EQUALITY
The time of longing between feeling love
and that first touch is well worth the wait.
Even when you don’t know how
much longer you can take
– such aching inside –
Does she feel the same?
How can this be?
No lies here –
Your eyes meet,
each seeing the love
sparking the fire of passion wildly,
Breathing quickens, deepens,
Knowing the desire shared –
No longer alone in it.
The irises of her eyes widen –
No end to their depths –
Pulling you inside –
Oh god –
Her love mirroring yours –
Needing, knowing, feeling such yearning –
Both reaching, both finding –
The love sweeps you along –
Hearts melting, fires burning –
Like a dance, the circle of balance
Turning over and over, spinning,
Flowing one into the other
And back again.
Wanted and wanter,
Desired and desirer,
Loved and lover.
No separation.
Not just one, but together –
Not just me, but you –
Equality –
Ecstasy.
Bev Jo
2008
LOVE SONG
I am not ready to commit myself to a lifetime,
You told me quietly.
Yet I want to wrap my love around you throughout this cold night,
While you hold me oh so tightly.
It’s all right – it doesn’t have to last longer than
The orange flicker of this candlelight.
Or we can go alone together
Where we hear the roar of the ocean,
Its midnight mist moistening our faces,
Salty brine inside and out,
While meteors shoot across the dark sky
Of this new moon,
No other light blocking our way,
And soon we smell the blossoms unfurling
Their flavor only in this quiet of night.
We can take this path to see where it will lead.
We can kiss until our hearts melt.
And for these hours you can be mine
While knowing I am yours.
We can take it one night at a time.
Bev Jo
May 2009
CRACKLE
Crackle
Electricity coming off you,
Sparkling like blue light,
Like an ethereal wine, shocking,
That, is what I’ve been missing
In this search of mine.
Settling is not even considered.
This is where love can become a drug.
And I’ve been that way before.
Ah, but that magic beginning.
Nothing can compare,
Where we glance and
Then dare to look -
Directly at each other.
Neither turns her eyes away
In fear or embarrassment.
That is a very good sign.
My god, the depths here.
I can’t see the bottom.
There is no bottom,
No end.
This could be a love of friendship,
A love of equals.
This could be the thrill of a lifetime.
So much potential
and we’ve yet to touch.
No needing to remind oneself
To stay in the Now.
When with you,
There is nothing but Now.
There is so much.
I can see that remembering to eat,
To sleep,
Could become a serious problem.
Do we care?
Not when we dare to share
This kind of love.
Bev Jo – March, 2011
I was just trolling the net for lesbian love poems and saw yours…. I love the sincerity and the true echo in them. Spiritual atheists are great. in fact I think you can only be truly spiritual if you are one and don’t cling to all the fictions. I liked your brief bio too. Our generation is all scattered now, and we mostly meet in places like this.
Incidentally, I have a little house mouse living in my bath tub. I found him/her there one morning, and decided to provide nesting materials and food. S/he drinks from a drip in the faucet.
I wish you happiness in all you do.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate all that you said. I read some nature poems last night at a Lesbian open mic, but think most are disturbed that they’re about “unacceptable” animals. So we are of the same generation? Too bad we’re not in the same area.
That’s sweet about your mouse. I wonder if she got in for the water and can’t climb out?
About the mouse… I have no idea about how it happened. I’m waiting till ‘it’ grows a bit larger and I can put it in a gerbil cage or something like that. Good thing I’m a shower person and never use the tub, but when my best friend (her name is Bev too) visits she does, so I hope this little rodent grows larger by mid-December!
As for poetry – how can one live without it! its impossible. Have you read the poems of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland? – they may be a little dated and somewhat too stringent for modern American tastes, but who knows – you might find something to like…. also Juana Inés de la Cruz, who is an absolute gem.
I just saw what you wrote at your bio and do really agree with you about poetry. It’s strange to write it since I don’t like most because it seems so boring and pretentious, and yet I’m drawn to it because of the spiritual quality and depth you described. It’s amazing when it is true and powerful.
I wonder if the mouse went to get water, but got trapped. Spiders do, so I used to leave a ladder of paper in the tub and sink for them to get out.
Is it definitely a mouse and not a roof rat? Can she get out? I wonder if she has a community somewhere. Rats always do.
I mostly have been hearing/reading some local Lesbian writers and rarely look at books, but I should check those out. I only know of Sylvia Townsend Warner because she’s from Aotearoa (New Zealand), yes?
I will look for the others too. Thank you!
Juana Inés de la Cruz is amazing. I had never heard of her.
I think it was my ex from Aotearoa who talked about Silvia Townsend Warner, but I hadn’t known more than her name. Interesting. Now I have to look for her and Valentine’s poetry.
