Find @RekaJellema on Twitter
Creaturely
  • Wingednothings
  • Art Feeds Art
  • Contact
  • Collaborators/Cohorts

11/7/2015

A Little Hearth

1 Comment

Read Now
 
Picture
A Little Hearth: Snippets from an Unfinished Novel by Reka Jellema

Darkness comes, as promised.

My sister, and her canny predictions: You like your water deep, your edges sharp, your face drawn, your fingers chilled, your sky black, your sun blotched, your heart flayed, your legs splayed, your men hard, and so on, Kath wrote. This has to stop.  

Oh, for crying out loud, Katherine.

One day you’ll look up and the lights will go out. And that will be it. Darkness will come: The end of all things. And for what. You’ve buried yourself. Rise up.

My sister. Always big on imperatives. But I like her sense of rhythm. She used to say so much. Now she’s silent.

This is where you look into the fire. Contemplate this letter. The title of that play Dad read us comes to mind: Burn this. By now, this page is ash. Sew your own shroud. Build your own ship of death. You’ll not listen.

Have you ever jumped out of an airplane? There’s nothing like it. You think you’re powerless, and then you’re crouched by the open door of a flying machine at a high altitude, gripping the bar until the dive master tells you to let go. Arching back, you’re airborne, the earth and sky like the inside of a spin cycle. Like something dreamed by Salvador Dali. Here a cow, here a clock with its hands missing. The dive master tells you to let go.

In her letters, Kath said the opposite.
The trick is to do the unexpected. Remember the monkey bars in the playground in Sutton’s Bay? The way you clung to them? You’re going to want to hang on a little longer, Liv. If it feels wrong, do it.

In the dark I’m wide-awake and mole-like. Other people’s windows are little hearths. Go near to them and warm yourself. Inside, a staircase, family photographs of the kids at all ages as you climb. A couple watch blue imagery moving on a screen, steaming mugs balanced on a TV tray. Inside, a red lamp casts red light. It’s friendly. But it’s not about color.

Morning is when the walls and ceiling envelope me in their deadly whiteness. It is always cold and thoughts impose themselves on the blank canvases. My mind is a bleak house.

Afternoons are worse. I fall asleep and dream of open graves and the inside of a pine box. There is a place awaiting you. Forever after. Partly it’s the coffin and the claustrophobia, but the satin lining does me in. A substance softer than skin. Someone pulled the plug. Motionless. Moonlight white. This is my vision.

In the evening, when light dies, dimness warms the little cottage. I stuff newspaper and kindling in the wood stove and scrape a match against a matchbox. Set the kettle boiling. Fill Wallace’s mug with strong black tea and top it off with a generous splash of milk. For it is important that awake people be awake, I hear my father say. Through the glass, orange and blue. Outside, trees take shape. The moon materializes and stars are lite-brites.

You know what comes next. The color black. The Smiths. Hennaed hair. Glam lipstick. Goth regalia and the accoutrements: Piercings, drugs, sex.

Darkness.

Except it wasn’t like that. I stuck to blue jeans and T-shirts. A bottle of vodka in my desk drawer.  Reading binges by day: John Berryman. Hart Crane. Delmore Schwartz. Lowell and Jarrell. And so on. Anyone who died young and badly.  I read the poetry and I read the letters and I owned their madness, coveted their genius, and knew I’d never see twenty-five.



Share

1 Comment

10/25/2015

A Loom

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Photograph by Reka Jellema. Copyright October 25, 2015.
A Loom

Her lap is a loom
Her hands a steady weft
And from the weave a murmuring
Of moths on threads unseen,

Unheard, she listens for the man
Who comes to call, to sit upon the stool
Pulling at the cotton til
Her fingers find his wrist

Cuffed and white and crisp
The buttons tightly imitating eyes
Tucked away in creases and lies
About the place, about the time

As though by stitch and by
Stitch she could hide him
Crouched and hushed and hazardous
As a fine shirt pin

Copyright October 25, 2015
By Reka Jellema & Brendan Bonsack

........................................

Share

0 Comments

10/10/2015

A Wave

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
A Wave

The bay greens - the light of day -
I shiver
keep shivering,
Mom's Irish sweater unraveling
at the sleeves: I wave
at waves -
A humpback cracks the sea -
lazy shimmer-swims
winging the blue-green -
the ghost of my brother
watches from a wave -
Every image hangs
like a jewel in the void -
seeing, we are seen -
and what waves back
never leaves.

