Must I Answer?

There are moments
in the early still dark
morning
when saints and sinners
come to call . . .
voices floating
in the misty fog
of twilight.

"Who are you"they ask,
with ears extended.
"What is it you've
come to accomplish
here with your
feet dug into the ground?"

"Nothing" I say.
"Nothing?" they ask.
"Nothing" I say again.
"I just want to sleep!"

Joanne Cucinello 2009

Sandbox

So what do I say?
Does it even matter now that
all the sand is gone?
I never played there anyway.

So what . . .
if I heard things I wasn't supposed to?
So what . . .
if I knew the world was going to end
when I was only seven?

How do you carry the sins of your mother
and one day say no more
and one day say . . . go away
and don't come back!?

What do you say to God?
Where were you???
I know . . . I know . . . but I really don't know
even though I was supposed to
even though I thought all children were forgiven.


Joanne Cucinello 2008

On That Day

There was a day
when I was young
just a flash in time
a moment . . . stirring like the wind
to take my breath away
and it was You.

I walked into a room of people
but only you were there.
A sun tanned face turned to me
wide eyed and chiseled . . . a strong
face full of questions so intense
and then . . . that smile
that absolutely perfect smile . . .
sunshine and heartache all in one.

Stranger . . .
you brushed against me
in my dreams a thousand times
but on that day your flesh was real.
Little did I know
you would still be here
in my bed today.

Joanne Cucinello 2009

They Do Not Lie

See how they move
when someone speaks or sits to listen?
Hands ~ they tell the stories.
Fingers with their length and flexibility
or rigid tightness ~ tell of life spent living.
Some flow freely with expression
some close tight in solid fists . . . hiding.

The worker, the poet,
the mother in her tenderness,
the clumsy, the delicate
~ the fierce,
I watch them all
moving ~
while everything else is
motionless and still ~
gestures from the soul
that speak, despite the silence.

Tonight ~
will they comfort someone
in the dark?
Tomorrow ~
will they feed the poor?
Or are they planning

to destroy and tear to shreds
some dark illusion that I'll read about
tomorrow when I wake?


Joanne Cucinello 2008

We the People

Must we look in the mirror of time once again
to see the struggles of mankind?
Shall we look in crystal balls to see our future?

Does history not show us
that ours is a journey
fraught with obstacles
and illusions?

Have we not learned the lessons
of this rugged earth we walk,
its crust of mountains and valleys?

We are still carving paths through rock and forest
looking for a way home.

Do not believe such folly
that dictates we have found it.
Many before believed they
held the key.

"The longest journey is the journey inward"
once a wise man said.
And here is where our future lies . . .
in the deep dark caverns of the soul.

This is the journey that will prove our mettle.
This alone transcends all others.
Leaders will come and go and some may follow
but the solitary man must rise or fall
in the light of his own heart
~
or the darkness of his own soul.

Joanne Cucinello
2009

Behind Closed Doors

As we mourn for Caylee Anthony . . .



Out in the street
chalk lines, half-erased,
echo a child's brief laughter.

A rag doll
once her bedtime friend
lies faceless in an empty lot
waterlogged by endless rain.

Behind closed doors
a mother plays a deadly game
full of smiles and flashing eyes.
Two years of baby hugs quite enough now
~ for the young and beautiful.

Behind closed doors
the muffled cries that no one heard
cries that no one listened for
except the toys ~ who were her only witness.

Pictures on the evening news
flash across the screen tonight. . .
A precious package found. . .
broken, torn and dirty
food for animals,
strewn like treats among debris
pieces of a stranger's child
we knew not ~

~ Yet we mourn together
this little life
as if she were our own.


Joanne Cucinello
2009

No . . . Not Ever

Where does a mother's soul begin and end?
Where does that long cord wind
from deep within . . . out to the heavens?
Does her heart find its beat and rhythm
in the eyes of her child?

I don't know, except that
I have felt such love immortal
and tender
so soft as a tiny sparrow
come to rest in my palm
and then sometimes that strange
and quiet sadness
that would tear my heart wide open.

My child
once a sweet tenant
in my womb . . .
once a part of my every breath,
the presence, the knowing
that I was not alone.

