Can’t Keep Quiet
Can’t Keep Quiet A Bailey Library/WCC Poetry Club Anthology Celebrating Women’s History Month
Edited by Natalie Rinehardt Jennifer Wiland Zaynab Elkolaly
I can’t keep quiet For anyone Anymore —MILCK
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This Can’t Keep Quiet anthology, featuring work by WCC students, faculty, staff, and alumni, is a joint production of the Bailey Library and the WCC Poetry Club, at Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, MI. Special thanks to the Bailey Library staff, especially Molly Ledermann, for helping make this book happen. Book design by Tom Zimmerman. Front-cover art (Dream a Little Dream), inside front-cover art (A Fire Inside and Teardrops), inside back-cover art (top) (Mariposa Hermanas), and back-cover art (Perplexing Past) by Amber Leigh Miller. Inside back-cover art (bottom) by Erica Morris. Copyright Š 2019 the individual authors and artists. The works herein have been chosen for their literary and artistic merit and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Washtenaw Community College, its Board of Trustees, its administration, or its faculty, staff, or students. www.wccnet.edu/resources/library/welcome wccpoetryclub.wordpress.com
Natalie Rinehardt
CONTENTS Words Narine Verdiyan Wanda Kay Sanders Maryam Barrie Monica Cialek Diane M. Laboda Erica Morris Maryam Barrie Olivia Bottum Diane M. Laboda Marlee McGinnis Anthony Davis Maryam Barrie KD Williams Natalie Rinehardt Tom Zimmerman Edith Croake Jennifer Wiland
I am womanhood Work of Art Injuring Eternity Mom will be back from her beachwalk soon Spiders To Whom It May Concern Gone Too Far I’d Keep This from My Children Misplaced My Mother as a Young Woman My Jackie Awake Unplanned Slumber Chasm Kan’t Keep Quiet To Amy Winehouse If They Should Want a Piece of Me A Woman; A Sailor Under She is Cento for Emily Can’t Keep Quiet The Coming of Fall Abyss Blanket I Am the Moon
6 7 9 10 11 13 15 16 17 18 20 21 23 25 27 28 29 31 32 33 34 36 38 39 40 41
Images Amber Leigh Miller Natalie Rinehardt Tom Zimmerman Delilah Webb Jessica Winn Erica Morris
Front cover, inside front cover, 8 (top), 15, 26 (bottom), 30, inside back cover (top), back cover 4, 9, 30, 40, 41 8 (bottom), 27, 28, 29, 31 12 14, 19, 22, 24, 32 17, 26 (top), 33, 35, 37, inside back cover (bottom)
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NARINE VERDIYAN I am womanhood i owe beauty to no one i have never seen myself truly, every time eyes fall on mirror, it’s foggy reflection distorted like someone on the other side was lazily painting what i needed to be comfort couldn’t be found in my own body comfort/conformity don’t belong together. womanhood, an electric chair i’m strapped in remote clutched in hand (i’m told what woman was, is how they look, speak who women are how slutty can take different forms brutalize every crook in my body) turn the chair on, immediately my body is rigid electricity takes home in me womanhood finds home in me i’m seen Fruitless feel fiery to make womanhood something of my own ugly ceramic craft, fragile, shaped by my two hands owe beauty to no one unless i come to do so i see myself with clarity, non binary and welcoming womanhood with cries, beating down doors don’t contain me any longer, i hold electricity in my blood (i am womanhood) 6
WANDA KAY SANDERS Work of Art My shadow on the yellow drawn shades outlines the silhouette of my naked body. I do not try to hide it, this reflection. I want to be seen. I want the curves of my waist and hips to be obvious. I want the smooth roundness of my breasts and buttocks to show. As I look at my body in the mirror and its image on the shade I am pleased. All the things he took for granted now make me smile. In my eyes I see the beauty. I am a sculpture of Rodin— forever captured in stone, masterfully crafted. I will be admired by other men even if not by him. I am a work of art—complete, without fault.
