I painted a portrait of my mom shortly after her passing.  She was a lovely woman and a wonderful mom.

The Light of the Moon ... by jeanne rené

 

 

Thinking of my mom and aunt who both passed away this year.

The Light of the Moon


The moonlight held its breath
in patient vigil outside her cross-paned window.
She seemed to sense its warmth,
and looked beyond me to glow and glimmer
waltzing upon the lake’s surface, dancing,
skipping between the ripples,
smiling at the ease of time’s merriment.

It came that she closed her eyes,
and with a gasp took in and then refused age
with a lingering hiss. She lay quiet.

~ from the window I watched the merry current
lap against the lake shore. I was not deceived
by the illusionary randomness of sway and swell
of wave, but looked into precise measure,
understood the mathematics of each whitecap,
and yet I knew tonight
the moonbeam held her slender waist,
swept her across the waters.

Thought slipped through the open window
and her hands grew cold. The present encircled
my head, a dark, vaporous nimbus of reflection.
I pondered, suspended above my own cloud …
If my last breathe were to linger with wavering balance
upon the precipice of moment and destiny…
If time were to slip through my well versed and worn lips
until the morrow only and not a sunset more to my name, could I tip my hat to the fray
and slyly tuck a smile into your forever memory,
falling head first into eternity.

Again to the window,
I sought, but the light of the moon
had walked away into the dawn.


jeanne rené  6.08

 

Waiting for direct evidence of disassociation ...

by  jeanne rené  

maniacally tap-tap her manicured nails
across formica wasteland
sequential tip-touch drone
i observe with reluctant objectivity
her fever pitching
eye socket restraining civility

it roars
the bright white chatter
her click click click unraveling

a distorted blink;
"Save me"

         can’t save you
    safe...I'll keep you...

my hand trespasses
swimming through the buzz
gripping her knuckles
massaging the welted kinks of depravity
relentless tears
laying flat irrepressible coils of Larina

"Why does the crow rest at the top of a tree?"

           I’m not sure.
     ...to look for food?

so it comes
a pause
unconscious calm
a silence
momentary respite
an insipid quiet
barely long enough
to ask for forgiveness

until she smiles:
"Crows perch on top
and chaw at our shadows."

my hand tightens
her lip trembles
explanations snapping
quavering filaments of matter and deed



Note: Occasionally I worked with teens with the onset of schizophrenia.  I did not use the actual name in this poem.

 

Bird in my corner ...

by jeanne rené

bird in my corner

cross-legged
on high pile carpet
deep in my bungalow air
where was I then
where was I when pretty boy
        bounced off my walls
  hyped-up          hopped-up
            psyched-up
tripped-out
                          wasted
waded way deep in love loft
mattress matrimony
      hey    hey    hey
i was there man

tip toeing on the typewriter
pounding the words out
hammering my heart flat
their hungry idioms
blew in thru my window
all the pretty boys
    cleft-chinned opiates
singing high notes in my melody
 one        two   three    four
       knocking at my door
   damn

and charlie parker
he was cool
      just kept playing in my corner
set himself up at my table
sat down to my music
running his fingers up and down so sweet
      pumping his manhood     into the tune

must
slide the lattice      down on the shutters
dim the day
one more eulogy to write
      where was I then
where was I when words fit in two packs a day
choke on my smoke
dine on my dance
            hey     hey     hey
devil loved my laugh man

and The Bird . . . .
he went on spinning his sax
in my corner
smiling
loving my laugh
just like the devil
and crying one more riff
     
      he told me
its gonna be alright girl


 7/04

unfiltered/stick of gum/grandpa said I might as well die if I can't go home

 by jeanne rene

He rolled his tobacco with one hand. He used to try to teach me do the same when I was little. He worked for the railroad his entire life and told me he thought it was a blessing. He had a big smile and a bigger laugh.  I visited grandpa and lit his cigarette for him two days before he let go of life.

---

i was wondering 

if grandpa was smoking unfiltered pall malls 

up in heaven

and if only the pleasure of puffing existed

for chain smoking angels

left unfettered by consequences

 

i was just wondering if grandpa

was sitting in an open box car on a slow rolling train

crossing the clouds

taking in a long deep drag

then flashing his toothy grin

 

and i wondered if maybe

he could blow the smoke

down this way

toward me

let it circle round my head

and sleep in lingering billows beneath my nose

Am I Next ... photo Jeanne René Watson

March for Our Lives ... San Jose, CA 2018
Photo: jeanne rené




Used as a feature photo for the article in Ms. Magazine
The Men Are Not Alright

Forgive Us Our Faults, Our Most Grievious Faults ... photo Jeanne René Watson

Photo jeanne rené

Love Not Hate .... photo Jeanne René Watson

Photo: jeanne rené




I was very excited to see my photo of "Love Not Hate" featured in a February 2019 article by Asmi Fathelbab for the Sisterhood Online Magazine.
Feminism. Islam. Antisemitism.  

