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by J.L. Smith

Poetry Post-A-Thon: Purple Lullaby

This one was published in the now defunct Yellow Chair Review in an issue dedicated to Prince.

Purple Lullaby

It was by chance that I met Prince

when my life was constantly

walking in from the out door.

Being 10, ugly with acne, and

having a single mom in a nuclear

family town was brutal some days.

I counted heads each day at noon,

of the 4th and 5th graders in the

the long line that snaked out the hall

for lunch room seats, to see

where my bullies would be sitting,

and if I could eat in peace that day.

My cousin Jenny would invite me into her room

when I visited her, the sacred room,

behind the door that was always closed,

that opened to the Madonna, Springsteen

and Prince posters. A cheerleader

with ripped bleached jeans and crimped

blonde hair, Jenny and I never

talked about bullies, but Prince,

as we listened to When Doves Cry,

Let’s Go Crazy, and my favorite, Purple Rain.

 

At Christmas, she gave me my own Purple Rain LP.

Now, you can listen to it as much as you like,

she said. Not just when you are with me.

 

And, listen I did,

behind my closed bedroom door.

The record turned around and around on the turntable,

a hypnotic motion that guided me

to the comfort of the purple rain.

 

Later, after my regular babysitter

was fired for hitting me,

I stayed with my great aunt who liked

Garfield, bodice ripper romances, and the Rat Pack,

and hated how modern music just repeated

the same lines over and over,

like Purple Rain does.

 

She couldn’t possibly understand how Prince

sang to me a lullaby,

allowing me to sleep at night.

 

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by J.L. Smith

Poetry Post-A-Thon: Away with the Bitterness

This one was published in Peeking Cat Poetry

Away with the Bitterness

Uncle’s sweet tooth had to be satisfied and
each day he would fill his brown paper
lunch bag with a peanut butter sandwich,
always with wheat bread,
and two peanut butter cups.

My eleven-year-old eyes watched
this ritual each day while eating
the Life cereal he had prepared for me:
a half bowl with two heaping
tablespoons of sugar and a seventies
era Tupperware cup of milk.

I would later learn that while he
breakfasted with me each day,
my aunt would be in the next room
giving herself the morning insulin shot.

Uncle would always be given sweets
because no one could think of
anything else he would enjoy.
Besides the occasional jar of Brazilian
or cashew nuts, were the Whitman candies
most people reserved as an obligatory gift
for someone they did not know.

His wife would watch the candy with bitter eyes,
for she could not have the crust at Pizza Hut,
nor the breaded fish at Long John Silvers,
which blocked her calls because she
complained too much on their hotline.

It was she who begged him long ago to leave
his love in England during the war
to join her in the States, or else,
the blood would run not from
the trenches of Europe,
but rather the veins
in her wrists back home.

On Christmas, he would smile knowing the candy
he was to receive, and she scowled
as he passed the chocolate caramels around,
encouraging all but her to a Merry Christmas:

by J.L. Smith

Poetry Post-A-Thon: Chaos and Conformity

This one was published in Alaska Women Speak

Chaos and Conformity
The shoes sat orderly on three wood shelves
outside the Korean school
in shades of brown,
with no princesses,
no action figures on them—
nothing to outwardly distinguish one
set from another.
As you enter,
the foreign English language teacher,
you expect the shoes belong to bodies
that are
full of chaos,
full of yells,
full of squeals.
You imagine arms and legs smeared
with paint and paste.
Instead,
the sea of gray and blue shirts,
pants and jumpers,
is a sea of conformity and calm,
shattered by the appearance of
the dissimilar,
the foreign,
of language
and of appearance—
you.

by J.L. Smith

Poetry Post-A-Thon: A Greeting at Imjingak

This poem originally appeared in Alaska Women Speak.

A Greeting at Imjingak

She ambled off the tour bus,
like she was crossing over rocks
in a rough river,
one half step at a time.
Glancing outside at the concrete building
like a child greets an amusement park,
she wore at least seventy years
in the lines of her smile,
a face that remembered a time
before the Forgotten War,
when the Koreas were one.

She bows her head,
Annyong hashimnikka,
she says to the young American couple,
the visiting airman and his wife,
stationed at Osan Air Force Base,
who were there because the war
never really ended in peace,
but in an armistice,
a pause in play,
a forgotten war,
between two Cold War superpowers:
one of which no longer exists;
the other whose boots still remain,
generations after they declared victory.

