Poetry by Sophia Alexander
"My Life is a Poem Sung Free"
The Arrival of the Mother
A Sigh
Heralding Passion & Release
Glorious Serendipity of Yearnings
Followed by the descent of Grace . . . she comes
She Comes
Trailing Flower Petals behind her
Different than the Pied Piper
Who fluted the mice out of Hamelin Town
She Has Arrived
Finally, and in full Flower,
Blessing us with each movement
Tinkling Bells
And
Personified Grace
Alchemy adorned with
Wispy tendrils
A Gentle touch as
The one becomes the other
The Change Begins
The Dragonfly emerges from the deep watery sleep to crawl up the stalk
We’re talking a big game here.
My head emerges and I want to Sing Exalted Songs
Forever Free from my doubt and denial
Where my voice is free
The Heavenly Muse Herself.
She arrives in my living room
Fully baked
Decked out in all her spring/summer/winter/fall regalia
She actually has an address at my house!
She came,
She filled me, thrilled me
The humming
The Vibration
The Tones-
Sacred sound of Life and Creation
Her arms are full of gifts
I am Her
I have no arms
And, yet, I’m all arms
Giving, holding,
Touching embracing
The centuries of starvation are past me.
The food is on the table.
The words roll out of my pen—the divine harmonies
The Flow of Sounding
They come unbidden & yet desired forever
My Life is a Poem Sung Free
SOPHIA ALEXANDER
Dali and Me
You penetrated me in unexpected ways
I didn’t come for you
But you had your way with me, nonetheless.
Cripes! You even buried yourself there!
What balls
You were unabashedly yourself,
Letting life flow in raging rivers,
Matching and often surpassing the greatest artists of your time
I had no idea the place of honor you would inhabit in my heart
The inspiration you would give me to match you step for step
You crazy, dear, outrageous man
I see you in my mirror
Salvador Dalí
I want my museum to be a single block, a labyrinth, a great surrealist object. It will be [a] totally theatrical museum. The people who come to see it will leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream.
— Salvador Dalí
Threading Reality
A bold earthly presence
Is urging me on
Pushing my feet
In a shuffling song
“Lift them up high,.
‘Stand tall!” I hear..’
“You see ahead.”
“The way forward is clear.”
A needle in hand
Inviting the thread
The sewing beginning
As stitches are wed.
Bright colors of light
Pulse through my hands
Dissolving the knots
Creating new lands.
Voices behind me
Shrill sound in my ears
Attempting to stop me
From spinning the spheres.
I breathe in the compass
Expanding the form
Life welcomes new elements
Soon to be born
The sewing continues
Tight stitch upon stitch
Connecting the heart threads
Bright inch upon inch.
The garment is woven
We find ourselves done.
Love dances the Tango
A vict’ry of One.
In the Mother’s Shoes
On the verge of a nap
This thought rode in
On a horse of remembered grief
In a moment of drunken ineptitude
My father to my mother spoke,
“You don’t send me sexually anymore”
I imagine that scene
Shame dripping in my mother’s tears
My little brother crying silently nearby
Trembling and cast aside
She stood still and alone
Unable to move or trust love again
Pain ripped through her heart
And, therefore, mine
Dizzy and made hard as granite
Caught in the emotional cross hairs
I forgave my father, professing need
Running to his inviting words
Her anguish inconsolable
The sorrow unforgiving
Rejection active to the end.
But today in the drifting to sleep
I could stand in her shoes
And embrace her pain
In that act
We are both forgiven
Life is restored
Time Travel
There was a ruffled edge to my granddaughter’s voice.
“Oma, I’m having my Lady Days!
Her excitement sent sunshine through the phone
Hugging me inside with her news.
Remembering my own first blood
The burden of the “curse”
Secreted inside the shame and guilt
I marvel at the changing times
Light Swings With Time
In an arc of grace we find our way
A jeweled compass at the helm
What will the future find of us?
Our spoons and saucers
Or the indelible impassioned imprint
Of our fiery furry kisses?
The Mountain Trill
Cicadas pulsing with morning expectation
I sing to myself in the moist coolness
Surrendering to the abundance
And growing beyond knowing
Light comes over the roof
With the flight of geese
I see Life is Real
And Doing Its Thing
Mudlicious
covered with dirt
unseemly she was
ever against the norm
she stood alone
amongst the weeds
Never a shoulder
to cry on
The Mother of the Mother of the Mother
Lines and lines of women
Back and back and back
I embrace them all
My mighty arms extending like magnets
Pulling them ever so close
I lose myself in their perfume
So many voices speaking at once
Caressing my skin with their eyes
Hands on their hips
Fences of no kind
Walls knocked akimbo
Vanishing concepts
Total fusion
The demand to separate burned to ash
Not this time, we say
No boundaries ever again
Lordy, free at last
Birthday poem for James 2021
Eons Ago
You came out of the mud
Fully formed and ready to move
We celebrate you,
The You-ness that Loves & Learns
Serving the whole
So very well
Today is the day
To thank you
To remember and honor
The peace that fills our cracks
And really wags our tails.
