Anne Cope Wallace's blog

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Setting Psychological Boundaries : Anne Cope Wallace

Setting Psychological Boundaries : Anne Cope Wallace

http://annecopewallace.vox.com/librar...

Originally published in Newark Star-Ledger, April 16, 1998 by Sharon Sheridan Author helps women trace and defend boundaries of the soul Writer from Madison draws on psychology and her experience When Madison (New Jersey) author Anne Wallace talks about boundaries, she isn't talking about property...

Moon Poem (1995)

MOON POEM

 

The moon, the way

it sits so simply

never calling

attention to the skies,

shifting clouds

or even to itself,

a yellow lantern

fixed so close I might

have hung it there,

stepping sweet

 

and high on a runged

ladder in the sullen

night air .  Once I set

the moon so close

that I can touch

the stubborn beams,

I know a path to follow,

moving slowly

down the winding road,

gliding through

the valleys and the towns

 

sprinkled like sand,

yellow sand in the dusk,

moving on until

the highway bends

around folded mountains,

the blue and shaded 

Appalachians, but here

the road is lifting,

granite cliffs scribed

with orange strokes

 

like a child’s crayon

scrawls, the moon

hanging yellow-golden,

fixed so low and still

so lonely I can almost

hold it in my hands,

I can almost speak

the question, when will I

be home, home at last?

February 2003 : In Memoriam - To The Astronauts

 

 

IN MEMORIAM – TO THE ASTRONAUTS

February 1, 2003

 

The body wakes to an ache

that is bearable, that is

unbearable, that rises and falls,

flung deep in the roots

of the blazing azalea,

the budding spring,

 

in a night still twisted

with wonder and fear,

while we search

without dreams, search

for the sign that will lead us,

but how will we know  

 

where to turn when the stars

are blazoned with anger

and the moon

rocks the dying,

dissolving in desert sand. 

Is it still an hour until dawn?

 

 

Anne Cope Wallace

Montgomery, Alabama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anne Cope Wallace : Poetry : Dark Dreams, Lightning Dreams

Dark Dreams, Lightning Dreams

I heard the thunder last night

and it was the color

of the inside of my dreams.

These were dark brown dreams

and lightning dreams,

brilliant and scary and quick,

thin as pebbles, thick as stones.

I stood on a city street waiting

for the bus, but I couldn't

remember my destination,

it might be East 74th Street,

Amsterdam Avenue

or even the West Village

and inside the dreams I scolded

myself for not knowing

where I lived or where I worked.

I couldn't believe I

had forgotten and in the dream

I saw no husband or child,

only my younger self

wearing a white raincoat

in a city where the wind

and frozen rain never stopped,

where I shivered as I walked

in my thin patent pumps.

I had no gloves either

except white cotton ones

for church, no scarves except

gauzy ones for sparkling, 

and I kept losing my glasses,

leaving them on the rumpled

tablecloths of restaurants, 

in glazed bars, or a young man's 

coat pocket, which I thought 

was much too personal,

which I thought must  be love.

publication pending

Anne Cope Wallace : Poetry : Love Letters

Love Letters

The train, silver

smooth and narrow,

squares of lighted

yellow in the dusk.

You are clasped tight,

blond and ribbon

tied, buttons looped,

yet I know

how easily you unravel,

how you fling yourself

against darkness falling,

the blue passages

you take alone.

From the blank apron

of the station

the conductor waves

to let me know you'll be safe,

he will adore you

all the way to Penn Station,

and the engineers,

riders in their plush blue seats

are writing you

love letters, my darling daughter,

the train flashes on.

Anne Cope Wallace : Poetry : Woman At The Wheel

Woman At The Wheel

I drive the wide sweet bend

of  Parsonage Hill Road,

passing the white frame church,

the corner graveyard where

early settlers, young soldiers

of the Revolution lie sleeping.

Gliding the river trail I speed

toward Georgia or Texas 

with a spin of the wrist.

The road is cupped yellow lilies,

crimson clover, purple vetch,

and I am all powerful woman.

I slip over bridges,

across wrinkled green oceans

grasping planets

of ice and stars in my fists.

Wearing the peaks of mountains

on twin shoulders, I see beyond hills,

beyond thickets,

beyond sprinkled horizons.

Twelve healthy dragons breathe

by blue fire.

publication pending

Anne Cope Wallace : Poetry : Vieux Carre, Jackson Square, Febuary 1995

Anne Cope Wallace : Poetry : Vieux Carre, Jackson Square, Febuary 1995

http://annecopewallace.vox.com/librar...

I come to this city of lost causes bringing my alabaster secrets with me, I bury them all under the river, the mud-lined Mississippi where they lie like sleeping ghosts. The sculpted marble ghost of General Andrew Jackson (fierce warrior, champion of the white man's cause) rises in his namesake...

Anne Cope Wallace : Poetry : Vieux Carre, Jackson Square, Febuary 1995

Vieux Carre, Jackson Square, February 1995

I come to this city of lost causes

bringing my alabaster secrets with me, 

I bury them all

under the river, 

the mud-lined Mississippi

where they lie like sleeping ghosts.

The sculpted marble ghost

of General Andrew Jackson

(fierce warrior, 

champion of the white man's cause)

rises in his namesake square.

His gallant steed rears,

arrested in mid-gallop,

as the bayou sky slides

close blue and boneless

over green-bronze spires

of the cathedral,

smooth sanded basilicas

reaching high into the thick river air.

Does the river know my secrets,

my silken shadows,

and does this deep sweet air

comfort the weathered boys

whose spines grow molded

to black benches of cast iron,

these breathless boys

whose cheeks will surely break

the grass tonight

with their strange human touch. 

publication pending 

ANNE COPE WALLACE : POETRY : THAT NIGHT

"That Night " by Anne Cope Wallace

2008 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, Honorable Mention,

 

 Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College