Three Poems by Patricia Furstenberg on Lothlorien Poetry Journal

Thrilled and honored to have three poems featured on the prestigious Lothlorien Poetry Journal under Editor and Poet Strider Marcus Jones.

Read:

Tread Where There’s no Path
The Chart on my Hands
Cold under the Sturgeon Moon

Tread Where There’s no Path

“Don’t walk where others trod before
but rather step where none set foot prior
and tread barefoot, if need be
to leave even a trail.

Don’t deem as right the cursing mind
that sings them praises all around
and steers green minds to twisted trees
without a chance to ever break them free.

This blithe young heart that pumps inside
your chest, so deeply unconcerned,
This bright young mind that sparks wild thoughts,
that never knew the taste of reins,

this reasoning, still young from shell,
eager in stride and not in aim,
why waste it by stepping on another’s print?
Its mark’s exclusive only to your mind.

At present, days may lack rewards
and drearier seem still, like winter’s leaden,
but trust your step, its path is marked,
foundation set, and marked in strength for future.

What else, you ask, your eyebrow arched –
the meekest hint of youth laid out,
Stand tall, spread out your legs, trod on,
aim for your own path, don’t duplicate.

Patricia Furstenberg
“Thread Where There’s No Path” was first published online on Lothlorien Poetry Journal

The Chart on my Hands by Patricia Furstenberg

On this chart your calloused hands
spread before me, the parchment crinkling,
frail along folds,
stained, wavering edges,
I choose to follow,
the grid will guide my trail,
you trace your finger, no need for words
from here to there you will travel,
such a long road I imagine absorbed by
your skin, thin and leathery
as if water and sun hit it constantly.
Along its netting, on the map,
a pattern routing the complexities
of my life,
I go.

Your fingers drum here, and there
leaving fingerprints on the map
marking stop-overs
I only later remember
you’ve mentioned.
There are ridges, the way the map was folded
as you kept it in your breast pocket,
they birthed gorges.
There are highlands,
for good measure, following suit,
and streams,
I wonder if you wept as I looked away,
riverbeds too, crooked, aged,
it was an old map,
laden with nostalgia.

Here, the vintage print illustrates
the secluded path
where I’ll meet a girl
with the sweetest face,
then the shadowed street
where we’ll share a home
and many laughers,
an enchanted life,
among flowers and everlasting scents.
But what a short stay,
I see now.

The uphill follows next, blood stained,
ensnared,
in a poised landscape,
in a distant land,
forced in a stamped existence.
It was all marked,
I see. Now.

I don’t want to follow
the map laid out for me,
why should I fight battles
I never chose to be in,
spend my body
creating ties
that repose riches
I had no knowledge of?

I stretch out my hands
and cover the map,
erase the mountains
and the deep shafts
and believe they are gone.
Invisible to the eye.

Look at your hands, you say.
I turn them over, and there are
the mountains, rivers, streets and towns.
closed borders, forced entrances,
The landmarks I covered before
Blue lines, on my hands.

And at the end of my path
that you set out
in the palm of my hand
and I could not choose
not to take
I see the sea.
Okay, I’ll go.

Cold under the Sturgeon Moon by Patricia Furstenberg

Tranquillity, bridge over the harbour,
the falsehood of rotten wood.
Speechless were we
as the Sturgeon moon introduced
the night symphony, stellar and amphibian
like an orchestra warming up.

Ignite, the moon did in the sapphire sky
its powdery soot, you said, the darkest shade
of the heaviest shell
that lies on the bottom of the sea.
Let’s watch the show, I prayed
knowing you won’t trust this symphony.

My heart soars free.
I hold your hand, the show’s at end,
the moon went dead, and night passed by.
Chill fills my palm: it claimed your arm,
the dimple that’s above your elbow.
Hush, hush, at peace, I whisper.

Copyright © Patricia Furstenberg. All Rights Reserved.

Lothlorien Poetry Journal publishes periodically, 4-6 issues every year. Contributors to each issue ( selected from the best work published on the Journal’s Blog).

More poetry on my blog here.