M. Jennifer Markus – When I was in my twenties

Pandora opened the wooden box
and lost her innocence
She kept the hope
But gave the world

All its dirty tricks

She can’t take back
what she gave,

but what she gained instead

Are the yearnings and desires
that now fill her head
The loyalty she once possessed
has disappeared in time
And conscience, like the love she felt,
is only found in rhyme
Now, infidel!
Oh, jezebel
Where is your heart of gold?
In a wooden box
where hope is kept
Under a sign marked ‘sold’.


The Poet’s Thoughts:  To me, this poem is simply delicious.  Who was I mad at?  I don’t know.  I might have just been in one of my perverse moods. And once an idea is in my head, I pretty much have to follow it to the end and hope I don’t offend too many people.  That doesn’t always work, but at least I feel true to myself.


Is this what I seek?
Here, beyond the end.
Flowing waters deep
And pools of bubbling brine.
Carved out of the wind
A notch in the span of time
Chasms spawning wide
Cloudy suns spew fading light
And in the shadows hide
Phantoms, ogres, ghosts and wights
The creatures of dreams
That haunt the night.


The Poet’s Thoughts: Here is where my Dungeons-and-Dragons, Sci-Fi-reading, stoner roots come out. Imagery that moves me and follows me into my twenties. Things went very quickly downhill in my life soon after this and so in retrospect I appreciate the few poems I have from when I was twenty.


Idyll 1 (Eros)

The Greeks

with infinite wisdom

have solved the mysteries of love
set down for mere mortals to understand
in four equal parts

Familia, fratierno
agape and eros
each separate
each defined
the enigma of our hearts

From youth on through middle age

from adulthood on past death

From the moment we are born

then live our lives

and take that final breath

We love.

Children gaze without reserve

into their parents eyes

Beyond the toil of everyday life

beyond the petty lies

Unselfish and ungiving

as only children are

Our laughter and our tears combined
this love let loose unbarred
That which is born of our flesh

remains our flesh

though miles may lie between
This is the love familia

and here all love begins

Bonds of blood

this unseen tie

That holds us to our own
Father, mother
Sister, brother
Our kith, our kin, our home
The building blocks of life
From here it starts

From which we emerge

Foundation set—the bricks are laid
Hope and trust and love converge

They let us go.

What one proclaims

the other defends

This love is fratierno
brothers, but not kin
What starts as common interest

grows into compassion

Fickle fate that leaves us

free to choose liaisons

From among a multitude

of battles lost and won

Link arms against Propensity!
The bonds of friendship

are built by adversity

and strengthened by laughter and joy
This is the first relationship

of choice

To this all others are compared
Fall back on and remember
This first time souls are bared.

The search for perfection

is improbable at best

Within us, it surrounds us
All our lives we make this quest
This love is the intangible

felt but never seen

Its object is a fantasy

Its culmination, but a dream

This love is called agape

idolatry in all its forms

From here worship to the love of gods

between ritual and reality we are torn

We reach for the stars

and we call them by name

We hope to live among them

so we play ceremonial games

By following these rules

We create loopholes in our life

We can sin

again and again

and never pay the price

God of love
Shoots his arrows haplessly
He pierces hearts
and changes lives
casually and carelessly
His weapon is passion
His poison is desire
Inflaming and engulfing in a

never ending fire

The intensity of first love

has yet to be matched

The ecstasy of true love

can never be surpassed

Soul to soul

infatuation to adoration

token trust to complete surrender

From adolescence to the end of time

We search for a mate

and so begin

the cycle one more time.

Man to woman

ape to ape

The emotion of love

has evolved to prolong the race of man.

It has grown out of the instinct to survive
–beyond physical boundaries and

life threatening circumstance

to insure the longevity of the species
Other animals have claws and teeth

tough hide and fleetness.

We have love.


The Poet’s Thoughts: There are to be five Idylls. Three are fully written, and two still need to be fleshed out and written. In the Idylls I take on the big ideas; the first is love. I draw on a lot of Greek mythology and thought and then add my own interpretations. I grew up looking at the stars and reading Greek mythology. In the Western world, those two are deeply intertwined and both appear threaded throughout my poetry.


April, the cruelest month

We all hoard our pain
and systematically file it away
Delegate a month
a day

for sorrow

Our lives revolve around
the anniversaries of sadness

we have indelibly marked

on our memories

With what is our past written?
Blood and tears

a thousand sighs of pleasure, joy and agony

a thousand cries of anger and frustration

a thousand nights
a thousand days
twelve hours
or so

to each by the clock on the wall

But the mind’s timepiece
slows and hastens



Agony is not a minute experience
and joy will not be prolonged
The distorted calendars
we keep inside our heads
are marked in blazing red
in a substance that will not disappear entirely

but will, with time, fade.


