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Best Poems Written by Jessamyn Duckwall

Below are the all-time best Jessamyn Duckwall poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Christina, Puff of Smoke

When we were nine
and yearning, outcasted
I did not understand the bruised
nature of your soul. Perhaps I
do not understand even now.
I remember
how I criticized you for the way 
you sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"
in your warbling baby voice
also how you were the only one
who ever acknowledged me.
I remember
how you lived with grandparents, aunts
instead of your methhead parents.
Your blonde hair. Your ugly clothes.
Freckles and a cheap brand of romanticism.

A picture of you and me, sixteen:
I remember
you used to say, "Call me Puff"
to all the dangerous boys; we once
crowded on a dirty mattress with four
other people passing bong for weed,
pipe for that toxic crystal Devil of
devils. I remember
you fed me cigarettes, cherry tomatoes
from your grandfather's garden.
A lightless smoky room full
of young and lonesome prisoners
of perpetuated misguided soul-searching--
I remember
how we savored our shared pain
like something holy. Godhead of
black magic and the violation
of innocence.

Today I
am torn of that chrysalis,
and I think sometimes of your soul
left there to stagnate
in the dark. Christina
I don't know how to say
any of this to you,
but when I remember how
you fed me cherry tomatoes
I think of your grandfather
finding you out, you were feeding
meth to your young teenaged sister
so she wouldn't care if your
boyfriend and all his friends
f***ed her.
I remember
feeling so much love for you     (sister?)
when now your name compels in me
nothing but disgust--this disgust
which bruises my soul, Christina...
I never wanted to feel this.

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Chakra One: Muladhara--Roots

Here I am
Base of spine enmeshed with
earth ruddy like my cheeks and
bloodshot eyes
feet--firmly planted
take root where home is,

where nourishment, like a crimson bag of waters, is.
Humble, for my 
somatic vessel has its origins
on this very orb Gravity has pinned me to,
like an amanita to forest floor.

Palming a bit of red dust and
I am animal and palpable
no different from
the cardinal flying overhead,
the pepper-scented geranium,
the garnet embedded in clay.

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Song of Green Rebirth

Tiny crabapple feet ply the soft, fertile earth
new moment of soil floods his open, seeking face
each day the child learns a song of green rebirth.

He beckons to the willow; wonders at her girth
I carry him close--we grace willow with embrace
tiny crabapple feet ply the soft, fertile earth.

He speaks with the daffodil, sharing her mirth
and sighs, contented in his own cosmic place
each day the child learns a song of green rebirth.

I watch as he contemplates the wind chime's verse
while his fingers explore clover woven like lace;
tiny crabapple feet ply the soft, fertile earth.

Wholly in love with the world in which he's immersed,
drawing from each aspect of the wild rose's grace,
this way, the child learns a song of green rebirth.

To him, every moment so tastily diverse
and our garden, mystical as far reaches of space
tiny crabapple feet ply the soft, fertile earth--
each day the child learns a song of green rebirth.

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Ode To Honeydew

Honeydew melon is decidedly feminine--
Venus, the moon, a ripe pregnant belly
at peace on my kitchen counter
emitting the distant scent of summer
rain

Even the sound of her name brings to mind
delicate Shakespearean lady-creatures:
lady-sprite Honeydew flitting about
in forests adorned with soft petal pink,
sweet viridians

On my wooden cutting board, I halve
my luscious green girl, open wide that simple kissymouth.
Her sugared fruitmeat sends waves of ambrosial
love, playfulness even, to my nostrils 

We kiss; and oh I'm dizzy with love
for the sweetness of Circe's seafoam
heart-of-mermaid fruit

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Chakra Two: Svadisthana--Sacral Place

Sunset--cool oceanscape.
Our feet pound the gritty ground
as our bodies swing around one another,
frenzied, heedless of decency. We whirl and
sway, enlivened by the rosy coral breeze
that dries the tiny oceans on our brows

and in our armpits;
those oceans mimicking the vast body
dancing, flowing, oozing, subsiding
before us. We dance, dance in time with the waves.

Your hand is in mine and how sensual--
but the crescent moon beneath my navel
is my own sacral place.
Moonstone like a cantaloupe illumines us and
melting into one another, we claim our right to feel
tasting universes in the salt
that is a part of everything

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Cell

I am with you in your cell
reading cheap drugstore
literature.

I am with you in your cell
though you curse me, and the spring.
Your mind, macabre.

I am with you in the cell
you chose: a toxic chrysalis
in grey.

I am with you in your cell,
without crystal, without choice.
Your mind, feeble.

Street daughter no longer,
Glimpse of reason beyond needle,
no longer. . . and yet still
I am with you in your cell.

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Triple Goddess

I. The Virgin

Dimpled white dove of a girl,
tell me where did you go
when I opened the little door
to your cage--
did you flutter, supple and blushing
into the half-moon's glimmer?

Floating on the breeze of girlhood,
did you caress the cheeks of new lovers
as you whispered by?
Did you sing the songs they yearned to hear,
those secret virgin songs of canaries
and the pinkest of May's blossoms?

Tell me, virgin, where did you go?

                                                                                             II. The Whore

                                                                          And you, young tigress with
                                                    patchouli-scented heart, how did you endure
                                                     when men exchanged secrets of your naked
                                                                                   body while you slept?
                                                                            In dreams they whispered, 
                                                       "Jezebel," and you clung to the sound of it

                                                              tell me, how did you feed your sweet
                                                                   milky light to moth-men, even as
                                                        your soul's moon waned and drained you,
                                                                             your body devoid of light?
                                                   Who guarded your nymph's soul from harm--

                                                                tell me, whore, who nourished you?

III. The Mother

Mother of mushroom, mother of sprite
tell me how you gave birth to an angel
by the light of the full moon,
squatting on your forest bed of moss and memories
tell me how you became only a flood of nourishment.
A cloud of light. A safe buoy of love 
in the vast, startling sea of the world

and nothing more. Not for your Self. 
When your angels have flown from you,
will you mourn an empty nest?
Will you be broken, or will you be free?
Goddess mother, tell me...

Who will you be?

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Sonnet For Sister

O Grunge Princess, I know today your love
brims over, idle, for the rebel boy
like weed you keep, unsmoked, sitting among
your secrets in a box; the smells they cloy
and force you into longing. Come what may,
Space Mermaid, your boy is just a dream.
He's not your happiness, nor is the way
he makes you feel--this illusion may seem
absolute, but first loves often do.
I know I cannot sway you with my words;
just remember: moments fizzle out, but you
will yet remain, just like your box of herbs.
           When you learn to walk alone in power
            your enigmatic buds begin to flower

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Hannah's Sea Dream

Glowing white and floating have I been,
amongst the water-life, at home,
at sea, my once-elusive laughter
now issuing as a gracious wave
from my heart, swirling like
moon magic around me

Later, I call my sister to illumine
my voyage, and she listens,
silent, amazed at my soft
sleepy words like fairy-sighs,
"It was so beautiful...so beautiful"

Details | Jessamyn Duckwall Poem

Astral Projection: the Web

eyes are collecting dewdrops
and growing damp with mist;
soul prepares for astral flight
weary body goes still in falling light
if only for one fragment of night...

(you are lightning, glorious)

open those fresh, dewy eyes.
be serene outside of skin;
behold the soul-web,
like a strange ocean of 
gossamer flowers pooling 
around the ankles of humans
and the roots of trees.
it is what binds you to me
hyacinth to willow tree
dolphin to peyote button and
peyote button to bee.