Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
deborah russell
Fort Collins CO
Artist, poet. World Congress Of Poets, Poetry Project-NYC, Baltimore Writers Alliance.
Under Their Breath; A Moon That Formulates; Turn A White Leaf
Under Their Breath
strange immigrants listen under their breath ratchet clicks click - stray the air anonymous bullets etched names in code - known and unknown written who but all those vanquished through fire fails to miss the wind, the bloody silence, or the way still water sifts dust beneath the stones?
deborah russell, 2003
A Moon That Formulates
a sudden death this love has met as cold as it was warm still within the heart a memory moves and marches on there are no phones in the desert don't bother trying to call there is no metallic free poem in the coming fall pastel prose may whisper in a distant wind across a frantic foreign land, a place I've never been in my phosphoric eyes a yearn for silence in euphoric seas a moon that formulates on firmament where you'll never be there are no flowers in the desert don't bother planting barren land where laughter's clasped inside the dark, curled tight and gnarled hand as cold as it was warm as black as it was white
deborah russell, 2003
Turn A White Leaf
Poet... we walk the long road with a notebook
our heads in the clouds of a dream
in this exile turn a white leaf pen a persistent peace our art is the homeland the shelter where ever we go
break silence with your pen spill soul’s ink on paper rewrite the earth, the heart of destiny speak fluently in the night
bird's design is to fly, our's is to write
of peace and tolerance
Deborah Russell, 2001
(Read for Poets Against War - University Of Baltimore, February 12, 2003)
Olive Leaves
Olive Leaves
this morning the florist arrives with a bouquet of white lilies and roses
the fragrance, or perhaps the colour? reminds me of wash
how it was pegged on a line, in a row day after day i remember its rippling - sun flexing, how strange and perfect it seemed
there were no elegant shirts the kind that occasionally yield they were collars and cuffs - stiff slacks either khaki or white
mother had said it was the stuff that made a man, a man -
but, i am in love with fabric that gives that speaks in liquid symbols infused with gestures of stars, feathers and wings
i consume metaphors in a famine of words in love's prosperity of dreams, holy pearls and olive leaves
i fold cards and paper ~ put pens aside designed to write dark lipped poetry
i wander through nomadic realms in search of foreign lands
sometimes i wonder would mother think this is the stuff that makes a woman?