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Amber Leigh Miller
Tom Zimmerman
Amber Leigh Miller
MARYAM BARRIE Injuring Eternity At my wedding they wore black: the woman who taught me what it was to mother, my sister, and my sister-friend. I don’t remember what color my mother wore, though I wore the rose circlet she made me as a crown. We married ourselves, and at the end of the ceremony, he swooped me back for a movie star kiss, curving over me, bending my head to the floor. As soon as we met, I feared his death, already feeling the pain of the eventual loss. Does all love feel like that? In this now, he sleeps in our room, hogging all the covers, sleep apnea mask keeping him safe. Thirty-five years and in every year, I have wasted time mourning. Thoreau said we can’t kill time without injuring eternity, and as usual, he is right. To be present only in now seems the work of a lifetime. Time runs through me and around me and I am easily confused. In this now, there is the compost of the past and the seed of the future, which makes now always the flower and the fruit. Here it comes.
Natalie Rinehardt
MONICA CIALEK Mom will be back from her beachwalk soon As I walked along the beach this evening I found a white rock. No, not white— Clear No, not clear— Frosty Not frosty like real frost That dusts a cold surface And disappears with a touch, Frosty like beach glass But with depth. Then I found a white feather on the sand. It wasn't white, really, Like a skull isn't white, really, And a cloud isn't white, really, But any beach walker would have claimed This feather white and that stone clear. I held them in my hand as the setting sun Painted my skin In orange and pink and lavender. The lake's waves were murmuring at my feet. “You,” they said, “Are a good mother.” “I think,” I replied, “I know what you mean.”
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MONICA CIALEK Spiders I used to be afraid of the spiders Crouched in the corner Where two apartment-white walls met the ceiling Eight eyes surveilling From the superior offensive position My every movement Waiting Daring me to turn out the lights. But then I moved to the country It was there I learned Wasps were not military drones sent out to attack They were mothers peeling slivers of wood To build grey paper nests Ants were not an invading army after my food They served the Queen Mother Feeding her minions In the evening Mosquitoes’ mothers rose up and whined One drop of blood Please just one, only one It’s for the babies Summer morning Out in the garden Babe in arms I turned a rock Destroying the haven of a wolf spider 11
She fled along the uneven ground And I watched her from my superior position Tug her woolly orb egg sack to safety Holding my own infant I could see past her mouth full of venom As I heard her crying The children! Save the children.
Delilah Webb
DIANE M. LABODA To Whom It May Concern It puzzles me that adults can find no time to play, color, cut paper, paint or draw—all the activities that, as children, we thought were most fun. We are so serious as grown-ups, taking care of others, making a living, planning for the future, making a home. We have little time to nurture ourselves. We find no time to create comfort, recover strength, smell the daisies, no time to breathe—slow down, in and out, feel the soothing air fill us. We cannot admit that we have acclimated to a bizarre need for speed, busy-ness and technology. Instead of being more connected, we disconnect from each other, from our children, from love and from the truth. We have created a new “acceptable”—one which demeans us, dislodges us from human decency and our own value as a human being— a thinking, feeling, sensitive, creative, whole person. We forget to speak up in our own voice, to stand up for what we know is right, for what is just.
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It puzzles me that we accept such bad behavior and wrong-thinking from others, so often that it becomes the norm, so unthinking that we and our toys become part of the problem.
Jessica Winn
DIANE M. LABODA Gone Too Far I come to you, a strong woman, fitted out by my elders in the garb of matrimony— a hand woven mantilla that my mother made on her loom, the double-knotted leather necklace that my grandmother wore, joining both sides of my heart. I come to you willingly to accept you as my mate, my equal, the other half of my soul. I come in my finest dress, at the finest hour to give myself to you in pride and honor. And if you take me, I will be forever proud to be your wife. My head is raised to honor my father, my shoulders erect in the manner of my mother. I will be yours as long as these two things do not change, for if you go too far from your manhood’s promise, make me look down or bend to your will, I will be dead to you, and gone.
