Featured Writing from Portland Women Writers Groups
Melinda Petersen began writing as far back as she can remember. She loves poetry and fiction and values Portland Women Writers for providing her with a community of support.She lives in the heart of the city and is blessed with a loving partner, children, grandchildren and friends.
When I Write with Other Women... by Melinda Petersen written in Dawn's Creative Memoir Workhshop
I am encircled with creativity - as if I am in an old fashioned quilting ceremony where connections fly like sparks around a banked fire each of us stirring those flames with the long stick of memory each of us seeing bright flames from a slightly different angle - maybe you see red embers that become your warming hearth that place that carries you back home to yourself or maybe you see the lick of tall umber flames reminding you of the long tresses of your daughter's hair that summer she turned seven when she flitted like a firefly in the warm air of a summer evening and maybe you see blue flames like a steel shaft that cold dark pain that engulfed you all that winter after she left we each have our patch of quilt to make our patch of earth to claim no matter what or where the circle and it makes me feel a connection with this life this world this spark of love and expression.
What I Remember
the cloud bank below like a snowfield a horizon so broad I swear I see the curve of the earth a man sighing next to me, a child kicking the back of my seat, the drumming rhythm of Silk Road in my earphones. I am high above the earth on this unexpected journey as if the Universe itself brought me here just to give me perspective.
Ironic my clarity is only the vapor of clouds, bowl of sky, curve of this horizon's hazy definition. What is real, my earth bound life, is somewhere below a thick cloud cover, as if my past stands alone down there in some dimly lit room seen from across a dark rainy street.
In the window a girl frames her silhouette in the yellow square of light, looks blindly out the window at me, the woman of her future waiting on the corner with a stillness that says stand where you are and look closely at me - keep searching for yourself out the window and not in the darkness behind where the light seeps first into shadows then into shafts of darkness and light and then into something neither seen nor heard: a silent fury swelling open and keen like an unmet longing.
Previously Featured Writing
December 2011 Souls by Mary Mandeville written in Traci's Tuesday morning weekly practice group
Places do have souls.
Whether houses built by human hands or rocky outcrops on windy high plateaus, both are imbued with life and spirit of things greater.
Places, even, do have souls.
A house carries with it the soul of the butterfly who touched on fresh green pine needles ten decades ago, a sparrow who nested and nurtured deep in pine branches. Soul too of the carpenter, sweat and grief woven into studs. His son died all too early from leukemia and he pounded his tears and his fury into the bones of the old house. His soul and his son’s soul – and all the dead sons’ souls dance on the weight bearing beams, lending strength and steadiness to hearth and home.
A house, even, has a soul.
The outcropping of rocks stands on a wide plateau, once the shore of a great inland lake. Its soul is ancient, wide, and deep. To plant feet on these boulders is to touch the rumbling soul of centuries, life lost and life found.
A pebble, even, can harbor a soul.
Places do have souls.
Grief Song written in Dawn's Writing Our Stories of Grief & Loss group
The song behind my grief is a reflection of the moon On still black water. The anguished call of a mother As her baby starves, Screaming across deserts And ice flows Reverberating In my mother heart.
The song underneath my grief is ancient Wolf’s lone howl, when the moon shines bright Wind’s shrill wail, on a moonless night.
The song inside my grief plays me, sings me, dances me Into a thousand sparkling particles Of shimmering dust Flickering across the sky Floating to rest On still Black Water.
November 2011 Come on home by Kelli DiBenedetto Chappie written in Rhea's workshop
come on home through dirt along the way come on home
because it's safe because it's sound come on home
though we know you well come on home
because water cleans because time waits come on home
through laced fingers and damp palms please come home * The trail brought me here
the trail brought me here to this unconditional life i remember it began at 2pm, hot, mid july the trail was long, 7 lakes along the way and the view the view was proud and tall pay attention or you'll get slapped in the face by a branch such is life, on a horse or not, you get slapped if you don't pay attention
and up high, a taste of true love no threat of time miners lettuce along the way with no where to be and everywhere to go sweaty bathing suits that hollered beneath to jump in a sandwich and fruit in the pouch, now just a little squished green air swirling just there, with nowhere to be a gift that's never too late to be given
a faithful companion to always get you home it knows the way relax and carve your name and who you love into the fence and taste the water of the river that carries you forward towards home
the fire will be stoked dinner ready and cold cantaloupe with vanilla ice cream and even if you hate cantaloupe, it will be perfect and you will be loved you are home *
Where I live
Where I live in an imaginary world, on a planet at the heart of things different there, but the same
dreams are truth fires heal broken bodies and spirits a glance tells you everything, but you already know
old pickup trucks rule the fast lane bars serve lunch to the elderly each day where backgammon is the chaser
we live in trees and the sea and food is free, doors & chairs don't exist young families struggle for sleep but are awarded a chick with each new child
there are no babysitters, pets take care of everything no stop lights or speed-bumps roads are well maintained and orderly
our queen is a flower, reborn each year the newspaper a collection of our diaries each day we pucker and whistle when we want more of anything
swimming is our church and sunsets are the scent of time
October 2011 Your breath has always saved you by Rebecca Lena Richardson written in Dawn's Poetry Workshop
Your breath has always saved you
A ferocious survival It took you from Ancestor hearths to unfurling womb time It offered up sharp hairs of mucous Wondrous presence It dangled beating beauty streams Of pain, like a trapped insect Yet it spun you a wool sweater Of Arabian red
I am trying to say that breath has always breathed you Even when you were floating far beyond Your bellied body in the night Breath has always wanted you
And it was tingling at your cheek Even in those first bursts of angry days on earth When you were new to the world And so alive, yet alone It was teaching you how to live
In and out, in and out, it whispered Teasing you with gritty breezes And Brooklyn smells It taught you how to hold it like a prayer For survival
It tickled you with the depth and serenity Of a large ocean mother at Coney Island It ruffled your forehead to sleep And then it pushed you at your back To teach you to run And It taught you to enter your inhale so deep That you could find the heartbeat Of everything Even when the world around you Was harsh and flailing It washed you with life
And for that, I am trying to say
Thank you.
