Tag Archive for: poem

Poem for the new year–“Walking on Ice”

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
Happy 2020 to all of you!

At this time of year, many of us are dealing with snow and ice storms. We are also often reflecting on how we want to live the rest of our lives or how we want to improve our handling of important relationships. 

For the new year, then, I offer a meditation on marriage and other relationships, as well as a consideration of what can frequently be consequences of seasonal ice storms.
WALKING ON ICE
  
after a back injury is a constant
putting yourself at risk.
I know this fear well
from years of setting nerve-damaged heel
firmly on glazed cement
that may turn banana peel on me
as if in some eternal silent film gag.
For you, it’s all new—
the discovery that solid earth can shift
you from upright to supine
as soon as the water on its surface hardens.
We age by learning
such hard truths, move through life
gingerly testing our footing, or else
by smashing the brittle in our way
and sweeping the shards
from the sidewalk.
It’s not so hard, learning
to balance on the shine.
Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)
Linda Rodriguez’s 11th book, Fishy Business: The Fifth
Guppy Anthology (edited), was recently published. Dark Sister: Poems
is her 10th book and was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Plotting
the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World
Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she
co-edited, were published in 2017.  Every
Family Doubt, her fourth mystery featuring Cherokee detective, Skeet
Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2020.
Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every
Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every Last Secret—and earlier books of
poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart’s Migration—have received critical
recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First
Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014,
Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award,
and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,”
published in Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.
Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s
Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding
board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member
of International Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas,
Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee
Community. Learn more about her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER’S PICTURE–for Mother’s Day

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
It’s
spring, and the holiday to honor mothers is right around the corner.
I lost my mother, whom I adored and with whom I had a fraught
relationship, before she turned fifty, so this holiday is always
difficult for me, even though that was forty years ago.

As
we approach Mother’s Day, the airwaves are filled with commercials
for gifts for mothers and suggestions for special ways to “spoil
Mom” and celebrate this May holiday. You can’t escape them. So,
this poem is for all those who, like me, have lost their mothers and
find the day’s celebrations bittersweet. 



CONVERSATION
WITH MY MOTHER’S PICTURE

You
and Dad were entirely happy here—
you
in purple miniskirt, white vest and tights
(you
always wore what was already too young
for
me), Dad in purple striped pants,
a
Kansas State newsboy’s cap
made
for a bigger man’s head.
You
both held Wildcat flags and megaphones
to
cheer the football team who,
like
the rest of the college, despised you
middle-aged
townies, arranging for their penicillin
and
pregnancy tests and selling them
cameras
and stereos at deep discount.
But
you were happy
in
this picture, before they found
oat-cells
in your lungs.

After
the verdict, he took you to Disneyland,
this
man who married you and your five children
when
I was fifteen. He took you cross-country
to
visit your family, unseen
since
your messy divorce.
He
took you to St. Louis
and
Six Flags Over Texas and to Topeka
for
radiation treatments.
I
don’t think he ever believed
you
could die. Now he’s going
the
same way. And none of us
live
in that Wildcat town with the man
who
earned his “Dad” the hard way
from
suspicious kids and nursed
your
last days. For me, this new dying
brings
back yours, leaving me only this image
of
you both cheering for lucky winners.

Published
in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)

Red Shoes, Kickass Women, and Stiletto Gang Magic

/in /by
“She speaks for her clan” by Dorothy Sullivan

We here at The Stiletto Gang are celebrating a newly designed logo for our blog and the diverse makeup of our membership. We are women writers from various backgrounds, but we all share one thing in common. We’re pretty kickass women. We are all strong in our own ways, some quiet yet powerful, some flamboyant yet solidly dependable.

I feel very comfortable with my Stiletto Gang blogmates, because the Cherokee have traditionally had strong women who shared power with men, who owned the land and houses, who could go to war with the men. Consequently, I tend to look for strength of one kind or another in the women with whom I surround myself. The women with whom I’m friends are women who are comfortable with their own power, rather like my varied pals here in the Stiletto Gang. I write a lot about strong women and women coming into their own. It’s part of my heritage and part of my life today.

Like many of us, I don’t wear high heels any longer, more interested in comfort and practicality, but I think the symbol of our red stilettos signals the world that on this blog sits the writing of a cadre of kickass women, often read by other kickass women. So here’s a poem for all of us and the magic that happens when strong women come together to share their strength and their vulnerabilities.

SHE TAKES HER POWER IN
HER OWN HANDS
and pours it over her
body,
drenching hair and face,
standing in pools of
herself,
dripping excess. She
takes up her power
with strong hands and
holds it close
to her breasts like an
infant, warming it
with her own heat. She
draws her power
around her like a
hand-loomed shawl,
a cloak to keep the wind
out,
pulling it tighter,
tugging and patting it
smooth against the
winter.
She pulls her power from
branches
of dead trees where it
has hung so long
neglected that it has
changed from white to deep
weathered gold. She wraps
her hair
in power like the light
of distant stars,
gleaming through the dark
emptiness
in and around everything.
She lets her power down
into a dank well, down
and down,
clanking against stone
walls, until
she hears the splash, a
little further
to submerge it
completely, then draws it
hand over rubbed-raw
hand, heavy enough
to make her shoulders and
forearms ache
and shudder with strain,
pulls it up
overflowing, her power,
and drinks in deep,
desperate gulps
out of a lifetime of
thirst. She weaves her power
into a web, a cloth, a
shroud, and hangs it
across the night where it
catches the light of stars
and refracts it into a
shining glory,
brighter than the moon
and colder. She holds her
power
in her hands at the top
of the hill
in the top of the tree
where she steps out
onto the air and her
wings
of power buoy her to ride
the thermals
higher and higher toward
the sun,
her new friend.
When she returns,
she folds her power over
and over
into a tiny, dense pellet
to swallow,
feeling its mass sink to
her center
and explode, spreading
throughout to transform
her into something
elemental,
a star,
a mountain,
a river,
a god.
Published in
Heart’s Migration (Tia
Chucha Press, 2009)
Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel,
based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will
be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every
Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last
Secret—and her earlier books
of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft
Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City
Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com