You both stumble and trip in your speech,
over the barbed wire that ties your tongue
and stings your stomach as you attempt
to return the formal, honorific
form of the greeting she used.

Inside you wish you were not there
so maybe she would not be there either.

The South Korean tourists come to Imjingak
to see what they cannot touch,
what they cannot feel,
who they cannot see in the flesh,
of a land that was once theirs,
the men and women who they once knew,
and decades later,
cannot forget.
The Americans come to see the plaques
from each state that gave men in combat,
that mark their success that divided
the Korean brothers and sisters
and repelled Communism to the 38th parallel.
They want to see the Bridge of Freedom
over the Imjin river
that returned their POWs
and ended their battle in the Korean War.

They want to glance at the forbidden land of North Korea,
beyond the fields of tank traps and mines
bearing three languages of warning:
Korean, Chinese and English,
to the concrete no-man’s land created
to keep the fragile peace and division.

Nothing could prepare your gut for that smile,
that glow that greets you at the bus,
the one which seems grateful,
rather than spiteful,
for your continual military presence,
the generation who still wants
your boots on their ground.

You stumble over the wires
that tangle your tongue:
you cannot say it well in Korean;.
you cannot even say it aloud in English.

You are sorry she is there,
and that you are still there,
and the Bridge of Freedom
did not set her free.

by J.L. Smith

Poetry Post-A-Thon: Babushka’s Samovar

This one was published in Alaska Women Speak

 

Babushka’s Samovar

 

The samovar placed on the kitchen table

is a poor replica of babushka’s samovar,

the silver one with the tiny teapot at the top

that held the strongest tea,

the tea she cautioned your tiny hand

not to touch,

not to hold.

Just watch, my devochka,

she would say,

as she poured the concentrated tea

into tiny china cups:

for you a little; for her a lot.

 

She would exhale the steam off her cup

like she was blowing off a potion,

like a spell casting you both back

to the old country,

the Good Russia of the tsars,

not the bad Russia where Lenin lived,

in the stories she would tell.

 

She takes you to the Samara of her youth,

when the tsar still lived

and the grand duchesses were the most

beautiful girls in the world,

as her tea cakes disappear

and your tea runs cold.

 

Today, your middle-aged hands fill

the teapot of your own samovar, far

less beautiful than babushka’s and made

of brass from new Russia.

You hope she doesn’t mind the cheap

imposter as you set two ceramic cups out,

and babushka’s spirit takes you to the

banks of the Volga just one more time.

by J.L. Smith

Poetry Post-A-Thon: Bar Fine

This one was also published in Dead Snakes.

Bar Fine

She gyrated against the pole, but not
to the beat of the Kylie Minogue song
that played in the background
in the juicy bar, as her eyes zoned out
beyond the drunk American airmen
and Korean businessmen, the layers of
smoke and watered down shots of
cherry soju she had to sell later on,
beyond the walls and dirty streets
of Songtan, South Korea to the Odessa
she had long left,
but not forgotten.

The black wrap dress squeezed
the tops of her firm breasts and thighs
as the Korean flagged her to his table,
palm faced inward as it waved.

Later, the American beckoned her to his lap
with a crook of his index finger.
His ten thousand Korean won bought her
warm buttocks and watery lemon soju.

His wallet was thick and the airman
lonely without the wife from Georgia.
The Ukrainian with the gray eyes
and golden hair who patted his lap,
as she dreamt she was dead,
was good enough.

She had a son named Volodya
whom she wanted to see again
run across the green fields,
catch the ball and laugh,
and to see her mother’s eyes once more,
even if mama would not look
her in the eye ever again.

Before the local mafia took her visa
and the female Korean bar owner bought
her servitude, she dreamt of college
and life outside the shoe factory,
but the gentleman sold her life
and dreams to another land.

Her boss gave her the nod,
the bar fine had been paid,
and she was to leave the bar and
give the airman something she had
stopped feeling a long time ago.

But, he was too drunk to notice
the open window in the dingy apartment
he rented blocks down from the bar
and allowed her to close the bathroom door.

Beyond the square of the open window,
she saw Volodya’s eyes
in the street lights off in the distance.

Squeezing through the darkness,
the black knit dress ripped,
shredded and scraped raw
against her skin as she glided
through the hole like a diver in the open water,
before falling like a fish to the ground,
where she flopped naked, and ran,
ran to Volodya,
ran into the dark night,
until they wouldn’t let her run anymore.