The Poet’s Thoughts: April is my cruelest month for two reasons: it is my birth month and it is my daughter’s birth month. My 21st birthday was one of the worst days of my life. I was eight
months pregnant and the day ended with me being thrown around and my head being ground into the tiled porch by the alcoholic psychopath I was with. That particular memory I try to write over every year by celebrating myself. My daughter’s birthday is a different story. She was born and died in 1985. The anniversary of her death is October and that is always a hard day, but her birthday reminds me every year of how long I have been without her. Somehow, some years, that is just harder.


The pain of life
(A Calculus Poem)

The pain of life has worn me down
a grain of sand at a time
until the mountain of my convictions
is just a grassy knoll
A woman’s life is fraught with pain
replete with holes and wrought by man
wielding pins he draws the blood
until the life is drained
A drop of blood surrounds my life
A reddened haze, a murky cloud
Through the darkness pounding softly
a hammer sings a lullaby
and lulls me into sleep


The Poet’s Thoughts: There are a number of calculus poems which have nothing whatsoever to do with calculus itself. They just happened to be written during my calculus classes. I left high
school at 15, took the California High School Proficiency Test at 16, and then made a half-assed attempt to go to college at 17. I ended up, instead, working at Jack-in-the-Box, drinking a lot of beer and smoking a fair amount of weed. Generally, I did a lot of self-destructive things and got to a very low place. In 1987, I started back to college. I started small by taking one class at a time, but by 1990, I had a goal. To achieve that goal, I had a lot of high school math to make up. It got to the point where the advanced math classes I needed were not available during the summer or at night. So I would go to calculus at 7 a.m. every morning, get to work at 8:30 a.m. (at a consulting firm by this time) and then, two nights a week, from 6 to 9:30 p.m. to a chemistry class. This is not to brag: I took five semesters of a three semester calculus class; it is just to let you know that I was really tired during the early ’90s. Somehow within that weariness I wrote a few poems that resonate with me still. I include The Pain of Life and Love as Zero.



And Lila was in the garden

before Adam’s clay form had dried

before Eve was carved out from his flesh

and taken from his side

Lila was in the tree of knowledge

as a seed and when it took root

her fingers were imprinted

on every piece of fruit

Lila crowed in the morning

and danced the sun midday

while the primordial couple struggled

with the words the voice had said

The trees were lush within the garden

with leaves that blocked the sun

and walls so high they hid the battle

that had just begun

And Lila poured the sunset

in a frame of resined oak

the colors swirled a miasmic sea

to the tune the voice had spoke

And everything forbidden

flowed within the frame

All that was beyond their scope

was sacred and profane

They stood upon the shore

and watched the breaking waves

hand in hand, the voice’s words

still lingering, they turned away

Lila twirled a pirouette

her skin a honey hue

that shone like polished marble

in the faded light at residue

her eyes were hard like gleaming steel

her breasts were full and warm

her laughter’s edge would cut like ice

as she toyed with the woman’s form

Lila spinned an androgenous whirl

Man, woman, now both, now none

She takes from all a quality

and allegiance shares with none

And Lila traced the swirling code

it sparkled in the sand

The primal pair took breathless steps

to haltingly join in the dance

Then the voice fell like a curtain

with a wind that howled in pain

but Lila’s wings were gilted gold

glistening in that rain

She rose up, a bird in flight,

to dance above the moon

and the mortal couple wept and wailed

that the dance would end too soon

With a mighty blow the voice’s words

passed judgment in the storm

condemned them to the world outside

so bleak, the terror and the unknown

And Lila hung the rainbow sea

upon the garden wall

the crashing waves resounded

echoes of the voice’s whispered call

But in that ocean landscape

they could not find the key

to re-enter the fortress

and somehow be redeemed

And Lila leapt into the starlight

and circled twice the globe

and ran the patterns to the core

of the swirling, sparkling code

The innocent two forgot the dance

as they mourned for their lost home

The only place in the cosmos

they were not free to go

The only place the voice existed

beyond the garden walls

and the only sound it made now

was a hollow lonely call

Repeating itself into eternity

beckoning and giving no clue

how to scale the mighty walls.

And Lila was on the dance floor

before the rest of the party arrived

Before the men and women all shook hands

and each one taken sides

Lila had dipped in the punch bowl

by the time the clock had struck eight

The people jealously averted their eyes

and morosely stared at their plates


The Poet’s Thoughts: The first four lines of Lila pounded through my brain as I was watching a stark and somewhat eerie ballet of the same name. I misinterpreted the name as Lila with a long ‘i’ when it was supposed to be Lila with a long ‘e’. It was the Hindu idea of Lila that inspired the ballet but I got stuck in the garden of Eden as I watched the dancers and my interpretation of Lila was born. It was later that I found out about Lilith, Adam’s first wife. And, yes, I know, that’s really weird.


