I Stand Corrected

Once and for all folks---there IS a Heartstorm Press.
by Inkberrow
01/19/2010, 7:07 PM


I think everyone can agree it is well-past time to write the ending to this sordid chapter of Fray history, and with this post I propose to do just that. Despite some uncharitable suggestions to the contrary over the years, I have learned not only that Heartstorm Press is a legitimate publishing house, but that its very name reflects the heroic struggle of its primary contributor to overcome seemingly unbearable heartbreak and loss, as the result of a painful divorce in late middle age. Loneliness, self-doubt, apprehension, anger, a gnawing sense of inadequacy and failure----these are the wages of virtually any divorce, under the best of circumstances. Now imagine the impact of unwished-for divorce upon a person who is otherwise the perfect person and spouse in every imaginable way. How does reconciling oneself to the Single Life Again in middle age really work for a beautiful, trim, slim, curvaceous, preternaturally youthful, witty, patriotic, progressive, multilingual, worldly, sophisticated, humor-filled, loving, generous, educated feminist yet insufficiently beloved spouse, who also happens to be a talented poet and a well-respected Fray regular?

The answer? Violent, wholesomely aggressive catharsis, by way of serial sexual improprieties and codependence with men of doubtful sincerity and worthiness, so as to inculcate a new feelings of superiority. And violent, aggressive catharsis in the form of heart-rending, stormy, lyric verse .....for Heartstorm Press, a legitimate publishing house created specifically to help pass the gall stone of divorce through creative visualization. Yea, the kidney stone of cruel failure, in the romantic relationship that matters most of all. (But let none call it a failure! More at mutual utility, if anything, a result to celebrate) Here once again after a long absence, is that signature poem which more than any other poem, by the writer who more than any other writer, made Heartstorm Press. The powerful piece which follows, by this woman, whose grit, single-mindedness, and raw courage unites with astonishing sensitivity and an undeniable poetic gift, will take the reader, like it or not, at breakneck speed through the very gamut of human emotions. And for those of us Fray regulars, a triumphant, celebrated career oeuvre is simultaneously explained and justified to anyone's satisfaction. Let no one henceforth dare question why she is what she is, or does what she is does. She shall tell us what is and is not, and we shall be the better for it, if within her ambit and good graces we are permitted to remain. Here, then, somewhat long, but well-worth the trip, is......



"N" is for Nightmares, by Colopoete (a nom de plume)
In Memoriam connubium, 2/15/98


Some nights are better
those nights when men
will come and stay,
blessing me with some company,
a respite from all this, but
some nights, men will not
come, or they come, but do not stay.

In their place slips the insidious
reminder, the chalk white
outline of Him from
the clouds, as white
as the White Cliffs of Dover,
chalky as White Sands---
though gypsum---
which so resembles tzatziki,
seen from thirty-thousand feet.

Then from the right side
of the three a.m. eye screen,
always from the right,
always one hand,
my dark quick hand
sleekly slides
the thin silver blade
(always from the right)
of a freshly sharpened knife

(like a midnight assassin, though
it is just before nine a.m.)

deftly across the neck of my
once-husband, our faithless
hawk-eyed pilot who wanted
nothing more than to fly his

elegant purple bird
across gleaming silver-blue
skies, sunny and cloud-lit,
to any place where I was not.

My dark hand completes
its slice, an elegant motion
corrupted by its deadly
mission, and
grabs the joystick
of his purple plane
as it heads for the hangar
of his glittering paramour

then, it falls to the cock-pit
floor, as my gleaming silver bird
knifes precisely into his
stunning, imperious lover,
Osterizer now.

The white neck slit,
the foul usurper's smirk
the deep blood flowing
the upscale catered food
and carafes of
Napa Valley red....all fall
together and melt,

Along with the now
black cloud, my melted
heart, complexes of
bitterness and hate,
thousands of days
thousands of nights
ten of thousands of posts
to unworthy posters on
unworthy fray boards

All surprised, all ash now
all bone, all gray now
all cloud. All dust now
one vast Cremation urn
on the mantle of a once-husband
caught fatally unaware.


Copyright Colopoete 2001, Heartstorm Press
Dedicated to all those who did not survive my marriage, and to my ex-husband, who did.