White Gloves: A Poem

Tongues click

White gloves sweep tables, until grey

Clasped hands cry conformity

Like a muted scream in sign language

As lips lecture

Biblical quotes

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

Eyes scan and fall upon

An unmade bed

Or a dirty dish

Ocular glares

Filthy lazy child!

Blares

An encapsulated bullhorn

Shatters bifocals

Leaving piercing shards upon the floor

Which cut my feet.

About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.net

Mismatched Shoes: A Poem

Standing at the offramp

Mumbling incoherencies

He huddles into a hoodie too thin

To block the winter wind.

Head cast down, his gaze

On mismatched shoes

One black and muddied

The other orange with a once white strip

Both torn and worn

As if pulled from a dump heap.

When did his life become mismatched?

Was he born to disfunction and despair?

Did chemicals fill his youthful mind

Starting small then growing in need

Until that rush of liquid in veins

Became heart’s beat.

Perhaps delusions set him

Wandering down paths unknown

Stumbling over cracked and broken concrete

Until his feet were bare.

Maybe he is a victim

Of an abandoning economy

Seeking employment.

Finding none.

Cleaved from the life he once knew.

I am blessed with pair after pair.

Black, red, tan, blue, satin, and sparkling.

While the homeless man

Shuffles to nowhere

In his mismatched shoes.

About Laurie: The author of Forest Secrets and the soon to be released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Etched Invocation: A Poem

In the lonely quiet

Of empty sheets

That no longer rustle

I whisper his name

And reach out

To caress

A back that

Isn’t there.

Enduring the cold silence

Of phantom forms

With an invocation

Of a name

Etched on my skin

About Laurie: The author of Forest Secrets and the soon to be released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Love’s Rewrite: A Poem

Mind revisions

Of pain

And loss

Where dreams edit

Every goodbye

And failure.

A delete button

Of the mind

Where he never left

Cleaving me into two

And enveloping hearts intertwined.

I rewrite the past

In whispered fantasies

That lull me into

The stupor of sleep

A psyche typing REM

Day after day.

About Laurie: The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Men’s Song: A Poem

I love men.

Their musky scents.

Car grease, salt,

And briefcase leather

Linger in my lungs.

I love how they move.

Purposeful fingers pounding keys

Or the deliberate way they

Place one sturdy foot in front of the other

As they swagger
Across floors.

I love men’s stalwart shapes

Muscled arms, broad shoulders

Carpeted chests

Inviting touch

And nuzzling faces.

Their small hips

And the way belts

Ride just so.
I love the sounds they make.

Dressing for the day.

Snapping buttons, razors buzzing

Water splashing.
And deep voices

Which resonate

Their mesmerizing tune.

***

I hate men

Their strong smells

Of sweat and musk

Shoulders so wide

As to make walls

While daring hands to

Touch.

I hate the way they

Peacock preen

Over the ground

Deliberate steps

Crushing insects

Flowers

And my dreams.

I hate their discordant

Voices

Crooning cacophony

Reminding me

Of glory days

Real and imagined.

As they say goodbye.

(photo by David Stroup)

The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Shards of Us: A Poem

Broken shards

Scattered over the floor

Remnants of a life

He tossed away.

I reach for one

Two, seven pieces

Trying to reassemble them

But the fragments are

So small

And fragile

They crumble to dust in my hands.

Blind Falcon: A Poem

I am a blind falcon

Soaring through darkness

Seeking the warmth of a sun

Whose light I long ago

Forgot.

I am a sightless aviator

Navigating by sound

And touch

And scent.

The mist is cool on my

Retracting and extending

Wings.

So I flap ever harder.

In these black skies.

Mirror Mask: A Poem

In the mirror

Rubber wounds

Of torn flesh

And distorted features

Form a mask

I don.

Its warped reflection

Trapping me

Inside the hot

Fetid

Breath

Of suffocating plastic.

(photo by David Stroup)

Laurie Woodward is the author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. She co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy and was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net

Lifeline: A Peace Poem

We are the weavers of children

Whether they are wading, treading, or drowning

Each child is reaching out

For lifelines to pull them from their semi-fluid perceptions,

Yet many find flimsy ribbons braided with Achilles tendons

That split, then disconnect buoys

As they struggle in turbulent effluent.

Sometimes suspension bridges splinter

Bodies flailing and thrashing.

And they hang mid-air over purgatorial precipices.

And so we come,

The weavers,

Bringing strong cordage and twine of seraphic gossamer

To silence their cries and give them hope.

And when we set to work,

The floundering souls reach out for lifelines.

For we know the secret.

We have only to pluck the hairs from atop our heads,

Begin intertwining them with gentle words of a peaceful future

And thus create:

Blankets to keep them cool on hot summer days

Or safety nets for acrophobic trapeze artists

With loving words we

Spin arks to race arid currents,

Or create buoyant suits that deflect each incoming wave,

But we must remember

To continue weaving at our numinous looms,

And make our fingers deft

To find places where weft meets warp

And make fibers of

Ethereal clouds to moisten parched radices.

When our eyes grow weary of patterns too subtle for children to see,

Or when aching backs and cramping forearms make for troublesome twining

Even when our hands become bloodied by sharp sutures from the unknowing

or the insane,

We must endure

We are the weavers,

Intertwining and intersecting,

Spinning fibrous cable that children cling to

That they will wrap round their waists

Before plunging into cavernous incarnations

To discover,

In the depths,

A reflection of the future

A reflection of themselves

A reflection

Of the peace weaver they can become.