September 2011 The Clown by Holly Vezinet written in Traci's Tuesday morning Writing Practice Workshop
The clown seemed out of place on this stretch of ocean beach. Not that clowns were uncommon on other beaches, but this particular beach was a nudist one. Not 'clothing optional' either. Harvey was from a traveling circus and often got himself in trouble by not respecting local customs. He also appeared in public in full makeup and costume. When he wasn't actively engaged in making people laugh, he could be seen reading a dictionary. No, he wasn't looking up words at random; he was literally reading the dictionary from front to back. This had gone on for many years, of course, and at the present moment, on this strictly no-clothes expanse of sand, he was at the 'S'es. One word really stumped him; he could be seen walking around in a daze repeating it aloud to himself: stripper pole. stripper pole.
August 2011 Disposable By Julie Pachico
This story was written in its entirety during one session in Rhea's Wednesday Evening writing group. The story was subsequently published in Inkapture, a literary e-magazine (www.inkapturemagazine.co.uk).
Somewhere there is a brand new couple naked asleep in bed together for the first time. Somewhere someone is pulling a plastic Safeway shopping bag out in life, its plastic body puffing up with air. It carries the beef jerky and the cans of pork and beans home happily, gladly. Somewhere someone is opening a packet of Oreo cookies, placing them in a circle on a plate, covering it up tightly with plastic seran wrap and taking it to work to leave on the teacher’s lounge table, where it can sit all day lovingly, invitingly. Somewhere there’s a pile of pizza boxes in the recycling bin with cold greasy hunks of cheese still cemented oozily to the cardboard walls. Somewhere a child sneaks into the teacher’s lounge, opening the door as quietly as possible, and crams their mouth full of cookies, teeth and tongue and crevices between teeth and space under tongue turning black and powdery like he’s swallowing mouthfuls of soil. Somewhere a young woman is sitting in front of her computer screen, starting at her notebook, at the sentence that she just wrote: “I have a big black feathery malignant thing that sleeps inside of me and makes me do stuff.” She’s one-half of the naked new couple, and her love is in bed with his head propped up on the pillows and his eyes closed, thinking about how nice it would be to get a foot massage from her right now, or the Barcelona scores, or whether or not he should apply for those unpaid public policy internships in D.C. (Actually, God knows what he’s thinking.) The young woman is going to be late for work because she didn’t pack the tupperware containers filled with her lunch into her Safeway plastic bag last night, the one crumpled up wistfully, wispily on the counter. By day’s end it will be crumpled up into a tiny ball and stuffed into the overflowing garbage bin, hidden away under the dark sink. The garbage is full of all sorts of different things and who knows where it will all go. Somewhere someone will sort thought it all on a giant conveyer belt passing towards them, while a voice on a loudspeaker will blare out “MILK CARTONS,” and then again in Spanish, and the workers will all have to sort through it as fast as possible, paid by commission. At the end of the day the tired woman will peel off her see-through skin-tight plastic gloves and get a ride home in her co-worker’s Honda with the broken window covered over in a plastic sheet of bubble wrap, but her child won’t be there. He’s not at home because instead he is running, running, running through the playground, the tip of his index finger black with a layer of dust, since that’s what gets left behind after writing the words “BITCH” on one side and “I WISH MY HUBBY WAS AS DIRTY AS THIS CAR” on the other. It’s the teacher’s car, the one who caught him slinking out of the rom, saw his jaw fall slowly open, as though a hinge there had been broken, saw the tell-tale black crumpled up wet damp mess inside, the black throbbing center that rustles its feathers and whispers to us what to do next, what to do next in order to feed it. The garbage men are coming; it’s garbage day. They curse the family that always puts their bins just far away enough from the curb that one of them has to hunker out of the truck in their thick orange plastic suit to retrieve it. What is it with these people, they say to each other from behind their facemasks, are they not from this country or something? They leave the bins tipped over on their sides, their lids flopped open like blue tongues. Someone somewhere is walking on a beach and their sandal slips on a Safeway bag. Somewhere someone is looking at a man in a bar and wondering if he’s single. July 2011 WARRIOR by Shayne Case Written in Dawn's Self-Portrait of the Divine Feminine Workshop
Warrior is a twelve-year-old girl who locks the bedroom door, slips off her school uniform, and puts on fuchsia velour hot pants. She cinches a fabric belt across her chest, fashioning her first bra. Warrior has stolen her brother’s Panasonic Boom Box, two Our Lady of Guadalupe veladoras, and the plastic spray bottle used for doggie’s bad behavior. She presses the play button, lights the candles, and sprays water over her face and in her long copper hair. The tape squeals to a start. Warrior is ready. INXS growls through the speakers, the devil inside, the devil inside, every single one of us the devil inside. Warrior growls, too. Gnashes her wild teeth and gnarls her wild mouth. She thrashes her body, stomps to the thump of the bass, watches herself in the mirror. Our Lady of Guadalupe watches, too, this fierce, feral animal child as she dances, she dances, she dances free.
June 2011 Poetry by Lora Worden Written in Traci's Writing Through the Darkness workshop
Renewable Resources
If I take home all of these rocks, will the beach slowly disappear?
Aria
Your smile carries me through these broken days; it is the only source of light I can count on.
Inspired by the writings on the website a handful of stones (where Renewable Resources is published as well)
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