Showing posts with label Redemption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Redemption. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Proven

International District, Seattle WA
Photo © 2013 Jennifer Wagner



Afterward
she felt just like
the used condom,
            discarded
amidst the cigarette butts
and partially eaten food.

The refuse
stacked up,
lining the side streets
and back streets
of the insides of her,
piling up
on her chalk outline.

Wasn’t she
what had been done to her?

But the point of no return
to what               
she thought of herself
was the road less traveled,
            a cross in the path—
and the journey upward,
a process
littered
with the things
she has chosen to leave behind;

and that has made all the difference.



© 2013 Jennifer Wagner


A little bit of a spin off Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken.


Thursday, March 28, 2013

Easter Poem


of all the blueprints
and maps,
locations marked with a jagged cross,
i like the one where we intersected best


Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Wagner

I celebrate Easter and if you do too, I hope you have a happy one!

Friday, January 18, 2013

Mud Blossom



she washed herself
clean
in the dirty river—
sinking down
into
muddy banks,
covering herself
and the tar that lives
and thrives
raging
within her skin
emptied
the tree of herself—
leaves and
petals
flowing
buried
in layers
where dead things
find purpose
and nourish
the ground
lush with
undiscovered gold



Copyright 2013 Jennifer Wagner

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Ornament (Beauty for Ashes)



adorn me with your breath,
i will flower and grow

underneath the overgrowth
of black trees

that bear no fruit
and needle the ground

sleeping
in winter’s graveyard



Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Truce



sitting in the dust
accusers round her, thick—

with pride and spittle
dribbling their bearded chins

fingers pointing, fists shaking, rocks in hand—
the ground trembling with cries for justice

‘such women’ they yell, violent distaste rolling
off their tongues

one by one, they felt the mirrored shame in His words
until only one accuser remained

as she waited for the airless moment to pass
and a stone to pierce her

the two of them breathed slowly together, seconds ticking, until
she put it down, rose up, and began to pardon herself


Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner


Friday, October 12, 2012

Troll Bridge




facing the winter
of a hearse driven life
you soldier on
with skeletons in the closet
clacking along

the last frost covered leaf
curled and brown, laced with silver,
blows away in the wind

the wind,
there to bite you
sting you,
 remind you

of regrets and demons without, within—cackling
in the still-deadness
where your still-living questions
ask if you have left
them behind

they pick lustily
at your flesh, with tempting,
at your mind, with amoebic doubts—
troll-like, in a present-day quagmire
on one side of the bridge; whereupon crossing
you hear a voice
which says to Call This

The Bridge Where You Rename Yourself



                                                    And Forgiven, And Worth

                       Overcomer                                                                        Being

Names like                                                                                                                  Loved




Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Inspiration: Isaiah 62, Revelation 2, and a dream that woke me up

For the prompt at Poetry Jam and for  Poets United Poetry Pantry

*Note: this piece doesn't read right on most hand-held devices.  For accuracy read on a larger screen.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Noonday Jackals


Her thoughts took a dark turn
like jackals in the threadbare sun
ripping, ripping until she couldn’t see
herself, now a carcass of once-sought dreams;
a bone-hollow skeleton
stripped of all marrow by which future is made,
where the ink dried within.

Blood, first red then black, gathered in pools
around her head
until the ears spilled no more.
She’d done it to drown out the howling—
for who can bear the noise
of a broken heart?

The muting of syndicate
mocking and whimpering replete,
she worked the metallic taste of hate off her tongue.
It lingered though and became bitter
so she used her teeth to bite into its flesh
for nothing other than to taste a mellowing of salt.

A waft of perfume lingered in the cloying rot,
the remnant of her identity laying in the dust
while the air spilled with the scent of her decay;
a lone paper, yellowed and curled at the corners,
rattled in a wisp of wind.

A cloud began to form on the horizon,
a growing mist of dry, kicked-up earth,
swirling and choking the throat of tortuous barbs.
The cyclonic reclamation filled the desert of scars and loneliness,
returned sinew and marrow, blood and ink
to the supine form of the battered giant
of a dream so big the rabid enemy of her soul
was lost for strategy to bring down.
  

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11