Patricia
Wellingham-Jones
Photo
courtesy of Roy L. Jones |
Patricia Wellingham-Jones, a
former psychology researcher and writer/editor, is a three-time
Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work is published in numerous
anthologies, journals, and Internet magazines, including
HazMat Review, Red River Review, Rattlesnake Review, Phoebe, A
Room of Her Own, Centrifugal Eye, Ibbetson Street Press and
Niederngasse. Chapbooks include, among others, Don't
Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer (PWJ Publishing),
Apple Blossoms at Eye Level (Poets Corner Press), Voices
on the Land (Rattlesnake Press), and Hormone Stew (Snark
Publishing). End-Cycle: poems about caregiving is the
winner of Palabra Productions Chapbook Contest, 2006. She has a
26-article series called "Getting Published", archived on
Long Story Short (www.longstoryshort.us/
); she has a monthly poetry column in East Valley Times,
and she has been Featured Poet in several journals. Her website
is
www.wellinghamjones.com .
Patricia is also the author of a littlesnake broadside, Mill
Race Café. For a free copy, send an SASE to Rattlesnake
Press.
Patricia Wellingham-Jones Poems
Walk among Bulls
The gravel of the ranch road
sharp under our feet,
we walk among bulls.
Fill our lungs
with methane-flavored air
spiced with ozone
from the thrashing stream.
The bull by the lane
takes a stance on wide-planted legs.
White hair curls
on a broad forehead
between horns curved to kill.
He stares in our eyes,
stretches a mouth around
square yellow teeth,
emits a bellow.
I leap. You just coo,
Hello, big beautiful boy.
We march on
unmolested by bull.
They’re almost pets, you explain
as my heart thumps erratic beats,
and bull noises come
from all over the field,
through budding oaks.
Friends they are, raised together, you say
as we approach six Herefords, twelve horns,
and walk straight through
their parted ranks, grass-scented
breath steamy on our skin.
Try To Dictate a Poem To a Deaf Man
when you’re speeding in the northbound lane
35 miles from the nearest rest stop
and the words pour a relentless stream
from your brain
Try to get him to catch those words
spilling a glittery cascade
Try to explain to a man scrawling shorthand
where a line ends a comma falls
Try to keep the whole
of the poem in your head
while his fingers fumble on the page
and he asks you to repeat
a phrase a line a stanza
Try not to run up the back
of the oil tanker just ahead
or slide sideways into a line of cars
when you snap that snarl of impatience
And just try not to scream in rage
at the inept willingness of those hands
that caress you
as he grabs at the images
shimmering in your mind
your hands locked on the steering wheel
going 70
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