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Best Poems Written by April Bartaszewicz

Below are the all-time best April Bartaszewicz poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Friday's Child

We always called Cassandras
immature the way she ran
through town with her electric hair
and torn clothes, telling us
that we already know:
that regiment of clouds
that cloud bombard us soon
with snow, cloud burry us;
that art in an equivocal gift,
that every flower awaited
it's proper place
on out funeral wreaths.
We knew all of that
she waas our own child.
But once betrothed to grief.
What could we do but morn?
we let her speak and speak,
all words so angry
are metephors.

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Daddy

Daddy, why did you hurt me so very long ago?
I still remember the day you wouldn't let me go
I know it happened more than once, but it is done
When you tried it again, I wasn't old enough to run
The hurt goes on Daddy, through all the years of my life
You don't know how hard it is sometimes to be alive!
Just looking at father's day cards brings me tears
And Mommy does she know what you did
How do you find a card that isn't full of glory?
To send to someone who never said he was sorry
Daddy, you don't know the pain you,ve made in me
When you raped me that day, I was no longer free
Free to be a child- to be like other girls and boys
I'll never be the same as I was that day,
the day you took my virginity away
I'll never understand why you did that to me
I was "Daddy's little girl" don't you see?
I never dreamed that you could hurt me so
I thought you loved me, didn't you know
many years have come and gone so fast
I know I'm not supposed to be living in the past
but daddy, the hurt you caused me will never be past
not until the breath in me is the last
I guess God really wanted me to do his will
Daddy, please daddy,
you never said you're sorry for the crime you did!
I'll try to go on, a survivor I'll be;
by giving my love to my children 
warning them protecting them and their children
teaching them where it is wrong to be touched
even by someone you love so very much
why did you hurt me so? did you have it planned?
or was it something done to you in your past
that triggered your feelings for me at the last
daddy, I hope one day that you see how much you hurt me
and then say, please forgive me
but until that day, I guess I'll go on_ _ _
writing things like this one after one
hoping a little comfort I'll give someone hurting
just really trying to live
someone trying to heal the hurt, Like Me

Details | April Bartaszewicz Poem

Destiny

The smell of death is overwhelming
not knowing which destiny to choose
leaning more towards the dark
almost wanting to swallow me whole
and the only thing holding
me into light
the stinging cold on my bloody wrist
the pain inside is slowly numed
my destiny will for soon be chosen.

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Elegy

Somewhere a poem
is waiting for me
to write it in the jewelry box,
coiled into an old ring
or stopping the hands
of a watch;
in the vanishing barn risen
to the top of the pail
to be skimmed off;
or in the tree outside
engraving in green ink
on the other side of a leaf.
In my old room
the white curtains blow 
like ghosts of themselves
  over the sill;
under the bed misplaced words gather
to grab my helpless ankle
          it is a poem
the Child I was hides
in the ear of the woman
I have become a poem
who's lines were the lines
          of my fathers' face.

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Inside-Out

The origami nooks and folds
of thoughts pushed down inside,
pockets deep and intricate
where mazes often hide,
and grow,
and bend,
and twist,
and crease,
and wait upon the day
when all the things we never 
tell ourselves come out to play.

Details | April Bartaszewicz Poem

I Got What I Deserved

Broken tooth 
From fist once loved
Scars in unseen ways.

Trust betrayed
Inflict harm
Lost in emotions maze

Respect denied
Flows both ways
Diminishing esteem.

Sadness seeps
To aching marrow
Laughs a far off dream

Soul deep anger
Smoulders darkly
Sustaining life long pain
Time goes on Fades memory
Deep wounds, though, still remain.

Details | April Bartaszewicz Poem

On the Road To Delphi

tourist, because of
the sacred bay
of corinth
is charged
with aluminum;
at the crossroads,
almost visible
oedipus waits
Have an offering ready
and a sacrafice
you may ask
one question
be spacific
the answer has always
been the same
look for it
among the broken stones
under your sandal
or in the unbroken light
of the mediterranes sky
and remember this:
virgins were said
to be unreliable 
so they chose a priestess
a woman of certain age
by the moon
your flesh is the color
you are at that age now.

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By the Mailbox

The message you sent me
is silent but still a message
I try to understand
the way of the roots
the migrating silence of water.
We take from nature
what we can, I study the silence
I picture you miles north.
leaning over the empty pages,
Dear...... you to write
but already the page is a window
curtained in the early silence
                               of snow.

Details | April Bartaszewicz Poem

November

It is an old drama 
this dissappearance of the leaves,
this seeming death
of the landscape
great in a later scene,
or earlier
the trees like snarled magicians
produce handkerchiefs
         of leavees 
out of empty branches.
And we watch
we are like children
at this spectacle
        of leaves,
as if one day we too
will open the wooden doors
                    of our coffins 
and come out smiling
and bowing
all over again.

Details | April Bartaszewicz Poem

The Horned Snake

The snake snatched 
it;s single horn clipped
for strong medicine,
to be used on a worrier
or a chief  who,
is facing a valley of death from bullets
would be brave, unfinding 
- - - - - untouched
when moon looked the other way
                        eclipsed,
and stillness, stark marked
                   stillness
made earnings,
the snake bobbed up from 
the wildest of wild things
_ _ _  gave its horn
to the medicine man.