Cynthia Hogue

November Reign

1

I thought to air

a question I haven’t voiced

hovering-

hovering, a weakness

I’d never confronted,

nor outcome

I could change.

2

The taking

of power once it happened

was a force no one could stop:

ancient and blunt as a flood,

a determined eradication,

appallingly to the point,

contrary for a kick.

3

Say,

another way of being

I’d never understand.

I could take umbrage,

focus on the essential

until it was over and something

mattered again, but the cocoon I’d conjured

4

offered no protection

from the kind of kick that plucks

a delicate bulb ready

to burst and languidly,

between thumb and forefinger,

crushes it

to watch.

Ars Poetica on to free 

If to free is an act of hope,

I’ll free associate on the blank

page, fill it with thoughts

I never thought

to write down

until I sat down. 

Often I write nothing

I planned to say. In this way,             

the page remains free of demand

a space for free-rein

encounters with reality. 

Art dedicates

room for self-

liberation from ruthless

objectives and easy beliefs.

“Evident” isn’t evident

anymore but has shifted

with circumstance; once-

facts now ignored,

assumptions of shared

truths empty. Words formalized

in document (life, liberty)

do not change

but their context has.

Let’s write to shield them,

discover their stubborn resistance

to misuse, join the company

of freedom-

writers for liberty itself,

reckoning the stakes

are all-in for harried earth

and earth-beings. I hold this space

hopeful, the blank page I’ve filled

to remember these truths

we hold to be self-

evident that transcend time.

Karen Brennan & Cynthia Hogue

On the Subject of Freedom

1

Vanishing

in an eye blink

breezily fallen down

as we slept through it

nests in pieces

dismantled

Our beds

notwithstanding

a terror

a mirror

for the hearted

broken-

empty-

some hopeful exact thing

‘momentarily’ lost

in the shuffle

We think

we can endure

the lapses

but what of

the intractable

open & shut conversation

2

A dash in a line frees - room for something else  -

which isn’t named –  Call it blank or ayre,  

an emptiness that’s nothing -   and everything -  

a border open to a fault - a shelter for the unknown -  

like a cloud threatening rain -  

but harboring possibility –

We perceive the freed space -  

a dash carves as open to exploration – matter’s dashing  

provenance -  Accounting for the mark’s power to liberate -  

is to discover the freedom it finds - but cannot contain.