Three Poems by Judy Shepps Battle

LAST CALL

The creation was in vain
born perfect we stink
garlic of mutation
onion of intransigence
limburger ignorance

The crucifixion was absurd
primitive bloodletting
thunder torn rosaries
A bell. A book. A candle.

My people die daily
soldiers eulogize Apollo
saturate Mother Earth
with misguided missiles

deaf to protest chants
deaf to heartfelt reason
the wars go on
fueled by unspeakable insanity

God died a long time ago
Mercifully.






NOT GUILTY - Li'l Jude

Marilyn O and her Catholic
friends chase me home

yell Dirty Jew!
throw rocks

taught by moms + dads
priests + nuns that

I killed Christ

that four-year-old me
murdered their God


How likely is that?






AMENDS TO SELF: EARLY SOBRIETY

Youngest child within me
wise in discerning eyes
inhaling truth optically
memory-saturated muscles ache
exhausted, overwhelmed and shutdown
     shattered from yesterday’s wars
     detoxed from yesterday’s drugs
     unattached to yesterday’s people
celebrating six-months addiction free
   
Youngest child within me
playing gentle in nature’s sandbox
pail and shovel held in chubby arms
smile upon too-believing face
questioning with wide brown eyes
where new sobriety will lead
loving but not trusting me since
our record reads imperfect

          I have left you
                alone
too often           searing pain finds you
too often           perimeters stand undefended
too often           screams cry out unanswered
too often           memories rise in disguise as
too often           I deny your pain
          leaving us both             
                alone
 
Youngest child within me
locked within aging castle
gazing across biographical moat
as drawbridge begins to crumble
knowing healing time is now
praying for willingness to
hear, obey and surrender.




​

Bio: Judy Shepps Battle has been writing poems long before she became a psychotherapist and sociology professor at Rutgers University. Widely published both in the USA and abroad during the Sixties and Seventies, she deferred publishing to concentrate on career and family. Fortunately her muse was tenacious and she continued to write during the next three decades filling a file cabinet with scrawled and typewritten poems that are now being organized into chapbooks and individual submissions. The material submitted for publication represents her return to active participation in the writing community. She can't think of a better way to spend her retirement. Her poems have been accepted in a variety of publications including Ascent Aspirations; Barnwood Press; Battered Suitcase; Caper Literary Journal; EpiphanyMagazine; Joyful; Message in a Bottle Poetry Magazine; Raleigh Review; Rusty Truck; and Short, Fast and Deadly