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DIANE M. LABODA I’d Keep This from My Children I was once satisfied with a cookie-cutter life, one in which the only stress was that your partner over-bid you in pinochle. I was once satisfied with one fine Ford Fairlane coupe, 23¢ gasoline, and grocery shopping as a family. I was once satisfied with a lifetime job, lifetime benefits, company-guaranteed insurance, living within means, a picket fence and 2.5 offspring. I, however, keep this to myself. This was, as radio and TV told us, idyllic—the good life, affordable, manageable, in step with societal norms, what every American needed after the War. It was as indefensible as the silence of our voices, the shortness of our step, the stones we throw to defend ourselves from birds of prey. I, however, can no longer keep this to myself. I cannot stand silent when children of God are killed for no reason, women denigrated, churches become war zones, pulpits turn disingenuous, houses fall, and commodities and racism are resourced, modified, intensified, dear. I, however, have no children to speak this wreckage to. 16
ERICA MORRIS Misplaced I’m underneath a parachute It’s spinning, and children sit around me frozen Outside is black And the stars— Nothing but punch holes posing The spinning stops I can’t recall any of the people who walk the streets Their eyes appear too large to fit into their eye sockets The people, they stare— They lift their heads up suddenly And their heads fall limp Their chins touching their chests Hair dangling in front of their awkwardly bulging eyes I remembered the laundry chute My mom kept a laundry basket at the end of the chute But there is something missing Something went wrong in the basement I’m on the basement floor again Still waiting on my dirty clothes to fall on me
Erica Morris
MARYAM BARRIE My Mother as a Young Woman She wants to be loved. Acne scarred, each month her blood grinds her raw. She yearns for a foreign prince, so enter Mr. Pashto. He is not the Spanish bull-fighter she had in mind. Volatile, he may not know that women are human beings, they are something other, a bit less important, not at the heart of things, useful in a man’s life but not essential, and that feels familiar to her so she says, yes. I will give in to you the way I have been giving in to someone for my whole life, and he says, take that, and this. Crumble when I rage, whimper when I kick you, put me through graduate school. She is battered and I almost say I do not know what that is like when it hits me, the way he hit me, oh. Right. They marry in February. He takes a belt to her gravid body; she looks for help from the Methodist minister, from the police. It is 1958 and their advice is: don’t make him mad. Be a better wife. Make him happy. The child comes in July. She cannot keep her child safe from him because she is broken. Because he is right, she is stupid, she is nothing. She is missing pieces. Where did they go? The ones that say, oh hell no. Her black hair is gray by the time she is 24, heavy with the second child, the son. They have moved in with her parents. Her father is a gentle, quiet man. Her mother is disappointed. 18
One time, Mr. Pashto gets carried away. Her father kicks Mr. Pashto down the sidewalk. Her father will be dead within the year. Mr. Pashto is the kind of bully who weeps afterwards, he is so sorry. He will never, never, never. The third child is coming, and Mr. Pashto is moving on. He tells her a story: he is working for the C.I.A., they need him to get divorced. This is a strange story, but he sells it. She is still putting him through school as he marries the next woman he has gotten pregnant. He will call periodically, threaten to steal her children, forbid her from discussing the divorce, remind her she is stupid. To be divorced and a woman in 1964 in that town is shameful. She has been dancing in shame all her life. She has three children, works two jobs, puts herself through graduate school. Mr. Pashto sends nothing.