... on a blanket with my baby by Jeanne René

he licks
the bead of nehi orange
resting in the corner of her lips
sweet
he smiles
shivering sweetness up
shivering down
a spine tingling kamikaze rush
craving molotov cocktails of powerful emotions
on this sundown
slowed downed
seashore
sea shine stroll

all the time
she’s tossing beached driftwood
back into the shallow sea
and drinking nehi effervescence
laughing
popping slippery sea flowers
can you catch me
in tempestuous silence
want some
one last sip

he wraps his lips around the bottle
sweet
he drinks
zigzagging round sand castles
they amble the beach walk
caress the beach talk
submerged in thought waves
the ebb and flow of speaking foreplay
carelessly
tickling the under bellies
of panicked sand crabs

kicking up sea foam
that make her legs glisten
in the amber glow closing the day
the blue nylon shorts
kiss the inside of her thighs with salty dampness
and he asks - with a wink
are you cold enough yet
unbuttoned shirt
slips off of his shoulders
he offers his apology
with warmth
truce granted without a question
as well as the kiss

slowed down
sundown
the cool sand tugs at bare feet
up to the boardwalk
still spinning with low-lit carousels
but empty of spandex beauties rollerblading
past hard muscled hormones
slouching on benches
or hare krisna barkers for salvation through mantras

an angel drifts upon a cloud
heaven knows
they are shivering
and too young to consider
looking back
in solemn faithless retrospect
much less
coming up to the surface for air

jeanne rené 11/03

... The Drifters

Honeyed/Catching Promises ... by Jeanne René

       All summer long

mama’s porch caught and nestled the breeze
   for the ladies.
Round, round the rafters it ambled,
swooped down
circled about our lil’ darlin’s
and leapt up
in impetuous gusts to tangle pixie bangs.

   Sigh

red-freckled cheeks,
lollipop impressions falling fast on our laps,
making sweet, sweet laughter.
Smiles sipping so-cold sodas
in effortless satisfaction
with cool, cool beads of bliss
on the lips of the ladies.

        Afternoons

dillydallied mixing company with
the persistent lover puffing its breath
in jasmine balm and pungent geranium
     bouquets for the ladies.
Temperamental bursts
blushing,
fluttering soft lapels against our white throats,
and lazy chimes shake, shake, shaking delirium
with a sudden slap.
~
Easy, honeyed wind swept round the porch

    Remember

the soft slender hands

    all summer long

~
Summers

pretty ladies catching promises ferried on the wind

           all

summer

      long





copywrite jeanne rené


Dedicated to Trisha, Darlene and Diane ... and all our kids

Sophie's Mustache

by jeanne rené

 Written in the poetic form referred to as a sestina which requires the repetition of certain words in a specific order.

                                                        

 

 

Sophie’s fine dark mustache competes for attention
with cosmopolitan red slipping into deep creases over her lip.
Every Saturday lunch, pushing remains of pastrami and rye away,
she retrieves the handbag purchased when Eisenhower was in office
and, sans mirror, applies a circle of rouge with self-confidence.
Routinely, a familiar pat of hand, “What a pleasant meal, dear.”

I don’t know why the seat by the corner window is so dear,
but Sophie always lingers. I pretend to pay no attention
while she mumbles conversation, taking in a covert confidence,
and places a slip of pink paper beneath the catsup at the table lip.
Later, arm in arm down Market, she marks the corner office
approaching 3rd Avenue, squeezing my hand and giggling away.

“He tried to make love in the stairwell, but I pushed him away.”
Leaning in, as sixty-odd years disappear, Sophie coos, “Oh, dear!”
Deep wrinkles frame watery eyes, “We finally did it in his office.”
Ageless laughter moves her shoulders and eyes flash to attention.
All too soon recovering dignity, tapping a finger to the lower lip,
lessening her grip, she removes the weight of such a silly confidence.

Memories, for some, are not met with serenity and confidence
or as Sophie muses, “Loneliness cannot be swept away.”
I’ve wondered of Sophie’s perspective, balancing on the brim. . . the lip. . .
threshold of Evermore and gathering unto oneself all that was dear.
The sorting, if you will, of time once given transitory attention,
now to stand in solitary role call, answering to one’s due and office.

