 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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 Photograph by Reka Jellema. October 27, 2014. Untitled. Veil
my eyes play tricks the little girl with the whisper voice between the trees my friend passing a bride in the wind her dandelion kisses whispering the empty banquet room two chairs dance the first dance the last vapors white lace netting the dead leaves in the wake of the gauzy bridal veil an oak threw twigs like chicken bones the flower children gnawed them to the quick shorter days light shifts lingering on mums the undertaker works overtime eternal rest the weeds remember her tenderness the way she let them live October chill her touch in the garden long dead Written with Jennifer Savage Copyright By Reka Jellema & Jennifer Savage October 27, 2014 
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 
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  Photography by Reka Jellema. August 2014. Untitled. This flesh I found,
a fresh spot in the sonorous decay, in rotting paint, the kind that strips down to bare plaster at a wink and balks when you eyeball a window pane or lick graffiti from a fence -- You know of what I speak, O soulful derelict, my mate-- The sort of wall that crumbles at a touch, moans a little much for the slump of the over-stuffed love seat: This is our place. A petrol hole We filled our tanks surveyed the mileage, held fast to the knowledge nothing is useless. Scrap metal and street chalk, a dust bin frottage mounted on remembrance. We like to look. We like to look, to book a flight Below us, sprawled in neon light Erotic City, a homing device Or so the rumours murmur, mouthing and lapping one another slick and sticky with what may or may not be. Inspired by the words and art of Louis Hawkins By Reka Jellema October 2014  Photograph by Reka Jellema. September 2014. Untitled What Shape it Takes
See how this love for you Has channeled my face Trace tributaries From brow to cheek Give me your hand And ask what shape It takes. This love I gave in perfect drops Of melting snow The saline bead poised At the mountain top Written with Brendan Bonsack By Brendan Bonsack and Reka Jellema September 2014  Photo art by Reka Jellema. September 2014. Untitled. The Cave Divers
Slanting shaft of light, spear the rocks And chink the porous coral-rivered sea Guise the gelatinous mass of blue So what we see is fanciful: Three cubs And a bear on the hunt for food A white dwarf star that lost its place In the cosmos A hammerhead maneuvers, descends Through the murk As divers shimmy, bodies sleek as seals Illumine the deep, her constellations Of caverns And men of the cave, divers Clung to the precious last of their breaths As urchins put all that faith in their tests Slow and as sure As geology's long howl into the void Written with Brendan Bonsack By Reka Jellema and Brendan Bonsack September 2014  Photograph by Reka Jellema. September 2012. Untitled. A Whisper in Reverse
Your hand inside my ribcage found Through grottos serpentine dispersed A sonar ping, an ache resound A whisper in reverse I was your thready palpitation A confession chambered, divided I was the shape of repercussion A skein, so many-sided A heart you could not reverence A clamor clanging down the halls Braille fingers curled for clasping Written with Brendan Bonsack By Brendan Bonsack and Reka Jellema September 2014 
Photograph by Reka Jellema. September 2014. Untitled.
The Echoes of the Echoes
Recommence the wanderings In the medieval citadel Your muse shied of the shadows, Ducked from the spells Hunched under gargoyles Tiptoeing, barefoot and silent Convinced of the afflatus That chose you and prattled In the mortar The spiral stairs would wind you ever upward Your muse in cower at the echoes of the echoes Written with Brendan Bonsack By Reka Jellema & Brendan Bonsack September 2014 
Photograph by Reka Jellema. September 2014. Untitled.
under the heading
blossom I find shotgun shells hollyhock parasols wads of juicy fruit ammo combat boots (don't shoot) I find the places I almost took you and I almost let you go hands up hands all the way up I find peace in the cracks in the tarmac a white butterfly dandelions cattails in the muck of the train yard crushed geraniums baby napes Your hands grew up long thumbed I find you still slay me One petal ripped at a time Written with Jennifer Savage By Jennifer Savage and Reka Jellema September 2014 |
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