This Poem was Submitted By: Jana Buck Hanks On Date: 2005-05-25 11:14:16 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!
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Treasury of Bitter Herbs Unrestrained sagacious memory conjures
peals of girlish laughter ringing out merrily
in childishly concocted games of Hide
and Seek. Ghostly sun-dust weeping trough
window lights brighten paths set in lacy web
wisp shadows thrown into remote corners
of long ago. Hump-backed trunks cradle
ancient leather-bound yellowed torn pages
crowded amid pairs of high buttoned
shoes. Feathered woolen hats exude humid
perfumes for dry rotting dresses. Vain velvet
and silk time prisoners languidly drape dress
forms stored in upstairs walk-in closets warm
from summer beams. Dirt-daubers drone familiar
concerts within eaves at dusk lulling drowsy
underpinned counter-point to Croakers and
Katydids heralding the coming of twilight.
Age rotted dreams span the future of departed
ancestor essences held on worn tin types. Fabrics
of Time interwoven with man-kind’s sticky crystalline
threads inspire kindred mirror images in the
past. Today and yesterday vie for grace-filled
remembrance in the fanciful clouds of tomorrow.
Ice water freezes veins of the soul trying to recall
smiling summer days and nights of clear and precious
light before closeted fears reappear raging like weeds
in a patch of lovely lilting Lady Slippers. When did
the illusive hours of seemingly innocence dances
become immersed in Holy Trinity waters of stark reality?
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Copyright © May 2005 Jana Buck Hanks
Additional Notes:
perpetual pedophilia from a Pastor in training...summer days remembered when medication doesn't chemically balance unchoices that makes up a psyche.
This Poem was Critiqued By: charles r pitts On Date: 2005-06-05 23:51:29
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.60000
Today and yesterday vie for grace-filled remembrance in the fanciful clouds of tomorrow
-think u should switch "today" with "tomorrow" here--"tomorrow and yesterday vie....in fanciful clouds of today"
the illusive hours of seemingly innocence dances
-"innocent"?
your poem reads like a "stream-of-consciousness" passage. thoughts pouring straight-from-the-mind-to-the mouth-to-the-air. a fascinating genre im very much interested in.
your word usage is superb
This Poem was Critiqued By: Audrey R Donegan On Date: 2005-06-03 18:43:05
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.65217
Jana,
This piece was such a joy to read.
So very many wonderful images
and the opening stanza is just perfect, luring me in,
while stanzas like #3, 9 ,11, and 12 kept me begging for more.
Nicely done, no suggestions from me on this one,
Audey
This Poem was Critiqued By: Nancy Ann Hemsworth On Date: 2005-06-03 10:45:53
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.81818
I enjoyed this so very much indeed..the image that it struck across my mind were so vivid, I could almost smell the mildue amongst them. I really liked your title and found it facinating and a perfect choice for your subject. "Treasury of Bitter Herbs"..so it is, these treasures from the past, bitter sometimes when taken in and digested into the mind. I just loved this "Ghostly sun-dust weeping trough
window lights brighten paths set in lacy web
wisp shadows" what an image it casts. You have written here of something we all can relate to, and that is the magic of this piece. I remember going through attics such as this, fingering through grandmas treasure from yester year, and going through my mind was what I envisioned her life to be, and also now that she is gone the reality of only these treasures are what is left of her and the memories. This will be all of us someday. This is such a sadly beautiful piece."Age rotted dreams span the future of departed
ancestor"..and "Ice water freezes veins of the soul trying to recall" bring these feeling to the surface for me. You have chosen wonderful examples to bring your topic to life, and I have really enjoyed reading your words. thanks for posting this and bringing back a few memories ..some bitter sweet, back for me.
This Poem was Critiqued By: Lora Silvey On Date: 2005-06-02 11:29:02
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 1.00000
I felt the imagery flowed well while the subject matter you spoke of in your added note is not exactly what I got from your poem. As with many poems I walked away with what I needed from your writing although not necessarily with the message you may have been trying to convey. I enjoyed the poem, especially the descritiveness and the ease of reading.
This Poem was Critiqued By: Jennifer j Hill On Date: 2005-05-31 19:56:54
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Hi Jana,
Good to see you back and WOW, that was an experience!
Makes me very glad you are.
To start with "A Treasury of Bitter Herbs" gives the reader an idea that
this isn't going to be a total picnic. (And great title by the way. Very
fitting for the filling.) So when you start out putting the reader in
touch with such girlish silliness as giggling it feels good, maybe even
great, but still, I know something is comming.
The enjambments pull the reader along in a flow that more than works well.
The "L" sounds of your Lead line are so (peals, girlishly, merrily, childishly)
cheerfully feminine and musical.
I could be wrong, but I think there is a typo at the end of line 4 with "trough" instead
of "through". No big deal though.
"Ghostly sun-dust weeping trough
window lights brighten paths set in lacy web
wisp shadows thrown into remote corners
of long ago."
That Sentence is quite a mouthful, but truely the wording is fresh with "sun-dust"
and "lacey web wisp shadows" ( nice allit too!)
"Remote corners" implies that this is the stuff we have swept out of the forefront
of our minds and buried for a lifetime, more or less (hopefully, unless something
sparks the memory) like the stuff we throw in boxes in the basement because we have
no idea what to do with it. But we can not get rid of it. It haunts us like the
memories of the unspeakable.
Which bring us to "Hump backed trunks" and it's unique assonance and the image of
all the stuff we save in the basement or attic. Things that may hold meaning but
decay with time. your wording is sooooo fantastic. "Dirt-daubers drone" (nice use of
underpinnned also) Wow! A triple
allit that blows me away and evokes sound in such a way that between that and the
"croakers and Katydids" (God I love Katydids, they could lull anyone into submission)
there is an explosion of sound that heralds the comming of not twilight, no. Something
much much worse than darkness. How about bringing to light the dreaded memory that has
to take the place of what any woman wants to be able to remember(a normal girlish childhood
memory of sweet innocence).