The mouse is tiny about the size of my little finger – I don’t know about a community and I would put her outside, but I am not sure how she would fare…. No she can’t get out, and its better that way. I have a dog, and his pal from next door visits every day. I will have to give her her own home in a cage or let her free, and if I do the latter it will have to be far away because my neighbour sets mouse traps in her yard. She keeps chickens, and I think the mice get attracted to the chicken feed.
here is an example of STW’s poetry: Its not all like this – but this is a love poem.
For long meeting of our lips
Shall be breaking of ships,
For breath drawn quicker men drowned
And trees downed.
Throe shall fell roof-tree, pulse’s knock
Undermine rock,
A cry hurl seas against the land, a
raiding hand, scattering
lightning along thighs Lightning from skies
Wrench
*********************
STW was highly secular – clearly an atheist – while VA was one of those gloomily sentimental Christians. They were very interesting women, and I absolutely love STW’s writing. Terry Castle in her book Apparitional Lesbians commented on two of Sylvia’s books – Lolly Willows, and Summer Will Show.
I think the New Zealander you are thinking of could be Katherine Mansfield – she was originally from Thorndon.
I hope the mouse isn’t a baby. That is incredibly tiny. Yes, it’s best to keep her unless you could find her friends. If she’s like rats, they so savor food variety — more than us. I loved giving my rats so many different flavors and seeing their appreciation.
I think it was my New Zealand ex who had Sylvia Townsend Warner’s books. That is an amazing poem. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the STW poems. I too had heard the name but not listened to the poetry. Is it impolite to say I like your poems better?
Stephenie
Thank you so much, Stephenie! Not impolite at all and I appreciate it. Maybe I should post more recent ones then? I write them, and read them locally, but keep working on political comments and articles instead.
The photos of your pet rats are darling. They look so cute and adorable. I’ve always liked rats and mice as pets. I really miss having pets around. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cage now nor any supplies. Since I’m also something of a cat person, I thought seriously about getting a cat, but I realized that a cat probably would terrify any rat. It wouldn’t be fair to a rat to have cat around. I don’t know how I could keep them apart. My ex’s daughter had some spiny back mice that had babies. Have you see the tan spiny backs with the tiny spikes of fur on their backs? I was fortunate to have babysat the mice for about one week while they were gone. I had to keep the babies warm with a towel placed over an electric pad. The adult mice are very quick. These are the quickest mice I’ve ever seen in the way that they can dart about and hide. If there was an award for the quickest mice, these little buys with their quick feet would win. They are quick little devils. Don’t ever lose a spiny back because you will never catch it.
I especially liked your poem “Crackle”. You described the energy between two women in a way that touched me. In that instant, in that first glance, touching that energy is like touching eternity. In all honesty, I don’t know if there are proper words to describe this profound, soul piercing energy, the slow, delicious electricity, the erotic sizzle, the persistent buzzing of a million bees. It’s an energy that simply defies all definition because no description truly does it justice. It appears formless with no depth, no up nor down, no right or wrong. It exists only for itself. It reaches from the here and now to the end of the universe as if all space and time are condensed into one sweet, delicate, delightful moment in time. I feel completely secure as if I’m part of the ancient wisdom of all women, the ancient wisdom of the very earth itself. We are one and the same. There is no distinction. Although it might sound strange, I feel almost as if I’m touching the souls of all the lesbians who have come before me. I draw from their energy. The electrifying energy between two women is so powerful that it shakes my soul to its core.
In Equality, I liked the third passage the best.
Again, the photos of the rats are adorable.
Thank you.
Thank YOU, Sharon. Your description of Lesbian love and love-making is like a poem. Very beautiful and so true. You’re right — transcendent of time and barriers and so much else. Do you write poetry? You should. You touched on the spiritual aspects of Lesbian love. Beautiful.
You inspire me to write more soon. I keep trying to finish the political articles, but this is important too. I have more to post also.
No, I’ve never seen the spiny back mice. An advantage of rescuing rats is that it’s much less of a time commitment than a cat. A cat can live 20 years. Also, it’s better for cats to be inside (for their survival and health), but that’s hard on them. If outside, they can kill literally hundreds of animals a year. (One study averaged 800.) All the little reptiles and amphibians are gone from any area where there are cats, and the birds are decimated. A friend’s sweet cat killed a baby mockingbird.
After having lived with rats, I can’t imagine being with another animal. I’m not allowed to have them now, but am so bonded to them — their intelligence and incredible capacity for love, and such strong personalities. I had so many animals growing up, but rats are on a whole other level. Who knew? The Rat Community knows and it’s interesting that they are 99% women. I miss rats every day. You live right near some of the rat rescue community too, so you could go to adoption fairs.