Jessica is my wife. She has written poems since the age of 12 & has written some great poems. Check out more of Jess's poems @ Avatar Review, Sidereality, Eclectica, Ache, Stride, Paumanok Review, Tryst 1 & 2, Voices 1 & 2, Womb, and Rocket To Blogspot The poems keep on coming!
Jessica Schneider's Poems: "And God Only Lets Me Live To Sang About It" Another Woman + translated into French by Jean Migrenne Extension For Her + translated into French by Jean Migrenne From the Box of the Zoo Fox Gala And The Cliff In The Tightness Of My Sonnet In Time, Andree Rexroth... + translated into French by Jean Migrenne Moth Lost In A Laboratory Observation.... Orchids and everything since The Animals Lay Time Una, Instead Wild Poppies + translated into French by Jean Migrenne
“And God only lets me live to sang about it”
-Ella Fitzgerald, August, 1956
The twitch of BarB-Q hitchin’ the wind must’a pulled us
into summertime, twenty-some miles southbound to Memphis.
Through the high cotton, the boys seemed as hungry, much
then when their jazz must’a felt the need to stretch
like I know mine did. It had been at least two hours or so
since we last stopped. I can’t know fo’ sure, but sumpthin’
kept on tellin’ me so. Couldn’t’a stopped just anywheres
for rest, y’know. “That gal gits up and sangs
like sumpthin’ I’ze never seen!”, Ol’ Chick use’to say.
But 23-skiddoo is what I can’t do
to stop the buses or trains, the way those white gals can,
tied to their Hollywood fames. “Bess in her old folk dress”
is what I use’to think when Pops sung to me
“you is my woman now” from the throne of his throat.
In ’39 I fell into ballads the way y’all would fall
into love; not realizin’ you’d done it till y’had
stories to tell, sumpthin’ to live for.
Southbound, twenty-some miles to Memphis,
and we keeps on keepin’ on, till the good Lord takes us
where we needs to git. “I....want sumpthin’....
to live for....” We’s almost there. But I ain’t
no musician. I use what I got- people know me.
Just like the song say, “From sea ta shinin’ sea.”
I can burrow inta this continent’s skin.
Every syllable I makes gits these boys
and pulls’em home. They’ll git with their wives.
Make babies. I’ll git off once I’m where I needs to git.
Just till we hits twenty-some miles from here,
southbound, to Memphis. My Ma use’to tell me,
“Baby, if you’ze can stop traffic, you halfway wheres
ya needs ta git!” It’s been seventeen years since this trip began,
too long a way for any gal’s way home.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider
Sophie Tolstoy
How awful to ache for old habits, habits that hook
perfection once surrendered when wed.
A diary once again, begins me. Outside,
a world slants backwards, far past January
windows, crossing slumbered hills, pale sheeted,
a turn of body, awakening
the drowsed polar pavement. The bedding
rises flat, uninhibited
snow. Sprays of frost taper
ice cusps to houses, murmur, dull as diligence,
one-sided. And I am inside, watching. This
is a good time to begin
without motion or mourning
sickness, rapid blinkings made to break
the machine that warms and works, milks,
knits, and walks without thinking,
without looking, when one is quiet
at reading or cooking. But who am I
kidding. I am no writer. Just winter-
less applause, heavy under the lost
thumb of enthusiasm.
The stars, moon, sky, and sun all coincide.
Distractions yellowed with age,
multitudes. Our children flock and come to think
One
ought to have something else
to love as well. Thoughts I have,
and the means to contort
them. So very happy, am I
with cleverness. Not by my own
life grown tired with tenderness,
green with energy. Far from loveliness, I stand. Idle,
not by nature, under the somber order:
I
am only as slow as the world
allows me to be. I wish for meadows and noon, magnolia
abstractions that leave scent when they swelter.
A crow fissures my wanting
on the tree, branches my skirt. Two boughs
up, I defy attachments. Its veins have never felt
so contained. Patiently,
I fear my children will forget
their mother if I begin to think this way, his way,
in jealousy, loving more than myself.