Today . . . a rare letter to be mailed at the Post Office.
She searches the address and pats the envelope with confidence.
The purchase of a single stamp and its placement with attention,
the note in Sophie’s hands, seems so tenderly sent away.
I wonder what words, what thoughts she writes, old and dear,
as carefully she drops hope down the depository lip.

There is a gleam shining now above Sophie’s lip.
The heat of the day appears to be holding office
directly over Market St. and despite how dear
our Saturdays, I notice her weakened confidence.
Sadly, we turn in the opposite direction and away
from sights and sounds waiting our attention.

I loved that Sophie ignored her mustached lip with confidence.
It softened goodbye, “Dear, I don’t deserve so much attention."
She’d sign in at the office, smile and slip away.


jeanne rené 08.06

Grey Cat Sit Upon My Lap and Pause with Meby Jeanne René

... balance, breathing and moths ..for me, oft times a source of inspiration ..lol...written one late summer...

Scarlette

At cool decline of day
When cloud billow drifts

In contemplation of summer rain
Past peek-a-boo moon shine . . . It all seems so simple

Sitting here, lazy in Adirondack green,
Tease of temperate gust against a cheek,
Grey cat zigzagging between my feet
And eyes to heaven
Spellbound in the rhythm of distant star flame,
A twinkle to my sight . . . It all seems so simple

To fill the lungs with gentle thoughts,
Swell and stir inside my chest, the spirit gift,
The same that ignites outmost meteor,
The same that cups the fickle rain above my head
This genius rising in, and out through me . . . Seems so simple

To know what the balance ought to be
Between the inhale and exhale
Of unbounded galaxies.
Seems so simple to understand
That all is well with the moth that flutters round
Naked yellow bulb burning

Tonight behind my back . . .

So simple this truth to me


copywrite jeannerené

~ searching north star by Jeanne René

"with cherry fields
pink cheeks
and empty stomach
until we celebrate together"

~~from empty stomach by northstar


***

You must look in the direction of the wish,
half-way up within the night sky
teetering on the horizon
of desire and intuition.
Polaris of the lover,
she defines the east, west and south of moonlight

You must look by the way of the heart,
the guiding path overgrown with rose tear,
mint flower and lemon thorn memory.
You must trace the line of
falling-dreams across the cheek as she passes,
following the quiver of the compass,

and embracing
the wistful brilliance of her voice

to find the north star.



copyright jeanne rene

Photo via Good Free Photos

~complete and unabridged~ by Jeanne René

i am relatively old

this i surmised today
due to waking with pain across my back
accompanied by well versed groans
when reaching for toes
and stretching mournful extremities

deep into my morning revelry
a fanciful thought creeps into my over-taxed genius
that i would like to slip into shakespeare’s works
complete and unabridged

be written boldly into his pages
to puff my chest and billow my skirts
rant and rave and wallow
and allow
my venerable bones speak to me
in brittle soliloquy
of some memory waiting
absolution
and stubborn prayers
whispered in endless revolution

a silly wandering
to take my days
in tempest or merriment
and play them against the centuries
quoting my very own “adieu, adieu”
and placing one more virgin kiss
wildly upon my romeo
to be of one parchment penned
with quill that embellishes youth and age
and all senses embroiled
on earth and hell and heaven

but as i curl my lip against the spasm of my weary ways
and manage at last to stand straight and light
i laugh at my dramatic musing
and in truth know that i would simply settle
to set myself
once more
as in
former days
upon a nicely rounded derriere



jeanne rené 4/05

Jeannie's First Curlby Jeanne René

Grace, Joey, Eugene, Tony, Tina, Vera, Jay

     “I’ll ride with you to Gracie’s rosary.”

intonation peculiar
voice muffled by layers of exhaustion

     “Sure, Ma, that’s fine.”

pause inflated by a sigh
suctioning of memory
lifting her chest to a lifetime
releasing the inevitability
clarification of goodbye

succumbing to a dull embrace
     “Everybody’s gone.”
listen
inhalation
exhalation

accents of perplexity
     “Everybody's gone.”

talk . . . just talk
rounding corners of silences
so many heartbeats stolen

     “The envelope says Jeannie’s first curl.”

voice sits upon a quaver
she drifts
to the kitchen table

arms cradling her newborn



jeanne rené 4/05

~sheby Jeanne René

~she

floats
to the edge of the pool
with her own pomp and circumstance,
and we squint
even behind the darkest of sun shades

snickers skew tight lips,
potatoes chips held suspended over clam dip
crumble between our fingertips
and we shiver under the heat of our own dementia

with arduous sigh I follow
the slant of her smile
and the ageless bounce of bosoms,
the ornamented red of cheek
still the burn of her maidenhood

the dip of her toe into water,
the breezy dismissal of time under weightless chiffon
cast away with a giggle
and we twitter, but no one rushes in to save an old woman

perhaps, she is mercifully blind to the color of melancholy,
never touching the texture of wrinkle, the blemish of crease . . .
simply lost in an euphoria
too fragile to deny her bed fellows
age and heartache


