Nuns (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

Nuns

At seven
all I knew about nuns
was Katie said they were
married to God.
I saw them when
we went to her parish in the summer
and sang songs and took the holy sacraments.

I never thought about them again
until I was nine and my mother
shared a room with Sister Josephine
at the sanitarium.
She sent notes on stationery
that had the scent of her powder
on the paper.
I carried them, deep
creased, in my pocket.

I remember
how she tried to give me her things
and she seemed so sleepy,
the empty bottle of phenobarbital.
The paramedics and my aunt
raised their voices
for her to open the door
and the door opened,
her lifeless body face down.

I went from house to house,
a chain of paper dolls.

I wondered sometimes if I married God too…

She laid in bed for 32 days
waiting for angels to take her away
in the white sun dress she wore
when my father peeled her arms
off his chest.
Hysteria flooding,
hammers falling all over her body.

Maybe I should have been more conscious that day.

The sky had a cutout
in the shape of where she stood.
I walked through that colorless hole
to find her.

Closed window. Closed heart.

I remember when she came back,
the month John Lennon was killed.
I looked out my bedroom window
down at the slush on the street.

 

* * *

“Nuns” by Heather Ann Schmidt comes from her book Transient Angels (2011, Crisis Chronicles Press).

Heather Ann Schmidt received her MFA from National University and has taught writing for a number of higher learning institutions.  A fine singer and visual artist, she also edits the tinfoildresses poetry journal and is the founding editor of Recycled Karma Press.  Her other books include Red Hibiscus (Crisis Chronicles 2013), Batik (NightBallet, 2012), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle (Village Green, 2011), Channeling Isadora Duncan (Gold Wake, 2009) and The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku (Crisis Chronicles, 2009).  Her latest, Field Notes, is forthcoming in 2014.

Electric Ladyland in My Head as I Lay in Bed (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

Electric Ladyland in My Head as I Lay in Bed

 

What would it be like in my room
If Hindu goddesses were here to share this morning with me–
The bed was bejeweled with roses and marigolds?
 
                                    Can a man understand a woman’s heart
                                    If he listens to her the way he plays
                                    A Rickenbacker twelve string?
                                    The answer is in experience.
                                    Am I experienced?
                                    The patterns of my closed eyes
                                    Take me inside the Peacock Room 
                                    Where walls are gold and teal 
                                    And I can lay my body out on velvet.
                                    A lover is more than physical and emotional intimacy
                                   
It is making love to the collective unconscious we
                                    Discover in each other,
                                    It is understanding that a lover is beautiful
                                    Because of the experiences had with past loves
                                    And those loves are a gift because they make
                                    The lover who they are.
                                    We are all a part of the mandala
                                    We are all mixed into the color wheel of the universe



* * *

Heather Ann Schmidt received her MFA from National University and has taught writing for a number of higher learning institutions.  A fine singer and visual artist, she also edits the tinfoildresses poetry journal and is the founding editor of Recycled Karma Press.  Her books include Red Hibiscus (Crisis Chronicles 2013), Batik (NightBallet, 2012), Transient Angels (Crisis Chronicles 2011), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle (Village Green, 2011), Channeling Isadora Duncan (Gold Wake, 2009) and The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku (Crisis Chronicles, 2009).

French Quarter Tryst (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

French Quarter Tryst
by Heather Ann Schmidt

Saturday
on a Bayou night

down Royal Street
and beads and
ba do dee da—

the blues slipped
over me like a tight
cocktail dress

and music showed us where
to turn

the quarter swayed from
the tipsy air
and The River
reflected brown bourbon.

Little fires in windows
distorted by old glass
into orbs of ghosts,
wailing an Etta James song:

I want a Sunday kind of love….

and lovers staggered by,
drunk on the
ooo shoo do de dooo

of the half-naked night.

I took your hand
and showed you where to put it,
unlike a girl who goes to bed
early to get up for church.

We went into an alley
and let the

blue-oh-eh-ooo
da doo dee dey

shadow over us.

