Goddess Maria

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Quote From Maria "The collective positive energy of those who believe in change is the force able to make it happen."

Maria R. Palacios

WomanClick on Picture For Larger View On The Thinking of Time

Midlife Reflections

Maria R. Palacios

We go
from twenty to forty
in the blink of an eye.

Twenty years can leave
soft marks
or deep scars.
Sometimes they leave both.
They can make us wise
or leave us lost.

Would we go back
if we could?
So far
I've never met
a person who would.

Instead we learn
to welcome time.
We become old friends.
Beauty
redefines itself.
It relaxes its muscles
and laughs.

Age becomes
a state of mind.
Twenty years
give birth to history.
They become laugh lines
and life lines.
They become frown
and wrinkle
because we have lived
and we have loved
and we have laughed
and we have frowned
a lot.

We have been friends
with time
and then lovers.
Wrinkles are the offspring
of experience,
our love affair with life,
lines
of our most intimate
poems.

Twenty years have brought
silver strands of moon
to my head.
They have made dreams hang
like hungry bats.
But there's no blood
beneath the moon of my hair.
Just twenty years
that leaped across my youth.

One morning I woke up forty;
then forty one...
A Goddess I have become.

I wouldn't want to go back
either.

Events
Memories of Sixteen

For Berenice

Maria R. Palacios
Berenice,
I remember you now
although I hadn't thought of you
in over twenty years.
I guess some memories lie dormant
until something awakens them;
a splash of cool water
over sleeping thoughts
and there you are
as if time
had never passed.

You were
Badass
outspoken Latina,
thirteen going on thirty
and the most beautiful brown eyes
I'd ever seen.
I had just turned sixteen
in the hospital
where we shared dreams and scars
and the slow drip of IV lines
that paralyzed time
and put minds to sleep
along with memories
of a body that never belonged
to you or me
but to the people in white
who patched us up
sewing
our socially unacceptable physicality
into garments of normality,
and put spines back in track.
The people in white
were seamstresses and engineers,
they were needles and morphine
and the taste of death
between our lips.

But even then
you were sunshine and laughter,
whisper and dream
as we shared secrets
of early womanhood,
the burst of normality
that sprung from our chests,
the magic of breasts
and all those other things
that made us feel
real.

We giggled
at the thought of love
and would sigh
at the thought of lust.
Would somebody ever want us?
You would ask
in your thirteen year old voice.
Will someone ever love
the curvature
of my spine and the silence of bones
that never learned to talk?
Will someone ever love
dreams that can't walk?
You had never been kissed
and at sixteen
I had been kissed once
only once
I had been kissed.

"You will find love."
I used to promise you.
I believed you would.

And I wonder why
twenty some years later
you jump
back into my thoughts
and take me back
to your brown eyes
and your smile,
the strength we shared,
hospital days
and the chance to be
average girls
who in the midst of pain
were able to laugh
and I have you
to thank
for that.

I thank you
for the sound of laughter
in my life
back when there was nothing
to really laugh about.
You were there for me
Witchy Girl,
thirteen going on thirty,
sometimes we cried together
but not too often.
There was too much
to dream about.

I hadn't thought of you
in over twenty years;
Berenice, sweet girl, Goddess
and Witch.
By now
I'm sure you have been kissed
and I hope that somehow
my name goes back to you
like a breath of fresh air,
like a splash of cool water
in your thoughts.

You will find love.
I used to promise you.
I hope you did, my friend.
With all my heart,
I hope you did.

For Sandra Cisneros

Maria R. Palacios

We all have a house
on Mango Street.
Mine
is on Autumn Grove Dr.
The only house
with a green roof
and a long ramp,
a gazebo
and poems growing wild
like weeds.

My words used to wear
your outfits
wishing they could hang out
in some Chicago neighborhood,
find a small house
with a big mouth.
My words used to dream of that.
They longed
for Mango Street
and sweet bread,
Mexican hot chocolate
between my hands.
I wanted to sip poems
through a straw
and make a man of snow
just to watch him melt.

I wore your feminist metaphors
even the ones that didn't fit,
the warm scarfs and the gloves,
things you just don't own
in the Texas heat.