Jessica Winn
OLIVIA BOTTUM My Jackie I was eight years old, playing Backwoods in the basement. In my cabin-without-walls, I worked in the kitchen chopping wood, and taking care of the animals in the barn. Just then, Mom came running down the stairs. “The president has been shot!” she said. She was so upset. I couldn’t relate to her words, couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. Her distress is what I remember. I went back to playing Backwoods. Later we watched the funeral on TV. John-John saluted his father’s casket. My little sister looked up from her playing and said, “Horsie!” as the riderless horse went by. When the funeral procession came to the Capitol, the band played “Hail to the Chief” as the casket was unloaded. Jackie dipped her head. She was veiled but I knew she was crying. I felt so bad for her. I wished I could take her hand, say something that would make her feel better. After that, I thought about her all the time. I even cut pictures of Jackie out of magazines and put them in my toy safe. But I didn’t want anyone to know anything about Jackie and me. One day I was lying on my stomach looking at the pictures of her in Life magazine. When my Dad came into the room, I shoved the magazine under me. “I know you’ve been thinking about Jackie,” he said. “You don’t have to cover up.” But somehow I did. I didn’t want to share Jackie. I wanted her to be just mine.
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DIANE M. LABODA Awake I wake every morning to a new day, take inventory of faculties, fantasies, fallacies and funds. In early morning fog I place myself on the mill, do others’ bidding, smile and serve. I avoid the plague of praise, close my eyes to candor, careen from bus stop to bus stop and hope my thin skin remains intact until I am once again with myself and safe. It is then I awake to appreciate each morsel of me that hangs on, outlasting all the hungry demons and their incantations. I rise, listening to my smooth voice singing, shedding harmonies, crooning a love song to my moon, my mother, my muse, my exhausted angels, my apocryphal image. I awake to this jigsaw of myself, awkwardly cut pieces gathered on the floor ready to dance. 21
In no time, I am back together, refreshed. Rewind. Repeat. . .
Jessica Winn
MARLEE McGINNIS Unplanned Slumber Dripping from neutral reality into dark fantasy the matching frore tile floor becomes a crude makeshift bed Your trembling thigh transforms to my favorite pillow I’m sorry Instead of true love’s kiss I arise by a cellophane tear Its singular loneliness rests patiently on my fluttering lid as it forces open the reality gates known as eyelashes I’m sorry Naked lightbulbs become my mortal enemy even though between the pounds I wish we could find a common enemy that would make us friends Maybe the broken dimmer switch I’m sorry The slowly growing beats radiate through my anxious nervous system Creating perfectly placed yet chaotically knotted cramps that not even the most skilled mariner can crack I’m sorry Attempting to spring from my forced cot I find my strength depleted and replaced with wobbly leg syndrome that only your shoulders can fix 23
Possibly a very supportive wall I’m sorry Sweetly you comb my hair with twitching fingers Midst all this the slow realization is creating a deep notch on my scarred bedpost who I so loathly call depression I’m sorry Your brain goes through when and why each time hoping mine can somehow hold the master answer key to these seemingly easy questions But solely escaping my torn tense mouth is I’m sorry…
Jessica Winn
MARLEE McGINNIS Chasm Sheer Will By
Leaning
Bound
Farther
Knotted
Into
Tightly
The
Limbs
Abyss Hazel Eyes Elude Impossible To Know Am I A Slut Or Victim
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Erica Morris
Amber Leigh Miller
ANTHONY DAVIS Kan't Keep Quiet What has it come to? It’s hard to speak my mind in a world of judgment. That won’t stop me. My writing is my real identity, the real me. Kan't keep quiet, kan't sleep. My word is my urge and I kan't fight it. I aspire to hear the amount of hatred my work causes because that means someone feels my words to anger them enough to the point where they kan't keep quiet. Do you see what I mean? I haven't reached my point yet this will not suffice as my best. I don’t wish to be normal or be a part of this society. I want to fight the system with my words. I kan't fold my cards now I have a priority in check. Either it’s my graffiti or my words that will change the perception of the world.