Love as Zero

Love as zero

lack of pain

and boundary

Love as the finite whole

in infinite parts
within which lies
the encompassing nothing
between which hides
inside the cracks
everything it is not

Love as unquestioned potential

all things
in their possibilities
and in their lack
as whole
instead of nothing


The Poet’s Thoughts: Another calculus poem. Love to me had always been painful, both physically and emotionally, and I felt it probably shouldn’t be that way, ideally. The concept of zero in calculus takes many forms and, when I was tired, the mathematical concepts kind of morphed into poetic food for thought.


Ogre Children

Burning leaves smell ochre brown

dancing ogres all around

who poke and prod with stinging barbs

and massacre the famous bards

Forty nights without a wink

until the fire was choking pink

And afterwards they slept a week

like little angels soft and meek

When the Sabbath day was done

Up and running every one

down the hill and to the farm

To torture cows inside the barn

And at dawn, the night all through

They tiptoe inside and sneak some brew

And every Monday Farmer Brown

On his way out and into town

Trips on piles of ogre kits

“Oh, the week’s begun again.”


The Poet’s Thoughts: This one I remember who I was mad at: my first Chemistry teacher in college. I asked a question because I didn’t understand what he was talking about, you know, like I hear you are supposed to when you are confused. He just stared at me for what seemed like a long time and then went back to what he was talking about. I ignored him for the rest of the night and wrote the above. I ignored him for the rest of the semester and just learned from the book. I am not that kind of teacher; I have never made a student feel like that. Yeah, I’m still pissed about that night.


Idyll 2 (Cronos)

Cronos ate his children

one by one

And Rhea’s heart was breaking

so she swaddled up a stone

He devoured all his offspring then

except the fateful son

He saw his great reign end

within the words of prophecy

And strove to destroy the lineage

sole survivor of the colossal monarchy

A point in time

marks his creation

Another point as brief

his father’s death

at his own hand
Every moment

a step forward

along the line

that marks the time

that leads to his own end

as just another point

in the queue

The living out of lines

makes no room for


for reflection and mutation
of the moments

past and future

An everpresent

only present


all at once

and time becomes

not healer

but hider

of memories

stark and unchanged

etched indelibly

from the beginning outward

in a solid black line

Zeus was born

a god full grown

a force not circumvented

a circle originates

and does it end

as oracle presented

And so the father

slain by son

the cycle now complete
a single sweep of the second hand

and history repeats

A stolid steady march

continuous gently curving motion

on an endlessly familiar path
mistakes trod upon

and recommitted

not from a lack of foresight

but the trap

of a circular track

A circle takes the time

and keeps it

close at hand and near to heart
again and again

the same faces seen

the same voices heard
the past and future intertwined


as present

with dubious overtones
the same sun

a new sun

peeks above the horizon

and sets below the same

new, not new

same, not same

circle, same circle
over and over

into and as


The palace halls on Mount Olympus

were littered full of languid gods

assured of perpetuity

by the nescient minds of mortal men

but in the memories of children

the hidden gods soon fade

Zeus turned back to stone

and another took his place

The gods

came tumbling

tumbling down

falling in spiralling


and fighting right

cylinder pathways

through the clouds

past the surface

of the earth

into the nether

and out to memory

to a sweet and lingering


And when the new day dawned

Jupiter rose with it

to stand upon the mountain high

with a visage clear and striking

so like a god

so like a memory

The coiling worms

that wind through time

slink like a chain link fence

a path that crosses

and interconnects

one moment and the next

A whirling helix

wrought in gold

of every moment in a life
Mapped out upon the pathway


the forward traversal

a touch

and point

as backward look

as crossing

and retouching

the past everchanging

and the futures ever possible

are built upon and into

a swirling whorl

of things begun

that must needs finish

in a spirals curl

to close the curve

and call it once complete

adjoining end to new beginning

and moments from the past

brought forward

in different

and dimly shining light

A braided twine

of tangent time

twists a helix core

traces a line

of circular time

below the rocky shore


The Poet’s Thoughts: The second of the Idylls deals with time. Again, there are the references to Greek mythology, but added to that is my view that time is not a straight line or a circle but a spiral. We never come back to the same place, although it may be familiar—the same time of day, the same time of year—but things are never exactly the same. A path such as this, circular and yet not, in my mind could only resolve itself in the shape of a spiral.

When I was in my twenties, continued…