By Reka Jellema & Sean Reagan
Copyright October 2015

Share

0 Comments

9/21/2015

a love's little scratching

0 Comments

Read Now
 
PicturePhotography by Reka Jellema. Copyright September 2015.

a love's little scratching

slip into this
wool sweater
our marriage
still warm
still green

our fingers tangle
with the sleeves
did you see
could it be
the cuffs unravel?

who can tell us
how to snip the yarn,
card the wool
hold our strands
together?

we left our mothers
at the alter
we were cleaved
and we are making
home this bond

something so close
a love's little scratching
fibers
raising blood
day after day

missed signals
and blind eye
turned away
the cheek I hold
soft under my hand

this is the way weaving
tortoiseshells
into our blanket
the marriage only we
can understand

Written by Reka Jellema and Jennifer Savage
Copyright September 2015

Share

0 Comments

8/2/2015

An Editorial

1 Comment

Read Now
 
Picture
An Editorial
In memory of Jim Heil

We’d like to think it was a spotted gull
Some grace of light that tricked the water green
That made you turn and paddle toward the moon,
Away from afternoon matinees
And the newsroom, deadlines and bylines
And lame editorials -- you spat them out
like sawdust, sought the woods
And Michigan.

A snowy owl lifts her wings; racoons rut
For garbage. At your old place we pick
Our objects. Stones from
Superior, that bowl
Filled with acorns, a button-down
Still smelling of your sweat, those
Nights, that hospital bed, the countdown
To last breaths:

We make ourselves at home:
There's kindling in the grate
good dry wood. The beat cop
Makes fire and we sit, hands cupped
Round mugs, hands fitted
On bony knees like caps.

You should have seen yourself,
Lord Jim,
Sunken. Wrinkled skin-
Bone cold
What did you expect,
Marathoner who lived
On carrot sticks? A drowned bird
Who'd been in the lake too long.

I got the call.
November surf, a kayak
Spit from a Great Lake,
A turn, adrift
This life, a lone
Gray wave.

By Reka Jellema
Copyright
August 2015

Share

1 Comment

7/17/2015

Black Rain

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Photograph by Reka Jellema. Copyright July 2015.
Black Rain

I saw a robin today,
soaked, all black, even
its breast
caught in a downpour
of black rain.

A bird unmoved
by the squall
of electric guitar crashing
from the open window
of a muscle car.

My mind, that cheap
crackling speaker, noticed
what the bird ignored:

A wake
of white static
dissolving into wakefulness.

A man in an icebox
drinking coffee
black
from a Styrofoam cup.

A yellow lab frozen
to the sidewalk.

A black bird
inked on the guns of the girl
with her psyche
in a knot.

Hot blood pooled
on the pavement
losing its red
in a pool of white
lamplight

Where did you go
when my wallet closed
and I heard
the flap and slosh
of my heart defect?

Why didn't we rise
above the drone and hum
and sing along
with robins?

Or tune in, my lost friend,
when robins became
silhouettes and the city
scraped dogs
off the street?

It was then my mind
pulled its drawstrings
- closed in upon itself -
while clocks tick despair, and

You reached
for a feather,
for flight, for the grip
of talons on a wire,
for second sight

While the robin,
blinded by black rain
stared away

By Reka Jellema and Tzod Earf
Copyright July 2015


Share

0 Comments

7/11/2015

Elm

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Photograph by Reka Jellema. Copyright July 2015.
Elm

Below me the earth softens and parts,
water drips into crevasses mucked
with moss.

Alien nubs
of hyacinths crack the damp soil,
a drop of rain crowns
a flower bud.

Mosquitoes hatch
and follow warm blood, the children
plumped,

succulent at the backyard
birthday party, swinging sticks
at a piñata shaped like a hive
hard candy asteroids,

the hum
and buzz of the lawn care guys.

They say I'll lose another arm, the man
speaks of a saw and a hatchet, the woman
invokes pruning and garden gloves.

"Or we could dig it up
and plant another one"

Once she wound her body round
my roughness and hung on.

By Reka Jellema
Copyright July 2015


Share

0 Comments

6/25/2015

Blue China Plate

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Photograph by Reka Jellema. Copyright June 25, 2015
Blue China Plate

If you shook the earth, if
between cymbal and snare, you lifted her up,
grasped in both hands, maracas
in a band
you didn't know you'd joined,
how would she sound, s'pended 'tween
the deaf moon, a void
and a sun overreached with ambition?

