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A collection of poetry
by Patricia Wellingham-Jones
from Mongolian Art Exhibit
I turn a corner, stunned now by faces /
on the wall—masks of deities, shamans, /
in papier-mâché, carved wood, stuffed skin. /
Black brows pull down over glaring eyes, /
red mouths stretch in snarls or gentle smiles.
(more...)
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Release
by Rebecca Clark
I have squandered my resistance
for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises
~ The Boxer, Paul Simon
Every day it’s another piece
in a new voice, fragments
from everyone who tries
to make it whole, question by question:
it begins with her body cleaved
into parts, how did she end there,
was she thrown, was she wracked
by seizure, or did evening bring a melancholy
she couldn’t refuse? It haunts
each of us who tried, or did not, to help her.
Why did she walk the miles
from ER to home, where was the ride
that might have carried her
through night to morning’s possibility?
Instead of answers, an image
rolls over and over in my head: her body
laid out across the frozen tracks, waiting
for her hero to rescue her
from dark alleys and empty rooms,
every skirmish real or imagined
in her undying quest to be loved, but
instead of that dashing Mr. Right
comes the cold sharp iron
wheels going round and round,
such are promises.
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Rebecca Clark's writing has appeared in StringTown, Snow Monkey, Wicked Alice, Literary Salt, and others. She has work forthcoming in Rattle, Pearl, Heliotrope, and others. She works as an attorney, coordinating a volunteer lawyer program and lives in Washington’s Skagit Valley with her husband and daughter. |
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