Week of July 21 - July 27

Elizabeth Sim Peña and Larry Winfield

BECOME A POET OF THE WEEK

by e-mailing a few of your shorter pieces or one long piece to me ALONG WITH a brief bio. It's fun, it's easy, it's free. Impress your friends. Impress your mother.

Send to: POTW@PoetrySuperHighway.com

Elizabeth Sim Peña
miyu@earthlink.net
http://www.pdsnorth.com/~miyu

Bio(auto)

Elizabeth Sim Peña is 17 years of age (birthday in one week!!!) and has just moved in to Pullman Washington from Seattle. She has been writing poetry and song lyrics since her freshman year in high school. She has been published in various magazines across the Internet as well as newspapers and school related anthologies. She is currently working on a poetry book entitled "Travels of Love and Shelter". She is also a student at Washington State University majoring in Poetry and minring in either Astronomy or something else that just happens to interests her. Her work is displayed at her website as well as her online electronic magazine called Little Flames.

The following work is Copyright © 1997 and owned by Elizabeth Sim Peña and may not be distributed or reprinted in any manner whatsover without written permission from the author.

Ode to a Tree...in 12+1.

I.
Tree:
One trunk, two legs.
Endless arms extend towards
An army of white clouds.

II.
Winds
And its rhythm in the leaves.
Leaves: A million fragments of broken glass
Diving into a foamy sea of an endless depth
Hitting the ground to march like soldiers holding prisms.

III.
Swaying back and forth
Creaking to the rhythm of the wind.
The Forbidden Dance of two lovers.

IV.
Trees with their uneven branches
Sleep through Christmases and El Dia De Los Reyes.

V.
Life born from a single seed
To a strong and sturdy foundation
And each branch a different route
To your destiny.

VI.
Loose and flexible--those branches.
Perhaps the hair of some young girl dancing
In the mixture of nature's watercolors.

VII.
The immaculate shelter
To some poor finch
Lost in the rain
Lost in the tree.

VIII.
The subject of countless painters
And countless poems
Such as this one

IX.
The support force
For endless man made objects and body parts
Such as tents, hammocks
Hands, feet, and backs.

X.
The easy target for bratty children
The rubber stopper for darts,
Bullets, and bird shit.

XI.
Standing tall and proud
One of the oldest damn things
That have the right to say
"I have found the fountain of youth".

XII.
The outer image
Of a woman's fantasy:
A strong man who
Always keeps quiet
And never talks back.

Finally...+1

A tree...
The center of my soul.
The bearer of apples, oranges
And other such delicacies.
The shelter from nature's falling water
And the killer of people
When Zeus becomes angry.

Hades

The DRY, cracked, and infertile earth.
Not just the killer of weeds
But of roses, lilacs, and sunflowers too.

He is the star with the missing leg,
The broken wheel on the family's expensive Lexus,
That perfect pearl necklace that would look so beautiful with that dress.
Maybe even the cheap zircona that should have been the diamond.

As a small child of 8 I was
With semi broken arms, bruised dignity,
And black eyes on a porcelain face.

The phases of the moon
Were the times I died
And my twitching heart felt
A sudden rough pull by
Dry, Cracked hands.

Encapsulated in a fragile-red frame,
Hands enveloped it and pulled it out
This heart of mine
Once red now stricken with the blackest sin
Lay beside the rest of the hearts
He had taken and never given back.

Youth lost and dignity crushed.
Amen.

Inside

What a hot day. Its a hot day but its getting so cold inside me.
So cold that I am getting frost bitten.

Inside my veins are weak.=20
Inside, they mean nothing.
I wish I could be a beautiful baby like that girl.
I wish I could have dreams about Barbie=20
instead of nightmares about Ken.

You can't hear me scream because, inside, I am mute.
You can't hear my thoughts because, inside, I am dumb.
Dumb and self destructive.

Larry Winfield
mediapoet@geocities.com

Bio(auto)

Larry Winfield writes poems, occasional short stories and produces short films. He has been active on the Chicago Poetry Scene since 1990. He currently leads a 'sonic wordjam' poet's band called Brass Orchid.

The following work is Copyright © 1997 and owned by Larry Winfield and may not be distributed or reprinted in any manner whatsover without written permission from the author.

d'you ever stop to notice a bubble?
the delicious cacophany of melted rainbows
madly encircling its globe.
recombinant, glistening.
burning itself into gray skin.
exploding into evaporated shards.
scattered breath mating with
the afternoon sun.

"no north"

ancestors came north to play the blues
instead of just livin' blue
but that's way back when;
now it's all day everyday generic motherf......
blues
and no north to run to,
but i tell myself, don't sweat it -
go easy, go cool,
slide big shoulder style,
go walkabout through the back alleys downtown
through the steaming entrails of the Loop,
smelling exhaust fumes and executive piss.
go easy, go cool
past the empty suits
who've gained the world and lost their minds
lost their way in a maze of conformity.
remember the good old days, of
confusion,
paranoia,
easy slogans
cheap dope
and clear enemies?
.....i do....
try to forget the thousand shocks
that flesh is heir to -
neighborhoods in decline
lives in eclipse;
try to forget furtive days spent running in circles.
yeah, go easy, go cool into the sunset,
go sanguine, go glacial.
hold tight to daydreams of red-hot summers
boardrooms city halls covered in ash
bathed in crimson,
postpone your personal homeboy armageddon
one more day
and walk that walk -
the cool jazz acid house acid rock stomp;
dance through the pervasive demonizing
coonman bogeyman slop
like Stagger Lee
dancing strutting through blood and bones and broken glass
like a ghost dog in the machine
like a shark trying to breathe
like a fuse....being moistened.
go easy, go cool on your appointed rounds;
long as you go forward
don't need to go north anymore.
go sanguine. go glacial.
........stay sublime......

Anyday in June

the sweetest fruit is your smile in the haze of dawn.
the sweetest fruit surrounds us,
misted, electric,
sustains us through plodding schedules, timetables,
becomes the line of flesh we create again, at last.
lazy laughter tumbles from occupied hands, busy mouths,
song of late day's prayed-for caresses.
we roll and change positions, each now controlling
each consumed,
pulled by the heat of summer's music,
melody of skin colliding in rhythm.
we dance one inside the other,
we walk the line of dusk, the soft crack between worlds,
almost dreaming, fluid,
lost in clenched muffled cryings out -
sweetest fruit plucked from the tree of life.

clover tickles your thighs, your neck,
soft breathing returns.
I lay blades of grass in the shallow valley
between your breasts.
stars claim the sky,
the backbone of night, adrift.