Tulips
for my sister (Hep C Series)
Just as they have aged,
seven days within the vase,
Just as yellow turns
onto itself
to view the summer’s
guttural dreams,
And red has let loose
its fiery skill,
turning heart’s layers
to flames and film,
They now curl up
as most delicate friends,
or fingertips brushing
within a woman’s drawers
against that which lives
clung to skin,
Or the fine
dust layering a crystal
bowl left for weeks,
then months, then years,
within a womb of mahogany.
They all speak
quietly within the room,
of riotous life
and boisterous boom,
of raucous youth and blooming
almost off the stem.
So hard it was
to be contained.
So now, dear sisters,
let me near
to see grace swirl,
then rest
into a withered edge,
How its deepening
bends each head
on stem,
how green thrusts summer
against each bloom,
then dances, childlike
in the air.
I’ll stay, I promise,
as each petal turns
into closed hands
and prays for sleep,
so soft, so real,
Forgets all form
before this.
POEM 2014
There is no escaping—
wine glass
shot glass
poem.
You walk down the hall
to the chair
to the door
to the chair
to the bed
eat some fruit
glass of wine
poem.
Birds are cackling
giddy beaks
rays of late
it is spring
a plane-
like bird
flight unseen
only heard
blue sets its hem
fading silk
along the seam
of the hill.
Legs up now
bent at knee
rocking back
to the heart
and then forth
the one pump
that can keep you
in place.
A ticking like the lost
owl in the pine
every night
every hour
sending blips
desperate search
for a mate.
You cannot be contained
nor released
cocktail glass
Lexapro
tongue now numb
house asleep.
Find a pen
then poem.
Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, performance poet Jean Howard resided in Chicago from 1979 to 1999. She has since returned to Salt Lake City. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Off The Coast, Clackamas Literary Review, Harper’s Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, Eclipse, Atlanta Review, Folio, Forge, Fugue, Fulcrum, Crucible, Gargoyle, Gemini Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Painted Bride Quarterly, decomP, The Tower Journal, Minetta Review, The Burning World, The Distillery, The Oklahoma Review, Pinch, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Penmen Review, Pisgah Review, ken*again, Chronogram, The Cape Rock, Quiddity Literary Journal, Grasslimb, Rattlesnake Review, Concho River Review, Spillway, Spoon River Review, Verdad, Wild Violet, Willard & Maple, Wisconsin Review, Word Riot, and The Chicago Tribune, among seventy other literary publications. Featured on network and public television and radio, she has combined her poetry with theater, art, dance, video, and photography. A participant in the original development of the nationally acclaimed “Poetry Slam” at the Green Mill, she has been awarded two grants for the publication of her book, Dancing In Your Mother’s Skin (Tia Chucha Press), a collaborative work with photographer, Alice Hargrave. She has been organizing the annual National Poetry Video Festival since 1992, with her own award-winning video poems, airing on PBS, cable TV, and festivals around the nation.
