Butterflies were waiting for me when I woke up this morning. I go out on the screened porch with my coffee and they hold on to the screen waiting for me to come out and play. I had five flitting all around me.
Butterflies Pose
Where I Am Less
Where I Am Less
Knew coming through the door
happy, relaxed, smiling
there would be a price to pay.
Saw the tension on your face
waiting for me to take my place
beside you, where I belong…
on the couch
where I am less.
Went out on my own
played all day with a friend
not depressed, not alone.
daring to smile,
shut off the phone.
foolish woman
I am back home…
on the couch
where I am less.
by Jeanne Marie
She Was
She Was
The grief encompassed her soul until the elements of her former self were nothing.
Nothing.
Destiny squeezed her guts until she splattered all over the floor.
She was, she was, but now she isn’t, not anymore.
Wait.
Amidst the wreckage of her shattered, twisted dreams perchance a gem remains?
A shred of what was, a stair to climb on, a hand to reach beyond her agony,
clutching what still could be?
Carefully, small slivers extracted of what value they weren’t sure
held up to the light by white coats who thought they knew the cure,
the cure for secrets that had hammered her to her knees
events which paralyzed the frightened child she was before.
Men and women who only added their putrid slime to the illness
then when her hour was up they shoved her through the door.
That of course was just good business, nothing’s free,
no matter how she did implore.
Secrets torn asunder, gaping holes dripping vulnerability,
not unlike her veins the night she’d gashed them open wide.
The dirt, the filth, the grotesque, no longer could she hide.
Naked, restrained, unfamiliar shocked eyes did see and several faces
as familiar as her own beheld the tragedy.
But surely they could have done without, her agonizing screams, her blood, her shouts?
“You have no f…… right, let me die,” she’d screamed that night until no voice remained.
Perhaps that was true, yet they had to consider the fact that she was quite insane.
What else could they do, what else would have been right?
So, they saved her anyway, forced her to breathe another day.
Clothed in anguish and shades of gray, doomed to inhere, she haunts the nights,
a ghost of the woman before, who was, who isn’t, not anymore.
Spirit lacerated, black with pain, red with rage, you would not recognize her aura.
A kaleidoscope of mistrust and betrayal determines her movements.
Such a thin line between yesterday’s grief and hope’s beckoning tomorrow.
One baby step at a time she forges a reality where wounds are but the mortar
between her bricks and angels guard her entrance from Knights in Dirty Leather.
This saddened woman who holds within her a tiny, unhealed girl
this woman who endures the anguish her ignorance invited into her world.
Coloring innocent lives with confusion and bereavement evermore.
She was, she was, but now she isn’t, not anymore.
by Jeanne Marie, 1989
Dance With Me Woman
Dance With Me Woman
He yanks the crippled woman
Out onto the slick dance floor.
As he stumbles over her heart, he asks,
“Don’t you like to dance anymore?”
Her brown eyes vacant, not unlike a corpse
She silently gazes up at his handsome face.
Her words are lodged in her throat
Obstructed by injuries that time can’t erase.
There’s no crazy glue that’d bind her
Or mend her tattered faith
She’s just a fragment of herself
So, they waltz, standing in place.
by Jeanne Marie
Promises
There are no promises unbroken
And there are no guaranties,
Still, I need something to hold on to
Because I’m falling
Back under your spell.
I’m so afraid and you know
Love and fear
Blend like fire and water.
Every time I feel
That old familiar burn,
Ice cold rain puts out the flames.
by Jeanne Marie
Verbal Abuse I Say
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Why not everyday?
I can’t be anyone but me.
I can’t see anything
That I can’t see
Until my eyes are opened
Then I can’t look away
When you call me a bitch
I want to move so far away
When you loudly call me
F—— pathetic in Denny’s
I eat my stack of pancakes
Covered in syrup and butter
Even though I want to run home
But home is where we live
So honestly, home is no better.
As I yearn to be alone
Syrup and tears
Taste familiar together.
Where is the woman
I thought I’d be?
Where is the man
I thought you were?
The perfect couple
They always said
But if this is love
I’d rather be dead.
You say it’s my fault
When you yell
Swear and scream.
I make you so mad
That’s why you’re
Being so mean.
Verbal abuse I tell you
No, it’s not you…
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My Daddy’s Legacy
A frightened child
Puts the pillow over her ears,
Daddy screams so loud
He doesn’t hear her tears.