I hear the world’s startled choir, bells affirming
sanctity. Tomorrow I’ll thank The Church
for my family. O, how I would love to believe
in them! Tumultuous anchors
husky and brazen as unkept men, resonating
homes, far-crested January seas that drench
small sleep, and bong
features flat as watercolor.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider
Sophie Tolstoï
Affreuse nostalgie d’habitudes passées au placard
des perfections d’une vie maritale.
Première page de mon journal, encore. Dehors,
glisse à rebours d’un monde loin des fenêtres
de janvier, par les monts assoupis,
drapé de lin pâle, tournure, réveil-matin
d’une rue polaire engourdie. Literie
en haut-plateau de neiges
sans complexe. Givre en épis
au faîte des maisons, routine ruminée,
parti pris. À l’abri, je regarde. C’est
le bon moment pour commencer
à vaquer, sans vague à l’aube,
papilloter, dégommer
la machine qui réchauffe, travaille, allaite,
tricote et va sans penser
ni regarder, dans le silence,
au livre ou au fourneau.
À d’autres ! Je n’écris pas. Mon hiver
croule sous les marques
d’un manque d’enthousiasme.
Lune, étoiles, ciel et soleil, tout fait un.
Dérivatifs jaunis par le temps,
les multitudes. Nos enfants affluent avec l’idée
qu’il devrait y avoir quelque chose d’autre
à aimer, en plus. Mes pensées,
j’ai les moyens
de les accommoder. L’intelligence
me fait tant plaisir. Mais pas ma vie,
fanée de tendresse,
verte d’énergie. Loin de la beauté, plantée là,
immobile, non par nature, sous l’ordre chagrin,
je n’ai de lenteur que celle que me prête
le monde. Je veux des prés à midi, des magnolias
de rêve, odorants dans leur profusion.
Dans l’arbre, un corbeau déchire ma disette,
Les rameaux mon jupon. Deux branches
plus haut, je nargue les amarres : ces veines-là
jamais ne se sont senties si à l’étroit. Patiente,
je crains que mes enfants n’oublient
leur mère si je me prends à penser ainsi, comme lui,
jalousement, à aimer plus que moi-même.
J’entends le sursaut du monde en chœur, le carillon
de sainteté. Demain je rendrai grâce à l’Église
pour les miens. Oh, comme j’aimerais
y croire ! Bronzes de rogomme, flibustiers,
tumulte sous les toits,
écume et lointaines lames de janvier
fracassées sur le sommeil léger,
traits écrasés en aquarelle.
Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
Extension for Her
* for Chia
Never before has one been so befuddled
by the woods. Night faces twist out of pine,
those secrets in the roots- (they know where she is
hidden). Oaks shape hands, motion into rhyme,
profile. Twigged spaces streak indifference
over the shallow meld, sky, clues swaddled
by the blank call of spruce.
Daylight interjects
with birds, and on-looking, is the window
facing the woods, between the openness
that intimidates most. This place no longer
perches my cat, a screen blown in by rain
escapes me. How memories rearrange
a fairness we cannot understand. Below
understated grasps, still I wish for her.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider
Je cherche mon chat
*À Chia
Jamais auparavant ils ne m'ont tant saoulée,
ces bois. La pinède faite nuit de grimaces,
puise dans les secrets, (l'arbre sait où il se
cache). Les chênes manigancent des silhouettes
rimées. Les branches strient de leur indifférence
un fourre-tout de ciel et d'indices qu'étouffe
le silence des sapins.
Le jour s'interpose
en oiseaux. La fenêtre donne sur les bois,
mais s'entremet en espace qui tellement
intimide. Quel est, au lieu du chat perché,
l'effet d'une toile que gonfle une rafale
de pluie? Ce que le souvenir peut imposer
à la beauté défie l'entendement. Tout reste
geste manqué, mais je cherche encore mon chat.
Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
From the Box of the Zoo Fox [HEAR THIS POEM READ ON OMNIVERSICA SHOW 8!]
Consciousness blinks. The star of the eye seems
to recall a swiftness into being
young. Barking at play, the kin of wild
terrain junctures to relocation whether
his willingness played or not. Now all is gone,
as captivity seasons freedom’s wave.
A cage distinguishes his days as they wave,
these visitors who pass and stare. For what seams
inhabit an Arctic having now gone
artificial in glass surrounds? Being
a zoo-boxed fox, the native of chilled weather,
his sides attend a circling all the while
repetitive as dream on dream. Charging while
an earth invades an earth’s enclosure, the wave
settles its grazing eye. He wonders whether
curiosity is worth this space. Seems
evolution had a trick in mind when being
planned, a pup among a mother’s pups, gone
awry. Into summer now, he is too gonzo
to remember his wintered twist of interest. While
fowl and frogs plea for the wind to cease being,
the Arctic creeps to the shore’s northern waives.
The sea keeps creatures moving at what sees
a city of their own demise, crisp weathered
ice continuing. For what is whither
but the orb of wander? All chasing has gone
graced, in embracing his cage at what seems
to shine. For dimness always is the wild
nocturne. There is no light, only dream that waives
under the slip of pasture and plain, a non-being
who muscles between the wheels of his being.
A cage awakens in a stir unwaived
beneath the crawled in place. All effort has gone
through glass. Nerves clutch in shadow-like vane, while
silenced in tracing, a fibrous seal
unentering, nor slipping freedom. Whether
a fox dream matters or not as real or seemed,
one cannot know in grasping for weathered
glaciers, unending worlds of world, the wild wild.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider [Reprinted from The Avatar Review]
Gala and the Cliff
* after Dali¢
decide its evolution, gain and loss,
and count its shares?
Thus it is done: and she
closes, young, in his eye, new company
steers the path, and takes what that flare will lead.
Doll-laced and prized, she births in his caress,
which only he can see, full torso, limbless
and white. A canvas makes hands, upholds dead
grace from nymph to wife, Galatea’s untouched
draft invades. Only which needs more? A fossiled,
solitary skull, or a push by the craft
that traced her, naked as the world remembers,
marriaged under, as tiger and swan, she rivals
what the artist’s drop of time would gravely lend.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider
In time, Andree Rexroth….
· for Kenneth
Would life continues, ten thousand years from now,
as it ever has, the always shifting sun,
into summer photons, casting its hunt
of your skin, as we walked young and alone,
and listened for the hiss the creek made over
its cobbled way. That song will surely fade
the anonymous air of days. We thought
they would not come. They have.
If there was ever
an evolution, and you existed, once
as some primitive being, tiny in its form
of known flesh, a timeless piece of afternoon
and tenderness, I would still you, your ash
scattered in tangible place, where your poems made
my life, my thoughts, my ten thousand years ago.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider
À dix mille ans, Andrée Rexroth….
· À Kenneth
La vie, je la voudrais à dix mille ans d'ici
toujours là, par le soleil toujours, changée en
particules d'été, projetée en poursuite
de ta peau, comme au temps où nous allions à deux,
seuls au monde, écouter le ruisseau sur son lit
de galets. Car ce chant couvrira, j'en suis sûre,
l'anonyme voix des jours. Que nous ne pensions
pas voir échus. Et pourtant.
Si jamais au cours
d'une évolution tu avais existé,
être primitif, minuscule bout de chair
identifiée, fragment toujours d'après-midi
et de tendresse, tu serais bien là pour moi,
cendres répandues où tes poèmes ont fait
ma vie, mes pensées, à dix mille ans d'aujourd'hui.
Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
A beauty circumvents that which beguiles. Do the eyes not soften upon the tile, Aside a wall, tilted wings, brazen, while Toward the cosmos, artificial light files In landing, where the dishroom is, docile, Textured wings, swift in horizontal style, Copyright © by Jessica Schneider Observation, North America Over Twilight Orion A waning rain gathers in layers Two creatures, one gray, the other red, mostly speckled Which will chase the other out? When berries rot and beetles bury Copyright © by Jessica Schneider Perfection. And a field numerate, [square land] moving pictures. to clash detail inheritance. A petal symmetrical hearts, orchids and lilies vivid as remains lawns. A blaze sings Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider Small sea creature, such a range for size
and lower still, pharaohs once built structures as you-
within your life. How is it that the whales
their free, unrelenting bubbles, spin drifting
the dominant powers unseal ten thousand years.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider Una, Instead Nothing outlasts this envy of the hawks, count on such things. Little or nothing takes
Swarmed, such creature’s willful sounded plight
frees into moth, substance of the spiral.
among the whimsical gesture-sifted flight?
A beauty circumvents that which beguiles.
nearing investigation: a severed sight
frees into moth, substance of the spiral.
between air’s shifting flee into flight.
A beauty circumvents that which beguiles.
it commands, dashing spans of whispered height,
frees into moth, substance of the spiral.
cross tethered interiors of light.
A beauty circumvents that which beguiles,
frees into moth, substance of the spiral.
the sidewalk numbs. Beside a restaurant window, unconscious
shrubbery seeds autumn’s plunge, cool September sloshing
sun. Silence scales some leafy bower, ordinary trees,
fat apples, and hickory.
and overfed, each race after the other
in spirals, goes the stubborn game. Around corners,
sound and grit, street puddles of car slop and city slip,
they clamor upward in this tree.
themselves in soil, resonance coils their star-felt trees to leap north.
a photo resonates
in passing. As orchids
setting stems writhe
into lyrics,
Abstraction undermines
an eye’s permission
branching
vegetation, harmonial
fuses the fringed
purple breaths,
shapes that escape
breeze. Silvering electricity,
pair to orchestrate
seduction,
catch and trill
spring, lengthening
the waving brushwood,
the flavor of one full note.
are you, delightful, yet non-specific.
Know your home, coral reefs, the timepieces
of the sea, and further down, a cathedral
of history has met eyes of great explorers,
throughout the oblivious arranging and rearranging sweep
of the tides, individually phased
by your own mobile, soft and current strength,
moving you just a single inch
perceive their mates, massive barges
from the depths of the salty haze,
spuming their radiant syllables into the open
world, their steep, up roaring bursts that twist,
no hint into the creation you lead? From the tiny
vortexed spawn of your showers, lifting love
into the seas for intelligent futures to witness this art:
(for the artist in which everyday must be lived)
· after Robinson Jeffers
we feel. When they touch the top of the sky
inside, it only weighs us further. Away
in the open waves of wind, that own no world,
we notice the idleness of the seas
below. The round, red dawn at the planet’s swirl,
and the forested ground. Our habits touch,
become trees that return to you. For I cannot
me, my dear, the world feels flat when I stand,
oppressed into plane, without your surround
I fear. A home for what is known can put
mountains in your terrain. Rock will always be,
another faraway place we will climb.
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider
Possibility pins to this
awful field, stuck to the canvas
in Monet, who put here
via few brush strokes. The lack of detail
pulls with its marvelous hooks
into the tart earth’s puckering
greens, wonder that can be nice
in nothing ever certain.
The untamed redness awaits,
plucking from the safe life sticks.
At a glance, I fear my disconnecting
one or two, for I pick what is
closest, as my hands cannot nurture
them all at once.
[Click on the title to see the painting the poem is based on]
Copyright Ó by Jessica Schneider
Il a quelque chose L'éruption rouge attend, Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
à faire peur ce pré piqué
sur la toile que Monet
brosse à l'économie. Le détail absent
darde d'étonnantes griffes
sous la fronce verte d'une acerbe
terre, miracle de délicatesse
dans un monde d'incertitude.
sur tiges vitales à l'abri.
J'ai pu en rompre
une ou deux, car mes mains cueillent,
incapables qu'elles sont
de s'occuper de tout à la fois.