Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas

Warning Label Ignored

Warning Label Ignored
(Ken*again)

You married a woman named Bedlam
who once was a spy. I’ve seen her double
agent trench coat hidden between the Chanel.
Inside both pockets she carries silver bullets.

She was between jobs needing to make ends meet.
Capturing the enemy was confusing for awhile
since mingling with both sides, she sometimes forgets
which one’s hers, having spells of amnesia

from too many dirty martinis. Her last antagonist,
almost did her in. I’ve heard her talking to Central,
she speaks 20 languages and swears in French
mixing phrases like, Je t’aime, so you’ll find her appealing.

Everyone knows French mon frere, they just keep it hidden
for the sake of mystique. I’m not practiced in espionage,
but I know better than to serpentine around, conducting
covert operations in such an obvious way.

She waves her finger-weapons back and forth,
sending blood-darts from poison veins.
I pray you’ll stop the madness, end the charade,
hoping she doesn’t aim fire, before you wakeup

One Small Thing

One Small Thing
(Madswirl)

When I awoke this morning,
my heart was hanging from the ceiling
suspended from a cord, a useless container
twisting in the dead air.
It seemed a natural place as it hovered
over me. A dangling old piñata,
all the candy ransacked by every greedy beggar
in need of love. I wondered how it managed
for so long to stay intact.
So many times it almost stopped
from arrows finding the center far too easily.
Then I looked around the room
for that old dog named, Poncho.
He was the first offender. The dog that dodged
cars on the streets of Novato.
He’s six feet under with Aunt Susan now.
She always loved him so. And as I thought of her
the heart swung a little more, in a pendulum
kind of motion, and soon every miserable thing
that ever happened sunk it’s way back
in my mind. And that hanging heart gloated
as it built momentum, in faster swings,
centrifugal circles from the axis in the ceiling
until I was sure the cord would simply break,
from all the force, leaving me without a heart at all,
but then I looked over, and saw you laying there
perfectly content in the midst of my amputated dilemma
and decided it was time I took something back.
So I’m very sorry, but I’ve decided to borrow yours.
You’ll have to do the work for both of us now.

The Deer that Deliver Us

The Deer that Deliver Us
(Munyori Poetry Journal)

Deer roam the hills where I live,
delicate ankles turn with the grace of a dancer,
and dark soulful eyes blaze into mine,
connecting us; like reflections in a mirror.

They leap with gazelle-like movements;
long jaunts across pastures and fields−
then linger in the twilight hours until the waiting
is done. When they leave again

with their new disciples, soaring together
beyond the heavens. Or so I see them, in my mind−
as the last they took her, she went peacefully
and comes back to visit along the hillside

of my father’s home.

A Lesson in Baking

A Lesson in Baking
(Words on Paper)

I’ll bake the bread that pleased your father when
the world was fed on apple pie and milk.
With you beside me darling, now you’re ten;
a cherub’s face a soul unflawed as silk.

It’s difficult remembering the ways
things used to be, each Pollyanna life
as if palladiums protected days
of innocence concealing looming strife

when hearts can be as volatile as Troy
unknowing all along a fall might come.
Here, place your hand right on the dough. Decoy
can be an evil tactic, only some

adore you with a love that is sincere.
Let truth become your staff of life my dear.

If You Come

If You Come
(Words on Paper)

If you’ll come to me,
I’ll be resting near the marigolds,
gowned in shades of lemongrass
lying in a field−

If you’ll come to me
I’ll hear you through the olive trees
that weave the skies like timber lace
or cutout paper dolls−

I you’ll come to me
I call to you past funnel-clouds
the way a blue jay boasts with chatter
and beats his happy wing−

If you’ll come to me
I’ll drape myself across your soul
the way the river rushes stones,
until their jaggedness is smooth−

If you come to me
I’ll sing a thousand songs, sweet
as butterflies that land on naked shoulders
on a rainy April day−

If you’ll come to me
I’ll know my days were half the sum,
an interlude with death, when born again
on the day you come.

Before Dying

(The Pregnant Moon Review)

My mother never spoke in an unladylike manner.
Her lips were incapable of forming foul shapes
allowing vulgarities to slip through.

She’d whisper Hail Marys when we had the chickenpox
in a voice so pure it sounded like an aria, flowing
by my bedroom in tones of paradise, mauve and blue.

I remember the way she wrapped licorice over popcorn balls,
salted and dipped in carmel and how she’d weave tinsel
over evergreens, shredding silver at Christmas time.