He says that his family should die
They drain his very life,
He calls her mom a whore
But she’s a “Stand By Your Man” wife.
Daddy lurks over the small girl’s bed
He’s so quiet she almost wishes
That she could hear him scream!
Is that really a gun he holds?
Dear God, she prays,
Let this be a dream!
He never pulled the trigger
But he killed her just the same,
All the years of fearful waiting
Have drove her half insane.
The sun rises and she can’t wake up
Daddy ranted and raved all night,
How can she go to school
And pretend that she’s all right?
She watches her mother
Who plays her part so well,
Unlike the girl who doesn’t understand
Why she was born into this hell.
The years have gone by
And now a woman grown,
Still shackled to that frightened child
When the night falls, she is alone.
He said that his family should die
The woman often wishes that they had
Because living with her fears,
Has proven twice as bad.
by Jeanne Marie, 1969
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Why Not Everyday?
Other’s Eyes
Butterflies flit around my face
morning does not stay
minutes turns to hours
as I duel with weeds and play.
I go out front and gasp
stock-still, in awe I stand
loving flowers of every hue
petals are caressed with hand.
Sun sets, splashing orange
and yellow across the sky
stunning, breathtaking
fiery colors fast-slipping by.
“Dear God, is this all just for me?”
“Child of nature, thumbs of green
butterfly whisperer, home garden queen,
send your pictures to other’s eyes
and they will bless all who see.
by Jeanne Marie
Go To Sleep
The angry feelings
shove at the door
that I want closed.
Let us out!
Let us out!
Go to sleep
is my sorry answer.
Go to sleep.
They wait
for me to fall asleep,
they wait.
I hear a woman crying.
“No!” she cries out,
“No, I don’t love you!”
As she sobs
I reach out
to comfort her.
I touch a face
wet with tears.
It is my own.
by Jeanne Marie
The Milk Carton
Cold Winter’s Bite… by Jodie Lynne
No matter how much I put in…
How hard I did try…
Right back down
this mountain I’d slide…
I’ve climbed and
I’ve crawled…
Had faith, I believed…
How well I took life’s test
karmas from Eve…
Told myself never quit…
or never I’d gain…
Worth it this fight…
I bore all my might…
Picked thorn woven weeds
filled purely of pain…
Maybe I went too far…
Took a wrong trail or two…
Left…I am here…
Damning fate who already knew…
Foreseen was my future
she holds in her grip
same end it does seem…
Maybe my character once questionable…
Maybe my motives once unclean…
Surely she sees greatest all efforts
this queen all unseen…
I put all that was left…here…
I went out on a whim…
Judgment’s cold harshness
tears through my skin…
Stuck…in…
hells…I created…
Life battles again…
Falters and falls… seems the only win-win
this damn endings forever…
lost in the cruelest of winds…
Forever this fairy tale needs simply to end…
F—Cinderella and f—Snow White…
I’m left here alone…in fate’s cold winter’s bite.
by Jodie Lynne
Deadly Friend
A young girl picks up a drink
Her fear and pain melts away,
She found a magic cure
She found a best friend today.
She takes that friend with her
Where ever she has to be,
The friend gets her through,
But she’s no longer free.
Hiding her new friend from the rest
It’s true, somehow she always knows,
That this friend is dangerous.
But caution? To the wind it goes.
Years slip by and some begin to see
That she prefers this friend,
People criticize her drinking
And other friendships end.
The bottle becomes her center
It directs her every move,
But what once brought her relief
No longer seems to soothe.
The friend who helped her through
Now cripples and blinds her sight,
Alone she drinks and she cries
Dreading tomorrow, hating tonight.
She gave up all her friends
To keep the brown bottle close,
Now she has lost them all
Betrayed by what she trusted most.
She reaches out to God
During a desperately lonely hour,
He sends her back His love
And fills her with His power.
She ends the deadly friendship
Stands strong and free again,
The black fog begins to lift and
Sobriety is one fight she does win.
Jeanne Marie
Wet
Tears drops splashed on
my smart phone today
My smart phone remained silent
It didn’t have a word to say.
The thin ice
I walk upon
Has begun to crack
I don’t care. I keep on.
If I am submerged
I won’t float back.
Under the ice
escape will allude me
I will drift away from
The hole I fell through
I will not struggle as
my lungs fill with water
my heart washed of you.
