Heading 6

Poems

Remarks

Something Usual In Any Other Circumstance

The afternoon is sunny after the storm

as Joe and I make our way

up the incline of Black Road

slow going in the old V.W. Bug

Our son rests on my lap

something not frowned upon

before child safety-seat laws

only he’s in a small cardboard box

inside a plastic bag

tied with a twist

I think of the many times

we’ve traveled this road

him wiggling on my lap

gurgling with glee

I attempt to shade his eyes

from the blaze of light

as we drive that final mile

Today we take him home

for the last time

park in front of the empty lot

scorched black where our house stood

the week before

open the small cardboard box

untie the twist on the plastic bag

and one last time he is animated

playing on the sudden breeze

that rises to guide him to his rest

Hummingbird

Love this little rhymed poem. Small but perfectly formed. I've only seen a hummingbird once, in France, and this totally captures the experience.

Barbara Scott Emmett,

UK Writer Editor Reviewer

Hummingbird

Tiny nervous creatures

Flitters all around

Such intense movement

Without so much as a sound

Stunning, all a quiver

Such a solemn face

Expending all that energy

While floating in one place

Cynthia Bryant September 22, 1998

I read your poem several times, each time crying with a new revelation. But what I’ve ultimately come to realize, Cynthia, is you’ve made your son come alive in my mind, and with every reading of your poem by every reader, your son lives again. What a gift you have given us.

❤️️ Becky Bishop White

Heart wrenching. Very beautifully written.

Constance Cheslock Hanstedt

That's an excellent poem. I also write poetry, so I never say something's good if it isn't. I'm so sorry for your loss.

Chloe Wagner

Something Usual...

Lock Her Up

Somewhere

to a nonplussed audience

of her parents

a molested daughter

blurts out the secret

about her lately pouting tummy

how it came to pass

Somewhere

a mother screams

unintelligible sounds rise

to blot out offending words

that present too hard a choice

Calls the police

on her canary-yellow kitchen phone

Somewhere

the fury of a father

shocks high-color to face

as he pummels daughter

in attempts to exorcise

the madness

that threatens exposure

Somewhere

nosey neighbors open front doors

stand in groups in their yards

make up minds by committee

about what sort of folks

and who’s at fault

when laundry is aired

Somewhere

small town police arrive

lights flashing

as parents point to daughter

an undone puzzle on the floor

police gather the pieces

pile her into the back of a squad car

Somewhere

an unheard daughter

serving one-month solitary in Juvenile Hall

revisits over and over

the last few moments at home

outnumbered

incorrigible

Cynthia L. Bryant

Remarks-Lock Her Up

"Powerful Poem"

Anita May, LA Poet/ Editor

"Amazing Poem"

"Eric Howard-Editor and Poet

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Tests

When I go to this favored place in imaging

Where tall grass and cattails surround

Cool dark waters alive with reflection

A looking glass scrying questions

With no foreseeable answers

I gather abstract queries recovered from both sides

Dreamland and tangible tests

Mortality and frozen living pictured in shadows

Has this been a chosen path or one stumbled upon by fate

Gazing into test of reflection

A horrid dark entity appears solid

Holding its space faceless still nameless

Only aware of self yet threatening

I lean forward to catch a glimpse of the face

Who has come to do war over our existence

Wanting to know what I must challenge soon

Cutting short before a face is revealed

In enough time to keep from falling into the pond

Where I surely would drown

Epiphany

We think we know the story

heard it since Sunday school

And the angel visited Mary

told her she held the fruit of the Lord

in her womb

And even though her condition was such

Joseph would take her for his wife...

legitimize the heavenly rape

In those times unwed with child

bequeathed a slow gruesome dissolution to an adulterer death by stoning

at the hands of neighbors

for your shame

So, what if this was your young life alone pregnant circumstance waived

rape or consent death your prize

What would you say

using all imagination under heaven and earth

slacking death's desire tugging at robes hem

to stay rocks

bashing in your tender brains

Panther

Very Atmospheric-captures Jim Morrison perfectly. What would have happened, I wonder, if the devouring had been allowed to take place?