Tom Zimmerman
MARYAM BARRIE To Amy Winehouse We can fuck up, stay with the bad lover, pine for what hurts us. You stay young and ruined, your voice raw and crooning. There is discontent and dis ease settling in my marrow, and nothing that makes it right but listening to your ragged whiskey voice. Maybe your voice is scuttled by heroin, maybe by crack. When you say “I died a hundred times,� yes, I died a hundred times too, and am dying now too slowly to be borne. There is beauty, but part of me is so very tired of dragging around the past. I do not know how to set it down. Sweet and salty pleasure is your rambling, sultry, anguished voice. You belt out minor chords and flourishes, swing through gullies in the land of drama and lust, cadence unpredictable, tart menace with Billie Holiday shadows. You are dedicated to the dark, ready for all the pain, clutching it to your heart.
Tom Zimmerman
KD WILLIAMS If They Should Want a Piece of Me Parts of me would be easier to part with—they hang, sensitive to gravity and cold snaps. I’m complimented for carrying on, for being ladylike, but mostly, it’s exhausting having a body/being a body. (I haven’t decided which is true.) I have been told to get used to the idea: lobbing off a cancerous lobe. I have threatened to beat nature to the punch, but Tsk tsk. The mother thinks my body is a shame, a burden I fail to shoulder. I have the potential to be perfect but instead I am soft and house doubt. What is true is that my head, each day, performs an Icarus, an independent flight chartered far along the skyline, or, at least, it tries. When I die, hang my left breast in the museum. It was always nearest to my heart.
Tom Zimmerman
Amber Leigh Miller
Amber Leigh Miller
Natalie Rinehardt
NATALIE RINEHARDT A Woman; A Sailor I am surrounded at sea, endless miles of water around. While beautiful and free, it is uncharted territory. It would mean the end, I am certain, if I were to plunge into the ever-luring waves. Along the ocean horizon, white mounds cap, they thrash and arch, almost as if trying to escape. And yet there is the promise of Release. But what true option is there, returning to the steel trap that is my home? Crawling with demons, monsters, men. It is a place of death, disease, and toxins. How many times can I bravely face the beast that lies somewhere in that labyrinth? Even though I am safe now, I can feel it searching for me; craving me, seeking my capture. I have seen what the beast does to its victims. Exhausted by the chase, they all fall prey to his clutches eventually. They are torn apart, their dignity is stolen, along with their security and bodies, losing their minds in the process. Afterwards, they are thrown away like plastic water bottles, never to return to original form. Their screams never reach the ears of the king. His throne is deafened by steel and ignorance. I’m finding it harder every time to re-enter his lair, filled with deadly traps around every corner. Why do I not simply give up and jump into freedom; or yet, give into the master that runs this underworld? Both would either kill me, at the least give me Relief.
Tom Zimmerman
NATALIE RINEHARDT Under While my husband sleeps, I dig into a part of me And awaken the beast, I can tell it is hungry It this hour is known only to monstrous things I can find a bit of self-relief How many things do I have to be To him, the one promise everything It is draining, while my hand is filling Of bits of me, that can never be contained Could it be, the thoughts that mean nothing What is it that comes to be me An imagine snakes into my eye A woman of well defined lines Everything stops when he stirs That maiden leaves my thoughts I am left with worse than nothing Here under our sheets
Jessica Winn
NATALIE RINEHARDT She is She is a burning flame Bright with eyes that would Scorch me with lust She is flowing water In a forgotten canyon where Life always welcomes her She is the breeze That brushes flowers With her kisses so soft She is of earth and flesh A mother to many, A mystery
Erica Morris
TOM ZIMMERMAN Cento for Emily And putting love away Heavenly hurt it gives us Whose crumbs the crows inspect * Much madness is divinest sense Too mighty for the daily mind The truth must dazzle gradually * Our luxury! An imperial affliction Remembered, if outlived * Safe in their alabaster chambers Beliefs are bandaged like the tongue Without the power to die * The mermaids in the basement Where the meanings are Would strike us instant dead * There's a certain slant of light That perches in the soul Men eat of it and die * To a heart in port The nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs That kept so many warm 34
* Too bright for our infirm delight Worlds scoop their arcs With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz * Upon a shifting plate Between the heaves of storm That awful stranger, consciousness
[Note: A cento is a collage-poem composed entirely of lines from other people’s poems. This cento borrows from the following poems by Emily Dickinson: numbers 124, 269, 314, 320, 372, 591, 620, 656, 764, 1108, 1263, 1325, and 1702.]
