Photography © Jennifer Matthews

 

Lightening

For awhile let’s be Hepburn & Tracey,
all sincerity & jokes. We can wear bathrobes
for dinner, improve our gymnastics; mental,
verbal, our horns really locked.
I’ll shut off my loneliness.
I’ll shut up about the terrible.
I’ll play the Scrabble of our feelings
to zero closeness home.
You can forget your wet shoes in the oven.
You can be the fair crank.
(Guess who’s coming?)
Figure my mind. I’ll figure yours’.
It will be a game of Ping Pong.
It will be racing in inflated ducks.
It will be sport & deepest sympathy
even when set at odds, not exactly
a heaven-sent match.
More hellfire & lightning
with a lot of tenderness after
to see the thunder through.

 

Stephen Mead is a retired Civil Servant, having worked two decades for three state agencies. Before that his more personally fulfilling career was fifteen years in healthcare. Throughout all these day jobs he was able to find time for writing poetry/essays, and creating art. Occasionally he even got paid for this work. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall.

Poet/Photographer Jennifer Matthews’ poetry has been published in Nepal by Pen Himalaya and locally by the Wilderness Retreat Writers Organization, Midway Journal, The Somerville Times, Ibbetson Street Press and Boston Girl Guide. Jennifer was nominated for a poetry award by the Cambridge Arts Council for her book of poetry Fairy Tales and Misdemeanors. Her songs have been released nationally and internationally and her photography has been used as covers for a number of Ibbetson Street Press poetry books and has been exhibited at The Middle East Restaurant, 1369 Coffeehouses, Sound Bites Restaurant in Somerville and McLean Hospital.