Category: Visual Art

Beyond words and photos

Living on the Streets

Poem & photos by Elizabeth
LIVING ON THE STREETS

I never chose to be here
Amid concrete and cheap booze—
I’d sooner die but bodies carry on for years.

I hear the wailing ricochet of children
Held within this hell of rolling veins.
No, they never, never chose to be here.

Limbs stiffened from cold sidewalks trap me 
As pustules grow and lice feed on my skin—
I’d sooner die but bodies carry on for years.

Violence is not televised on streets; instead, it jeers at battered
Skulls and broken bones—we’re easy prey for kids.
No, I never chose to be here.

Whiskey holds back cold and memories that leer of oboe played
Amidst the smoke, thighs wrapping mine through dawn.	
Now, I’d sooner die but bodies carry on for years.

With deafened ears and eyes averted, you comment on 
My stench as you dart into the restaurant;
I never chose to be here—
I’d sooner die but bodies carry on for years.

Thank you to the editors of Mediphors: A Literary Journal of the Health Professions for first publishing this poem.

Disconnected

photo by Elizabeth

Oxfam‘s January 14, 2024 report, Inequality Inc., explores the disparity between the uber-wealthy and the rest of society.

Since 2020, five billion people have become poorer, while the world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes—at a rate of $14 million per hour.

VOTE

photo by Elizabeth

This election is not about Harris, Trump or an individual issue. It’s about what the United States of America represents, for us and the world; how it provides for its citizens and the environment; how we care not only for the living and those who have sacrificed for this country, but also for those who will follow, which one could interpret in line with the Native American-Iroquois law: “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

This election is not about the next four years or a party; but instead, whether we choose that “all…are created equal…with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty and… happiness,” not merely as pursuit, but experienced (as described in this Emory U. article), or if we want something different for our nation.

Each vote matters, which is why so many have literally sacrificed or died to protect this right for every eligible citizen.

Soaked

Art & poem by Elizabeth
SOAKED


I want you in my home to know you’re not alone 
in those long-shadowed halls paced by perpetually 
lost—dementia scouring their last stains of memory

          more than safe,
          I want you to feel safe
          yet I’m drowning in this 
          deep dank bog of lung

rain sluices from leaves beneath a starless sky
as distant shouts urge me to find my way back
yet I am beyond lost having unwrapped and dropped 
their safety rope from my waist so I could reach you
 
       all my cells replicated yours when you were 
       my sole cord to life—for that I worshipped you 
               till the God, Hormones, ascended

as I stumble over elephantine roots, 
machete through plants so large dinosaurs 
must still exist on this swampy earth,
my lungs match each step's suck of mud, 
every breath a drowning, yet I won’t 
release this taut line between us mottled 
with white ash and blood dark wine nor
understand how your Emmental brain 
won't let you walk or know where you are 
in time, yet provides lucid wit and end-
less memory for the inconsequential

                                    

       years now since I severed and flung 
our rope in your flames yet you remain 
      tangled as worry and seared to my palm
when I reach for you in wake or in dream
      unable to rest or breathe for want of you



Thank you to the editors of Melancholy Hyperbole for first publishing this poem in an earlier version.