Poetry by Judy Shepps Battle

When The Student Is Ready

This day
born of nothing
contains everything

technicolor bursts and
surround-around sound
swaddle naked hearts and

silently converge
reluctantly merge
triumphantly emerge

sacred moment
gone as I name it
gone as I claim it

permanently impermanent
perfectly imperfect
life lingers

long enough to teach
remedial surrender
this sultry summer dawn.

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Ode To The Poet Doing Her Thing

Poetry is a form of protest as well as a
tribute to beauty. Softly speak the words.
Gently cry the canticles.

Behold the weeper
crouched over aging typewriter.            Listen
to her tear saturated fingertips
making words.                                                Touch
the dots, commas and wrinkled
consonants.                                                      Smell
creation and taste its muted message.

Words protest by being silent too.   

Listen to the anti-dialectical nature of Momma
Nature. Hug the beat of the sunken guitar
harmonizing with turned-on piano. Weird
music spirals to soul shattering crescendo
and dies in diminution.

The music is our tune. The changing beat is us.
Rock with me. Twist ‘til sacroiliac groans
in protest and continue ‘til soft sound vibrates
with unequal harmony.

Follow it
                   Follow it
                                       and live it
                                                             Fully

Weep gently poet into creative hands covering
cynical eyes. Crescendo begets crescendo and
the mind splits into twenty equal pieces.

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Bio: Judy Shepps Battle has been writing essays and poems long before retiring from being a psychotherapist and sociology professor. She is a New Jersey resident, addictions specialist, consultant and freelance writer. Her poems have been accepted in a variety of publications including Anti-Heroin Chic, Ascent Aspirations; Barnwood Press; Battered Suitcase; Caper Literary Journal; Epiphany Magazine; Joyful; Message in a Bottle Poetry Magazine; Raleigh Review; Rusty Truck; Short, Fast and Deadly; the Tishman Review, and Wilderness House Literary Press.