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Saturday, January 9, 2016

Lenora Good -------------------------- three poems


 The Silken Dreams of Kubota Sama


                                    soft
                                    bright hues
                                    hand embroidered
                                    tiny stitches
                                    puckered
                                    shadows of love
                                    purples     blues     pinks     goldens
                                    four seasons
                                    seventy-five kimonos
                                    a dream
                                    a life
                                    a reality
                                    flaring
                                    when the wearer turns in
                                    unAsian haste
                                    western clothes shriek
                                    from underneath
                                    modern
                                    loud     garish
                                    kimono
                                    from a time of samurai
                                    and chivalry
                                    gentility with a sword
                                    and seppuku
                                    poetry and pain
                                    sewn together in
                                    narrow bands
                                    simple
                                    elegant
                                    regal
                                    kimono


(previously published, 1996, Arnazella Literary Magazine)







zorro in the boardroom

you stare across
    the conference table
           eons wide within this room
  your warm hazel-brown eyes
         bespeak a Moor
     in your ancestry

i see harem secrets
     you have always known
           and never had to learn
   languidly you lift your pen
        to write slowly
  your long    fine
          fingers dance a ballet
      upon your notepad

in my minds' eye
    i see them curled behind the hilt
            of a swift moving rapier
   strong   defender of virtue and nobility

unashamed   i match your stare
    and wonder
           if those fine-boned
                long and tapered fingers
             coax classical notes
                        from an old and rare
               Spanish guitar
           if you played those strong
                patrician hands upon
             my body  
                        how long before it danced
               flamenco passion
           can you read the desire
                in my return stare
             do you know i weaken
                        at the fantasy
                 of being impaled upon
                                                                                                your sword


(previously published 2010, Issue #10, Origami Condom_





The Healing Hands of Doctor Rhett [hybrid poem/prose poem]
                —by Lenora Rain-Lee Good

I just turned 17 when I started Bible College. Dr. Franklin Rhett, our Pastoral Counselor, stood tall and ramrod straight, his hair a shock of white atop his tanned and craggy face. He pierced my soul with eyes the blue of eternal skies, and his voice rumbled up from the depths of the basement. He told me, and I knew, that
I was a sinner who needed his healing touch.

Touch me, Doctor Rhett,
And I shall be healed,
I cried aloud,
'Cause I have the faith!

I told him I needed to be healed, and he suggested,
his beatific smile showing his straight white teeth, that I come to his office that very night, after classes. I asked if he didn’t want to touch me right then, in the chapel, and he smiled and said, “No. It will be better tonight. When there will be fewer … distractions and time to allow the Holy Ghost to come upon us in His Fullness and Glory.” Oh, how I looked forward to being cleansed and healed by his touch!

Oh, Doctor Rhett,
I silently begged,
Touch me! Touch me!
Heal me! Heal me!
I could hardly wait
for my healing.

Outside his office, I hesitated. I could see no one besides Dr. Rhett was in the room, and we are taught never, ever, to be alone with a man outside the sacrament of marriage. But Dr. Rhett, he just smiled, took my hand, and brought me in, closing the door behind me. "Come," he said. "Let us have a little Holy Communion, and a Prayer to invite the Lord to heal you with His Loving Power." He held a glass of red wine to my lips until I drank it all. We then knelt on the floor next to his large sofa and the Holy Ghost did Come Upon Us. At least, that's what Dr. Rhett said as he lifted me to the sofa and took off my blouse. My skirt stayed on the floor.

And Doctor Rhett,
He touched me
        He touched my lips with his
        He soothed my brow
        And kissed my eyes
        He stroked my neck
        He cupped my breast
        Sucked my nipple
        Rubbed my belly
As I writhed beneath
His fingers.
And I knew he was
Gonna heal me,
Oh Lordy, yes!
A moan escaped me
And heat spread
Throughout my loins
And, lo! I was healed!

Dr. Rhett says it will take a long time to completely heal me, to be patient, and to come every Tuesday after class.

(accepted for an anthology, not published)



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