But then that line about "Fabrics
of Time interwoven with man-kind’s sticky crystalline
threads inspire kindred mirror images in the
past." that one is absolutely unreal. Enough to make me stop dead in my tracks and
know that we have gotton to the crux of it. The bitter bitter end of it. I find myself
wanting to spit. Now that is POWERFULL!
From there the power builds with "Ice water freezes veins of the soul trying to recall
smiling summer days and nights of clear and precious
light before closeted fears reappear raging like weeds
in a patch of lovely lilting Lady Slippers." and I just can not believe it, Jana, The
writting here is utterly amazing! full of power and euphony and like a huge head-on collision
of innocence meets twistedness. Please don't take that the wrong way, but you certainly do know
how to turn a phrase.
The last part as a question has to be the most powerful. But of course your wording is stunning.
You know, I don't know what your beliefs are and I don't want to tread on your feelings, but I
must say if there ever was an instance where God takes something horrible and uses it for something
good, it is in the here and now.
Thank you for bearing your soul and sharing this experience with us that you might be able
to pull this from the basement and put it on the curb. Actually for your sake, I wish it
were that easy.
Please stay.
BLessings,
Jennifer
This Poem was Critiqued By: Claire H. Currier On Date: 2005-05-31 07:36:03
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.83077
Hi Poet......I have read, re read and read this one again......each time I come away with something different yet the same.......good structure, word flow, images of days gone by and of the memories that arise from certain things.........lovely lifting lady slippers.......indeed they are a flower of rare beauty Jana, hard to find now as I have looked over and over again, used to find when I was much younger, at the cottage on the lake, hidden deep in the woods........Croakers I might understand but Katydids I do not believe I have seen, heard or know of.....you paint such a dark picture my friend and I am sure it must have been ever so dark for those involved within the grasps of it..........I am so pleased to see your work once more, and that you are safe and in a new place.........hope you enjoy your new home........I would love to one day venture off that way.......take care, God Bless and thank you again for posting.....Claire
This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne M Uppendahl On Date: 2005-05-25 13:24:16
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Jana:
Unprepared was I for this exquisite poem. I recall your previous
writing, but this is a new voice. Stronger, fulminating, beauteous.
The poem itself a treasury. Only a few moments into reading it,
I was utterly gone. (Does not happen easily for this multi-tasking,
fleeting consciousness of mine.) But you pull the reader into
total awareness of your voice. I skimmed through it first for the
sheer rapture of your poetic voice. Then I slowed to accept the
pain of the “stark reality” – the shocking memories of the past.
I feel something different taking place here. Not easily defined.
I’m going to give it a lot of thought and reflection – for a very
long time. More immediately, I must respond to your lyricism –
it feeds me still, as it has before. (But nicely non-caloric!)
OK, now to the poem -- LOL!
Unrestrained sagacious memory conjures
peals of girlish laughter ringing out merrily
in childishly concocted games of Hide
and Seek.
You bring us into the moment, the memories, with you. As if all time
were now. As if our childhoods happen simultaneously.
“Ghostly sun-dust weeping trough
window lights brighten paths set in lacy web
wisp shadows thrown into remote corners
of long ago.” Oh I love this! It sings. It sings. Though ‘weeping’ is not
lost on me, your foreshadowing a gentle preparation.
“Hump-backed trunks cradle
ancient leather-bound yellowed torn pages
crowded amid pairs of high buttoned
shoes. “
“Hump-backed” brings allusions of hump-backed whales,
and ‘humping’ – such organic texture here. I always have appreciated
the ways of your enjambment, the way you keep energy flowing at such
a high rate. I am swept into this – (May have said that already.)
"Feathered woolen hats exude humid
perfumes for dry rotting dresses."
--dry, rotting as the past, connection with the feminine element of dresses.
Incredibly visual/tactile.
“silk time prisoners” —one of your phrases which will haunt me.
Magical. I could only love it more if I wrote it. LOL!
forms stored in upstairs walk-in closets warm
from summer beams. Dirt-daubers drone familiar –oh, yes!
concerts within eaves at dusk lulling drowsy
underpinned counter-point to Croakers and
Katydids heralding the coming of twilight.
(I have to slow down now and thank you for the Croakers and the Katydids. I love
them so much. Once when I lived in Tennessee, I was so in love with the Katydids
that I almost didn’t want to return to Washington. But we have more Croakers, and
they will always be my first live.)
“Fabrics of Time interwoven with man-kind’s sticky crystalline” –very strong allusion,
I caught it.
“Ice water freezes veins of the soul trying to recall” –here I feel the extreme cold,
amazing you are Jana, as much as before, but truly even more so. Am I making
sense?
“smiling summer days and nights of clear and precious
light before closeted fears reappear raging like weeds”
Yes, what lives in the basement, I read somewhere, thrives and grows.
Until brought before the light, as you are doing.
“in a patch of lovely lilting Lady Slippers. When did
the illusive hours of seemingly innocence dances
become immersed in Holy Trinity waters of stark reality?”
Hits powerfully, compellingly. The contrast of the purity of Lady Slippers
with the “stark reality” of what was done to this truly innocent child. There
is a fury in me now, as I recall so many things from my years of work with
survivors. I cannot express just now. I will have to go work in the flower beds
for a while. Jana, this is truly magnificent. It is you, back with the strongest
voice so far. I am in amaze.
Brava, Brava!
Blessings always,
Joanne
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