The Beast by Rhonda Fisher

Thundering Hooves...

straining muscles
hot flesh on flesh
one with the beast
slow........rhythmic
...nature dance

fence in sight
tension building
take flight...flying...soaring
...landing...dust flying

thundering hooves.

Passion Greets by Rhonda Fisher

our eyes first greet on

the street...warm quivers shake

deep where passion meets

HE SNORES by Rhonda Fisher

My husband snores so
loud that I'm unable to
think on how to write

Louisiana Fall by Rhonda Fisher

Louisiana /

it's seventy-two degrees /

Fall finally here

Japanese Blueberry Tree by Rhonda Fisher

Fall blew in today
Japanese Blueberry Tree
grow no more 'til Spring

Jamaican Sunset by Rhonda Fisher

Jamaican sunset
paints orange, yellow, and pink
God's blanket lies down

Wedding Bells by Rhonda Fisher

anxiously waiting
wedding bells will toll for my
first born son and thee

Sing For Me by Rhonda Fisher

Robin sing for me
your song chases depression
echos tranquility

GIVE ME A BREAK by Rhonda Fisher

This back of mine, the one that is supposed to carry the burden of a lifetime, has been beaten, battered and broken. So many doctors, the kind who use scalpels, saws, cadaver bone, pins, plates, and screws; and then, there are the doctors who use psychotropics, muscle relaxers, and talk therapy to erase the memories my back's muscles have had to carry through childhood abandonment, starvation, betrayal, loss, and two divorces. Physical Therapists have tried to coax my unrully and unwilling back to sit up, to walk a straight line and maybe even to lift 10 pounds. My back has flunked out of physical therapy at all the clinics in town; I'm going to have to drive 30 miles to find another one. I'll probably get pulled over for speeding. It would be hysterical if the officer asks me to walk a straight line or to stand on one leg and touch my nose with my opposite hand. This back doesn't want to cooperate when I try to dress it up. Most of the time, it stays in pjs until right before my daughter gets off the bus from school. I'm mortified if the mailman or UPS guy shows up unexpectedly. I yell "just a minute" as I try to get a pair of shorts on--it's one foot in, fall over and hit the dresser, push off and complain "come on give me a break, oh yeah, I forgot, you already did," get the other leg through, hobble while pulling on a shirt--and then finally, I get there and I'm sure you can guess what comes next. After all this I still want to keep my back. I know I have more pain and suffering to bear. I also now know that I can let others lighten that load through their love for me. Some day I will lie down for the last time and my back will sleep the eternal slumber.

William Carpenter: THE KEEPER

I forget everything. I forgot faces, I forget the plots of movies, how anything turned out, who is divorced - what couples are having an affair. I am not fit to be alone. You say I am like the Baron de Charlus who could never be outside without his keeper. I should have a keeper, one of those unsmiling plainclothed men that forms circles around the President. He would be physically large, he would be trained in Chinese methods of restraint for times when I forgot myself at parties or began speaking alound in the public street. He would have reproducible features; he could stand in at annual family picture. He would remind me of lectures himself while I sat attentively in the first row. He would grow rabbinical with learning, the keeper, he would grow old, bits of food would appear in his thick beard like insects; there would be insects in his beard. He would accept all my insomnia, he would lie there in the night recalling the details of my life, baffled with guilt, baffled with failing to reach out when things went by. It would be good sleeping while he stared into the night. It would be good dreaming of a simple, phenomenal world, of the great translucent forms of giraffes. It would be good to rise, like an idiot, in a morning totally new, it would be the body of the keeper beside the door, it would be his death on the last day and not my own. It would be I who kept on living here and kept forgetting.

CLOUDS CRY by Rhonda Fisher

clouds cry out so loud/
when thunder cuts the silence/
their tears cleanse anew

Louisiana Fall by Rhonda Fisher

Not fog this morning/
but dew clinging on windows/
hot, cold, not yet Fall.

Emily Dickinson's Letter To A Friend by Rhonda Fisher

Dear Friend not yet,

Do not you pretend to know me, or what of that I do?  My solitude does bare me; it is not one that is cruel.  In darkness I find that which cheats the night, and words escape another who must surely have some light.

My friends in silence speek to me quietly and with great care.  Words that flow so swiftly, words no others dare.  And I keep these in the darkest-day, when the clouds cry out so loud.  Thunder rends the silence and breaks the silver cloud.

No, not sickness of the solitude--dare I be so remorse.  Silence is my gratitude and words fly out--due course. My friend, not yet, and so you think of me--foreigner--person I--a husband-less wife.

Emily.

Heartbreak by Rhonda Fisher

heart thunders, squeeze...feet

running, tripping, dialing
911 "help me"

TIME AM by Rhonda Fisher

I woke up sweaty/