Laura Pena

What’s in my Dream Journal

Colours, mainly reds and yellows.Once it was a vibrant room inlaid with mosaics; a room in another realm I visited while dream-walking. Other times I can fly, those are the best dreams.

Flying overhead, arms out-stretched like a Christ figure and people below me are running in terror and screaming. Most often it’s me in houses that never end and I can’t find the exit. Room after room opens before me cluttered, filled with objects, sometimes people are there sleeping in their beds. I never feel like I am invading their space. On the contrary they are taking up valuable real estate in mine. One house had stairs that led up, up, up…I climbed and climbed, and never reached the top. Violence only when necessary like the time I dreamed a thief stole my backpack containing my poetry journal and personal journal. I chased him down, wrenched my backpack from his hands, screamed at him ‘No! This is mine! You can’t have it!” and I threw him off an overpass; that dream was filled with orange lights and death. I took back what was stolen and woke up with a smile on my face. 

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Why Can’t You Be a Normal Girl

It was expected of me to grow up, get married, and have babies. It's what mama did. My abuelas too. All my tias. Even my primas. Not too much education. Just enough to know reading, writing and arithmetic. Have some extra-curricular activities. Piano lessons? Sure, but I wasn't musically inclined. Ballet and gymnastics? It was fun for a summer but my big breasts got in the way. Plus I was as graceful as an elk walking through a porcelain doll museum. Writing? I could do that well, with my eyes closed, reams of notebook paper filled with every whimsical thought in my head. That’s nice. It’s a hobby. Like reading. Nothing serious. College after high-school graduation? Sure, as a back-up plan in case husband hunting took a little longer. I just wanted to express myself. I did it wrong. 

I gave up on those
expectations not mine  I 
rebelled  so worth it 

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No Account In That Bank

I keep thinking about mom’s car. It’s been sitting in her driveway undriven for a decade. I imagine the oil is thick, black, tar coating the engine; four flat, dry-rot tires, and chipping paint blistering in the sun year after year; rust is replacing the metallic tan. I keep thinking of the piles of books she wants to read taking up space on the floors; the broken fence that resembles a mouth in decay, the yellow, dusty newspapers crumbling in the garage; and all the hundreds of other objects crammed into every corner of her house. I keep thinking she’ll one day tell us to take it all away, burn it, sell it, store it, just get it out of my sight so I won't have to stress about it anymore. I know that day will never come while she’s alive. I keep thinking I need to put my heart in a safety deposit box so it won’t be moved by tears, threats, screams, ER visits, and guilt trips. My heart will be locked away in a steel coffin and feel nothing. My mother’s heart will break one final time when her hoard is removed and she’s left with only memories; yellow, dusty, and crumbling.

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Conjuring the Mythic Superhighway of My Unconscious Mind

after Sonnet, by Stephanie Grainger (England) 2018-2019

I set out on my journey, packing light as I only plan on being gone a few hours; sensible shoes for walking, breathable pants to move in, long-sleeved shirt for the cold patches along the way, and the blindfold; I am walking inwards along the black-lined, curving paths; I put my hands in front of me feeling my way through wisps, filaments, gossamer silk threads; one foot in front of the other, sure, sure of my steps; unsure, unsure of who I will meet; ghosts from the past: who I was at 15, I don’t recognize her anymore, she remains frozen in time; me at 25 already brittle from the strain of a bad marriage; 35 years old, single mother, still counting footsteps one in front of the other; at 45 reborn into another body and mindset; here I’ve stopped at 55 to take a breather, exhaling 40 years of experience, watch it swirl up like a gyre trying to reach heaven; not yet, not yet, heaven can wait a little while longer for me; I wake in the tundra and I know if I’ve survived this long the rest of my life-story, like the sonnets of Shakespeare, will endure for generations.

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This poem was first published by The Ekphrastic Review.

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Zero Requirement

Writing is done alone whether in a group or at home; writing is lonely work; brain being pummeled, battered, and misshapen from hours spent crafting symmetry. Craft demands zero requirement; make things out of materials at hand like nests from your hair for word birds flying around; stones gathered from the garden and placed into a labyrinth; eggs filled with weight and hatching stanzas, rhymes, meters, and metaphors; learning everything about craft then unlearning it so the thoughts flow from different pipes like dreams. I hang my words from light fixtures. I make a museum of ordinary objects and let the viewer decipher the meaning; a melted candle, a broken dish, an open wasp’s nest. Observe the hollows for wriggly bodies and how they squeeze themselves to fit their space much like a writer who has to make herself whatever size she needs. I love all my poems, my offerings; they don’t all have to fly; they remain in some shape or form; concrete, tangible, and edible.

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Power of Belonging

perks, awards, recognition, monetary rewards, pictures, glossy spread in magazines, people talking about me, presentations can be exhilarating and scary, feet to the fire, what have I done to deserve such applause; imposter syndrome is rearing its ugly, scaly head, and laughing at me; power struggles, I dream I’m stuffing the imposter in a box to shut out her noise in my head, I’m the real one so if she told she’s me she’s lying I belong here listen to my voice….

