The Bag Lady

by Janet I. Buck

No PC art could rescue her;
this thinness where thick plump belongs.
I wanted children at her feet,
tugging at the tidal waves
of bouncing silk in blissful skirts.
Her breasts were burning griddle cakes;
syrup jars were somewhere else.
Layers of her evening shroud
in twilight holes
where stars withdrew.

Arms in sleeves—
tamale husks of hurried fear.
Bottles sold for blessings
of their emptiness.
Her gutted eagles turning
crows in fishy poems that
needed food and renaissance.
All she had for self-defense—
bayonets of rainbow glass.
I saw her hug a jug of wine
in paper sacks the color
of determined earth,
as if it were a fountain splayed
with arteries to earned release.

Fleshy crepes of wrinkled bags
beneath these universal eyes.
Her pupils spoke: "The moon
is just a fickle puff and sunlight
ain't debatable." Teapot gray
in tarnished locks on lattices
of shoulder blades.
I dropped one nickel of a word
in pounding puddles of her blood.
She was snow and I was dandruff
drifting in my apathy.
A Chaucer on her pilgrimage—
a pigeon lost among our noise.

Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Magazine.com, CrossConnect, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Disquieting Muses, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, Born Magazine, pif, 3rd Muse, Verse Libre Quarterly, Big Bridge, pith and hundreds of journals world-wide. Buck was one of U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. In January 2001, Art Villa Records released Janet's first audio CD of poetry and music called Before the Rose. It is available at: http://www.artvilla.com/shopping/poetry/rose.htm To hear a sample from the CD, go to: http://www.artvilla.com/mp3/umbrellas.mp3.
Note: Featured author in January 2001
E-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com
Writing interests: Poetry
Poems: "The Orphan", "Caught in Lesser Tragedies", "The Broken Promise", "The Gargoyle", "The Going", "The Bag Lady", "Rushing Toward Entelechy", "The Paralyzed Apocalypse", "Frozen Sonnets", "New York, New York", "Live on CNN", "America Under Siege", "Gutter Balls"
Links: Hot Links: Janet I. Buck, Janet's Latest Interview, Desideratum's Doggie Dish, Author's Den, Active Amp.org—Features Janet I. Buck, Poetry Magazine.Com-October-Janet Buck, The Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000), San Francisco Salvo, Moongate: Janet I. Buck, Offcourse, The October Country , Cafe Society: Poetry Life & Times, Kookamonga Square, The Adirondack Review , janetbuck.com, Funky Dog Publishing—Janet Buck's Strawberry Nipples, Athens Avenue—Janet I. Buck, One World-One Heart Exhibit , Ygdrasil: Issue 9 September 2000