Can a mother forget
that first scent of life born free?
No . . . not ever
till the earth becomes her blanket
in the snow one day
not ever . . .

Joanne Cucinello 2008

The Ring

She tried so hard that day
to make him understand
the ominous feelings that
kept flooding her mind,
the peculiar hushed sadness
that came over her
every time she looked at him.
Some great dark storm
was rolling in,
threatening
to overtake the sweet soft
sunlight that
was playing on his face.

“Don’t leave today”, she begged him.
“Call in sick, they owe you time.”
He smiled that perfect smile and
rearranged the tendrils on her brow.
“I’ll be home before you know it, Babe. . .
Short day today . . . but they really need me.”
“It’s me who needs you” she pouted,
while he planted kisses on her teary lips.
“What’s the matter . . . got the blues?”
She turned around and held him tight.
“Hurry back . . . I love you.”

Ten years ago
on a day . . .
just like today
full of sunshine and promises
he gave her that ring . . .
the ring she lost last year
in Cancun
simple
gold
just like him.
“Don’t worry, Babe,
I’ll buy you another soon as we get back.”

Now, her eyes followed his sun tanned neck
as he walked out the door
and he blew a kiss from the Jeep
just like always.
“Oh God” she thought,
“will I make it through this day?
Hormones . . .Hormones . . . I HATE YOU!!”
she gritted and closed the door behind.
Then it came
the honk of his truck outside
when he backed up the drive . . .
“You’re not going?” she beamed.
“I’m going, no such luck” he said
as he rolled down the window.
“Just wanted to tell you . . .
I didn’t forget my promise.”
He looked her straight in the eye,
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world”.
She held back her tears and waved him on
. . . and that was the very last time.

When the officer came to the door
later that day
She knew . . .
Turnpike 63 . . . she warned him just the other day.
He said it was a shortcut.

All they pulled from the wreck
was his torn jacket.
Oh, how he loved that jacket
old as it was.
She hugged it and rocked it
and wept and the words he said that morning
went round and round in her head.
That’s when she felt it
crushed in his pocket,
a small velvet box
the gold ring he promised,
words carved inside this time . . .
Did some kind spirit warn him too?
It read:
“They say to remember
is to love . . . and oh, how I love to remember.”

Joanne Cucinello 2008

She Sings . . . Even Though

I don't know
where the moon rises these nights
but it does and I sleep
even though
I can hear her singing to the stars.

I have wondered lately
what will become of us
without her light
should she never rise again
in the heavens
singing.

I am but one lone soul
among many
who inhabit this earth
wondering
why we have come
to rest in this spot of green and blue
floating out here in space
in such darkness.

Why? we all wonder
have we been chosen to arrive
at this our solemn destination
so filled with yearnings
and unimagined greatness . . .still
unfolding.

Is there a puzzle
we've yet to solve
even the best of us?
Is there a song we've yet to hear?

No matter . . .
still she sings of a place
beyond time and dreams
when all was stardust once
sparkling with love.

Joanne Cucinello 2008

Hollywood Thief

Outside on the marquis
it shines ~
your name in lights!
How I longed to sit inside
absorbed in fantasy
far from the toils of daily life,
the dark dreamscape of the hallowed theatre
delaying my own life for a few short hours.
It was my intent to get lost in the projection,
rapt in the story ~ undistracted
by the twisted paparazzi photos
and the flurry of half-truths, indiscriminate,
that seem to rise to the occasion
of your every new debut.

My ticket
was to be my entry into fantasy
time-captured . . . undisturbed
by door knocks or the ringing phone.
Ten dollars for three hours incognito ~
three hours just for me ~ a godsend!
But no . . . that wouldn't be for me
this time . . .
No! You thief!
Not because of paparazzi
not because of smut
but because you had to get
POLITICAL!!! You ass!
And might I add . . . NOT on my side of the fence!

Who needs to know if you're left or right?
You're an icon! A film star, damn it!
You get rich playing make-believe ~
and I have a drawer full of torn tickets to prove it!
Your campaigning with MY MONEY . . .
and now you've stolen my rose-colored glasses!

Joanne Cucinello 2008

Spinning Silk

Light and dark have blended into one
and I am caught between them both
at the turning of the sky
from day to night.

