Category: Kathryn Ross

The Others

11/5/2014

Photo Art by Reka Jellema. November 5, 2014. Untitled.

the others
slipped into themselves
by moonlight
slipped out of sight
and through
our neighbour`s pasture
where a rope
stretched from one oak
to another
cloaked
in billowed bed sheets
loosed to the October night
cotton shirtsleeves
pale and cold
in almost dark
birds aloof
livening the clothesline
little boys and girls
materialised
as the ones
they were alive
daisies radiating waves
of glowing white
stung by a day
in the sun
appeasing gods
who spaded
holes and grew them up
just to watch
them pass away
leaving her, a tree
devoid of leaves
empty arms cradling
the unfilled spaces
swing sets lilt
in breezes idle
there are rooms
she never enters
drawers of clothes
that just won`t open
lest the cloying
baby talcum rise
to sting her eyes
the others -
they have others
left behind
her eyes
spill reveries
that never can be
how neatly made
the bunk beds
the little boys and girls
go out to play
they sit in a place
at the back
of the throat
and keep
close company
with sorrow
the others
slip into a spell
life after life
one day
the world will open up
earth will meet sky
hand over hand
we shall shimmy
up rope,
watery hope
upon watery hope

Written by Reka Jellema & Kathryn Ross
Copyright Reka Jellema & Kathryn Ross
November 5, 2014

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Ways to Say Goodbye

10/24/2014

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Photograph by Reka Jellema. 24 October 2014. Untitled.

For Ted and Norma
For Dirk and Gus

Ways to Say Goodbye
(Part 1)

I
It`s 4am my darling, I
have waited for your sleep
To say goodbye

The nurse has vowed
to care for you
That one with braided hair
and honesty

residing in
deep pools behind
her eyes

You`ll not discern
just where I`ve gone
in the muddle
of your mixed up mind

Not sure myself
where I`m going,
Only know

the longing
and the love
will be staying

II
The time
is always 4am -
the dying.

Where is our place
in this undertaking?

We have known
bedsides

Our sister
clasps your wrists
and swabs the cobwebs
from your throat

These ungodly mornings:
The dying
They wait until Christmas
to disperse

III
A brother leaves us
huddled at the foot
Auntie speaks in tongues
over the bed
I hiss at her
until she turns to tea
Little one
you saw a man
with wings
he sat with you
and counted beads
on your rosary
only
Our Father
could bear
the end

Written with Kathryn Ross
Copyright Reka Jellema & Kathryn Ross
25 October 2014

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Unraveling

10/14/2014

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Photograph by Reka Jellema. June 2011. Untitled. For Addie.

Unraveling

Plastic taste of water
in her jug, loose threads
in a crocheted rug
How long before it unravels
Remembering my ball in the boot
Just wanna kick it, kick it
and run
My feet punching holes
in the snow
Mum yellin' at me --
for doin' nothin'
Grabbin' me in a hug squeezin'
the breath outta me, she reckons
Nana's better off here

She's far better off there, Sis
Look at her
she doesn't even know
you anymore, and this place
look at it
No, I don't mean it like that
You know I don't mean
Don't look at me like that
I called
I wrote
I came back didn't I?

How could he look at me
that way? he was a liar,
a prattler, like Da.
My raw bones crawl into
the edges of that shawl
The one Mum crocheted
her fingers gray and worn
This bench is cold
and on the road a car
slow and shined as death drives by
it's hard to breathe--
the playground bairns stare
snowballs at me
Mum is near a memory
I'm losing
my
way home

With Kathryn Ross and Brendan Bonsack
By Kathryn Ross, Brendan Bonsack, and Reka Jellema
October 2014

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EMILY

10/14/2014

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Photograph by Reka Jellema. Taken September 2014. Untitled.

EMILY

(Inspired by "Young Woman on the Shore," a painting by Edvard Munch)

once her dress
her dress was white
pockets filled
with snow and ice
her dress
its hem was endless
a sentence by Dickinson
sewn on a scrap

small hands gath'ring
a view condensed
haunted by the doubled-edge
of solitude, and reams
of braided words that seemed
a soundless stretch
a depth of blue

her girdle fast
like a finger band
a gasp cinched
in a sachet
a cricket caged
in a locket
round her neck

round her hair
a ribbon of red
an ache escaped
its lacings and clasps
undo this knot twined
'neath her breast

Listen ~

Her wrist pulsed
slender threads
a beat beneath
fingertips

her wrist
her wrist

her dress was white
'twas pockets
filled with snow and ice
she walked
in winter on the frozen lake
she pictured the thawing

she saw she saw
the harebell field
stared like a sea
dense like a promise,
a splayed memory

With Kathryn Ross and Brendan Bonsack
By Reka Jellema, Kathryn Ross, and Brendan Bonsack
October 2014

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Encirclement

9/24/2014

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Installation art, Encirclement, by Beili Liu. Photo by Tina Chang. 2012.

Installation art, Encirclement, by Beili Liu. Photograph by Tina Chang. 2012

The gathering is key
Plumaceous feathers
By the crowds
Clouds of cotton
Plucked from loam
A woman willing
And a satin sheet
Where do we go
So fluffed and so unwoven

We travel
On a foam of down
Traverse the hillocks
And the mounds
Of mannequins
Carpet them in blossom
And every softness
Carries in it
The prickle of the nettle's
Sharp retort

A sudden clap resounds
And then we move
Into the thistle barbs
So still in our encirclement
And calamus costumes
Look at us -- our eyes
They sweep the audience
When all have gone
The artist comes
Triumphant with a duster
And reviews

Reworks
The actualities
We occupy as muse
And as creator
Existing only
Where assemblies
Can see us

Each one of us becoming
More, in contemplation
Of the other, we are
Flagrant in desire

Written with Kathryn Ross
By Reka Jellema and Kathryn Ross
September 2014

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Close to the Skin

8/31/2014

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Off in the distance
Close to the skin
The bleeding ink
And fading edge
Of memories
And old tattoos
Mementoes of regret

The raised bed
Retrospective
Of scarred tissue
The lines we traced
The tourniquet
Embrace

Scrape
This skin of moss
Reveal the polished stones
Weathered in
Our masochistic grip
As we forever
Stack in cairns
Rememberings
To cover up the holes

Pine boughs
By the wayside
You will forget
Soft needles
The scent
Of the verdant
An opening
Opening
Off in the distance

Written in collaboration with Kathryn Ross
By Reka Jellema and Kathryn Ross
August 2014

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The Others

Ways to Say Goodbye

Unraveling

EMILY

Encirclement

Close to the Skin

Archives

Poems