Upcoming Events and Publications

Tonight November 30 at 8:30 PM -- Open Mic at Brick and Mortar in Cocoa Village.  Please come along to read or listen or both!

December 7 at 6:30 PM -- in UUtopia in Second Life.  Readings from Soul Hill Lullabies and an open mic reading.

December 9 at 6:30 PM -- At the Progress Energy Art Gallery in New Port Richey, I will be doing a reading of selections from Soul Hill Lullabies.  This will be followed by an open reading.

December 10 at 6:00 PM -- At The Buzz in Tampa, several featured poets will present recent works in this event to bring attention to and raise money for the BlueBird Book Bus.  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bluebirdbooks/the-bluebird-books-bus

My latest piece inworld has just come out on the November issue of Pillowtalk.  The magazine is free and easy to get in Second Life.

I have two erotic selections in this month's Bedtime Stories and Art.  If you are interested in subscribing to that ezine, please visit their web site.

Also one of my poems will appear in the fall edition of Progeny.  I will post here when that is available online.

Of course, my new book Soul Hill Lullabies, is available by contacting me through this blog or by emailing divapresspublications@gmail.com

Good Girls' ThanksGivings

Good Girls' ThanksGivings
by Stephanie Mesler


Good girls say thank you
in flowing longhand
on daintily painted note cards with violets in the corners,
cards kept on hand for giving thanks when thanks are
required.  
Good girls say thank you
for the effort
for the thought
for inclusion
absolution
restitution
They are the ones who write in gratitude journals because their God, Oprah, says they should
They write
and write
about the blessings in their lives
about how lucky they are to face each day smiling from the start
knowing God does not demand of them more than they can handle
Good girls know that suffering is good for the soul.
They thank God for opportunities to overcome
what hurts,
what rips at the seams,
what all but kills,
even that which does.
Good girls live each day behind fuchsia panes
waiting
for more reasons to say thank you.

The rest of us
send our thanks by email
resorting to telephone when the recipient of our gratitude is too ancient for the net
We do not say thank you often,
never for something we were owed.
We know effort only counts in preschool
and absolution is mythology.
The rest of us persist in perpetual motion,
living lives of intense reality,
knowing that God and Oprah damn well do expect too much
and note cards are expensive.  

Reading Scheduled in New Port Richey December 9th!

December 9 at 6:30 PM, I will be doing a reading of selections from Soul Hill Lullabies at Progress Energy Art Gallery in New Port Richey.  http://www.nprgallery.com/   The featured reading will be followed by an open mic poetry hour.  the gallery will have copies of my book, Soul Hill Lullabies, for sale.  Please join us and consider reading a poem of your own or one you admire.

Good Girls ThanksGivings

Good Girls ThanksGivings
by Stephanie Mesler


Good girls say thank you
in flowing longhand
on daintily painted note cards with violets in the corners,
cards kept on hand for giving thanks when thanks are
required.  
Good girls say thank you
for the effort
for the thought
for inclusion
absolution
restitution
They are the ones who write in gratitude journals because their God, Oprah, says they should
They write
and write
about the blessings in their lives
about how lucky they are to face each day smiling from the start
knowing God does not demand of them more than they can handle
Good girls know that suffering is good for the soul.
They thank God for opportunities to overcome
what hurts,
what rips at the seams,
what all but kills,
even that which does.
Good girls live each day behind fuchsia panes
waiting
for more reasons to say thank you.

The rest of us
send our thanks by email
resorting to telephone when the recipient of our gratitude is too ancient for the net
We do not say thank you often,
never for something we were owed.
We know effort only counts in preschool
and absolution is mythology.
The rest of us persist in perpetual motion,
living lives of intense reality,
knowing that God and Oprah damn well do expect too much
and note cards are expensive.  

Luperca's Dream, A Video Recording

Some months ago, a friend reminded me of of the legends about the founding of Rome, the story of The Sabine Women and their abduction.  I decided I wanted to write about these women and started researching the story.  It is a compelling one in many ways.  It took me a while to determine that their voices will be best heard in poems, as opposed to fiction or drama, both of which I considered.  What follows is a recording of Luperca's Dream, which will be the first poem in the cycle, Lamentations of The Sabine Women.  

Luperca’s Dream
by Stephanie Mesler

Luperca’s Dream is the  first poem in a poem cycle, Lamentations of the Sabine Women.

Two stars over Tiber light my way
home, a cave facing east
overhung with vine,
the place to which I return,
where once I was a shepherd’s wife
a mother of babes too hardy for drowning,
sons of Mars, their blood so red it stained the night

Now, I am the mother of warriors,
who fight for right
and settle for might.
These are my boys,
not of my flesh,
my heart’s scions, my sons
- two city builders who make law
and walls that keep us safe by keeping us in
- would be kings who act without thought for time lost
or found.
who claim for themselves what is not theirs,
what cannot endure.

I will not choose between twins
even as son turns his might on son.
One son I bury with a coin on his tongue;
I turn away before losing another.
Let the dead bury their dead!
I am for home by dark of night
when the watch sleeps secure in drunken temerity

In my dream
I stand on rock, solid and old
not moved or moving,
in my place
safe and silent as
civilization rises in the west.
Wind that blows across my mountain
sweeps away the stars replacing them with thick clouds
that shroud the atmosphere and muddy the land.
Everything moves fast now.
I see my sons caught in whirlwinds that will last for generations.
I see Rome birthed from nothing.
I see my grandsons born of women not of this mountain
who weep and wail for loving babes they did not want.

In my dream
I am alone in darkness
out of reach and out of time.
I rise with the morning fog,
dispersed as dew over the Palatine Hill.  
Two stars over Tiber light my way
home, a cave facing east
overhung with vine,
the place to which I return,
where once I was a shepherd’s wife.