Copywrite jeannerené 07.09

The Prizefighter's Gardenby Jeanne René

Papa had a voice, romantic and rich. A voice whose timber echoed the clamor of carts pulled by donkeys down uneven cobble stone streets and whose vibrato quivered like the bulging muscles of dusty day laborers. His song at the dinner table, given to only to daughters and son ... and to brown-eyed granddaughters ... was sometimes a field of wheat dancing on an easy breeze, and other times a hammer against steal rivets. He could have out-sung any Caruso of his day... or today's Pavarotti, but he never stepped out of the grandma's kitchen or wide-armed sofa. His audience wept just the same.


Papa was born in Sicily ... Palermo. Family was everything. He had been a boxer. He eventually became quite a successful business man with a plastering company ... and he loved his garden.

Under his arbor ~

Plump passionate
Fuchsia bells spill
Moss painted terracotta swaying
Pushed by butterflies
In heavy hands
He held my face to their flesh
To discover nature's miracles
The grace of the flower
The grace of the man
Here beat my heart along with time
Papa walked me round his garden
In stages of my bloom

In his arms ~
To the loquat’s
Dusty fruit
Breaking its amber meat
For my anxious fingers to my lips
Spitting seeds into the fish fountain
Strolling over the flagstones
From bud to blossom
Laughter lifts his heavy brows
To the buzz of monster bee
As I shelter in the warmth of his neck
Until he sets me down
With well picked mums

With his hand ~
Papa walks me round his garden
To the swoon of the gardenias white
A skip ahead and turn around
Twirling sour grass on the tip of my tongue
Every Sunday to the rose path
Near the window sill
Sauces stewing for the evening meal
Blend with beauties bittersweet
Papa hums the old man river
Of life
Of love
And in my hands four quarters fold
Behind my ear a sprig of thyme

By his side ~
Papa walks me round his garden
Slow in the evening
Sweet song of final days
Hushed in the beauty of the peony
Revealing secrets before it quickly fades
By the fish fountain as the wicker rocks
He whispers now in harmony with the breeze
Of every cut and bruise held in his glove
To say I’ve been
You will be
Time to listen
Under the shade of the cherry tree

~And
The stray leaf that falls against my cheek today
Perhaps his kiss


jeanne rené 4/04.........for Papa, my grandfather, who taught me the joy of gardening.

Above the Roar of the Inconsequenceby Jeanne René

I am
a child of concrete
of window vignettes unwanted, unavoidable.
Contact, communication with the human condition
that contaminates,
cements my visage into wrinkles of camaraderie,
cohesion of war and peace and dinner debates.

“I am, I am,” clanging my spoon
upon the bottom of my pot,
clamoring
above the roar of the inconsequence…

“I am!”

I am the warmth of streetlight,
its halo hovering above our saints and our demons.
I stop to rest, to slump
against thin walls vibrating with multiple heartbeats,
I soften … stoop under wags of cacophonous tongues,
and lonely testimonials liberated into the dark abyss.
I cry,
crying at the poetic laughter of derelict lovers,
and the coo of babies drifting with the dust of ventilation, I settle, recline.
I rise to the wink of flirtatious matriarchs leaning on sooty sills,
sashaying their hips in accompaniment to evening recitations
strummed upon the underbellies of complacent cicadas ….

    and I move
by way of masses on summer trails of blistering boulevard
asphalt lakes, ribbons amalgamate mortality
putty and plaster
sand and solder
fused      I am fused and I move

    never on a whisper,

in the presence of bobbing umbrellas
admiring the shine of petroleum prisms.
puddle jumping to catch the rush of sunset.
In the presence
of timepieces set upon analog hours,
traversed in measures of unbounded highway,
calculations of conferences
and the shade of high rise     I move

parade through our humanity, inhumanities, the pulse, the pulse, the pulse
pounded on the pavement.
And, I scream, “I am the child of byways, sown into the cement
flesh of the multitude
and the backward glance into the alley,
the augmented 5th suspended above the sidewalk,
the tail of the shooting star drawn behind the skyline

dissolving into the infinitesimal speck,
grain of sand, polished sediment pressed under my weight
into the generations.”
I bang my pot, hammer my silver spoon,
“I am mettle of metropolis,
the sweet seduction of city
stuck to the bottom of my shoes.”

