Two Poems

by Stephanie Biziewski

Urges

Trees’ leaves boast the season’s
fashion colors: “Pomegranate.”
“Georgia jet.”
“Jonagold.”

I gaze at weeds that smother
my yard. Bamboo grass and crown vetch
burgeon here, breach the bounds
of daylily, azalea, and rose.

Often this summer I aimed
to venture out and pull their green
from the ground. Instead, I just watched
what I didn’t want

seize my land. This Appalachian hill,
too steep, threatened missteps
I dared not take. Stayed safe. Let
inaction reign. Now I squint

in September’s slanted rays, hands
on hips, wishing I’d done better here
outdoors
in my garden.

I sink into the autumn
of my woman’s body, at once
ripened with sighs of earthly
pleasures gone and earthly
homage yet undone.  Crone

alone
knows the terra wisdom of her own
body, blood, and bones: Creation’s
earthborn inamorata. Beloved woman called

not just to be. But to do
as Woman does.

Past is present and nowhere at all. Time
comes and goes, rises
through my soles. Intuition
surges, purges, urges

now.

 

Honey

On the top shelf of the cupboard is where
Mom hid the honey, where
she kept it from our appetite for sweet, where
I now, too, store it in my kitchen.

Outside bees hover over
blooms. Cosmos, coneflower, moonbeam
coreopsis, like cancan dancers in lifted
skirts, flirt with bumbler, honey,
and even wasp. Flaunt
their nectar. No worker can resist. No
hungry tongue denied.

I once longed for that kind of freedom,
to flirt and flaunt and show the boys
we could have a good time. Like bees
they came. Then fled. Just left their dust behind.

On the top shelf of the cupboard is where
I hide the honey, away from my appetite
for sweet. I keep it in my kitchen there,
out of sight and out of reach.

Stephanie Biziewski’s eclectic, truth-seeking energy keeps her writing. A wannabe prose-poet, fiction writer, and essayist, she listened to her teacher and focused on poetry in 2014. Seems to her it was good advice.

About Urges—This poem evolved from a prompt in class. The assignment was to begin every sentence with a “time” word, such as “then,” “after,” “soon.”

About Honey—I wrote this poem in response to stories about, and the research I conducted on, the hook-up culture.