The view of her from Saturn a blue
China plate flung
at the wall of space
and shattered, pieced
back together, cracks
crooning at every jolt,
an earth-lurch that crunched,
a sprung reverb chord
coiled and recoiled
called upon and recalled

Would the cool kids say
she sounded seismic? Jangly pop
or rock rattling the lithosphere?
And who would listen? Who would feel the rhythm
in capillaried secrets spread
beneath the soil? All the severed ears
would crawl like worms
suckled on cake dirt
dirt caked and iced and
sliced uneven into borders
bands of shaken brothers still
only following orders

By Reka Jellema and Brendan Bonsack
Copyright June 25, 2015

Share

0 Comments

6/3/2015

When The Cows Come Home

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Picture
Photos by Reka Jellema. Copyright June 2015.
Homebound

(In memory of Addie, Lillian, Ted,
Ida, Henrietta, Gertrude, Evelyn,
Vi, Gene, and Harry
)


When the cows come home
we will gather
round
the commons
until sundown

fitting pieces of clouds

the color of our hair
now fluffed and white
into a puzzle

to pass time
stuck on blue sky
cut up into shapes
with loopy blobs

the end
an edged perimeter

blue scrubs will bring trays
with grim applesauce
potatoes whipped
red jello quivering

soft palettes
lest we aspirate
coughing out
mealy yesterdays

messing aprons
gumming the mush
accepting the spoon
from our daughters

hearing the chorus
of remember
of who am I?

remember
connect-the-dots?

remember a spring day
choking on the lilacs
trampling violets
following the cow path
squatting under sunflowers

fingering dandelions
on our way
to the fields?

one of us will rise,
go back to the farm
where Pa will surely whoop him
if he don’t bring in the cows

Ellsworth, Michigan,
he says it every time,
when they ask “where to?”
humoring his sundown

the restless cast
of pink

as the sun sinks
upon hundreds of acres
of corn

the dull clunk of cowbell
at pasture and barn

where Holsteins lift
their heavy heads
from the bitter grass

and mumble home.


By Reka Jellema
Copyright June 2015

Share

0 Comments

5/26/2015

Nocturning

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Photograph by Grace Fowler. Copyright Grace Fowler, May 2015.
Nocturning

The third room along
is not content to house
our discards
the hand-me-down
stuffed bunnies and patchwork
quilt squares left
from mother

Our rooms become
the girls, the girls
we closeted
coveted,
the floor-spaces close
with paperbacks spread open
like brooding birds
or shoes
like empty nests

The third room along,
the hallway
bicycles grow
plucked from vacant destinations
ambulated home
ginger as a schoolgirl
cupping a wounded sparrow

Our rooms become
the neighbours
doused of light
flames turned in
our dreams congregating
dust bunnies
at the skirting

The third room along
a glow beneath
the door leaks
into the night

We thought we'd put it out

By Reka Jellema & Brendan Bonsack
Copyright May 2015

Share

0 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Archives

    January 2018
    December 2017
    August 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Poems

    All
    Aging
    Angels
    Art
    Art Inspiration
    Art Installation
    Art Prize Photograph
    At The Edge Of Forget
    A Whisper In Reverse
    Azure
    Bavaria
    Beili Liu
    Bicycle Men
    Birds
    Blossom
    Body Parts
    Brendan Bonsack
    Cairns
    Children
    Close To The Skin
    Collaborations
    Complacency
    Conversational Poetry
    Dandelions
    Death
    Dementia
    Dirk Jellema
    Dirt
    Dogs
    Dying
    Earth
    Edvard Munch
    EMILY
    Emily Dickinson
    Erotic City
    Fall
    Ferns
    Fiction
    Fine Art
    For Addie
    Gus Jellema
    Halloween Poem
    Hands Up
    Heart Of A Wizardess
    Hendecastich Poem
    Herons
    Homelessness
    I Cover You With Ferns
    Jennifer Savage
    Judy
    Jung
    Kathryn Ross
    Koi Pond Photos
    Lace
    Leland
    Like The Body In The Box
    Loss
    Louis Hawkins
    Love Poems
    Men Of Bicycle
    Mental Illness
    Minuet
    Moon
    My Little Brother
    Narrative Voices
    News
    Not Your Death Or The Heavens Looming
    One Petal
    O Stone
    Painting
    Pears
    Percussive Poems
    Photography
    Poetry
    Pov
    Rememberings
    Rilke
    Roadside
    Rossi
    Say Something
    Scars
    Seasons
    Serenebeliever
    Sex
    Sexuality
    Shoes
    Sky
    Snow
    Souls
    Stan Harrington
    Stones
    Summer
    SummerTense
    Sunflowers
    Tanka Chain Poem
    Tattoes
    Television
    The Cave Divers
    The Echoes Of The Echoes
    The Lay By
    The Others
    The Wanderings
    They Say
    Tina Chang
    Tools
    Trains
    Truth-telling
    Unraveling
    Victoria Pettella
    Vultures
    Wall Art
    Ward
    Ways To Say Goodbye
    Wednesdays
    What Shape It Takes
    When We Talk About Trains
    Wings
    Winter
    Winter Walk
    Writing
    You Know Of What I Speak
    Young Woman On The Shore

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.