I am

   I am the shadow falling between the jagged horizon ... I am.


jeannerene 4.22.12

... a kiss to end a dream on by Jeanne René

Raising his head
to the afternoon,
a touch
of life
smiled upon one more day,
I give with my embrace,
time
to see
my father sit
beside me.

My hands move
over
shoulder blades,
distended
plantive points,
angles of his disillusion
drawn taunt
over
waste and prostration,
jaundiced laughter,

and silence.
My hands move
hushed
along
bone
of my backbone,
massaging memories
to circulate lingering
recollections
too hard to bare
in the daylight.

The hour wanes
and there waits
my rocking chair.

Lie back
down
upon your pillow
my father's dreams
with a kiss,

and Satchmo's sweetness
whispering softly
in your ear.



Copywrite jeanne rené

Ahh, humanity!

by jeanne rené

photo jeanne rené

They’re bruised and bony
but …

I’m down on my knees today
to converge upon the living
who scuttle between the common garden stone
and shelter under forsaken rose petals,
Focusing my manufactured lens
on the honey bee zig-zag
or zooming in and out on the finer, more intricate subtitles
of scaly appendage or iridescent thorax,
I try to find the gleam, glint of fragile wings
capture it, post it, paste it
segments of sanity
membranes of memory to linger upon God’s finer points of creation.

I’m down on my knees today
looking for my prayers,
God’s finer course of dialogue
for I grow gray and cracked, as time shuffles haphazardly
between yesterday’s perception and today’s reality.
I need the camera, its shameless sight
to clarify my personal perspective.

Outside the camera my garden agonizes,
blundered, burdened.
The hydrangea withers, its flower-head bent.
Untethered the dahlia snaps.
Barren,
I cannot heal my children,
cannot exhale after inhaling.

… I covet the compound eye
lenses in triplicate times triplicate
mankind in mosaic medley 360 degrees composition
I beg,
let me hover with the house fly above brow and bed,
and squeal … antennae twitching enthusiastically “Ahhh, humanity!”

Today I cannot heal my children in portraits black and white.
I’m down on my knees
digging for daylight.


jeannerene 8/2010

Little Bro, Big Bro photo Jeanne René Watson

~ to say what is left unsaidby Jeanne René

~ to say what is left unsaid

I’ve rewritten many times
this poem of you.

A silly, sentimental essay
to note the crease of your knotted brow
dreaming away the morning light
sequestered minutes
before the masquerade of dawn evaporates
into a burst of reality

and the eye focuses,

“She stays,” the eye sighs.

Yes
      we are us,

little odds and ends,
the irksome nudge of toe,
the sometime abandoned curve of back to back.

A definition, theme
upon your touch so customary,
familiar as the revelry of mother bird
summer morn, summer night,
    you       like the sonnet
of her nestling's frenzy.
Poetry served with honey
and sipped ceremoniously,
it orients
my groggy advent to morning things,
and ways,
and all lineal litanies reemerging
in operative thought . . . your rhyme does.

I consider the composition
my sense
now open to the day,
uncivil sun invading our bedroom,
your arm heavy
sideways
slumber upon my stomach,
an occasional tug too dull

for any desire more than
              my refrain

“I am
the cradle of reassurance
the touch to vanquish the distinction,”
You are

      the nestling croons

                        the poem


copywrite jeanne rene 10.05

Upon Consideration of Hourglass and Spectrumby Jeanne René

~
I touch the reflection in my mirror,
trying to find the supple texture of my lips,
but stopped by my own fingertips.
Studying a false immortality,
unable to marry that which I see to that which I feel.
The eyes of this solitary figure
do not discern my rainbow pigmentation.
This delusive guise does not display the saturation
of youth and lover,
of mother and daughter,
of teacher.
Of time and every tear,
countless portraits and poses that I, clearly, still can see.
~

I find it best to walk away, leave my reflection
and harmonize with my humble mortality.
Simply to take my colors
and distribute them in kindness
along the remainder of the way.
So I consider;
What lasting word can I give my children
that they will draw upon in the depths of their misery?
Which passionate kiss
will forever be akin to ecstasy on the mouth of my lover?
With which words of gratitude do I bury my mother?
... which grape and grain be mine to feast in kinship
at the table of a stranger.
~

I will find . . . all that I am,
all that I have never ceased to be,
all that I have left behind, but always take along with me,
and bestow my gifts to precious time,
no trace of my reflection, except in memory.
~

copyright jeanne rene 8/04

Peppermints and Gernades in Front of Curtainphotos Jeanne René Watson

Purpose and the Prairie by Jeanne René