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Touching Ground by Eve West Bessier I’ll begin here, at the root of the problem defining myself with external cloth, cultural weavings, convenient uniforms of conformity. I’m old enough to see the warp, the subtle proof of selling out to textures of fear and insecurity. I’m old enough to see the coming of thunder, rumbling in my bones, of shedding everything I’ve known and owned. I see myself crossing river stones over the cold current of old habit. Finding balance only in speed. Don’t think —Just do it! I see myself running bare souled into the woods that have always spoken at the edge of my self control —the deep, lush forest of what’s left unbroken. I see myself —a she bear running, my lungs pumping instinctual air; yelling, growling, hooting, howling, prowling the who of what I am, the why, the where. And in the middle of that fertile sound, my feral heart will rest, will nest, will finally touch ground. |
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Power Money
by Eve West Bessier Power money is a muddied green, oozing through the electronic screen, rarely seen, always leaning, pumping the consumer machine. Power money is caviar on the tongue, salt of greed, speed, seed of desire. Power money is Wall Street noise, the breathing of boys in labor, spawning more, spewing war, gun whore, environmental open sore. Power money is high tech tease, social disease, fees, the legalese of fragmentation and decay, chemical charisma and the corporate lay. Power money is grown by the underfed, bread-less, said-less flunkies; consumed by the overfed, Journal-read, highly-ed, Fed-Ex junkies. Power money makes heart fickle soul brittle mind cold eyes sold words hollow wisdom callow and everyone lust. Wait. Whose illusions feed this shallow trust fund? |
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The Fall of Courtly Love
by Eve West Bessier How I have wooed and misconstrued you, like a knight his distant Lady, or a troubadour at the curtained window of your heart. How I have bowed to the time worn epic of romance, a disfigurement of love so ancient as to be mythical. How I have pined for the ungraspable ideal, a gilded and seductive lure, hooked on the long line of a patriarchal psychology. There is no cure for such adolescent longing, devoid of genuine, earthy, sticky, myth-shaking, love-making, risk-taking, implacable ardor. Except to wake up, shake off the creed of round tables and en-towered damsels and face the raw beauty of flesh and bone. In the relational world of flood and quake, storm and wake, we are free to be real and whole, with neither shame nor grandiosity to hide our tenderness. |
 Eve West Bessier holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from San Francisco State University. She also holds a Master of Education from The University of California, Davis, where she worked as a researcher in educational program development and evaluation for eighteen years. She is currently an Area Coordinator and teacher with California Poets in the Schools, a jazz vocalist, vocal coach and certified life coach. Her publications include: The North American Revie, Kalliope, Lyric, Manzanita, Seeker, The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, and Heart Flip. She has two chapbooks, Roots Music and Splash published by dPress, and she is currently seeking publication for her full-length collection of jazz inspired poetry, Mood Swing. She received the 2000 Kathryn Hohlwein Award, took First Place for Poetry in the 2000 California Focus on Writers Contest, and received Second Place in the Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest in 2008. One of her jazz poems, "Zoo You, Boogaloo," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2003. |
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