Subtle Glance

Swimming in sounds
Of honeyed sultry jazz.
A possibility remains,
Of you, of me, of we.
Mingling on air
In cigarette smoke
From snubbed out butts,
With remnants of crimson wax
(A perfect curve).
Voices drown yours out.
The seated man beats
A methodical rhythm
On his coconut drums.
The stifling café
Forces containment
Of expression,
An involvement of
Visual contact,
Holding back the flesh.
Where is your mind?
Your eyes give you away,
They stare a few inches
Below my chin.
Sentences later,
I arch my back
To help your view.

- PoetEcho (Mary McLaughlin)

The Blue Saloon

I park amidst
The rows of battered
Pick-up trucks,
My small white Honda
Looking like a lost child.
I walk through the wooden doors
And sit down in the old timer’s
Bar reading Rilke’.
Their eyes are palpable
The foggy stares
Curiously watching
The woman lost
In her world of words.
Youth here is a forgotten folly.
They try to suffocate
The passed years
In Whiskey straight up
And beers.
(Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker,
Lone Star, Bud Light.
None of the new fangled
Fancy crap.)
I can hear them discussing me,
With my black lids
And my beliefs etched
Into my arms.
Here I am like a stubbed toe,
They can’t help
But focus on.
The wound pulsates with an energy
The rest of the appendages have forgotten.
The ancient barkeep,
With a cigarette hanging
On her lips,
Saunters by and refills
My still full glass.
“What are you studyin’ on girl?”
“Rilke’ and Baudelaire,
Modernist poetry” I reply.
“Oh”, she says,
“That’s a really big book”.
Then wanders away to more
Fitting conversation.
Then, from the corner of the bar
A gravelly worn out voice
Begins to quote,
In perfect eloquence,
Kafka, Pound, and Reverdy.
His clouded eyes smile
As he finds the equilibrium of a mug
On the opposite of his palm.
I tell him (quoting Rilke)
“A strange place for a cup:
Balanced on the back of a hand.”
He replies with a quote from Mallarme,
(A wisdom that equals him in age,)
“A throw of the dice
Never will abolish chance.”

- PoetEcho (Mary McLaughlin)

10 Years

You back away from me,
You sidestep me,
Turn the other cheek
Away from me,
Before I have had a chance
To speak.
Why? Because there’s
A bit too much padding
On my stomach or on my hips?
Just quit, I’m tired of it.
Through my mind flows words,
The likes of which you will never hear
From the blonde bimbos
And surgically enhanced clones that
You so continuously lust after,
And follow after,
And close your eyes and pretend
Your hand is.
10 years ago you were at my feet
Wherever they chose to tread,
When my size zero hips swayed by you
Your feet fell into step.
When I was shy, and young,
And covered my words in makeup,
Tight clothes, and your cologne.
When I didn’t know that
How you treated me corresponded
With how much you respected me,
And I didn’t see that while your eyes
And attention were open and searching
Me up and down,
Your ears and mind were closed to me.
And now, 10 years later,
10 years of learning and growing,
And birthing and yearning,
And climbing and falling,
And laughing and hurting,
And choosing:
Choosing to live by my words and mind
Not just my eyes and thighs.
Allowing my thoughts to dictate
What people think of me,
Not just the size and cut of that pair of jeans.
This is the time when you choose
To try and step back into my life?
As you stumble along your
Societal dictated path
You stutter and hesitate,
Not sure how best to take in
This me that you can’t even
Recognize.
You try to say that it’s not the right time,
That it’s better to wait.
But, wait for what?
It’s not the weight that turns you off,
Nor is it my lack of fashion sense
For fads and sexual glances,
It’s intimidation.
You don’t know what to do
With a woman
Who is secure?
With a woman
Who has something to say,
Speaks her mind,
And doesn’t back down?
You choose to run,
Heels to ass
Just as fast as your legs
Will give you flight,
Because you realize
That a woman like this
Might just possess
More balls than you
Could ever have.

- PoetEcho (Mary McLaughlin)