Around the Table

Three men and two women gather around the table for drinking and speaking. Between the gathering people gather more empty wine bottles. Around the table everyone has a glass of wine. Around the table three men and two women gathered for speaking and drinking smile. Five smiling gathered people drink and speak. Around the table three men speak mostly. Two gathering women do not speak mostly. It is mostly the men that speak and the women remain mostly silent. Everyone drinks and smiles. Everyone has a glass of wine. The men drink more and smile and speak. The women drink little and smile. The men repeatedly speak. The smiling women are repeatedly silent and drink little. The men smile. The women are mostly silent. The men speak mostly and mostly drink more wine smiling. The women are mostly silent while the men speak mostly. Two women sit in silence while three men speak mostly. Mostly three men speak and drink. Three men and two women smile.

(with the inspiration of Gertrude Stein)
copyright 1984, 2009 Lorena Lobita Wolfman

The Critic

He says that he knows what she does which he can tell by what she says. This he says to many knowing what she says. He says what she means he knows by what she does which he tells by what she says. He says what he says says what she says. What she means by what she says he knows by what she does he says.

© 1984, 2009 Lorena Lobita Wolfman

All light waves

I.

All light waves            white
pulsing gently down through the long armed
blue dome stretching its hands around the Earth
elbow deep in night.
The man            the woman            hands clasped
come starting midnight
to watch from under the sky
as outside the dome
dancing            within vision's reach.
Sun imbeds day,
moon imbeds night.
Stroking through each beat & breath
a winding spiral             as ulna and radius trace
in forward motion to grasp
within our arms             from outside.

II.

Time only shifts.
Held face to face with small hands
hinged on one another turning
overlapping circles.            Watching eyes
stand by or pace a step each ticking.
In undoing            a particular embrace
in time            all feet move differently.

III.

Sky's hands rolling in night            press
a building form            from the washing stillness:
full moon            babe crowning
in absence of fierce light
belly to belly            passing into the shroud.
Only weather clouds
carried in rocking atmospheric arms
have such subtle luminosities
of light touching            first
                          teardrops of awaking.


copyright © 1983, 2009 Lorena Lobita Wolfman

I said...

I said to a visitor,
"You do know the reason
We don't have anything
On the shelves right now is
We're expanding."

copyright © 1983-2009 Lorena "Lobita" Wolfman

Of Hearts & Chance

WHEN
The moonshine tumbles
Out of swanfeather-colored
Cloudbanks & becomes
A lace glove touching
The furrowed brow
Of a distracted mountain,
THEN
A breath of brass, the curve
Of a saxophone, haunts
Red roses in a smoke-filled room,
A red velvet and white satin
Gowned room,
Where a gold-earringed man,
Black tarot card reader,
Turns up the Queen of Hearts.


copyright © 1983-2009 Lorena "Lobita" Wolfman

Reviewing Old Journal Drawings 1982-86

Thunderstorm

Earth reveals
Her strumming tears,
Suspended misty maidens
Streaming past,
Stranded weeping
'midst the quarreling gods.


copyright © 1982 & 2009 Lorena "Lobita" Wolfman

Some early poems

Before heading to Louisville, Kentucky this last weekend, I pulled out two binders of my early poetry. I wrote the poem that follows on September 20, 1983 in Cotati and San Francisco.

Sunset on the Bay

A slow bass tone is pinning
Treble melodies in air like
A swirling tatting of floating gold
Mermaids hair that spreads spinning
To all shores as though
An elegant spider were dancing
Over sunken chess pieces
Allowing seeming strangers
To turn chance the same direction
And sail into reflected light
In the mouthes of gasping birds.

***

I wrote this next poem on June 4, 1982 in Berkeley, California.

In the night

I wonder if
I will ever know
You in the dark?
Know you under the stitched quilt
covers where at night we rest uncovered
-- Candlelight´s golden tendrils
Skeining the air.
Whispers in the wind
Made of red velvet, horse hair,
And lace.
Shivering shifts
Flowing in the leaves--
A whisper in the wind.
I wonder if
I will ever know
You know you in the dark?
Undercover uncovered.