Poetry Accepted For Inclusion in an Anthology!

One of my poems (see below) has been chosen for inclusion in The Reach of Song 2010, a fine collection of poems by the Georgia Poetry Society.  I have been honored with an invitation to be recognized and to read the poem at Kennesaw State University!  I wrote the poem when my daughter left home for college, as I warred with the mixed feelings of sadness and joyfulness: sadness because I was going to miss her something awful; joyfulness because of her arrival at this gargantuan accomplishment. 

(Copies of The Reach of Song will be available for order in August of 2010.)

My Mind Must Remember

I don't even want
To wrestle with invisible time
To pause at your childhood junctions

 I don't even want
To stretch my mind to remember
The last time your skin drank the sun
I don't even want
To wring my mind for the drops
The tiny joyful moments
Your Tinkle-bell baby coos

My mind should remember
Every protective maternal clasp
Your growing arms embraced
Riddled with teenage melodrama
In your own leading-lady roles

We must make each parting
A full-course gourmet meal
Kicked up a notch with
Emeril's fanfare
Suffused with
Wolfgang's passion for freshness
Celebrated with
Jacques' many delicious delights
Dished out with
Marvin's southern down-homeness

My mind must remember
With clarity's exposed precision
Each regretfully joyous parting
My mind must remember

I cannot bear to forget

--Frances Ohanenye, Marietta, Georgia

"Paper Is Not Silent!" 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.

Pay Phones

I saw a pay phone and my heart rejoiced speedily
this forgotten landscape
Its ease and convenience unknown by the cell-phone generation
Given different names by the country wherein it resided

I saw a pay phone and my heart leaped joyfully
this faithful servant offering speech in heat or cold
Neither shielded nor sheltered in extreme temperatures
Not all the time, not everywhere but to everyone
Making music by familiar Top-Forty's Number One hit song
The coin's long journey into its unretractable home

I saw a pay phone and my heart jumped excitedly
not that I used it much then
Taking time to wipe down humanity's gifts
Like one prepped efficiently for surgical procedures
I did not use it much even before these cell phone days
A sight still for the sore eyes of America's lost culture
Obliterated and forgotten landscape for romantic escapades
Veins of bloodlines snipped from underground source
Hauled with Incredible Hulk's bulging biceps into landfills
Now populated by dead pay phones rejected by technology's betrayal



----"Paper Is Not Silent!" 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.

"Sitting on Emotions" by Frances Ohanenye

Golden silence smiled at us lucky to let attraction simmer

Like the witches’ effective brews

Feeding hearts and emotions

Safeguarded from each other’s unintentional cruelty

Silence spoke powerfully to reluctant hearts

Asking to let emotions rest from weary, unsuccessful visits

So hearts can build castles once again

Found in Cinderella’s dreams and fantasies

Silence spoke authoritatively and smiled wisely

We listened and let raging emotions quench

Seemingly insatiable thirst

Using orchestrated neglect and planned ignoring

We wait for golden silence to speak again

We sit on raging emotions still

---"Paper Is Not Silent!" 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.

The Bushwhacker

Transitions are life's
Nervous breakdowns
Not knowing when they'll occur
Whether voluntarily or not

A bushwhacker such as me
Seeks to change by trimming
Pruning and uprooting
My house of enculturation
When the itch strikes
And I must succumb
To satisfy its eclectic whims
Of ungratified needs

Yet I whack the expenses
The hours, the duties
In search of what's not
In fulfillment of transitional
Dictations caused by uncontrollable
Needs, wants, and desires
I've become what I feared most
A cutter of things consequential
A party pooper of necessity
Whacking away happily, purposelessly
I've become what I feared most
A bushwhacker of consequentials

"Paper Is Not Silent" (The Poem)

Paper is not silent
When shredded
When crumpled
Abused and killed
Screaming in protest
Sighing in last rite

Paper is not silent
Conducting sound
When silence abounds
Trapping one environmental noise
When placed near ear
Echoing the trapped sound

Paper is not silent
Pointed tips scratch
Protestations bleed
The face marred
The voice of a seeker
Screams opinions as thoughts
Heard but unheard

Paper is not silent

By Frances Ohanenye
Poet, writer, educator, mother

Welcome to the Maiden Entry

What happens to a dream suspended, postponed, left hanging for years? Does it shrivel and die? Not exactly. It makes life unbearable until it is given an outlet, a voice, a channel so that it can become fulfilled. It does not die outright.

This is the why of this blogging, an outlet for a voice that would not die. My dream has loved paper for so long because paper gave it voice. The dream has not been silent despite decades of attempts to shush it as life happens and family emerges, is nurtured, and is grown. It does not die. Rather, it bids its own sweet time like the seed in the fertile soil that is watered sufficiently to reclaim sunlight, sunshine, and air. It buds!  It blooms and blossoms.

Welcome to the first post, the maiden voyage of a fashionista's poetic escapades.  Many postings will follow, hopefully, with profound thoughts that will inspire and cause a pivotal change in perspective or a little change, barely perceptible.  It does not matter really.  The real unabashed goal is for me to have an abunance of glorious fun doing what I love the most--writing poetry.