Cherished Pulse
Unconventional Love Poetry
By Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Illustrated by Vicki Thomas
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Magdalena Ball
Discover other titles by Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson at Smashwords.com
These twenty poems will make you think of love a little different than many love poems that you read. You will enjoy them. Willie Elliot, MyShelf.com
By Magdalena Ball
Poems of clarity, epiphany and stark existential awareness. Abracing, imaginative collection of poetry that rewards repeated reading. Sue Bond, M/C Reviews
The change and growth the protagonist goes through from the beginning to the end is nothing short of extraordinary, rendered almost impeccably, and the dialogue throughout feels as real as those dark shadows that hang out on that whiskey corner just down the street from my place, street-talking their way to the next hit, the next kiss, the next anything...kudos to Magdalena ball. Tony Nesca
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
--W. H. Auden
Poem Credits
“Dark Matter”, “Aurora”, and “Galactic Collision” originally published in Quark Soup (Picaro Press) written by Magdalena Ball
“Body Language” originally published in The Harpweaver (vol 9), Published by Brock University
“Personality” originally published on Totem Triptychs, Edited by Don Swartzentruber
“A Woman’s Heart” originally published in Inkspotter, edited by Betty Dobson
“Another Day” originally published in Subtle Tea, Edited by D. Herrle
Magdalena Ball is also the author of a chapbook of poetry, Quark Soup (Picaro Press).
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is also the author of a chapbook of poetry, Tracings (Finishing Line Press).
Magdalena Ball
The Ocean
The Ocean
Spotting your face
not for the first time
the transportation
that fractured place
between absolute familiarity
(near invisibility)
and the shock of new.
There’s no feature
(as familiar as my own)
not a wrinkle
I haven’t traversed.
Yet you turn your profile
in the gentle
fluorescent light
and my audible
(inaudible)
gasp
is the voice
of a girl
discovering
the bountiful
ocean.
Great Sky
At Brill on the Hill (with the windmill)
the sky ominous
a purple bruise threatened to knock
us off the bikes
Nixy’s little mill tenuous
perched alone,
six hundred feet above sea level
no trees to buffer the wind
more than three centuries
of lovebirds
non conformists
showing off calve strength
as they worked their way towards
a pint at the The Pheasant Inn.
We too were more tenuous.
Healthy children
our eyes wide with the cold
wild landscape
hungry for our future
the warm taste of flesh.
Your red and white leathers
seemed bolder
than the great sky
bigger than the bleak landscape
and grassed over clay pits
when you took my hand
for the first time
pulled me down
out of the wind.
No going back.
The windmill kept turning
the Pheasant
churning
hearty ploughmen’s
while we rode off
into adulthood.
Red and white bravado may be gone
with the purple clouds
and cracked leathers
of our childhood
but hunger remains.
Don’t let age blind you.
Under my crepe paper skin
lies a beating heart
blood moving bravely
through veins and arteries
Pull me down
out of the wind
like you used to.
Event Horizon
Matter collapsed to infinite density
the curvature of your spacetime spine
extreme
your beautiful body edges
the point of no return
my disembodied voice
a cosmological constant
begs you to hold back
the raging hunger
you denied for years.
Stay.
Traced out by critical light rays
that can never escape
you sit alone on the event horizon
the inward pull of gravity
overwhelming
locked off
to stupid mortals
like me
terrified at the vortex
you lean towards
ready to cross the threshold.
Stay.
What draws you forward?
Is the naked singularity
of your imminent
big bang
more provocative
than the warmth of human embrace.
The randomness
of your madness
shakes the beauty from your hair
leaves me alone
in the coldest space
while redshift
increases beyond bounds to infinity
forget it
glory’s nothing against
the simple truth of presence.
Stay.
Personality
When the perfect
personality formula
of your tickbox life
leads you into the
swamp of overconformance
telling you who you are
whom to love
what to do
your world reduced to
gorgeous masks
you pull from the cupboard