Five talented Poets grace today’s pages:
Ilona Martonfi, AJ Huffman, Marija Makeska, Charles Bane Jr and Steve De France
RED LOTUS
By
In the village of Liuyi
people of Han by the Jinsha River
Yunnan Province
Xiùlán, eldest daughter
of Zhou Ling
the memory of one Chinese bride
with hair tied up in tufts
rice-powder face paint
long cheongsam silk dress
three-inch golden lilies
(san-tsun-gin-lian)
walking on stilts
1000 years of an erotic tradition
embroidered brocade shoes
jade hairpins with glass pearls
cannot read or sign my name
wife and mother of sons
tightly bound with cloth
soaked in mulberry roots
like the hoofs of a goat
with a narrow cleft
four smaller toes
curled up into stumps
the arch broken
THE UNSALVAGEABLE
By
When autumn’s
last wild roses disappear
cut it back hard,
dig it out
because there is no next April
to look forward to —
bear the apple trees
the silences
sing plaints
words that kiss us
stitch together
unsalvageable
loneliness
the marriage
of a wife beater
four children
overseas family trips
white Olds
the mistress
on rue Saint André
the rental properties
the silences
red-orange rosehip
hibiscus
I want to respond to your second poem, so exquisitely stark. The ravaging of the flowers, specific and beautiful, parallels the wreckage of a woman's life in a traditional role turned ugly.
This comment is for Ilona Martonfi.