Wild Poppies poetry CD, detail of cover art

Sarah Menefee

Sarah Menefee, a San Francisco poet, has been widely published in Europe and the United States. She is the author of several books of poetry, including The Blood about the Heart, from Curbstone Press, which also publishes I'm Not Thousandfurs.

Sarah is a long-time community activist, much involved in the homeless and cultural movements. As part of her work with Food Not Bombs, she was arrested for feeding the hungry without a permit. She is a founding member of The League of Revolutionaries for a New America.

Moon Bereft

Marilyn Buck

[This poem is read on the CD by Sarah Menefee. ]

Beyond razor-wired walls
the moon shimmers in the late summer sky
spills over in pale brightness
to draw me into its fullness
washing my eyes in quicksilver

Now, in a heavy-lidded cell
moon-bereft nights leave me weeping
tears well up in dry cratered wounds
despair rises
dark and irradiated
to swallow starlight
and spit it out
like steel needles
that incite my loneliness

My soul careens off cell walls
wails till pain tires
and the pale moon of memory
appears to call me home