You taught my words
to spit and curse,
dressed them in red
and took them into the night.
My Muse woke up
with a hangover
puking words
on any piece of paper;
-a used envelop will do.
-a napkin.
-the back of my hand.
My Muse became
Loose Woman on Mango Street
and La Llorona.
The Woman Hollering Creek
of my persona.
That's
what became
of me.

And I found my Mango Street
on Autumn Grove Drive
small vignettes
of my own life,
old house with a green roof
and a big mouth;
Words
no longer dressed in white
because they learned
to spit and curse
like a poet.

Books Signed By Author

Memories of Sixteen II

For Maripi

Maria R. Palacios

Your name was also Maria
but you were
Maria del Pilar
like the Virgin Mary
of your native Spain,
you went by Maripi
with an accent on the "i"
at the end of your name.

You were beauty and intellect;
keeper of my nightmares
and my dreams.
To you I confessed my sins
and you listened
as we sat under an old tree
on Cecil Street
and dreamed
of Prince Charming.

That was the year
you had lost your leg to cancer
and I
lost my virginity.
Life brought us together as neighbors
in the small efficiency apartments where we lived;
around the corner from the Medical Center;
walking distance from the Houston Zoo.
A fortune to live there now
but then things were different.
The poor lived there back then.
We
were "the poor".

And we shared bread and late nights,
dreams and fears.
Sometimes
your fear of death was real
even though you never said it.
I could tell
when your darkness was present,
but you knew my darkness too
and that's how things were for us
at sixteen.

I kept your secrets safe;
your fear of death
and your phantom pain.
You kept my sins on a leash
and let them roam free
when we sat under that tree
and you lost your hair to chemotherapy
and I lost my heart
over a man.

The whole summer
we sat there and talked.
You grew dreams and hair
beneath a white bandanna
and I grew breasts
beneath a shell of cast.
At sixteen
we were already women
with a past;
our own "telenovela"
unfolding in our lives.

So you kept my sins
along with the memory
of your leg
and you never complained.
To you
one leg was better than none
and me,
I had never walked,
not gracefully like you.
I had no memory of footsteps
and you couldn't erase
the memory of yours.

You had known
the rhythm of feet,
the music of high heel shoes
on the concrete;
things I never got to know.
Did you miss that?
I never asked.
Some things, like lonesome shoes,
are better left alone.

You were part of my world
during the most painful time
in my life.
You were the rock
and the strength
and I
salty ocean of tears.
Broken heart and broken wing,
you helped me fly again.
Nobody dies of love. -You used to say.
You were so right.
I'm still alive
and I have loved many times
since then.

Looking back twenty-five years.
I still don't know
the source of your strength.
Losing a leg seemed like nothing to you.
You never got mad.
You never fell in love.
You never cried.
To you
life was always black and white
acceptance
and rational thought.
Your Prince Charming
was far away into your twenties.
Mine had come and gone
and broken my soul in half
at sixteen.

Twenty-five years is a lifetime
and it's been a lifetime
since I last saw you.
I know all your hair grew back
and you went back to Spain
with a suitcase full of English
and an artificial leg.
You learned to walk again
and you went home
back to your dreams.

I think of you today
and I want to go back
to my youth,
sit under that tree with you
and share stories of ghost feet and broken hearts
I want to believe in romance
with the same intensity
and the same insanity
of sixteen.

But sixteen is far gone
and at forty-one
I can only write
about that time.
Love has changed
from savage flame
to steady light.
It has gone from Prince Charming
to the sound of children
in the house,
the sound of life,
things that at sixteen
I wouldn't have grasped.

I've grown so much since then. Dear God.
I know you've changed too.
I'm sure you also remember
our summer of 82
at least
I hope you do.

Wherever you are,
thank you for your strength
and the serenity of your thoughts.
Thank you for mending
my broken heart.
Nobody dies of love.
You were so right.

Nobody
Dies
of
Love.

Routine

Maria R. Palacios

When falling in love
we must remember
romance
is no permanent detail.
Candy, flowers and cards
are bait at the end of a line
promising to be divine,
fairytale, wine and sixty-nine.
And they are.
Until we bite.

Then
they bite us back.
There is no fairytale, no bait,
no sinful promise of divine
while sixty-nine
is just the number that comes
before seventy.
No dining involved
in counting memories.
We count backwards
until we reach zero.

