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POETRY

First Time

The very first time I made love

with a woman

I thought I would die-

and I did.

I died of happiness

and of regret

for having waited so long.

-Terry Bullen c. 1979

"the silence has finally been broken"

-Jane Rule, Lesbian Images

-Time now to speak:

I am on the line to my mother

saying/ not saying

hello hello this is your daughter the (dyke)

The other Jane, when we finally broke something, said, Isn't it rather like sleeping with your mother? then

sent me a postcard with no return address.

You talk about love

and the clumsy excitable bears romp in the ink like rough-pawed women, but you don't dare

act furry with me, except under

a Parisien postmark

"and yet" you say

"the essential thing was accomplished"

If you mean my crying because I still love you

who have married a man playing a knife and a guitar

because of your fears and something

about Freud,

then

Towards a Feminist Theory of Poetics

We

who have breasts

and write

have sometimes touched

them: bitten

fingerends gentled

the blunt nipples

Or hands trod slowly the calm of the belly, reached behind overalls into thickets, journeys, whatever we write from: ink pot

pigeon-hole quicklipped dovecote

where we have become our own best prophets: sibyls unbound

saying sooth

inventing

this feel of selfcentre

where all our auguries flurry home.

Our fingers have known

and played since childhood

here, half sleeping, gleeful, curled around it,

sure.

Now we have touched ourselves and each other awake

and have come

to our best dreams and poems

-Jenny Reece Aberdeen Ithaca Women's Anthology

comingout

Outrageous Old Woman

I want to live to be an outrageous old woman Who is never accused of being an old lady

I want to live to have

ten thousand lovers

In one love

One 70 year long loving Love There are at least 2 of me

I want to get leaner and meaner Sharp edged

color of the ground Till I discorporate

from sheer joy

-Julia Koover

from Country Women Book

A flute's Lute

The Sweet Melancholy scent.

LNS

dashing through the wind, On a cool wintery spring day.

-Not a virgin-whom you find on a white-

grayeven black silhouette. -Her voice cries the staccato of a flute. Her bosom (of) a warm gentle touch. And her heart whispering aloud"Relax 'my Love, don't be so tensed.

As I tighten up to these words-

My feet turning cold. My eyes looking up to the ceiling.

Am I worth the

wisdom of this woman As she lays.

yes

Yes, to my essential tears;

but it isn't enough

for the silence "finally" to be "broken"

if we don't, once it's patched again

by the quiet of ocean,

have the heart

to break it right

saying

dyke, very clearly, into the mouthpiece

saying

lesbian, this time laughing for joy,

saying

yes and this time really shouting it: letting the truth sing loud.

-Jenny Reece Aberdeen

your nipple is at stance, my love.

if that be a sign of chill,

let me warm you.

or if it be a warming to feeling.

let me heat your desire to peaks of flame,

for my fingers want to feel the strands of your hair,

and like the soft bristles of a baby's brush, glide them gently across your bosom as far as they will go, and where they can't transcend, my lips will kiss, my tongue will touch, my mouth will caress

your skin is soft and throbbing, like mine as it awaits your hand to pass through the juices of my labyrinth, stopping to knead the folds with your fingers, then climbing further between my legs, through an opening into which so much male and so little woman has passed

be there, my love

spread wide the portal

and come in,

as i flow out to you

Page 10/What She Wants/June, 1979

-Jan Held

1976

-C-B. Smithe

1979