Miranda in Her First Short Poem
Miranda is swimming upstream,
her lungs about to burst.
She knows why she does it
but pretends she doesn't.
If she stops to think
she will drown
so she doesn't stop
and she doesn't drown.
Instead she swims on
thinking there's a destination,
a logical end
to this endless swimming.
How odd life is, full
of surprises. Miranda
takes a deep breath
and goes back down.
If you look closely,
catch a certain light,
you can see her smile,
red mouth, tiny silver bubbles.
Miranda is swimming upstream,
her lungs about to burst.
She knows why she does it
but pretends she doesn't.
If she stops to think
she will drown
so she doesn't stop
and she doesn't drown.
Instead she swims on
thinking there's a destination,
a logical end
to this endless swimming.
How odd life is, full
of surprises. Miranda
takes a deep breath
and goes back down.
If you look closely,
catch a certain light,
you can see her smile,
red mouth, tiny silver bubbles.
The Night of No Moon
There is a hurricane
whipping its way toward you
you in your cheap guest house,
away on business, no radio, no TV
no phone,
probably unaware or unprepared
while I, walking my penitent
three miles, wander the streets
under no moon, maddeningly
searching the dark, unlit sky
for signs of wind, of rain, of you.
As I round the last corner
I glance at my watch, tilting
it to the street lamp: 11 o'clock,
in time to catch the News,
the latest advisory for word
of you both.
The storm has stalled not far
from where you are, an island
prone to floods, erosion,
a mountainous land mass
not large enough to stop the wind,
the danger.
I am perversely envious:
our first hurricane, and you,
not I, will be the one who rides it out.
There are as yet no predictions
on the path it will take.
"Hurricanes do as they like,"
the weatherman says, as I plot
coordinates on my grocery store map,
count the days till my fortieth birthday:
disaster seems imminent.
I shower, try to sleep; it is the moon,
I think, or rather its lack
that makes me crazy.
Statistics say that people react to full moons,
but I am driven near mad by none.
No forward movement,
winds still at 85.
I lie awake searching my memory of you:
did I kiss you goodbye? When did we last
make love?
Two days later, you are home safe.
When you unpack, you bear gifts,
signs of your preparedness: a tube of Pringles chips,
package of crackers and cheese,
and a rock.
A piece of someone's home you say; another island
washed ashore. You found it grounded on the beach,
could almost hear the wailing,
like a shell picked up, held close to the ear.
I take you to bed. There is still no moon.
There is a hurricane
whipping its way toward you
you in your cheap guest house,
away on business, no radio, no TV
no phone,
probably unaware or unprepared
while I, walking my penitent
three miles, wander the streets
under no moon, maddeningly
searching the dark, unlit sky
for signs of wind, of rain, of you.
As I round the last corner
I glance at my watch, tilting
it to the street lamp: 11 o'clock,
in time to catch the News,
the latest advisory for word
of you both.
The storm has stalled not far
from where you are, an island
prone to floods, erosion,
a mountainous land mass
not large enough to stop the wind,
the danger.
I am perversely envious:
our first hurricane, and you,
not I, will be the one who rides it out.
There are as yet no predictions
on the path it will take.
"Hurricanes do as they like,"
the weatherman says, as I plot
coordinates on my grocery store map,
count the days till my fortieth birthday:
disaster seems imminent.
I shower, try to sleep; it is the moon,
I think, or rather its lack
that makes me crazy.
Statistics say that people react to full moons,
but I am driven near mad by none.
No forward movement,
winds still at 85.
I lie awake searching my memory of you:
did I kiss you goodbye? When did we last
make love?
Two days later, you are home safe.
When you unpack, you bear gifts,
signs of your preparedness: a tube of Pringles chips,
package of crackers and cheese,
and a rock.
A piece of someone's home you say; another island
washed ashore. You found it grounded on the beach,
could almost hear the wailing,
like a shell picked up, held close to the ear.
I take you to bed. There is still no moon.
| Barbra Nightingale Three Poems |
Thunder and Other Sensory Stimuli
From way out west
I hear it
muffled in a gauze sky
thick with heat,
heavy and darkening
like a sponge.
Of course there is no moon.
My heart beats faster,
the hair on my neck stands straight,
my pores begin to swell
physically, I am ready for wind,
for stormy lightning flashes,
the rattle of windows,
shaking of joints and struts.
I thrill when the lights go out
and rain is the only sound.
It is then I think of you,
of the music in our bodies,
the rhythms of the night.
I can hear my blood
like a jangling stream
as it zings beneath my skin
racing, always racing
to begin all over again.
But after all, aren't beginnings best?
I replay them over and over,
write them differently each time.
The latest has me riding out the storm.
From way out west
I hear it
muffled in a gauze sky
thick with heat,
heavy and darkening
like a sponge.
Of course there is no moon.
My heart beats faster,
the hair on my neck stands straight,
my pores begin to swell
physically, I am ready for wind,
for stormy lightning flashes,
the rattle of windows,
shaking of joints and struts.
I thrill when the lights go out
and rain is the only sound.
It is then I think of you,
of the music in our bodies,
the rhythms of the night.
I can hear my blood
like a jangling stream
as it zings beneath my skin
racing, always racing
to begin all over again.
But after all, aren't beginnings best?
I replay them over and over,
write them differently each time.
The latest has me riding out the storm.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Barbra Nightingale has published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Birmingham Review,
Chatahoochee Review, Liberty Hill Poetry Journal, Florida in Poetry, The MacGuffin, Crosscurrents, The Kansas
Quarterly, Cumberlands Poetry Journal, Passages North, The Florida Review, The Palmetto Review, The South
Florida Poetry Review, Coydog Review, Red Light/Blue Light, Voices International, Visions International, Teaching
English in the Two-Year College, and The Poet.
Barbra's book, "Singing In The Key Of L", is the 1999 winner of the National Federation of State Poetry Society
Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition.
She has had three chapbooks published, Lovers Never Die (1981), and Prelude to a Woman (1986), and Lunar
Equations (1993), and is currently competing for publication of her first major collection, Sweet Insomnia. She has
won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize ($1,000) in the 1991 National Federation of State Poetry
Societies Contest. Barbra Nightingale holds a doctoral degree in Higher Education and currently is an associate
professor of English at Broward Community College, South Campus, Florida.