Eating Disorder

Maria R. Palacios

Every now and then
I snack on memories
now stale
from the passage of time

It's not that I'm hungry for you
or that I miss you.
Boredom sometimes leads to bingeing
therefore I nibble
on the past
even though your name tastes sour

Peanut Butter Tacos

Maria Palacios

I eat peanut butter
with a spoon
no jelly or bread
just the thick, creamy texture
of crushed peanuts
that stick to my gums
along with words
not ripe enough to venture
into the spoken form.

Peanut butter and poems
melt in my mouth
caressing my taste buds
with semi-salty gooeyness.
that makes my tongue dance
next to rising phrases
that surface in my mouth.

One day
of neurotic PMS
I might crave
the sugar and starch
to go with it.
I shall then
sit on the floor with my sorrows
a stack of tortillas on one side
giant jar of jelly on the other
and squeeze poems
into tacos
merging my two worlds
at once.

Workshops

To View Full Sized Pictures Click Here
How They Grow
Maria R. Palacios

At first
they're barely apparent,
two tiny rose buds
wanting to bloom
on the fertile terrain of flesh
where childhood rests
awaiting
the inevitable.
They usually begin
like shy seeds
on a flat surface
and eventually swell
into dreams
of perfume and silk
where they later blossom
into full size cups
of womanhood.

Breasts
Maria R. Palacios

Fallen moons
swing from my chest
wishing to reach the sky
attempting
to reattach themselves
to time.
They were once
nocturnal creatures
rising in the clouds.
They were once
forbidden fruit
that promised paradise.
Now the lie in fabric nests.
Sometimes
they even sleep
dreaming
of weightless journeys
into the past.

Deep Blue

Maria R. Palacios

Poem for Janice Joplin

You didn't mean
to die.
You were just reaching
for the bluest of blue
the coldness of blue
sky blue
Port Arthur winter mornings
your déjà vu
of blue.
Blues
that ran through your veins
until all the red
was gone.

You didn't mean
to let go.
Or did you?
when your fingers stretched
to touch the blue calling you
as it always did
with its weeping notes
and its hollow cry
the cry of the Blues you loved,
the dark side
of blue
deep ocean blue
muddy blue
the kind that swallows you
like quicksand,

did you notice your hand
falling
into the dusk
with the rest of you
as you released
the thread
the line
that connected you
to life?

Did the flesh of dreams
cushion the fall
as you attempted to grasp
the last words
the last song
the last musical note
the last patch of blue
you could actually touch?

Or maybe there was no fall.
Maybe you simply floated
away
until you caught the train
leading to the blueness
of you.
Maybe
you're still somewhere
waiting for Bobby McGee
wearing that red bandana
that turned blue
the day you died.

Maybe blue is all there really was
even when you wore red
or black
the Blues
is all there really was
of you.

You breathe in my radio
today. Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Your voice spreads its wings
and soars
over the horizon.

Poem for Gabriela Mistral

Maria R. Palacios

I wish I could be
like Gabriela Mistral,
words flowing freely,
gracefully,
metaphors dressed
in their Sunday outfits
singing about love
and war
and love
and peace
and all those things
that become immortal
as immortal
as she is.

I want to be
like Gabriela Mistral
but my words are not graceful.
They struggle
in the birth canal of language.
My fingers, like forceps,
claw the keyboard
ready to grab the thought,
the moment,
help it breathe
for the first time,
let it rest on the space
where it's received
by the caress of paper.

My metaphors don't have
any Sunday outfits.
They don't go to church.
The don't sing
with the same compassionate voice
of Gabriela Mistral.

They are more Frida Kahlo.
Skeletons in red,
bones
re-arranged into words
carefully disguised
as poetry.

My words are born screaming,
gasping for air.
Fragile
but resilient
like the human spirit.
They are just beginning to learn
about love
and war
and the truth
about immortality.

They also carry
a message of hope
and sing,
perhaps the same old song,
sang by all those
who dare declare themselves poets
and baptize their words
with ink
stanza after stanza
until their hands cramp up
and their thoughts are left empty
when all the metaphors have gone to sleep
counting sheep on the screen
from the balcony of the mind.