Barbara Scott Emmett, UK Writer Editor Reviewer

Panther

The stranger's open hands

found mine

grasped them firmly

pulling me up

on to the backdoor landing

Clothed in black

leather pants

that hung low

clung to narrow hips

encircled by ovals of silver

Long-sleeved white shirt

hugged close to

masculine shoulders

several buttons open

down his chest

Restless curls

wandered his head

wild and free

settling on his collar

Intense cat eyes

almost golden hungry with curiosity

took my temperature

With self-satisfied smile

he purred

"Hey honey,

What ya doing here?"

Suddenly self-conscious

I mumbled something

about my old man

being in the opening band

"Too bad"

His lips pursed into pout,

showing me to a chair

That night so long ago

at the American Legion Hall

hand in hand with a guy

whose name I can't recall

lost in a universe of faces

on a darkened dance floor

one beam of light

shone on the Vee-Jay announcer

"Time has come to welcome

here from L.A. with their hit

Light My Fire, topping the charts

Let's hear it for ...The Doors"

Like a clap of thunder

the drums thumped solitary

As strobe lights flashed

the electric harpsichord played the intro

as the young man in tight leather pants

leapt onto stage like a panther

microphone in hand

It is only now in the luxury glint

of recorded history

I realize how closely I had come

to being devoured

Cynthia Lane Bryant

We're trying, we're hoping

We're hurting, we're loving

We're crying, we're calling

'Cause we're not sure how this goes

Calling All Angles-KD Lang and Jane Sidberry

Diving into 2020

Who of us could have imagined?

Living in a time of so much suffering and loss

We scratch through the dust bin of history

For an understanding yet to be known

We revile the wagging tongues spewing poison

Daily on screens large and small

Pictures of dead bodies piled high

Most never able to see loved ones at the end

Tireless unsung service workers

Beyond weary in their bones and minds

Less cars going to work Less planes in the air

Factories closed to save lives

Fresh products left to rot

Farm animals raised only to euthanize

Hungry get hungrier poor poorer

Easy targets for a ravenous virus or selfish society

Feral creatures venture out

parade main streets USA

Air fresher, freer of pollutants

Earth quieted hums in harmony

People bitch, yell, demand their rights

A re-opening of things back to normal

Mother sings to those who will hear

Opening begins with minds and hearts

Cold Skin

Cheap masks

quiet grimaces of despair

Years survived chaotic fury

Graveyards layered in myriad lies

piled higher than used-up people

can ever take back

Trudge travailed paths

baked into finite history’s deep ravine

Times of folks whose evil tones

Slipped out like shit from overfed crows

feasting pain and loss

Heretic lost burned in effigy

hoping to create something pure

out of skid marks left by Trump

Salt

Small but beautifully formed.

Barbara Scott Emmett,

UK Writer Editor Reviewer

SALT

Often when you touch me

in that familiar way

sensation transports me

takes me to the borders of the infinite

a place where you and I are intertwined

with all that have been or will ever be

dazzling jewels like sea foam

sunbathing on the rocks

Moments Before

Siren's sound

Light-flash glares

Rubble to warm

Tucked under a school

upon a shelf astounded dolls

sit in lines knees to chest

Final resting place

past dreams of home

Southern Breeze

Beautiful description brought the heat and perfume of the South right off the page. Then we get to the grit. We get to see the sad reality behind the beauty. Things have changed since Rosa Parks sat down-but not enough yet.

Barbara Scott Emmett,

UK Writer Editor Reviewer

Dedicated to Rosa Parks

who went to her final glory

October 24, 2005.

Southern Breeze

Summertime in the south

was slow with thick wet air

smell of magnolia blossoms

fragrant mint grew in yards

Swamp-coolers and overhead fans

moved like molasses poured over fritters

Black tea, sweet and well iced

hushpuppies served with syrup

grits drenched with butter, on the side

Where sensible white-folks with means

hired colored women with hungry children

for pennies on the dollar to do their bidding

Syndicated Amos and Andy Shows

played by under-employed black actors

brought peals of laughter across the South

on black and white televisions

in proper white homes

where blacks were allowed only as servants

White-hooded Klansmen still came by night

continued to burn crosses

hang bitter crop reminders of hate

from white poplar trees

that Billy sang about at 78 r.p.m.

