.................................
Passing Miss Panky-Lee's Porch
.................................

Say, is dat Miss Essie's gal? Come close where I can see.
Lawd, it is, an all growd up, an tall, an lookin down at me!
Lean on over here and give Miss Panky-Lee a hug an kiss!
Gal, you know I wasn't always fat an crippled up like this.
Well, I'm sho yo mama's glad to have you back to home a while
wit dat school so far away, an you her youngest baby chile.
Gal, you sho is lookin well! An ain't you loss a little weight?
An, say, what is dat, perfume I smell? Uh-oh, mus have a date!
Now, don't you let some sorry-tail be messin wit your stride.
When you's travelin on de road of life, don't let the devil ride.
Cause I knowed you as a little thang. I seen you grow and strive,
but ol' Lucifer is tricky. If he ride, he'll wanna drive!
Now you hang in dere an finish school an get you dat degree.
You got somethin in you, baby, an believe Miss Panky-Lee,
I done walked dese same ol steps of mine for sixty-some odd year,
an one thing dat I can tell you, Chile, is dis: now listen here....
in dis world us need to learn as much as any of us can.
An when you can't get you nothing else, you still can get a man.
But you get dat education, an you get you dat degree,
and den get de hell on outta here, an don't end up like me!

 
.................................
The Farmer
.................................

I like a farmer as black as the earth,
as strong as the mule, as true as the plough,
as lusty as ever a horsefly was
that bit the skin and sucked his weight in blood
many times over. Just you
pass me that pitcher you fine
corn-fed man, with your beef-eater's hands,
and a trace of the acres you work
in the little half circles of dirt
underneath your nails.
Yes, give it here. I'll pump you
well-water, up from the dark springs of earth,
from the artesian well, fresh and cool,
and I'll watch your Adam's apple bob
like a cork in the spawning pool. Mercy....
Have some more!

 
.................................
Daphne, having had enough of winter
.................................

i creak and groan with green again
this tree of dead wood winter-laid
in lifeless leafy cold-encrusted
mulch -- i feel a budding branching out
and -- hah! i'm breathing
like a pale and limp thing prone
to shivers all a-sudden full of blood and heat
no longer meat but flesh

infused and firm and seething.
now i'll deftly with the tendril-vines of

passion wrap you up and crown you
spring-king with a wreath of my own

leavings aptly fashioned out of

sap and sacrifice
and will hold you fast my axe-man
with your ear against the bark
so you have to hear my heart and cannot

move to make a mark where you

should lay the edge

                 to take a living slice.

 
.................................
Venus Perelandra
.................................

Teach us to submit to love, as slaves to

that stern heat that makes us
sweat, sweet honey, dropping in the
sun. I taste my lips lick

sticky Injun-summer air,
the mayfair smell, the flowers, flowing hair:
what aromatic, rose-hips-honey-
suckle-pine-wisteria hysteria
of cherry-blossom clouds of lavish
lavender and ravishing wild rampion,
the herb of irresistible desire!
Spin, you little cherubim, evincing adoration
buzzing, wincing, blitz of bitsy wings
that beat the burgeoned bushes,
bursting into virgin flora, hum
and thrum and drumbeat, come
like honey dripping to the forest floor.
Come O Queen of unrequited
passion, errant love beknighted
by its noble sole devotion to the art
of dying well.
Come caress and make us couple.
Marry wills to bodies, nubile,

supple hearts to minds of pliant bent
among the broken shells.
Warm words form like rising foam
of simmered south-sea breakers,

and better far than kisses

are the whispers of those lips.

 
.................................
Overfond Canticle
.................................

The sodden, heavy clouds press low and crowd about my head,
solicitous, like watchful angels, anxious for their charge.
My eyes are drawn to that place where the dying sun has bled,

but these tears are for me, because my lover is at large.
Abroad and celebrating, and without me at his side,
he is skipping rocks on ripples, finding jagged hills to climb.
As the western shadows stretch, will he be thinking of his bride
who could not come on this journey at this inconvenient time?
Now, lonely, I am vulnerable to every hurtful thing,
to every prickly thorn on every flower I have pressed,
from images that sear to sharp, remembered words that sting.
Touché, bouquet! and still I lay these briers against my breast.
But never take away the tingling in my fingertips
that itch to touch his hair and stubbled cheek.
Let nothing (but his kiss) put out the burning of my lips
that tremble with a love too deep to speak.
But burst, you clouds, and shower me with flood-cascades of grace!
Lord, wash away this ache and sense of need,
and cleanse the salty traces of this pathos from my face,
and grant me fortitude, but grant him speed!

.................................
Jennifer Merri Parker
.................................

 
Copyright © Jennifer Merri Parker
September 1996

...five poems in this room by Dana Standridge...
the coffee you poured on my words
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