To a Shy Friend

did you ever really try for something try so hard, as hard as you could

and then

it didn't happen

and you were

unwanted

and you were really young and

I understand

why you don't want that memory, and

how important it is

to make that feeling go away

oh what an ache

and oh I ache for you

and no one held you then

wrapped in a tree,

turning around in a blanket of

white web

holding myself gently

and closely

waiting

to mesh this thickness

with something lyrical, and sweet

like a thin, thin strand

of honey, spun out taut

transparent,

endless,

vibrating.

Harriet Weinmann

Harriet Weinmann

I honestly Imagine that you are here

coming tenderly

out to the sea of my murmuring

Bobbing like a little boat

restless yet secure

carried aloft in primeval undulations

in the hugeness of our waters.

Masses of liquid and land, upon which

we are such simple creatures

carried out infinitely

in combination of form

and personality, of groups and territory

of telling ourselves to each other, of rhythms

all of us, human creatures

are touched from jungle to prairie

at

Weinmann

with the same birthing, the same dreaming, the same movement towards each other

and the same inability

to be perfect, or immortal.

And I, in the little ship of myself

imagine, tasting the sweetness that someone is coming towards me.

Your Olive Face

your olive face appears before me

In the quiet of the night.

i think of you, your life, real surreal.

I think of your everyday rituals, uncomplicated routine.

I think of your few hours sleep where you escape the drudgery for awhile.

I think of your dreams

three ring circuses. last year's memories. elephants/asses treading water past the gate.

I feel the waves of your invisible beats.

I feel the rhythms of your Attica

Viet Nam/Chile/Boston/pounding inside my bed.

i feel the colours, your violent shades of colours dripping down my thighs.

I feel your tremble contain the dance of all the wooden soldiers: Army/Navy/Police/Marines/ quick

you contain them all.

hard

&

I see your sleeping face before me look as if you have never felt the waves/nor seen the lights/not even shades of lights that bounce across the world.

i think of your few hours sleep where you escape the drudgery for awhile/where you can escape today

but

not tomorrow.

from SAYcred LAYdy (Sunbury Press) Copyright © 1975 Lorraine Sutton

Page 8/What She Wants/September, 1978

-Harriet Weinmann