Monday, August 7, 2017

guest poet : Amara Tankersley



















Part of the fun of having FBNL be in blog format rather than its own website is the opportunity to feature other items than just my own poems. In honor of sister Eilena's birthday, my daughter, then-12-year-old Amara Tankersley wanted to show off her verse. 

Amara is now leaving for college, Eilena is 9.

As far as I know, this one is untitled.

* * *

Eilena enjoyed having fun
in the warm summer's sun.
She took rides
in her red wagon
and pretended she was
a fierce dragon.
While she sat on a small chair
there was a strange silence in the air-
Eilena went up the many stairs,
"Surprise!" yelled her family with
birthday gifts in the chairs.

Happy Birthday Ena-beena!
From Amara.

Friday, August 4, 2017

god on its head













Tipped torved
concrete rock-hewn
head in sand
island-man erected
god in graven image in
hand-selected granite

encased perpendicular
eyeballs ogling horizon in
indifferent malediction
moulded of stone
with taunting stare-
the swaggering sneer
and stoicism dare-

We can turn the god on its head!

In a turmoil of one-thousand hands
a cacophony of
hard-charging fingernails
cracked to the quick
boot-bottoms, sinew
and walking sticks
fixed at the base
and the idol will tumble;

teeter reluctantly-
molasses on the soggy grass-
but undulate under
our weight en masse
together we make the tyrant humble-

We can turn the god on its head!

Cheer the convulsion
and the peal of pebbles
chipping in all directions
howl at the detonation-
an unruly hedonistic orgasm
of ascendancy-
a clamor of heights unheard
join with me-

bloody your fingertips
embark to heave-ho
cold stone will puncture,
bruise our skin below
but we will hoist
in heroic travail
new era of extrication
without fail-

We can turn the god on its head!

* * *


Dedicated to all revolutionaries, everywhere protesting his autocratic policies. This all started when I watched a documentary on the statues on Easter Island. One of the giant heads had been toppled at one time. It lay on the ground and didn't seem so miraculous in that position. The archaeologist on the program surmised that originally the great  heads were built as spiritual figures but eventually came to symbolize the power that the higher-status islanders held over the lower-ranked islanders. The wealthy built taller heads that grew more and more elongated-  very phallic in statement. The more I look at the situation in which our society has placed itself, the more I see gigantic heads erected with a "mine is-bigger" mentality. 

arbor


















I should play among 
the sun’s reflection
in the cool trickles of
liquidy perfection
‘neath the quiescent
observation of oak roots
exposed by erosion.

I should chant a
mantra of pure joy
smelling the soft soil
newly rain-soaked
under my feet,
at the rustle of toil
of an unknown
companion in
the thicket or
an answered avian call
over the canopy.

I should sit for
longer hours amidst
the leaves, the
verdant foliage calls,
vibrant and seductive
as it pleads,
bark encompassing
a lineage hidden.
I feel as father and as son
on this hill in the wood
there is nothing profane
here, nor forbidden.

 I should live by my heart
forever in this land
encased in the bark and
rooted in the soil
created by deity’s hand.


I should.