Janette Schafer

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Thursday's Ode to
​Rachel Carson

Rachel, to you it is
this flower, late in life--
it blooms an orchid bud,
scent of honeyed hyacinth.

Will I be too late for spring?
Can a garden plagued with early frost
yield earthy fertile ground?
The Harvest Moon was long in coming.

Early Springs had been too tender,
(or choked on so confused a death)
but carried fields of buttercups
at last to growth surrenders. 
​

​Burning

I burned I burned I burned
I walked home burning and heavy
burning with unrequited anger
heavy from the words that weighed me down
heavy from words that lay like
lead in my stomach
heavy and hot from anger and words
that could not be loosened to fly
free unabated from my tongue
because you would not listen
because I could not say them

I looked down at the crumbled sidewalk
these slabs of pavement
forced between the legs of mother earth
even as the raped mother 
claimed the pavement
her green fingers growing
between the cracks
driving them apart
the raping pavement
inviting me to it
a cool inviting lover

and I burned I burned I burned
I felt too heavy to walk home
sidewalk inviting me to lay my
heavy burning body upon it
to lay on its cool surface
inundating my heat with cool
supporting the weight of words
I could not carry

Lay down lay down lay down
you burning heavy thing
and I wanted so to lay down
on cool pavement nestled
on the pubic hairs of mother earth
and how I burned
stumbling home beneath the weight
of words I could not carry
because I cannot say them
because you will not listen
and how I burned with them
knowing if I lay my head
I would not rise again.
​

On the Occasion of Attending
​a Poetry Reading in the East End

​Slick cropped hair bold colors man buns leggings stripes
brightly colored shoes and every poet around me feels
like they just graduated high school and I am the Grand Dame
in the sensible shoes.  They scream their words, their pain
they whisper their words, mumble their pain.

I clear my throat.  I no longer want to march on Washington. 
Can we know the right thing? Can we know our consciousness,
expand it, and then learn to act?  My psyche, firmly ensconced
in its middle age wants to wring my hands at the picket lines,
scream at the naughty children: Vote next time, you fuckers!
because I am somewhere between 40 and Get off my lawn!

I watch a girl walk in who looks like Kira before her breasts
were removed and her thick rope of hair circling her waist
fell away in clumpy pieces and her supple soft curves
melted mercilessly in the wake of disease, but I digress
this is not to be about her death, though it saddens me still.

Wave your signs, wave your signs, but do not cry
NOT MY PRESIDENT.  He is your Tyrant-in-Chief
and you weep, you type, you do not sleep, you march,
you tweet, you post, you meme, you text, but you do not vote
and that is exactly what he wanted from you.
​

Africa

I want to be at the Mermaid Cafe
in that Joni Mitchell song
baking in the African sun
dust up in my clothing
not sitting at this desk
where the heat is up too high
and I bake in this sweater as
my skirt rides up
and my tights itch like sand
but I might as well be here
for I have no freaks or soldiers
to drink with.
​

Janette Schafer's profile

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Mermaid

This was no mythic creature
but a goddess beautiful and terrible,
her skin silver and wet
as she combed her platinum locks.

Her steely eyes chilled his heart
as the fisherman dropped his net
disturbing her moment of solitude
on the white sands of his island.

Her movement was quick and fluid
like water in motion and
he shaded his eyes from the gleam
of her serpentine tail.

Her laughter was all around him
as she shimmered into the crystalline depths
to frolic with her sisters
and dine on the rich blood of fish.
​

Resurrection
       ~for Hudson Rush

I wish I could have kept the exhalation
as the soul left his body, the whoosh,
that moment of moving on into
the mystery of whatever is next.
I can’t grab this, there is no place
to put my finger.  He runs away
and I want to follow after.
 
I walk into the synagogue
and a man follows my body along
the sidewalk.  I pretend
he is watching my grief.
I remember when I learned
what a villanelle was.
I think I promised I would write one
on another someday. 
​

The Suicide of Dorothy Hale

She stood transfixed on the balcony
gazing over the ledge at
the city bellowing below, teeming
with treachery and life.

As she leapt through this
makeshift portal to eternity
her hair fanned out, its strands
glimmering from reflected neon light.

Her limbs scattered as she dropped
and tumbled like a child's rag-doll,
rolling and flopping in the night air
like flower petals in the breeze.

She seemed more broken than dead
her pleasing face untouched and frozen
while her bones shattered and 
fragmented on the unforgiving pavement.
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Dear Auntie,

Once, a therapist showed me a chart
of the upper and lower intestines
diseased and distended from
years of laxative abuse.

I’m telling you this because
of all the times you said
Pretty in the cradle means
Ugly at the table.

My belly has its own orbit
of lovers who circle like
the three suns of Kelt-4Ab
I am the hot Jupiter

I am a planet made of cake
sweet dense creamy
with frosting to make one swoon.
I have the teeth marks to prove it.

My hips and breasts are asteroids
their trajectory knows no boundaries
outside of gravity and the fullness
of the Universe. My purview

is a constellation. I am called hot tomato/
Goddess / siren / curvy
Buxom / shapely / voluptuous
and those who grab on don’t let go.

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