She tweezed tiny splinters that pierced our fingers
with the care of a surgeon and she’d sew the stitch
of an invisible hem on black watch skirts;

her needle so fast the light would catch and shine
in continuous loops of whirling thread.
She’d sauté sausage with scramble eggs on Sunday

always dressed in her gold kimono, hair coiffed,
nails the shade of orange poppies growing wild
on the hillside. Oh, there were women who appeared

close to her perfection, Audrey Hepburn comes to mind
or Jennifer Jones for her role in Song of Bernadette−
yet none could match such godliness from a daughter’s

hazel eyes. But when her body began to fail
and the sound of her voice dwindled like the soft grate
of a needle on the vinyl of an old 33, Couture bowed

to flannel gowns, cooking, morphed to TV dinners,
primping turned to the swab of a tepid washcloth anointed
in lavender suds. And if I’d heard her whisper, no

in the nurse’s ear, for adjusting the trachea tube,
when dying was on her mind, I might have realized

what a burden it was all those years−
upholding all that saintliness I’d assigned her.

Just Like John Wayne

(Pregnant Moon Review)

You've offered me so much in life my dear
Come sit with me awhile my husband, here
I have some things I'd like to let you know
Regarding attitude towards information
Maybe Just a minor transformation
Would be grand if you could possibly reflect
A moment on the blueprints of a man,
Just like an architect, I fear perhaps you may
Have missed when learning how to caulk a ceiling,
was it omitted from your list? Because
I've wondered when the toilet overflows
Do you know the way to use a plumber's hose?
It seems that I am more the manly one
The woman with a tool belt strapped around
My waist, it’s hanging low about my hips
While I drink my beer with tiny sips,
But aren't you the one my dear who's gifted?
In this area, perchance I lifted
Just or trick or two from those manly-men
I dated when I was a girl back when
I courted many with their bags of tools
Who rendered mostly brains of silly fools
And you have many attributes of which
I gallantly commend so dear I hope
You’ll take this with a grain of salt, ahem
Never would I want to intimate or send
The feeling that I'm unaware how superb
You look in underwear or when you kiss
Me how my heart beats ten thousand times
With lips so full, they taste like lemon rinds
Because your heritage is Greek and oh
You have a grand physique, but if I could
Suggest or make the tiniest request
When you see an opening in classes
Teaching ruggedness for men with glasses
Like the guys who walk with cigarettes rolled
In their sleeves bringing damsels to their knees
With all the brawny ways of Hercules
Well would you ask, if not for you, but me
About a lesson plan you could enroll
One that implements instruction giving
Students a control explaining not to overlook,
The ways to hang a picture on a hook,
Or turning screws around until their in
It's not that difficult, and yet for men
Sometimes I think a class could help or aid
A Manly- Class, without a failing grade
And then when we're between the sheets each night
I'll thank you for your willingness to learn,
Cuz gee it would be nice to watch you spit
And chew while opening your woodwork kit
You’d swagger down the lane, a tough as steel
Just like John Wayne without the cowboy heel.

The Water-bench

(The Munyori Poetry Journal)

When we did spring cleaning this year,
we removed the things that offered aid
during the last months of my mother’s life.
The wheelchair where she sat numb,
watching my brothers marry, after I lost her twice
maneuvering her through cobblestone paths
on our way to the ceremony.
Her drinking glass with the bendable straw.
The one she used daily infused with powder
to thicken fluids so she wouldn’t choke
except on her own saliva.
And the oxygen tank with its vacuuming
sound that droned on so,
even the dog knew an intruder had entered
like an uninvited guest when you haven’t an extra chair.
But I should have kept the water-bench.
The one we balanced on every morning
while I became soaked from the two of us cleansing,
the way she'd giggle about my t-shirt
completely see-through, both exhausted
from the scrubbing and shaving of limp legs
in awkward positions.
I remember how soft she looked−
like a young girl with her translucent skin
the color of white asters, and how she cried
when we’d brace against the wall,
twisting our course back to the bedroom,
holes punched through plaster
finding our footing, clumsy oafs
as we’d fall on each other like drunks.
I would have kept that bench,
maybe sat there again on a peaceful day,
when I missed her needing me
before she was evacuated
with everything else that was a part of her
as if it never was.

That Beautiful Girl

(Munyori Poetry Journal)

