Rooftop Poetry Club - Lynn Ciesielski

Lynn Ciesielski

Bio:
Lynn Ciesielski is a former special education teacher of 18 years. She has been writing poetry informally since junior high but has recently begun to take it much more seriously. Lynn is relatively new to Buffalo's poetry scene. She performs at local venues as often as she is able and will soon be hosting a monthly series on the third Saturday of each month from 2:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. The Stop, Look, and Listen Series will be held at the Impact Artists Gallery in the Tri-Main Building at 2495 Main Street. It will allow for viewing visual art as well as hearing the spoken word.

Poems:

Miriam Unfolding

Fatherless harami girlchild:
Mariam on the brink of womanhood:
A piece of driftwood lost
in an unforgiving ocean
Jalil: a drop in/drop out dad.
and now Nana is found
hanging from the rafters.
It weighs heavy upon her conscience.

Now an orphan, homeless waif.
She’s a young woman with a country but no home,
the kolba swept out from under her.
The constant strife.
The driftwood now tossed and tumbled,
roughed up in the turmoil of
constant tumultuous waves
and turbulent times,
never a stable moment,
nowhere to dig in her heels.

Finally sold to a man at least twice her age;
now a captive animal.
She never deserved this kind of safety;
caged for being a woman, that wild creature,
a human being,
the temptress by virtue of her parts,
hidden by burqa;
the head to toe veil.
It hides, covers, protects,
reveals nothing beyond her eyes, except to her husband.

She, a nubile beauty
forced to couple with wrinkled and aged oaken flesh.
He defiles her for his purpose only,
takes her because she is his,
forbidden to enjoy
earthly pleasures;
cooks, cleans, serves
She is continually thrown to the rocks,
battered with words, circumstances, fists,
starved for those things she knows nothing of firsthand,
only from hearsay.

The loss of unborn child upon subsequent unborn child
serves to heighten his resentment.
She serves not his purpose.
The Bible says, "Be fruitful and multiply". (There must be an equivalent in the Koran??)
Laila, dark beauty of the night
arrives to replace her battered, barren womanhood.
The possessive nature hidden within
arises for a moment.
She struggles to gain ground in her own household
but finally comes to find an ally in her,
grows to love her like a sister,
become a cherished auntie to her children.

The day comes
she must spring forth.
Driftwood takes on tidal proportions:
crashes, thrashes,
lays waste to the threat.
She becomes the hero, the martyr
who offers new hope and another chance at love.

Wendy Won't Wilt

Why wouldn’t Wendy’s water wells well up?
Should she shake or should she shiver?
Diminutive eyes draw dry drips.
We waited for the wake of what would come.
We wouldn’t worry

Now no one needs niceties nor neuroses.
After all, ashes come after.
and always are apt as atlases.
The thick thistles thrust thusly.

Give grateful gifts of goodness.
Try to trip over truth.
Think thoughts that aren’t there all the time.
Give golden goblets of grapes to goodly guests.

The Promised Land

Shards of aluminum worth a quarter at the marketplace:
rubble from rockets,
the questionable concession
for a lost son or brother.

Khadija clings to her prayer beads,
faith unshaken.
Sacrifice was part of the plan.
This belief offers small solace but does nothing to comfort
her 2 year old great grandson
whose leg is somewhere among the rocks..

1250 Palestinians dead: a sharp contrast to thirteen Israelis.
How many Jews went in “glory” over thousands of years?
God’s chosen people?
Chosen to murder? Take innocent lives? Suffer and die themselves?
Self defense gone awry.
No winners in war, only victims.

Devastation and sadness.
All are distraught.
Pray to their respective gods
for strength and forgiveness.
All this over a small piece of land
Which they value more than their lives
or their much needed cattle.

Mothers and children
Are sucked into this mess,
this terrifying massacre
“You started it”, they counter
But who will end it now?
Promises are made to be broken

Tentative truce defies thousands of years,
war dating back to the times of Jesus and Mohammed,
Allah and Yahweh.
Did these masters say kill in my name?
Worse yet did they advise to sacrifice innocent babes
or to murder those created in God’s likeness
for calling him by a different name?
or speaking another language?