{"id":5292,"date":"2018-03-15T23:54:24","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T23:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5292"},"modified":"2018-03-16T00:01:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T00:01:52","slug":"2-poems-martina-reisz-newberry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5292","title":{"rendered":"TWO POEMS – Martina Reisz Newberry"},"content":{"rendered":"

AS A GHOST I’LL MAKE SURE THAT YOU’LL KEEP ON RUNNING INTO ME<\/strong>
\n BACK AND FORTH, IN SOME SHAPE AND FORM WE WILL BE…\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think she was hoping he was really
\na gardener.
\nIt is easier to greet a stranger
\nthan a friend when your eyes are puffed and red
\nfrom weeping; your nose and lips swelled with grief.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(She dreamed, the night before, about eating
\nthe last of some dark, sweet dates – soft salted
\nwith tears – as her world lost color, lost warmth,
\nlost light. She ate dates in that dream as fast
\nas she could to enjoy as many as
\npossible before the dark world ended.)<\/p>\n

So, it was better to see a gardener
\nin front of her, a spade in one hand and<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the smell of earth around him.
\nHere was a man to explain:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A question or two, Sir…where there was stone,
\nnow there is space, cool, dark, empty. Where there
\nwas a dead man, there are rags on the floor.
\nTell me, where have they taken the body?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She is calmer than when she first arrived.
\nAnd now she notices. She notices.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

LAVENDER BLUE<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yesterday, when the rain began, I saw it was rain from the past.
\nThere was a seizure of wind and then a deluge in earnest.
\nIn that past rain, I had a raincoat, lavender blue in color
\n(dilly dilly)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and the rain held delicious secrets which I cherished.
\nNow, I want only the sun. It was a shock when I realized it\u2013
\nonly the sun\u2013and long days full with Spring and Summer songs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do the years turn lavender blue raincoats into a kind of sepulchre,
\none that embraces then imprisons what was cherished?
\nI think so. I was a princess then, wore clear plastic boots<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

over my shoes and put out my tongue to catch rain.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t do that\u201d a man told me. \u201cIt\u2019s too sexy. Makes me hard.\u201d
\nThat was the rain back then\u2013cold and strange on the tongue<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and safe to rest my lashes in. What is safe now?
\nWhen this rain from the past began, all places looked
\nalike to me. After this, perhaps not so much…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Inspired by the Song: \u201cLavender Blue,\u201d
\nmusic and lyrics by Larry Morey and Eliot Daniel, 1948<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Martina Reisz Newberry\u2019s most recent book is NEVER COMPLETELY AWAKE (Deerbrook Editions). She is also the author of WHERE IT GOES (Deerbrook Editions). LEARNING BY ROTE (Deerbrook Editions) and RUNNING LIKE A WOMAN WITH HER HAIR ON FIRE: Collected Poems (Red Hen Press), and LIMA BEANS AND CITY CHICKEN: MEMORIES OF THE OPEN HEARTH\u2014a memoir of her father, (one of the first men ever to be hired at Kaiser Steel in Fontana, CA in 1943)\u2014published by E.P. Dutton and Co. in 1989.<\/p>\n

Newberry has been included in It Happened Under Cover, Ascent Aspirations\u2019 first two hard-copy anthologies, also in the anthologies In The Company Of Women, Blessed Are These Hands and Veils, and Halos & Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women. She has been widely published in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad.<\/p>\n

She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo Colony for the Arts, Djerassi Colony for the Arts, and Anderson Center for Disciplinary Arts. Passionate in her love for Los Angeles, Martina currently lives there with her husband, Brian, a Media Creative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AS A GHOST I’LL MAKE SURE THAT YOU’LL KEEP ON RUNNING INTO ME BACK AND FORTH, IN SOME SHAPE AND FORM WE WILL BE…\u201d   I think she was hoping he was really a gardener. It is easier to greet a stranger than a friend when your eyes are puffed and red from weeping; your [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[288,149,289],"class_list":["post-5292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-photo-ghostly-figure","tag-wikicommons","tag-william-nueheisel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5292"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5358,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292\/revisions\/5358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}