Upheaval

That late Kansas summer, a tornado
sucked the air out of our lungs,
caved in windows, knocked over a barn,
stole furniture and dishes
from the woman two houses down.
When the air finally sat still,
you poured warm chocolate across my back,
feasted until your tongue resembled tornado dust.

I said I wanted you to hold me.
You rushed inside me instead.

At dawn, as you buttoned your shirt,
leaned over to kiss me,
my body still shaken from the upheaval
and my feet slipping beneath me,
I realized you would always
be my wild place, not my stable ground.

Pris Campbell
©2002


Published in Peshekee River Poetry Journal, Fall 2003

No Wednesday Post

I've gone to the doctor to offer up my usual 3 to 6 vials of blood to be secretly drunk by a lab tech in the attic.

Pris

Ghost Riders

Hands stroke under my sheets,
drawing lost loves
back to haunt.
They piggyback old wants
onto your cries.

You say the forever words
when your lips cover mine,
yet when I'm astride
I see ghosts
ride you, too.

Pris Campbell
(c)2002

published in Blackmail Press

Keeper of the Heads

(this is one I wrote a few months ago)




Nights, when the rain falls like bullets
and lightning shocks the ground with bomb-white flashes,
the heads in my basement talk to me.

My grandfather tells me I'm such a good girl.
My mother asks if I want rice.
My grandmother offers to brush my hair.
My father grunts in his sleep.

They speak for hours about the old days;
days before Ho Chi Minh lifted his fist.
Before the French. Before the Americans.
Days when our land rose in green stair-steps
to kiss the morning heat, and flowers
formed a rainbow along the jungle's edge.

My brother yanked their bleeding heads
off the posts surrounding our slaughtered village,
ears sheared clean for the Americans' belts.
He and I had been sent searching for roots.

I brought them here, well hidden,
even from my G.I. husband, the man
I seduced, married, and ultimately killed,
the man whose house I still inhabit.

Blood taken for blood given.

He never knew I killed many before him
during my days first as orphan, then bar girl.

My looks saved me.
I'm still beautiful, though silver weaves through
my hair like tears.

Tears for our trampled rice paddys.
Tears for our streams bubbling with blood.
Tears for the slain water buffalo and barren trees
leaning into a sky burned orange by Napalm.

Tears, too, for lost innocence and
hands that will never again wash clean.



Pris Campbell
©2005

Our 'Most Intruguing (and Sensual) Male Poets of 2006 Calendar Update

The original post about the calendar can be found HERE on Jenni's blog, but if you're interested, post a comment on this thread where we can find it easily. Or, write one of us. Remember; proceeds will go to charity.

Pris

Morning---too darn soon!

THIS was too large to fit into the space, so go to my website link for a view of my morning.:-)

Pris

Letters home..

My Aunt Orpha had saved an old letter my mother, three cousins and another aunt wrote her when I was 15 and we made our first trip into 'yankeeland'--specifically, Belleville, Illinois. Of my mother's five sibs, all remained in the South except for Uncle Bayle. He married up north and raised his two daughters, Ann and Jane, there. This is page two of the letter. It makes me smile, so I posted it.

Pris

webcaming it

Ages ago, my tech friend put a little program on my desktop that , when I click on it, it turns on my webcam, snaps a shot every 60 seconds, and then FTP's it up to my website. Well, I rarely turn the darn thing on since I usually don't look..let's say presentable for the world to see when I sit at this machine, but hey, check. You won't see me there for any time, but I do put it on just to update my pic ever so often. Webcams of the world, move over. Pris is here!

Click HERE to see.

fingers
tapping slowly over the keys-
a zombie awakens!

Owning the Beach

Along the strip of Ocean Boulevard leading from the south end to Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, there runs a beautiful strip of ocean and deserted beach. A small shoulder on the road allows enough room for a biker to use, but not for anyone to pull over to gaze at this beauty. The owners of the huge shuttered homes across the boulevard own this beach. They guard it well, with fences and padlocked gates, some of the padlocks rusting from lack of use.

In all of my years bicyling along this strip, before I got CFIDS, I never saw a soul on the beach. Later, by car, I've never seen anyone, either.

It's legal to walk on the beach below tide line. No-one can own that. I once had a friend who took that walk, beginning on the northern end, at low tide, and barely making it to the other end as the tide was coming back in to territory owned by the rich.

To own something and let it go so unappreciated...To own something that beautiful and not let anyone use it, even when you don't. To me, that's a crime.

My opinion.

Pris

Update on the Most Intriguing (and Sensual) Male Poets of 2006 Calendar

We have ten poets committed now and a number thinking about it. Time's running out. We looking for a few more good poets willing to participate and have a good time doing so. The calendars will be on sale at cafepress and the proceeds will go to benefit CFIDS research, the illness that I deal with and for which scant research funds are available. This very kind suggestion was made by Jenn and Didi.

Now, go to the Jennijack link in my righthand links column for an even more detailed update.

Pris

Songs Unentitled

What would my dead mother say,
knowing I still mourn you--
you, the same one who tore
my flesh open, leaving dank
blood trails for the squirrels
to track through, come morning.

What would my father say
from her side, worms
lifting their heads listening,
if I told him you still sing
in my dreams, barefoot
and sprawled at my bathroom door,
suds bubbling over the hole
that once held my heart,
that same heart that danced
Sambas whenever your
hand brushed my cheek.

Thank you, Michael!

See Michael Parker's Blog entry, dated July 19, for a wonderful tribute and poem he wrote for me. Thank you, Michael! Such a beautiful thing for you to do.

Pris

Dreaming.....

Accepted for publication in Simply Haiku

Somehow, when I look at this haiga it makes me think of past loves. Over the years, there've been a number of men I loved or thought I loved at the time. With some, the feelings ended when the relationship ended--or before, actually. Then there's that one or two who linger. It took me years to stop thinking about the man I lived in the commune with. We'd been together a bit over five years. One day he came in and told me he was leaving in two weeks. Already had an apartment. Since he married six months later, he may have already had another person in his life, too. I thought he was the love of my lifetime. I still had occasional dreams about him ten years later. It turns out I was wrong about him being my great love and time finally faded him, thank god. I have a friend who still occasionally fantasizes that she's again with a man she was crazy about in her late teens early twenties. She knows if she actually saw him, it wouldn't be the same at all, but....

What's the longest you've pined for someone? What made their hold on you that powerful?

Pris

It's the big day and from now on I age regress!

To save load time, I put this image on a link now. Click HERE to see the neat shower cartoon posted here yesterday.

It was posted on the Bag End posting board as part of my birthday celebration. Any excuse to dunk me under the shower lol.

Next year my age goes back by ten years. Hey, if I live long enough, maybe I'll become Cleopatra in another lifetime.

Okay, okay. Two blogs about my birthday. Enough already!

Pris