I Touch Beauty Daily

I Touch Beauty Daily

Sunday, April 21, 2013

An Elegy to Eugy’s Wisdom



I was coming home to see you but the burdens
of growing a child alone turned me into a blur.
You must have remembered my arrival among
nine, all dotted behind you in the neat vegetable
garden of biannual rows our parents shouldered up.
They put eight impacted years between you and me.

You chose your wife who had my name and
brought children to walk in your kindness. I
carried the marks you fitted expertly like jigsaws,
leaned into the time you taught me, danced
recklessly to Elton John, the first music lesson
you pressed into my age.  How could I forget how

you shook confidence into suits, assured challenges
of your unwavering devotion when you held my hand 
through books bound with fabrics of unfamiliar flair?
You poured calligraphy into my ready hands and wants 
into my legs, flung open our living room door, pushed 
me gently to grow my own wings to absorbing America.

You slashed through hesitation and bouts from stories
Wild, Wild West told of America’s penchant for guns.
Death fought us in ninety-seven in tenacious Aba where
it upturned your centering gift with stealth and brought
your circle full force from your arrival in Anua Hospital
in fifty-one. Your birth erased the end of what would

have ended a fertile dynasty and even made prophesy
smile. You set that unwavering footloose ritual of 
journeying from Aba to be born in the best, the custom
only the Civil War broke and spun us inward to know
the outworld. You vanquished clouds, raised the bar
to none-to-compare. You, the gem, glow brightly in
death. From one whose head you deepened, I honor
your wisdom to fortify me during these arid years.

--Frances Ohanenye
Elegiac Poetry

--My dream has loved paper so much and for so long because it gave influence to the parched voice of a fashionista poet. Finding this outlet, that voice is replete with expressive sound.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Magenta Moment

The mirror stares back awaiting my next deception.
It knows me, a shammer, better than the angel it doesn’t.
Like Kenny Rogers' gambler, I know when to hold back,
when to fold, but I cannot not walk away, cannot run.
The mirror stares back admiring the grip in my eyes.
I have counted my money, saved it longer than forever.
I refuse to draw my last air in my sleep for the love
of that color in the confines of a borrowed room.
Dark on dark, we both shimmer on planned outing.
We are an exhibit in the High Museum of Art,
the artistic architect pouring curved stratus, imagined
he knew my held breath, how it would layer on me,
dark on dark. We both simmer in the mirror.
But the dress is having a moment here. 

--Frances Ohanenye
Cultural convergence


--My dream has loved paper so much for so long because it gave influence to the parched voice of a fashionista poet. Finding this outlet, that voice is now replete with expressive sound.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

His Money—an adaptation*

His nails are yellow and bitten back
yellow, unhappiness drooping
bitten back, his frightened hunger.
She doesn’t like him, and he could feel
suspicion pouring out of the lacquered odor
of hairspray. Neither war nor peace offers
the gust of self he needs.
The girl, her palate is dry like a potsherd
and eyes a bulging red air of intimidation
seem suddenly unsure of the power she grabbed.
The slap of misfortune reels him, bounces
on her authority and pounces.
Her irises burn him warning his pupils.
They retract, his frankness charge 
after the tiger she sent after him.
His frankness leaves her holding
an apple exposed to the core.

--Frances Ohanenye
--Cultural Collision
*Adapted from poem of the same title by Ted Kooser

--My dream has loved paper so much for so long because it gave influence to the parched voice of a fashionista poet. Finding this outlet, that voice is now replete with expressive sound.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Sitting and Pitching

Desperate benches are lined and glued
hearts sit in empty river bowels
not fed by employment's beggars

we sit and pray with hope
we sit and wish for eternity
each side pulling justice's sleeves

the tug of war of success
crosses the border of heaven
we sit and pitch desperation

we sit and pitch tears
we sit and pitch cruelty
begging the law to lean back

to whisper hope, strings of loss
to make my heavy heart cleaner
to fill my sad heart with color

with music from hope catchers
tinkling, twinkling, sparkling
make my heavy heart flow

--My dream has loved paper so much for so long because it gave influence to the parched voice of a fashionista poet. Finding this outlet, that voice is now replete with expressive sound.