for whites and blacks to sway to

The time before Martin had his dream

that ended in a nation’s nightmare

Days when thousands of people marched

singing “We shall overcome”

and a tired working woman took her place

defiantly in history, just by sitting down

Still Small Voice

They made me come see her

those folks that protects kids

Last year they took away sissy

for getting too fat or sumpin’

Next day police grabbed papa Joe

took him straight aways to jail

Mama says same thing happened to her

with papa Sam

Seems like womens are always causin’ problems

One time

after my baby brother Buck went to his rest

Mama told me her mama passed when she was ten

At Eleven, sissy born almost dead

could barely whimper

When she was thirteen I came into the world

screamin’, her daddy’s face grown on to mine

she slapped regular for no good reason

I saw the whole thing

clear as softball every Saturday afternoon

behind the old school

Papa Horace came knockin’ round midnight

singin’ Amazin’ Grace how sweet your mouth

lookin’ for some sugar

no more childs that way

How mama told him

she was fixin’ to have another child

he stopped singin’ then

turned all mealy-mouthed

mama shouted no, then screamed

Horace’s shiny black boot

caught her side, her open mouth

then landed on her belly over and over

‘til she was quiet as night

Mama’s in a high bed on wheels

her mouth split open like rotten peaches

left on the ground, spittle bubbles

runnin’ from the corners of the black hole

where teeth used to be

open to no man no how

The red bandana mama wore to bed

Is missin’, ripped off

Head wrapped with a clean white rag

stained with red patches like the berries

she puts up the end of every summer

spreads on our bread all winter long

Everyone of my papas run off or run in

No papa to take me in

Show me man stuff

Tell me how lifes gonna be

State foster folks my familys now

Grace is gone

Left me like her mama left her

no good for nothin’ mama just lays there

No more mouthin’ off, no more nothin’

Just like her papa Sam told me

Before he took off

Women’s ain’t nothin’ but troubles

They gets what they deserve

All of them bitches

Remarks: Still Small Voice

"Passionate. Heartbreaking. Wonderful poem."

Cindy Anderson, Monterey

"Heartbreaking, I am moved beyond words."

Sheila Landre

"Ban the Bomb, Burn the Bras”

As with so many of her works, it is the searing honesty that first appeals - writing about an intimate subject in a way I have never heard before - a subject that many might find uncomfortable or too personal. But that is exactly what I want to hear - the Band-aid line is so telling and revealing (or not!) - a real experience, a human experience I can relate to even though I am not a woman. Again, as with many of her poems, Cynthia mirrors the intimate against the impersonal world - a backdrop where names might change but the horror never does. A lovely piece of work on so many levels, quintessential Cynthia.