I am caught between love and regret
wishing I had waited with my words
tossed them in my salad
and tasted their bitterness
for myself.

That fine line, so erasable
keeps finding its way onto
the pages of my life
coaxing me to see its folly
asking for reprieve.

My legs cannot part on such
distant shores and still belong to one
being who claims enlightenment.
This night I must weave the silk
of my cocoon and hope for wings . . . . .

Joanne Cucinello 2008

The Stones Will Remember

Alone on a hill
a young boy stood
deep in the Appalachians
looking out
at the lakes and valleys below
the land his father and grandfather
roamed to fish and hunt.
They were gone now
and all that remained
were their dreams and stories.
The simple life, the good life
of the poor folk and their kin
soon to be a memory
kept only by the stones
that might survive.

Across the ocean
it was coming without a sound
carried by the sad wind
and the dark rain.
He could hear the echoes.

In a far off city
in a dim room lit only by flickers of neon
a woman dreamt of the babe
that would never leave her womb.
Too late she waited, too long to say yes
and now that life would never be.

The sunlight had been gone for weeks
covered by the somber grey dust
left to blanket the earth.

We all knew it would come one day.
Yet, we continued to live as enemies
stealing each other's land and food
wiping the sky with dead promises
building the Tower of Babel
once again without a ladder to climb
killing for the right God to worship~
while the Only One wept.

We grew tired of trying
tired of the machines and computers
we'd built to make life easy.
Now they laughed at us
with garbled voices
closing down to punish us
for handing them the burden,
holding our children for ransom
our children . . .
who couldn't live without them anymore.

And when all the lights went out
and it was finished
the earth was silent
dark and silent
no green fields, no sunlight
just the lonely stones
that still remained
still remembered
the sounds of the creature called man
who once had walked the earth.


Joanne Cucinello 2008

September Morn

There from our roof-top balcony, in the little town of Sant' Agata ~
Sorrento was quietly napping below in the afternoon September sun. It was the second day of our first trip abroad and we'd finally settled in. The enchanting villa opened its arms and enveloped us in old world charm. Its cool marble steps invited bare feet as we laughed our way down to the welcoming pool of icy blue.
Wine in hand, cheese and bread, fresh picked figs and long-cured olives . . . we were in heaven, our family, relaxed and breathing in a luxury we'd only dreamed of. Oh, how I'd wished at that moment my dad were alive to see this. We'd promised each other "one day . . . Italy"! But he didn't make it and yet, I could still imagine him smiling there under a fig tree, biting into his favorite fruit, euphoric as always.
We only had a week and even that was hard to save for, so we relished every breath of Italian air and the scent of lemons that hung in the breeze that day. Four of my five grown children and their partners, my brother and his wife, and one of my nephews, twelve of us in all, were pouring freely. And as we laughed and splashed, drank and hugged, off in the distance we heard the phone.
Who dared to interrupt our carefree romp? Who is calling now? And who will leave his wine to climb the marble steps and fetch that blasted phone?
It was my husband who took the message from New York. He couldn't decipher what my niece was screaming about and called my brother to take the phone and calm his daughter, saying she's hysterical, screaming about terrorists or something. My brother made his way up the marble steps and took the phone. Moments later, he came grey-faced to the doorway and handed the screaming phone to his wife. "They bombed the World Trade Center . . . New York is under attack!" At the other end of the phone was his daughter terrified and trying to speak of the horror flashing across the News on this tragic September morn.
Numbness and disbelief grabbed at our hearts. Close family and friends were there in New York, our oldest son and his wife among them. They were safe for the moment, but no one knew what was coming next. We shook and held each other as my brother's glass hit the marble steps and the red wine spilled. Blood was spilling too from the crumbled Towers back home. In an instant all had changed. Our joy turned into grief in this happy sunny place as the whole world started spinning. Our hearts, trapped now across the ocean, would never be the same.
There was no way home for days and days. Our efforts were useless. Yet in every cafe' and on every corner of this little village, Italians were weeping, offering comfort, shaking their heads with pity when they realized who we were, the Americans from New York, mourning as if we were standing already at the open grave site . . . lowering the coffins of the innocents.

Joanne Cucinello 2008