fault, it’s my parents fault”
the men say “no, you have a choice”
and I say “no, no they don’t. Not really”

This poem was inspired by Children Underground, a documentary about homeless children living in a subway in Bucharest, Romania. It’s maybe my favorite movie. It sure beats Bride Wars or fucking American Pie: The Reunion. It will make you think, it might make you want to change the world even. This is a film that matters. *The children in the photo are the actual subjects that inspired this poem, their names are Ana and Marian.

Thanks But No Thanks

Terah Van Dusen5 Comments

Feverish feelings
flood my face
You look at me, ask What’s wrong?
You smack my pink face
Then you grimace at my face
because it is red, and ugly.
You call me nasty things
then you call the doctor to tell
her my ears are bleeding.
You kick me and offer me a hand.
Birth me and leave me on the ground
wriggling ’round, gaping mouth in
desperate need of a tit.
A spike dog-collared breast is provided
and people later ask,
What’s wrong with this baby?

Look Away Dumb Bitch

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Most women crave attention.
You can see it all over their faces as
they walk down the street.
You can see it in the way they ignore you.
The way they play dumb.
Play dumb in sundresses and slouchy bags.
Dumb.
Every last one of us.

I’m at a crowded lake alone.
I’m on the shore under a grove of
droopy Fir trees and I have my legs
and my pink dress and it’s warm.

All afternoon I’ve been needing cheered up.
It’s more than that–I have to somehow stay afloat.

I stare out at the pale gray lake with its buoys
and children
and tall,
sharp
green
blades of sea grass.
My life could be worse,
I could be in there,
cut up.

A car rolls by.
A clean shaven man looks at
me from inside of it.
He wants my bloody pussy.

A figure in the passenger’s seat
cranes their neck to see me.

The car parks.
There is a raft up top.
Out climbs a husband and wife,
as evident by a child.
The child looks my way.
I check out the man.
I look away.
I look back.
A family.
A threesome.
No doubt they’ve had bad times,
like I’m having now.
They are unhappy too, aren’t they?
Stop staring at the family.
I think to myself.
It’s rude.
You do not belong.
You are not allowed to do this.
Look away. Don’t look at the man.
He only glanced at you, fool.
You know who loves you?
Your boyfriend.

I silently permit the poor wife to kick my ass.
I am a dumb bitch, even if I do look away.
I disgust myself.

Latitude on 2nd: 2012 Summer Anthology

Terah Van Dusen17 Comments
$5.95 Hard copy/$2.99 Kindle

Many months ago I submitted three poems to Cool Waters Publishing, hoping they would select them for print in their 2012 summer anthology. Well, they did, and I’m now published for the third time ever alongside many other wonderful writers and poets!

Latitude on 2nd: 2012 Summer Anthology is available in hard copy or e-book format on Amazon.com (click link above). A special thanks to Tara Grover and Dan O’Brien of Cool Waters Publishing and Empirical Magazine in Chico, California for selecting my work and for being so helpful and encouraging in general and throughout the process. I look forward to the anthology being on my coffee table and thumbing through the compilation time and time again.

Rise Part II

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A sun-kissed bedroom of my own
was what I desired most as a child.
Dad and I went and looked at this place once,
it was buried behind so much tamarisk brush
that I’d never had a good look at it
but o was it a beauty
and right next door it was

It was a place made for a dad and his little girl
one bedroom custom-made for a girl,
for me,
a loft with a low ceiling and
a small bed with a pale yellow quilt and
an eggshell desk under a sun roof
and too a square window looking east
toward the sunrise.

Out the window I could see the cabin where
we lived.
The cabin where I didn’t have my own bedroom
and never would because out front there was a pond and
out back there was a fence and a chicken coop ( no room
to expand)

I sent a smile down to my dad from the loft,
it said,
Pleeeaaaasssse Dad?
He, I noticed was scoping out the french doors, smiling

We never moved to the loft.
In my memory shall remain the flirty essence of
the place and what a woman-girl I felt like inside of it.
A bunch of dudes live there now, I see ’em when I visit dad.

Rise Part I

Terah Van DusenLeave a comment

I don’t exactly count the ways
I love summer
It’s been raining and I love that.
It’s been cold and I don’t mind.
It’s warm today and I don’t care.
I think I’ll just stay inside.

I did have a moment today however,
a summer moment.
I sat at my yellow desk between the hour
of seven and eight and was delighted to notice
how the coffee inside my red and pink heart mug
failed to get cold at all. At all, for one full hour
the coffee and cream and sweet remained warm

I watched the sun shining upon it
and I looked to the sun and it brought me back to
another bedroom I had once.
I had that bedroom for just five minutes but I had
it and there was no one else there but me.
And my dreams.
That bedroom too had a window
looking east.