Five Poems by Julie A. Dickson

 

Caroline doesn’t scream

 

aloud - her screams are silent

they claw at her throat

tears prick eyes

already puffy and sore

 

but no more will she

show her pain, will not cry

in front of him

 

only in private,

her room a refuge,

welcome oasis

to quench extreme thirst

 

alone, she bursts from her shell

battered, scarred but whole inside

she holds her own

survives like a cocoon

swathed moth that longs to fly

 

 

Single Bird

 

On a wire    birds perch together   lined up against grey sky

 

one is alone         away from the group      seems banished

 

from the rest    is it by choice or have the rest          ignored

 

lone bird    in his tiny quest for togetherness          They say

 

“birds of a feather flock together“        but            I perceive

 

isolation                     loneliness           perhaps he is like me

 

As I walk below power lines     those birds     evenly spaced

 

placed         side by each        OCD-like          except for one

 

doesn’t seem to belong                do birds        have time out

 

for behaviours        unbefitting the flock     if so       will he be

 

welcomed back          when his time has passed         or is he

 

forever             single bird like me      destined     to be alone

 

 

I am a rock

 

beneath the surface of a cool stream,

can see the sky, a bit blurry through

flowing water, quenched, dark rippled.

 

I am akin to dry cousins, sun bleached,

dry and brittle unless kissed by droplets

of rain, falling on river’s edge, though

set apart; we were as one -  long past,

 

recall a time when I dwelled above on

cliff overhang, cascading tiny water

fall cast iridescent light against dull

granite wall, and then I was broken,

 

a bad dream, sense of descending down

slope into the stream, no one mourned

my passage, gone to memories, resting

on pebbled bed, my watery grave.

 

 

First Apartment

 

Two rooms furnished

living room, cheap  wood

framed couch and chair,

bedroom with no door,

tiny bathroom,  rusted

metal shower stall that

banged elbows, tiny

kitchenette  - two burner

stove, one cabinet above.

 

Second floor flat off a long hallway

where landlord’s teen son slept

in the attic above us, his TV blared

louder than ours, big sneakered

feet pounding up stairs past our

stored stuff that wouldn’t fit in the

tiny kitchen, extra cereal, cans

still in bags near boots, coats and

old worn suitcases, boxes of books.

 

One day I found something odd

rummaging through grocery bags for

canned baked beans and rice; my

hand drew back quickly from weird

squishy liquid inside a plastic bag,

forgotten bread; I stared, not knowing

decomposition took bread past mould

to this ooze. I sat back, suddenly felt the

over-warm hallway swallow me whole.

 

 

Biting

 

through feathers spread

fly, against harsh wind

pull wings in tight

 

biting

words sever arteries

blood tears stain cheeks

never meant to weep

 

biting

fear raises hackles, ridged

back, frenzied bark, want

to run, not fight

 

biting

cold seeps into bones

through wool, arms sign

love silent language, keep

 

Julie A. Dickson is a long-time poet and writer of YA fiction, whose full length works are available on Amazon. Her poems appear in journals including Misfit, Medusa's Kitchen, Tiger Moth and Lothlorien. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioural Science and shares her home with two rescued feral cats.