“French Quarter Tryst” appears in Heather Ann Schmidt’s new Crisis Chronicles Press chapbook Red Hibiscus, published 1/1/2013.  The poem first appeared online in Opium Poetry 2.0.

Red Hibiscus is 26 pages, handbound with care, featuring a saddle stitched pale coral and deep grape cardstock cover.  Contents include “Song for Lilith,” “Ode to a Pablo Neruda Nude,” “Ghazal of the Night,” “Neorealism on the Streets of Birmingham,” “Duende in a Black Dress,” “Ganymede,” and much more.  To order, send $7 to Crisis Chronicles Press, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111.

Heather Ann Schmidt received her MFA from National University and has taught writing for a number of higher learning institutions.  A fine singer and visual artist, she also edits the tinfoildresses poetry journal and is the founding editor of Recycled Karma Press.  Her previous books include Batik (NightBallet Press, 2012), Transient Angels (Crisis Chronicles 2011), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle (Village Green, 2011), Channeling Isadora Duncan (Gold Wake, 2009) and The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku (Crisis Chronicles, 2009).

 

Two American Haiku by Heather Ann Schmidt

    two selections 
   from The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku
     (2009, Crisis Chronicles Press)

March 20

Three golden finches
sing in the white birch trees:
pieces of sunshine.

     June 25

Rain on my roof:
tears of a goddess leaving the
world heavier now.

 

 
The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku is available for $5 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111.

* * * * *

Heather Ann Schmidt has taught writing and more for several institutions of higher learning in Michigan and online. Her most recent poetry books include On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle [2011, Village Green], Transient Angels [2011, Crisis Chronicles] and Batik [2012, NightBallet]. She is also the founding editor and publisher for Recycled Karma Press.  Heather’s forthcoming collections include Red Hibiscus and Field Notes.  Find more at http://heatherannschmidt.yolasite.com.

The Reminder (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

 

The Reminder

by Heather Ann Schmidt

I feel Lou Hoover’s ghost walk with me

as I go under the arch

and see their names

recalling Tientsin.



And I remember leafing through the pages of

her diary from that June.

their bravery reminding me

that today it is good to dance in the rain,

lifting my arms up to the sky,

expecting a starling to land on my palm

creating the opportunity for an

impromptu duet. 

 

* * * * *
Heather Ann Schmidt has taught writing and more for several institutions of higher learning in Michigan and online. Her most recent poetry books are The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku (2009, Crisis Chronicles), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle [2011, Village Green], Transient Angels [2011, Crisis Chronicles] and Batik [2012, NightBallet]. She is also the founding editor and publisher for Recycled Karma Press.  Heather’s forthcoming collections include Red Hibiscus and Field Notes.  Find more at http://heatherannschmidt.yolasite.com.

Writing a Poem to Chase Away Sadness at the Slow Train Café [Schmidt]

Writing a Poem to Chase Away Sadness at the Slow Train Café

by Heather Ann Schmidt

Quiet One–

I know we will never sit across from one another

at a wooden table,

half empty French press of Americano

two cups half full,

throats bursting with lines of Whitman and Morrison’s lyrics

me, taking in the color of the rims around your eyes

when you see the reincarnation of your words.



Instead, I will search for white squirrels

across from Benjamin Franklin’s,

buy Krishna incense to burn in my room

when I write poems about the January spring

that visited on the day I was here

and imagine the way the corners of your

mouth slightly turn up, setting your eyes on fire

when you are happy. 

 

* * * * *
Heather Ann Schmidt has taught writing and more for several institutions of higher learning in Michigan and online. Her most recent poetry books are The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku (2009, Crisis Chronicles), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle [2011, Village Green], Transient Angels [2011, Crisis Chronicles] and Batik [2012, NightBallet]. She is also the founding editor and publisher for Recycled Karma Press.  Heather’s forthcoming collections include Red Hibiscus and Field Notes.  Find more at http://heatherannschmidt.yolasite.com.