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The White Bird

Flies across the black forest of my nightmares. Pierces my heart before flying away. You and I just shared this intimate moment fitting together like geometric shapes; your yellow and my blue triangles perfectly aligned; then we slept. The white bird is flying overhead again and he feeds  me crabapples from a silver platter. I know they’re grown from cursed land where farmers weep from the toil and effort it takes to make blood flow from rocks. You sleep soundly, floating, as if on a blue ocean, and I want to swim out to you until I can’t feel my legs. I’ve lost my face and I can’t summon the white bird to me. My head explodes, blue hands extend from my skull, reaching up, up to pull down the sky. In my sleep I pull the covers to my chin tattooed with terror. Your quiet, soft breathing beside me soothes me back into dreams. I’m a lamplighter wandering the streets of an old village until I come to a house with an open door. I walk in and see a dinner table laid out, children and animals milling around it. I walk outside and find myself at the base of a holy mountain asking it permission to ascend its zenith. The white bird lands on my shoulder and whispers welcome home.

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The Castle of Unfinished Business

after A Mrs. Radcliffe Called Today, by Dorothea Tanning (USA) 1952

The arches fill with hanging, floating bodies, resembling ornate curtain tassels; blue, yellow, red, and my hair on fire as I walk among them. I glide through the frames, stop to speak to each body; get its story. My jealous husband believed me unfaithful; my parents sent me here when they found out I was with child; my lover abandoned me. Suicides, unfortunate victims, cast-away children, they ended up here in the castle of unfinished business. As for me, with my hair on fire, I murdered my lover and her new mistress. 

love demands reward
sacrifice, loyalty, souls 
only way out  death 

**

Viridian Mountains Stained Black

You and I set out to climb the mountains making bets along the way. If I reach the top first I get to stay in your house and slowly work up the courage to ask your sister for a date. If you reach the top first I have to shave off all my body hair and ink red lips with yellow x’s on my bald head. We stop along the way to eat apples, peaches, grapes, and pears. As we continue climbing the conversation lulls; I think of your sister’s long, dark hair, and the date I’ve planned for us at The Museum of Vibrant Colours. You’re remembering your childhood and the toys you used to play with like a wooden top and a plastic cowboy with a lasso. Blue lizards and red and yellow bugs scurry out from between the rocks. We’re nearing the top. I’m getting tired. I’m hot, thirsty, and I want to strip off my clothes and lie in the shade of a willow tree. I barely noticed the woman ahead of us on the trail wearing a muti-coloured suit of serpent's eyes and bird’s beaks. Her voice squawks and screeches at unseen things flying around her. Maybe I’ll take your sister out on the lake in a row-boat, I say out loud. I imagine taking her in my arms and kissing her in the waning afternoon light. We’re nearing the top of the mountain where the empty house waits for us. You’re lagging behind. I will enter The Nocturne House and it will offer me a choice. Return to the living; or remain inside acquiring all the knowledge of the world which I will promptly forget once I leave. I think of your sister's long dark hair. I think I should have brought a notebook to compose a poem to read to her on the lake.       

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An Ocean Captured on Canvas

after California, by Yves Klein (France) 1961

I drive west through the expanse of Texas; along I-10 and the flatness of the west with its scrub-land; giving way to deserts; the beauty of desolation along four lane-highways where you don’t see another soul for at least 100 miles. At the borders of Texas, Arizona, and California with Mexico underneath them, cultures, language, and identities converge; smells from factories, mercados, sweat, and heat rise. Onwards and onwards I drive; it’s a long way to go until the Klein Blue of the Pacific comes into view. Leave the cities behind, the noise of car-horns, sirens, frenetic voices rushing from one encounter to another as they discuss their everyday lives on smart-phones over bluetooth. The Pacific Coast Highway extends before me; an immense ocean greets me; sea-gulls diving for fish, palm trees rustling in the breeze. I’ve arrived at the edge of the canvas where I leave the confines of my car and walk into the ocean, un-boxed by limitations, obligations; and I can swim in the rich, cobalt, weight of memories and emotions. I lie on my back, spread my arms, and let the waves carry me further into the middle of the painting and I fill the space with my breath.  My hair floats in the translucent waters; the salt in my body merges with the salt of the Pacific. I am both painting and human being alive with textured surfaces and layers of meaning.

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Laura Peña is an award-winning poet born and raised in Houston, TX. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. She is a primary bilingual teacher and a translator of poetry into Spanish. Laura has been a featured poet at Valley International Poetry Festival, Inprint First Fridays, and Public Poetry. She has presented workshops at VIPF in the Rio Grande Valley, TX. and People's Literary Festival in Corpus Christi, TX. Laura  writes ekphrastic poetry and has many pieces published at The Ekphrastic Review. She has also been published in Equinox, Boundless, Synkroniciti, Point Clear Press, Voices, and Four Tulips.