David Marrow

Ban the Bomb, Burn the Bras

Women ripping them off

taking to the streets in numbers

that staggered imagination

everyone was protesting something

In midst of fray

breasts became important to me

checking delicate buds daily

couldn’t wait for them to grow

With time came the first brassiere

cinched the diaphragm

covered the obvious

promised to lift and separate

suddenly we were shapelier

The first time out without

mom insisted

Band-Aids be placed over aureoles

as if nipples were eyesores

that would wound

Out of the house, out of the harness

revel in every bounce and jiggle

expand ribcage without duress

no more dents in shoulders

as if I carried the world

I suppose

the shelf-life of my breasts shortened

a day, a week, a year

for the rebelliousness

only to redress once more

a few years later

As for the bombs

they still fall

off and on

but put your minds at ease

Word is, they are smart now

Cynthia L Bryant

Knot Knowing

Braided rigidly in childhood

Gently unwoven without thought

Santa tied to gifts faded with years

Followed by giant hopping rabbits

Colored boiled eggs that nobody ate

Huddled in mollycoddled upper middle-class

my country always the righteous leader of the free

where a Christian God determined choices of liberty for all

Everyone’s propagandized experience the same view

above the fog of reality

Ruminate on rote holidays loosely based on Pagan myth

A first Thanksgiving of wrongly named Indians savages

losers in cowboy games

Trinkets exchanged Indian givers

dry paper treaties that choke going down

Colonization stealing words beliefs lives

African Americans casual mention in textbooks like footnotes

Pictured serving betters in fields of cotton with simple song-joy

kidnapped chained close quarters below deck

wallowed in vomit shit tears for ancestors lost

So severe the treatment administered

Nazis used our blueprint to oppress Jews

Yes, we learned how Germany treated their Jews

In 1930’s America we excluded them

Doled out neighborhoods to live clubs to join jobs to seek

Our final solution, turn back ship-filled escapees

To concentration camps bullets gas then ovens

Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Massacre of 1921

Most knew nothing of before 2019

As a graphic novel Watchmen

released on HBO watched in horror

Streets of successful blacks of Tulsa

awash with killing burning

chasing reminders those who earned the same

or more than hate riddled whites

Millennium stories color our nation

The lies, the lynchings, the Jim Crow South adorned postcards

Buffalo soldiers escaped and emancipated slaves

drafted and enlisted fought died here and over there

maintain American moxie

Still treated like filth no jobs no honor

Redlining kept America white segregated and racist

In the Bronx landlords bribed

beyond poverty-stricken neighborhood kids

to burn it down in the 1970’s

create slums collect insurance money

cleanse area of color build ritzy apartments

Sundown towns still exist in America today

As do people of color chosen to die for our honor

Still fight for the rights of others

Voting roles stripped to drive while black

Or walk street paying a price the final one

History muted annexed protect fragile whites

America bans books to hide shame

Keep folks from shuddering at two-faced mirrors

Knowing has escaped loosened

Knot untied

Missing in Action

He walks the neighborhood

halted step - jump - step

left leg wounded in the war

Shoulders hunched

from years of holding belongings on his back

Stringy hair

dusted with white

like the donuts he devours

at the soup kitchen

He stalked the jungle once

like a leopard

hunted by the enemy

trained to kill

or be killed

the life he once knew

obliterated in napalm

exchanged for this nightmare

He walks in night terrors now

prefers the safety

of the enemy he knows

to those yet to materialize

His freedom allows no square box

with walls or doors

to hold him hostage

moving daily to avoid capture

He stalks the neighborhood

after dark in fatigues

face painted with mud

Missing in Action

Powerful, tender poem!

Louise Moises Donleavy

At 70…

There’s a hollow

in the space youth once grew

Bits and pieces strewn

without prejudice

Stretched thin in process

seen through to the other side

Some still full of fluff

float to the surface

An amusement to ponder

a nightmare I wandered

Never filling the void

sacralize memory or thought

A hole bombed out

left to challenge non-believers

Soothsayer

Having never nursed a child properly

A dragon has taken up residence

Into the darkened cavern

She brought forth progeny

Fed them off living walls

We can burn them out

Use chemical warfare

Send in the dragon slayer

Armed with a great sharp sword

But because you never learned

How to correctly nurture your own children

The old cavern will collapse

And dragon has a chance to set you ablaze

Save her own

Agony of Jim Crow

I can’t comprehend

the mindset it must take

to hate on the cause of skin

tainted a shade too dark

in one’s mind eye

At what point

in the spectrum of color

does pigmentation bleed

over invisible line becoming a target

Hue casts shadows

that stalk then stain

an entire lifetime

Moment upon

mealy mouthed hatred

must pick away

while Crow feasts the soul

a constant reminder of crime

being born black

Rinse Cycle

Ocean at high tide

slowly recedes

belching up treasure

Yesterday's creatures caught

exposed unaware

In the giant net of twilight

Spotlight of gloaming

Gently displays

Iridescent jewels

discarded by mermaids

grown tired of it all

Change is Going to Come

It was rumored for years

Nobody believed

The scientists

Playing around in the gene pool

Day 1

After the bombs fell

All awoke

Still perfect in every way

Only changed

I no longer female

Aware of the subtle weight

Between thighs

chest pulled taut

Against me

My mate appeared before me

He no longer he

He now she

With full ripe breasts

Smooth soft cheeks

In those short sweet moments

As magnetic poles shifted

As men became women

Women, men

Wars suddenly ceased

Precious time spent

Coming to terms

Self exploration

And then full out

Joyous coupling

Life flourished anew

(C)October 5, 1997 Cynthia Lane Bryant

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Poems

Remarks

Hummingbird

​

Remarks-Lock Her Up

"Powerful Poem"

Anita May, LA Poet/ Editor

​

"Amazing Poem"

Cold Skin

At 70…