Erica Morris
EDITH CROAKE Can’t Keep Quiet about my heart-breaking sorrow. My generation has left a dangerous world for you, the next generation. We have unleashed terrible storms of wind, fire, and water. We have poisoned relationships among people with fear and hate. I do not know what to do. I do not know if doing something will make a difference. I do not know if the world can be saved. But giving up is not the answer. I must keep searching. Perhaps clues to survival are nestled in ancestral stories— the journey to a new land; the experiences of poverty, sickness, and floods; the efforts to create a community vision. Perhaps clues for survival dwell in the natural world— A stand of aspens, for example, has interlacing roots that sustain them. So do humans. We are one people. We need not fear those who are different. If relationships are lovingly tended, mighty bonds can grow, connect, and peel back the carpet of this broken world and create a new place 36
Where we care for the environment as though it were a beloved family member, Where we are inspired by the wonder and play of children, Where homemade meals fuel courage and hope.
Erica Morris
JENNIFER WILAND The Coming of Fall Remember when we were young? When autumn came, we would rake all the leaves, pile them into a wagon, and dump them in the yard. We’d run and jump and hear them crackle, and make fairy crowns, and laugh as sisters do. The wagon we used is gone. And now when autumn comes, I rake all the leaves, pile them in the yard, and take a picture. Without you, I don’t run or jump, or make fairy crowns, or laugh like we used to. The children we were are gone. The coming of fall is bittersweet, as it reminds me of what used to be.
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JENNIFER WILAND Abyss night flittering ghosts of blackness starlight too far away you asked me how. with nothing left to hold on to, you stretched out your hand through darkness— I couldn’t reach you. the words I should have said but couldn’t find condemn me. is it too late to stretch out my hand, give you something to hold on to, the words you need? when I gaze over the edge of a soulless abyss searching for the hand you held out to me as you pled for someone, anyone, to grasp your hand and stop your fall— will I find nothing? 39
JENNIFER WILAND Blanket If I had a blanket, I’d wrap it around your shoulders to keep you from the cold. I’d cloak you in well-worn fabric, soft and firm, unyielding and kind— like love should be. If I could, I’d shield you from the pain, wrap you in a blanket safe from all the world— but I can’t. I know this is my fault, your barely held back tears. I can’t fold my arms around you anymore— but I’d wrap you in a blanket if I had one.
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JENNIFER WILAND I Am the Moon I am not the sun whose searing flames scorch the earth with blinding white light only to abandon life to the shadow of the earth at night. I am the moon whose soft reflection dances in the shadow of the earth at night who waxes and wanes but ceaselessly persists— except for those times when I must disappear.
Natalie Rinehardt
A lot of people would say “sexy” is about the body. But to me, “sexy” is a woman with confidence. I admire women who have very little fear. —Allegra Versace A woman is like a tea bag—you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. —Eleanor Roosevelt I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives. ―Jane Austen, Persuasion I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass. —Maya Angelou I really want women to know their power, to value their experience. To understand that nothing has been more wholesome in the political process than the increased involvement of women. —Nancy Pelosi If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman. —Margaret Thatcher It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent. —Madeleine Albright The women that inspire me to be honest are the women that struggle. —Cardi B We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal. —Elizabeth Cady Stanton Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world. —Hillary Clinton Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul. —Coretta Scott King Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others. —Amelia Earhart You had the power all along, my dear. —Glinda the Good Witch, in The Wizard of Oz
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BARRIE BOTTUM CIALEK CROAKE DAVIS LABODA McGINNIS MILLER MORRIS RINEHARDT SANDERS VERDIYAN WEBB WILAND WILLIAMS WINN ZIMMERMAN WASHTENAW COMMUNITY COLLEGE ANN ARBOR MI USA