Jeanne Marie
Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This
The Secret
“Your life is a physical manifestation of the thoughts going around in your head! Think positive, attract positive.”
The Secret
Today
The past looms ever present, but this moment is God’s present to me. I won’t ignore my present by holding yesterday’s regrets in front of my eyes. I cannot change the past, but today, the present is mine. I will create good memories. I will hold this moment, I will laugh and I will play. I will live today, I will love me today and I will appreciate the precious people who love me today. I will share my present with you today. Jeanne Marie
Flaming Sunsets, Florida
Florida Nights
Catching Sunsets While The Moon Watches
One More Time, Again
One More Time, Again
Let’s not fight when the sun goes down and the shades are drawn.
Wouldn’t you rather call back the tender fury, the passion that we once wore?
Time was on our side and ever so trusting I gave me to you
only to be lost, a forlorn girl standing on the edge of nevermore.
Drew back the covers, flesh ablaze, unashamed, nothing to hide,
fell in love, lost my head, I was so sure.
Recreate the euphoria of that first night, devouring each other
between the worn cotton sheets on my antique bed.
Use your fingertips to chase away the years of struggling
the hurt and the anger that screams wild as savage beasts inside our heads.
Play make-believe, pretend that it’s yesterday
and the bitter deeds did not destroy the tenderness instead.
Pursue me like there’s no tomorrow because I can not see beyond today
then, when tomorrow comes…
I promise to set you free, stand on my own two feet, find my own way.
Hands could caress, bodies could recreate, satisfy this insane yearning
as you travel back with me, waltz me back through past’s gate.
Touch my soul once more with longing and desire, force the winds of change
to stand stationary while you re-ignite my skin’s desire.
What would I give to travel back and never have been betrayed?
I scarce remember when there were no walls
and I did not know how to be afraid.
Perhaps tonight you could help me to forget to remember if I promise that
I won’t run away when the dawn comes, I won’t run away. No…not yet.
We could try, one more time, again. What could we lose, what could we win?
Cradle me in your arms and recapture me with reckless hunger,
pretend thirty years have not transpired.
It would be so easy because fingertips have no memories and
they don’t know how to hate, they will pursue passion’s flagrant fire
unlike a broken heart which hesitates.
No movement forward from here so we could journey back to then
before the illusions were shattered and we could try, one more time, again.
One more time again, as if you read my mind.
Still, the heat that rises in my loins concedes to grief, collapses beneath regret
too wise to be enchanted, too stupid to forget.
Good-bye. No, wait…not yet. Maybe we could try…one more time, again.
Jeanne Marie
Butterfly Returns To Scene Of Murder
Well, if you follow me, you know I love butterflies and they generally love me. They dance and pose for me and they visit me out back every morning. However, I had a front yard butterfly dilemma this past month when huge brown and orange caterpillars began to feed on one of my favorite plants, the Dutchman’s Pipe. I planted it two years ago and have babied and nurtured it into a six-foot tall, full, gorgeous vine that was producing tons of these flowers. Although it is a tropical plant, it even survived a Florida winter, where we do occasionally get a frost.
When I saw the ugly caterpillars, I didn’t know what to do. Obviously, I couldn’t kill them since I love butterflies. Well, I picked some of them off the plant but then decided to wait it out because Monarch caterpillars live on my Passion Flower vines and that plant has done well, even if the leaves do get chewed. I did do research and learned that these new caterpillars would be Goldrim Swallowtails and they don’t eat leaves, they suck the sap from the vines.
Now, I was worried. Eventually they turned into butterflies and flew away, not even one photo op. The vines were weakened but with some pruning and plant food, the plant seemed to recover. What I wasn’t expecting was another big old batch of caterpillars, but that’s what I got. I knocked as many off as possible, but when I left for a few days and came home, the vines were dead with only a few leaves left alive. Again the caterpillars had blossomed into butterflies, but I never even saw one of the murderous beauties. Gone. No thank you, nothing.
I was so sad that the caterpillars had destroyed such a beautiful, healthy plant, a plant that I really love. I have been feeding and nurturing it again, but I don’t think it’s going to recover. Although a few leaves remain, the twisted vines are brown and withered. I went out there today and a large butterfly flew around me and I instantly recognized it from the research I had done on the caterpillars.
