Three poems by Julene Tripp Weaver

At the Edge of Extreme Kink

Dark rooms, musty odors, funked up mirrors.
Neither the grave severity of the situation nor the joy
of the final outcome, if there is one, can be perceived.
Fun house filled with concave mirrors, you watch shapes
not pretty, nor kind. Wants not susceptible to any norm
run wild over territory well worn—rich with metaphoric lace.
Handed dollars there is insinuation—pressure points
lead to degradation and it all hides—plays peek-a-boo
in unknown chambers of the mind.  Reflects a well-worn
love map patterned in warped skulls crossed with a bone
labeled, wrapped, delivered likely insane.





The Damage of Objectification 

A young woman grows her life, 
and in this world
she’s haunted, as if desiring
herself staked. Might this
be illusion, this garden of naked Women?
And what about   the Visitors
who walk through 
admiring   the Specimens?

Precocious practice kisses 
                     married men teach,
their raw passion 
                     hard against her loins.
Human flesh, out of nowhere:
next door neighbor knocks  offers 
Acapulco Gold   easy to accept 
yet say   No   to penetration, she
tells herself she’s safe, as long as
he does not go near   her little sister.

Desire requires growth:  necking
with boys her own age, the prom
she turned down   because   it seemed so 
Adult,                   someone had to say
No   so she did. Her No was final.
The boy   could not know   the quandary
of her dreams, nor the grown men
who courted her to ripeness   
in parked cars.




On Guard

My mother taught me how to pick men
               or more likely, how not to--
her vigilance—a secret history in whispers
voices that consumed space in her mind
               relationship smart—obsessed
                                             stuck in a feedback loop

like a scratched record repeating words:
              Careful.   Careful.   Careful.
Married friends in man-controlled homes
              had to put up, put out, produce--
one of her friends kept popping boys
wanted a girl, but a girl never came.

Trapped in a house brimming with
Testosterone would never have suited
                my mother—we two girls
planned precisely, eight years
apart—told about diaphragms,
               my sister in her belly.

By then, I knew this war--
my best friend’s father 
                            tried to kiss me--
warped in a world where big men
kicked small women, blacken their eyes.
               A trapped species.

After dad died I stuck close to Uncle 
               who betrayed me early. Alone
in a storm like mother, I made a pact:
               no kids, no marriage, nothing
to put me at risk, made my choices early

caught the two kids who chose me, alert
                to abort the seeds, 
one foot in, one foot out, never ready for 
the danger commitment brought
               to so many of my mother’s friends.



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 About the author: Julene Tripp Weaver, originally from New York, now has a psychotherapy practice in Seattle, Washington. Her poetry book, No Father Can Save Her, was published by Plain View Press. She is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her chapbook, Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues, contains writing from her work through the heart of the AIDS epidemic. Garrison Keillor featured a poem from this collection on The Writer’s Almanac, and in his anthology, Good Poems American Places.  Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com. She is on Twitter @trippweavepoet.

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