Duet (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

Duet

by Heather Ann Schmidt

In Helen’s living room,

Marc plays his acoustic, following my voice

As I sing about love washing over me

Like the driving January rain outside

And I become the leftover autumn leaf,

Dried in the sun, floating in her koi pond


And he and I speak our language

He understands my other voice,

The one I don’t share with the rest of the world.

The one song that travels under my breath 

 

* * * * *
Heather Ann Schmidt has taught writing and more for several institutions of higher learning in Michigan and online. Her most recent poetry books are The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku (2009, Crisis Chronicles), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle [2011, Village Green], Transient Angels [2011, Crisis Chronicles] and Batik [2012, NightBallet]. She is also the founding editor and publisher for Recycled Karma Press.  Heather’s forthcoming collections include Red Hibiscus and Field Notes.  Find more at http://heatherannschmidt.yolasite.com.

Lotus (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

 

Lotus

by Heather Ann Schmidt

Grey aging kitten

wrapped in a question mark

slumbering while I sing,

please open your eyes

so I can see what you are dreaming…   

 

* * * * *
Heather Ann Schmidt has taught writing and more for several institutions of higher learning in Michigan and online. Her most recent poetry books are The Bat’s Love Song: American Haiku (2009, Crisis Chronicles), On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle [2011, Village Green], Transient Angels [2011, Crisis Chronicles] and Batik [2012, NightBallet]. She is also the founding editor and publisher for Recycled Karma Press.  Heather’s forthcoming collections include Red Hibiscus and Field Notes.  Find more at http://heatherannschmidt.yolasite.com.

January in Oberlin (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

January in Oberlin

by Heather Ann Schmidt

Helen sits at her piano

and plays My Lady

her cats circle around my ankles,

One decides to jump in my lap,

rolling over, revealing white on black velvet.



Her hands move over the keys

and I close my eyes listening for

low whisper of her song.



She doesn’t know that when I was eighteen

I dreamt of living in a house like this,

walls filled with the reminiscence of

trekking the Earth.



Her stories of South Hampton remind me

of when I was sixteen in Birmingham, 1985

riding my bike through subdivisions

lined with mansions

on the way to one of my jobs.



In some way, her stories cross over mine,

words, silence, ideas become ours

as this friendship begins.   

 

* * * * *
Heather Ann Schmidt has taught writing and more for several institutions of higher learning in Michigan and online. Her most recent poetry books are On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle [2011, Village Green Press], Transient Angels [2011, Crisis Chronicles Press] and Batik [2012, NightBallet Press]. She is also the founding editor and publisher for Recycled Karma Press.  Heather’s forthcoming collections include Red Hibiscus and Field Notes.  Find more at http://heatherannschmidt.yolasite.com.

Note #31 (by Heather Ann Schmidt)

Note #31

by Heather Ann Schmidt

if the world is
s p in    ni         ng
and i am walking &
am away                       from the sun
am i (up)  side
down?
 
if we are all different
and everyone sees different striations
in the sidewalk
and the hand of god
mixes those ideas together
is that perfect?
 
or my perception of what is perfect?
 
how long do i need to rain dance
around the capital, the t.v. stations, the jails?
its like this:
 
the last shall be                                                                            first
 
&
 
thefirstshallbelast
 
it takes  more
it takes    more
it takes      more
 
than broken records and skipping needles
 
it takes holding the hands of heroin prisoners and walking down with them the hall to the end where the door is and opening the door and walking them through and sitting with them at that bare table, that empty table and looking in maps of their eyes and being the cartographer that know where to dig the well.
 
dig
dig
dig
dig this
 
the world is (up) side (down)
 
and we need someone to shake the change loose.
   

 

* * * * *
Heather Ann Schmidt has taught writing at Mott Community College, ITT Technical Institute in Michigan and Southern New Hampshire University’s online program. Her poetry collection On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle was released in January 2011 by Village Green Press and her latest book, Transient Angels, was published by Crisis Chronicles Press in May. Heather’s forthcoming collections include Red Hibiscus and Field Notes.  Find her at http://heatherannschmidt.yolasite.com.