A Stone Has Been Cast: Poetry For Women and About Women
by Jane Erickson
The Club
We belong to a club,
Only women allowed.
We do not have a name,
Only a commonality.
We happened onto a sensation
We never knew because of
Years of marriage to barren men
Who had not the means
To make us feel.
How sad we wasted all that time
Settling for nothing
When we badly needed something.
So many of us belong to the club,
Talking of feelings erotically awakened
Thankful to know we are not dead.
The fault ours only
Because we waited so long
To leave and discover
The fulfillment we deserve.
Commitment
I don 't want to marry you,
But I want to feel loved by you.
I don't want to live with you,
But I want you to be here.
I don't want to smother you,
But I want you near me.
I don 't want to pursue you,
But I want to trust you.
I don't want to push you,
But I want you to be honest.
I don't want to own you,
But I want you to desire only me.
I don't want you every minute,
But I want you in my life.
For me this is commitment.
Goodbye
Naked in the water,
She sat under the stars,
The mountain sky glowed black behind
The twinkle reflected in her eves.
Questing for freedom
She asked him to leave.
He began the laborious climb,
Slowly moving out of her heart.
Her throat constricted vying to
Keep him, knowing she must not.
Her mouth opened, and out he flew.
Turning, he smiled and waved.
She waved and watched until
He became a speck in the starlight sky
And then became nothing.
Looking down, expecting black,
She warmed at the rose color of her heart.
Peace now lived there
In the gentle pink
Of her new-found solitude.
Cosmic MPH
It took me forty years
To have the courage and
Lack of inhibition
To ride a man
At seventy miles per hour
Until we reached our
Cosmic orgasm
That left us laughing and breathless.
Women Who Give Too Much
She once read a book
About women who give too much
To men who take too much.
A light beckoned
At the horizon of her mind.
She thought about him
And him
And him
And him
The design the same
Variation in body and name only.
Fear caught at her heart,
The bite of reality filling her up.
Needing to stop,
Not knowing how.
The strength of her knowledge
Not strong enough
To escape from the abyss
That came with her patterned
I love you.
Betrayal
The dark of the moon surrounds the light
That used to live within her breast.
Tainted by the Judas touch,
She folds into herself; lamenting
The power she gave away.
He begged her to trust.
Against her will she agreed.
With careless falsity he
Betrayed her truth,
Sniffing out the flicker of hope
She had nurtured into flame.
Author's Note:
When asked to compose my philosophy on writing, I puzzled over it for it was something I had not thought about. That same day I reached into a friend’s Bag of Runes and pulled out Honesty. After reading The Healing Runes philosophy on honesty, I realized that my writing is quite simply about that concept. In our daily lives we tell lies. They may be only white lies which we rationalize to "protect" the feelings of others or the feelings of ourselves, but they are lies just the same. There are no lies in writing which comes from the sensitivity of the heart, for you cannot tell an untruth when your heart speaks. Your fingers will not let you deceive for your eyes will dislike what it perceives as a gross distortion of the soul. I can truthfully say my poetry and short stories are honest in content for I have reached into my deepest self to pull forth what I believe to be true.
Jane Erickson