It wouldn’t hold still for pictures but it actually let me hold it and it stayed in my hand for a minute. It was pretty, but I wanted my plant back. I told the one returnee that it better not be dropping off more babies, but it seemed to have a devil may care attitude and it didn’t show any remorse for having killed the Dutchman’s Pipe. I am going to try to find another Dutchman’s Pipe to plant but I don’t know if I can protect it from these ravenous creatures. It flew around my Ivy plant, which also has vines and checked it out for a while. I don’t think so. That plant is coming back in the house.
To Jeanne, from Mum 1987
My mother, Grace, wrote this poem for me after she read about fifty of my poems for the first time.
Verbal Abuse I Say
I can’t be anyone but me.
I can’t see anything
That I can’t see
Until my eyes are opened
Then I can’t look away
When you call me a bitch
I want to move so far away
When you loudly call me
F—— pathetic in Denny’s
I eat my stack of pancakes
Covered in syrup and butter
Even though I want to run home
But home is where we live
So honestly, home is no better.
As I yearn to be alone
Syrup and tears
Taste familiar together.
Where is the woman
I thought I’d be?
Where is the man
I thought you were?
The perfect couple
They always said
But if this is love
I’d rather be dead.
You say it’s my fault
When you yell
Swear and scream.
I make you so mad
That’s why you’re
Being so mean.
Verbal abuse I tell you
No, it’s not you say
With a confident smirk
Your conscious is clean.
So, when I’m gone
Will you look in the mirror
With only yourself
To be called a f——jerk?
The worst of it all
Since you ask, is
Becoming just like you
As I call you a f—— ass.
by Jeanne Marie
The Angel’s Feather
The Angel’s Feather
by Grace Christine Doucette 1926-2009
To Jeanne Marie. It was 1953 and two angels were sitting on a cloud over the small town of Tewksbury. They were sunning themselves, if angels can sun themselves, and these two angels were smiling and happy. As they looked down they saw a woman sitting on a doorstep. She was crying and so sad and so alone and it upset the angels.
One angel said, “What can we do to help this poor soul cheer up a little bit?”
The second angel said, “Well, this woman is about to give birth to a little girl. Maybe through this little girl we can bring some joy into the woman’s life.”
The first angel said, “That’s a great idea and we can do that!”
So, she reached up and plucked a feather from her wing and she placed it next to the little baby’s heart. She said, “Now, this baby will bring joy and love and laughter to that sad woman.”
Sure enough when the baby was born, she had a smile on her face and she instantly brought happiness to this lonely woman and day after day, they grew closer and closer together. One day as the woman was holding the baby and looking down at her, her heart was just bursting with love and she had to sing a song about this love. And she sang:
Whose baby are you?
Whose baby are you?
Your hair is brown
And your eyes are too,
So, whose baby are you?
You’re mine, yes you’re mine
Cause God gave you to me,
You’re mine, yes you’re mine,
Now my days are no longer gloomy.
Whose baby are you?
Whose baby are you?
You’re mine, yes you’re mine
Cause God gave you to me,
You’re mine, yes you’re mine
And you will always be.
And for the rest of her life, whenever the woman looked at that baby girl the angel’s feather would tickle them both and they would both burst into laughter and they brought joy to each other’s lives.
“This is a true story sweetheart, and I know you still have that angel’s feather near your heart cause every time you come near me, you fill my heart with joy and laughter and you have made my life complete. Love, Mom”
I was going for my first surgery in 2001 and I begged my mom to make me a tape to listen to when I was under the knife. I wanted her with me in spirit and I was so happy when I got the tape in the mail. My surgeon agreed to play the tape for me and when I came out of surgery, I was told that everyone in the operating room had been crying.
It’s funny how time runs away from us and our priorities turn upside down. When I came home from the hospital, I put the tape in a drawer because I knew it was special, it was my mom’s voice, but I didn’t listen to it again after my surgery, not until Mom passed away in 2009. It has taken me four years to copy the entire tape onto a CD (a one hour procedure) and to write out this story. Time. Why do we always assume there is more?
This story was mixed in with my favorite songs that she had sung for me when I was a little girl, the songs I had asked her to record for me so I would feel safe in surgery. What a precious gift. This story is the reason I named my book of poetry Gracie’s Glimmer. I am Gracie’s Glimmer and I believe she is still with me everyday.
Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie 
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