POEM: Peanut Shells

I shake them to the ground,
These little somethings like fractured bones,
Only to eventually toss the remnants
Of some unuttered thought,
Like peanut shells,
Onto the floor,
Many, scattered and noisy –
And after all the sweeping I have done!


M C Biegner 4/2005

POEM: In Quiet Buzzing

In quiet buzzing
Of the day
I find a voice
in compelling loneliness
where there is great companionship.
This is what
i have always known
about me;
That
I am drawn from nascent color;
of pinks and greens,
reds and blues -
Living
(I have learned)
is an act of contrition
that needs love
and feeds on pain
It is a mortal embrace
with joy.


M C Biegner

POEM: Exploration

Sometimes I am the New World
Begging for exploration;
Rich with spices
Drunk with gold;
Hoping to be colonized,
Settled and civilized.

I have a culture all my own,
With my own language
And my own customs.
I don’t need your flag planted in my soil –
Nor do I need to be claimed for another;
I want no foreign gods
Or Faiths taught to my children
In other languages;
I do not need pox riddled blankets
Or my own wealth exported
As the pretext of some sort of allegiance.


I do not need to provide you with cheap labor,
To make your TV sets or Nikes.
I do not need to sell you cheap beef
To satisfy your McValues -
I am indigenous unto myself

You must have the courage
To find me and name me.


Inside of me is the unknown and the unknowable:
These great strengths and my greatest fears.

M C Biegner
5/2005

POEM: Remembrance

Re-membering;
Adding back
Those parts of us we lose
Growing up.

Re-membering;
Adding the limbs of trees
We climbed as kids;

Adding back
Who you are,
Who I am.

M C Biegner
5/2005

POEM: The Jazz of Daffodils

Daffodils know the rhythm
They bounce like be-bop,
They give it all up
For the slow, syncopated, jive notes
Of brassy horns –
With faces full cheeked, like Gillespie
Or pointing downward at the ground, like Miles
And you think how they blow,
Man! How they blow!

Daffodils cannot tell you what spring is about,
You have to feel it, when you listen to them.

You have to feel the slide and glide;
You have to know the fronds
Are like outstretched palms asking
You to slap them five –
“Can you dig it?” they whisper to you,
With a sawdust voice;
The xylem of each stem
Transports the smoothest water like smoky
Kentucky bourbon.

Daffodils hold and bend and stretch
Each note, like memory or pain.

Daffodils cannot tell you what spring is about,
You have to feel it, when you listen to them.

Then, after all this talk about rebirth is done,
Go grab a hyacinth
And hold her tight, real tight –
And close your eyes and just sway
To the Daffodil’s music
Because, man, the only song he’s playing
Is that change is just another kind of Death.

M C Biegner
5/6/2005

POEM: Wild (Manos Para Ti)

You have grown wild, my dear,
With long, unkempt fingernails,
With blustery hair and sharp teeth.

What I mean to say is this:
That I was once wild, myself, too
And I think there is something
You need to know about
Being wild.

It’s not always a crime
To give in to the violent frustration
That wells up in you
Whenever you lose the vision
Of whom you thought you would be by now.

There is no shame in that,
In being weak – sometimes.

Believe me, mi hija,
When I tell you that I
Was wild once myself
And I know every crevasse,
Every rock formation
Of the wildness
That grips you now
By the throat.

But you should also know
That I have hands
(Have I shown you my hands?)
These are hands
That can comb the wildness
From your hair;
These are hands
that can turn the softness of you
Inside out
And make you into the gentle
Lilly
I know you to be.

M C Biegner
4/2005