I dare
call myself
a poet.
Mistress of Words
Female Don Quijote
Pancha Villav
21st century Frida
Latin
American Indian
Leader of my Tribe.

My words are not pearls.
They're not precious gems.
They don't shine
or rhyme themselves
into perfect sonnets
and carefully measured metaphors
(the beauty pageant of poets)
the precision of words
born from immaculate conception
free
of original sin
born from the light
into the light
as natural
as breathing.

My words are spontaneous.
They're not cautious.
They don't really know
how to discet a poem
with the same ease
as Gabriela Mistral.
The accuracy of the cut
is different
even if we use
the same scalpel,
the same ink,
the same dream.

My words are rebellious.
The refuse to conform.
They refuse to dress up
on Sundays.

Instead they go nude
exposing their scars,
singing about freedom,
lost
in La Mancha.
There is no Dulcinea
just a poet.
Original sin
at its best.

Poems
naked
waiting on the page.

Abortion

Maria R. Palacios

I loved you
even though I lied still
while you spilled
scarlet tears
on the sheet
beneath my body.

I wanted to name you,
give you a grave,
have something besides sorrow
to remember you by.

Instead I went home
feeling
the afterbirth of nothing
pulsating between my legs.

Translated WorksPortuguese translation of Maria R. Palacios' poem In the kitchen thinking of Sylvia Plath Kindly translated by Victor Hugo

Na cozinha, pensando em Sylvia Plath
Maria R. Palacios

Penso em ti,
por momentos,
quando estou na cozinha
e o resto da casa
já está dormindo.
Então palavras aparecem para mim.
A cozinha ganha vida.
Os armários repetem
suas batidas de uma asa só:
aberto,
fechado,
flip,
flap.
Eles conversam
do jeito que as coisas conversam conosco, poetas,
quando nos questionamos
sobre a vida
e sobre a morte.
Não sei
como era tua cozinha,
nem que coisas ela te dizia
quando decidiste
não mais ouvir sua voz.

Cansaste de armários
e de asas que batendo
nunca aprenderam a voar
e cansaste da laje fria
que beijava teus pés desnudos,
com a mesma frieza da morte
que teu corpo deixou
sobre o piso de tua cozinha.

Penso em ti,
por momentos,
quando estou sozinha
e cozinho poemas
no forno.
Eles se cozinham lentamente
enquanto os pratos conversam dentro da pia
seu habitual clique-claque
e o barulho de bandejas
e prataria
cochicha
sobre os segredos íntimos
de nossas bocas.

A cozinha fala depois.
Ela fala de ti.
Ela se pergunta que pesares,
que escuridão,
viveste
nesses últimos momentos,
quando os poemas alcançaram seu ponto
em teu forno
até que pegaram fogo
e inalaste sua fumaçada
de palavras incineradas;
palavras que morreram
junto contigo
um dia
em tua cozinha.

tua escuridão
porque mesmo na escuridão
eu vejo luz.
Eu procuro luz.
Minhas conversas
e os poemas que cozinho
nunca estiveram
nesse lado da vida
nesse lado da morte,
um lado que tu conheceste demasiadamente bem,
demasiadamente cedo.

Respiras
nas páginas de teus diários
e nas folhas de teus poemas
que cresceram
entre teus dedos
estourando livre
e finalmente entendendo
a luz.

Sim,
penso em ti.
E obrigada pelos poemas
que deixaste espalhados.
Pedaços que eu junto,
partículas do tempo,
tua receita pessoal
para morrer.
Pego teus poemas
uma a um,
beijo suas feridas
e lhes ofereço água.
Eles bebem de minha mão.
Eles voltam a respirar.
Eles morrem e revivem,
em minha cozinha.

To experience this poem in English please refer to blog log or go to view it, visit Maria's video Food for Thought /Poetry for every woman's kitchen.
Featured ArtistThe Artwork of Sabrina Zarco

Divorce

Maria R. Palacios

Some nights I still reach for you
even though your scent is gone
and your side of the bed
is now occupied
by books
and memories.

I have stripped the bed.
Cotton sheets gone to hell.
Silk from now on
to celebrate your absence.

Call it habit,
but I suppose I miss
the idea of you
when my feet
get cold at night.