Advent Journal
by Julia Lisella
I am the drunk untended
uncorked by trouble.
I want to lose myself,
I want to drown in the disaster.
I want a drink
of something that will ruin me.
I want my ruin to be a match
for what this world keeps handing out
but I am aglow with too much light
offered by you I suppose
Take this elixir of hope
Stop playing with me, God,
after all, what do you expect me to do
with all these glittering bottles
of self hate, petty regret and jealousy--
if not these, what will I down
at the next sunrise?
About Grief
by Julia Lisella
I will clean
away the stink
shedding of animals
balls of hair alive
on the couch the doorsill
and if I vacuum swipe dust
floor baseboard molding
if I do this long enough
and I do it
without fretting
I will
grow wings
and when grief goes droning
it will
even in its gravity
find
if not flight
lightness
and then my own slow levitation--
as if small fingers, hundreds, thousands
were lifting me as at those funny preteen parties
when we believed we felt the body rising
and whatever is real
whatever is left of who
I knew you to be, father,
will rise with me
through what is large now
unbelievably ferociously large now
that blooming
meddling house of dust and devotion
beneath me.
Julia Lisella’s poetry collections include Always (2014), Terrain (2007), and Love Song Hiroshima (2004). Her poems have been widely anthologized and have appeared most recently in Gravel, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Women Arts Quarterly, Talking Writing and Ocean State Review. She is Associate Professor of English at Regis College. “Advent Journal” and “About Grief” were first published in VIA: Voices in Italian Americana and the collection Always, published by WordTech Editions.
by Julia Lisella
I am the drunk untended
uncorked by trouble.
I want to lose myself,
I want to drown in the disaster.
I want a drink
of something that will ruin me.
I want my ruin to be a match
for what this world keeps handing out
but I am aglow with too much light
offered by you I suppose
Take this elixir of hope
Stop playing with me, God,
after all, what do you expect me to do
with all these glittering bottles
of self hate, petty regret and jealousy--
if not these, what will I down
at the next sunrise?
About Grief
by Julia Lisella
I will clean
away the stink
shedding of animals
balls of hair alive
on the couch the doorsill
and if I vacuum swipe dust
floor baseboard molding
if I do this long enough
and I do it
without fretting
I will
grow wings
and when grief goes droning
it will
even in its gravity
find
if not flight
lightness
and then my own slow levitation--
as if small fingers, hundreds, thousands
were lifting me as at those funny preteen parties
when we believed we felt the body rising
and whatever is real
whatever is left of who
I knew you to be, father,
will rise with me
through what is large now
unbelievably ferociously large now
that blooming
meddling house of dust and devotion
beneath me.
Julia Lisella’s poetry collections include Always (2014), Terrain (2007), and Love Song Hiroshima (2004). Her poems have been widely anthologized and have appeared most recently in Gravel, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Women Arts Quarterly, Talking Writing and Ocean State Review. She is Associate Professor of English at Regis College. “Advent Journal” and “About Grief” were first published in VIA: Voices in Italian Americana and the collection Always, published by WordTech Editions.