Just once I wanted to be that girl,
the one who everyone scorned.
She wore miniskirts and go-go boots,
danced to her pulse on table-tops
while all the boys chugged shots
round the horn. She whispered
with an accent, changed her name
to Candy, smoked long cigarettes
between classes, leaving a stain
on every filter the color of rhododendrons,
her lips forever crimson-dewed.
Oh to be that girl, the girl who sang
Summertime. She played piano
in a red nightgown and opened
her door on blustery nights
so the rain would tip-toe in
her bedroom. She pranced
like a deer barefoot in the meadow,
carried her shoes in a sequined
bag and laughed when she broke
her toe on the sprinklers
to the sound of Dream Weaver. S
he exchanged virginity for the art
of Kama sutra and wrapped mink
coats over peachy nudeness; stolen
furs from her mother’s collection.
That girl laughed like a purring cat,
head tipped back for her murmuring
throat, then sauntered around
with her slinky step like a sultry
Odalisque. She’d bask naked
at the bedroom window the sun
rolling between her breasts
the light casting a pink glow
as if one ray might boomerang,
like a curved missile, sending
some lost boy to vaporize
through glass, an offering, a lamb
willing for the sacrifice, the onetime
experience of this eccentric
love-goddess-maiden. Oh, such a life
took a toll on that girl, that best-friend
girl whose heart was made of birds,
winged with full-flight. They say
she died last year, but no one told me.
I would have loved to tell her story,
reciting her eulogy to a crowd of stiffs,
jaws open, eyes bugged-out
of their arrogant minds. I hope
they buried her, nude, in a brown s
able coat cherry-lipped and barefoot
with a book of songs spilling
from her open hands.

Before I Go to Sleep

(The Storyteller Magazine)

What she doesn’t know
is the way I’ve become my mother
when I brush her shoulder length locks,
and kiss her swooping lashes.

We go back and forth with
choosing her doll’s daily dress
but she is my doll, and I marvel
at her without ever saying.

When she’s asleep I genuflect
beside her, as if I’ve entered
a holy place, yet there’s no cathedral’s
dome, only a small ceiling light.

I place my head against the beveled
edge of her quilted comforter
and hold my breath to eavesdrop
as she breathes in a day of flowers

hopscotch and arithmetic.
There’s a taste of ginger in the room
a scent of honeysuckle in the air
and I want to wake, her just to say

thank you.

Candelabara

(Oasis ezine)

You were like the Great Santini; brimming with masculinity.
How I wanted to amaze you, make you notice the invisible.

I swung from chandeliers, singing arias of femininity,
danced ballet in your living room to the sound of beating drums

hoping to capture a moment of awe.I painted poems on canvas
and covered my walls with collages. No one ever heard. No one ever saw.

I was weak like warm wax, malleable enough to bend and melt.
So I formed myself to the mold you’d placed me in.

It was convenient and made storage easier. Now and then
I woke you with some beautiful scent. You assumed it was another,

Maybe you had a lilac candle stuffed behind the shelf somewhere,
causing an aroma so pleasant and sweet. Someday in a dark room,

you’ll come to me in need of light, then I’ll show you how I glow,
if only you’ll let me burn.

On Life and Compassion / On Bended Knee

(Munyori Poetry Journal)

Unsullied acts that show compassion thrive
With mystic force to serve one’s heart and soul
All other ways efface the kindness you derive
For artificial means another goal…

And when the gladness rises from your being,
Obliterates the calmness from the sea,
Shoots moonbeams dragging lilies o’er the sky,
That’s when you’ll fall and cry on bended knee…

As gratefulness start booming in your head,
Since goodness spreads a joy that’s heaven-bound;
With glory for the coming of your bliss,
Immersed in lofty clouds above the ground.

Exalting all whomever was a friend,
Receiving joy, releasing it again,
Deciding that a life of amnesty
Is why we’re in the kingdom of all men.

Carol Lynn's Bio

Carol Lynn Grellas lives in Saratoga California. She attended Santa Clara University, where she was an English and Art major. Her firstChapbook: Litany of Finger Prayers will be released in 2008 from Pudding House Press. Her second Chapbook: Object of Desire will be released this October, from Finishing Line Press. She has an electronic chapbook titled: Desired Things available from Gold Wake Press.Carol Lynn is a 2008 two time Pushcart Prize nominee and widely published, including most recently: The Oasis Ezine & Online, Las Cruces for Poets & Writers, Munyori Poetry Journal, Words on Paper, The Pregnant Moon Review Moondance, Dogzplot, The Verse Marauder, A Tender Touch, MSU Great Falls Literary Guild: Writings from the River, The Storyteller Magazine, Kingly Blue, Chanterelle's Notebook, The New Mirage Quarterly, Silenced Press, The Hiss Quarterly, Rattlesnake Press and Flutter. She has poems forthcoming in, Ken*again, Oak Bend Review, Octaves Eight, Eskimopie (SPAM), The Battered Suitcase, The Boston Literary Review, Word Catalyst Magazine, Strong Verse, Crazy Days Anthology, Poet's Ink, Debris Magazine, Mississippi Crow, Poetry Friends, Madswirl, Poet's Letter, Shine, The Ghazal Page, The Lyric Magazine, Lucid Rhythms, Soundzine, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Hudson View, Skyline Magazine, The Scruffy Dog Review, Quill and Ink, Motel 58, The Cleave, The Toronto Quarterly, Gold Wake Press Anthology, Poetry Midwest, Thick with Conviction, Poetry for Suzanne, the Smoking Poet, Feathertale, Joyful!, Best Poem, decomP and Pudding House #9 chapbook