I see you…
Melding the Myriad Places
The world writhes in pain
From loss of love
Where is the Mother?
I am She, I say
No more grabbing my innards
Forcing my ears to listen
I need to move and dance
The flow of muscle on bone
The belly in jolly motion
No more weaving shawls of grief from past miseries
I will delight instead
In constructing a flowing garment to catch the wind.
Sewing this Quilt of Grace
From which to ride the currents
Catching every mermaid on my wings
I will no longer wear the veil of tears
Laden with the sweat of conflict and filth
Draping instead my body ~
~On Earth’s body
Pouring out the ambrosia from my heart
Oh, my larger Heart
Bring us All together
I am too tired to struggle more
How Fast You Appeared!
Katydids, airy and afloat
A state of intimacy and Grace
“Lovers in a dangerous time”
Crossing the Chasm
Finding myself everywhere
What wonder!
No distance, only filaments of light bouncing in place to give the illusion of space
You wander in my memories a note in the song of Life
Who knew the world would dissolve in this place (that isn’t)
The Eyes Have It
Joan of Arc and The Holy War
Yesterday
My eyes, reservoirs of data
Tears of zeros and ones
Guards pressed against the door
Beyond which the terror lies
What did I see, that first time
The sudden retreat to the frozen little girl
Eating the dust of her shadow?
I don’t know
The many acts of my story
Play out seeing and not seeing
Being seen and not being seen
In this play of infinite acts
Paying homage to the eyes that have it
All the flooding memories of times unseen
The memories flood me now
Driving down a city street
An explosion of blood flooding my Right Eye
“I see you”, he had said
How can I escape?
So many years to heal the tempest inside
Demons on the left of me and harpies on the right
Mirrored in myself and reflected from others
I couldn’t escape and fought on
Always fists up warding off, deflecting the blows
I was Joan of Arc fighting the inner holy war
And now, I am here
Willing and waiting to be seen
A victory of finally friends
Between
Distilled space, pure and unbound
The heart within beats true
I have heard your voice beneath the leaves
Hidden in the furl of the fronds
I plant your seeds and Till your ground
The shoots curling greenward toward the sky
My friendship with you is new
I and We seeking leverage against the Dark
Huddled together in the night light
I saw you then and you saw me now
I am unafraid to be with you
How To Skin the Rat*
Barbed Wire Words
Spoken through the dense air
Creating fences and puncture wounds.
Wonder Woman bracelets, where the hell are you?
“Too sensitive,” they all said.
But our thin skin speaks volumes.
Startled eyes pop open,
A hand parts the scratchy veil.
No longer blind, we see.
Like the canary in the coal mine
Our hearts burst free
Ranting the righteous rave
*That’s how it’s done
No rats were harmed in the writing of this poem.
Did I Invent Dragons?
Talking to myself
A mouth full of questions
Enough love to go around?
Money for milk?
Plopped from the center of a cyclone
Into a 2-legged, bow-legged girl
Her saturated sensitivities weary me
Pointing my arrow in the wrong direction.
Cherry Jello is my real name
Jiggling is my game
The fruit of my filling so sweet
My neon taste buds dripping in delight.
A Slice of Time
“Into the Rabbit Hole”, said Alice
Squeeze me into tiny shards of light,
Shove me into that place
Where infinity and magnificence tickle my toes
I’m ready to hear the Cosmic Wolf
Howling at the Milky Moon
Making playthings of the planets
And baubles of the stars
The will is annealed and strong,
Hoisted on the shoulders of devotion
Universe, Give us your All,
We are falling in love again.
Taffeta Waves
A point of gentle contact
Finger upon my heart
Pulse matching pulse
Catching my breath
Who are you?
The one who moves me
Who rattles my bones
I long to know
You have hidden yourself
In the folds of my cells
Permeable membranes
Awake and asleep
I am waiting
Show yourself
I am softness now
Speaking your words
The Trickster and the Banana Peel
Wicked we’ve been told we are
Broken and confused
This picture was not rended right
It made us black and blue
The denouement of deception
The big lie laid bare for all
We’ve always had the answers
We’re not against the wall
Jumping up and down, I am
Ecstatic past all measure
The treasure chest is open wide
The world awaits my pleasure.