Impressions of FEAR....

I'm beginning to post the FEAR poems, and will continue to as more arrive. The format may be slightly different than how you submitted, as I am still learning the quirks of this thing. Marianne will have to turn in hers late, as she is currently in the hospital for surgery. Be safe, Marianne, my thoughts are with you.


***********
Heartbeat
by Mo-nee-ka

THUD

There it is again

THUD THUD

going faster now

THUD THUD

no other sound

THUD


***********

Video Clip of Innocence

For Matthew Shepard
by John Giza

PLAY:
Young boy braving a strong wind
against the open sky of the American
schoolyard. Fifth grade History class.
On his head a stovepipe hat,
black cape flapping, faux beard
The audio breaks, capturing the fragmented
line “…these dead cannot have died in vain.”
STOP.

He cannot be not Lincoln, but he is
Matthew.
Puberty and love gather on his horizon.
Today’s lesson is one of democracy.
To the West, someone is building a fence.



News Article:NEW YORK, Feb. 14, 2008 - Ten years after
Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard
was brutally murdered because of his sexual
orientation, a 15-year-old gay California
student is brain dead after a student allegedly
shot him because of his sexual orientation and
gender expression.

************
CONSUMING FEAR
by Gabrielle

my ravenous self consumes my fear.
spoon fed by my mother
force fed by the media
words and images and ideas
making me terrified
to leave my yard
speak to a stranger
stand near a microwave
use the internet
a never ending catalogue of
don'tcan'tshouldn'tmusn't.

Fear translates to dollars
for guns and locks and pharmaceuticals
and surgery and insurance-
a free commodity more lucrative than gold.
fear never loses its value,
never takes a dive,
its money in the bank.

They start on you when you're young
indoctrinating you into the culture of fear.
They train you to do the job well.
A superproducer
in a field of mass production
I feed my fear to calm it.
Reading, eating, worrying ,
mindlessly consuming
whatever it takes
to keep my fear from
consuming me.

*************
HE WAS A GREAT MAN
by Andrea


People wouldn’t sit until you did
You stated and they complied
Some called you callous, some called you worse
some demonstrated against you
I don’t know if you actually liked me
or just realized I was all you had left
You try to make me understand
It is somehow important that I do
I will never wield the power you had
I will never control vast fortunes or inspire such fear
I can only feel sorry that at the end
You had to pay a stranger to hold your hand.

*********************

My Private Battle (Cancer)
by Marianne

I fight a great and mighty dragon,
It lies deep within my chest.
Its scales they split and grow
And travel on a river,
That flows inside my breast.

My Knights they surround me,
And in place of sword and arrow
Defend with needle and scalpel,
Cutting through the quick,
Straight into my red blooded marrow.

No boiling oil or flaming sword,
Will penetrate this beast’s thick hide.
My Alchemists mix and stir and pray,
To find the poison that will cure me,
Or help me live awhile then die with pride.

I’ve cut its heart out but it springs anew,
Then it re-grows, it multiplies and divides,
It finds a place you’d last think to look,
And rebuilds its strength with frighten speed,
Using the fuel my own body foolishly provides.

Many battles I’ve fought and many I’ve won,
Oh the wounds I have suffered, many scars I won’t show,
A few fortresses still linger, another skirmish always near,
But the war is not over and I am nowhere near done,
I’ve still so much of love and life to know.

Marianne Fuchs
March 04, 2008

**************

by Susan

And So I Sang


Anyone who knows Alaska
and many ones who don’t
know
a moose.

A moose does not want to be your friend.

Taller than any man’s courage
a moose stands braver than a lion’s roar
and impervious to a trespasser’s will.

My friend
met
a moose.

The moose did not want to be her friend
nor
did not want not to be.

Standing with flared nostrils wider
than
her eyes
the moose stood still,
that great brown God,
as she stood
back to brambles.

Many months later
she told me of this moose
who did not want to be her friend
nor
did not want not to be.

“I was afraid,”
she said.
“ I did not know what to do.
I did not know what to do,
and so
I sang.”

She sang Amazing Grace
to the towering fury of breath and stamping hooves,
and the moose
stood,
not wanting to be her friend
and not wanting not to be,
and she sang

and the moose
turned away from the blueberry patch
and left.

Anyone who knows the ocean
and many ones who don’t
know
whales.

A whale does not want to be your friend.

You are another Jonah
another Gipetto
another Pinocchio

and the whale is older than your memory.

A whale does not want to be your friend
and does not want not to be
but blows and spouts
and rolls one side
to gaze up at your curiosity.

My friend met a whale
or, rather, many.

The whales did not want to be her friends
nor did not want not to be
but wanted only to surround her and gaze and look and roll one eye up
to see this air creature and her finless fins.

But surrounded by these underwater mountains
she was keenly aware
of the finality
of an underwater grave
and the smallness of the vessel
beneath her feet
and the whales
that did not want not to be her friends
and did not want not to be.

She told me some weeks later
“I was in awe.
I was afraid.
I did not know what to do
and so
I sang.”

And my friend and the not friend, not-not friend whales
Fed each other’s curiosities
And she sang
Until the whales submerged
and turned
and left.

Anyone who knows how to live
and many ones who don’t
know
loss.

I met a loss.
Or many.

My loss of you does not want to be my friend
nor does not want not to be –
but stands always nearby
deeper than my fears
and taller, too.

It does not want to be,
my friend,
as I stare at it wide-eyed and afraid,
nor does it want not to be.

My loss of you is impervious to my will
and has not been tamed by years
as it towers sometimes a grey black God
and reaches down to take my breath in its own
as I recall your face.

It does not want to be my friend
nor does want not to be,
this loss of you,
as I recall your eyes
and the way they were
the bluest blue
at that last moment
that I saw them.

I did not want to lose you

The loss of you does not want to be my friend
Nor does not want not to.

And I do not know what to do,
and I did not know what to do
and so,
I softly took your hand
and so I sang.








February 22, 2008 10:29 PM