Poetry by Dianalee Velie
LIVING IN A DREAM WITH NO BORDERS
a field of waving emerald grasses brushes
against my long flowing gossamer robe
as I clutch the ruff of the majestic lion
by my side. The lion and I are everything
and everyone we have ever loved or known,
animal or human, even those we have never met.
I wake up knowing I have received an answer
to a universal question I have never asked.
A CUP OF COFFEE WITH GOD
God is incomprehensible.
-Philo of Alexandria, First century philosopher-
Halloween candy gone, most lights out,
rough work night, seraphim on strike,
cherubim out trick or treating
disguised as devils.
I need coffee.
Switching from my all black
Steve Jobs persona outfit,
to George Clooney, ensures a welcome.
Madge, a forty-year-old single female,
opens her door and nearly faints.
You look like George….she stammers.
No, I am God, I explain.
Then she does faint.
Maybe I over did it.
Sorry, forgiveness is my business
so I’m forgiven but,
I need of a cup of coffee.
She awakens.
Here, now I’ll be Sophia Loren,
a nice Italian mama with pizazz, better?
This is incomprehensible! she screams.
Is that Philo fellow still giving
me a bad rap after all these centuries.
Who?
never mind….coffee, please.
I down two big mugs.
She is surprised I drink it black
not light and heavenly creamy.
Why me?
You called out, “Dear God, were are you?”
I was looking for my iPhone.
Well, now I’m here,
the original trickster and treater.
Hope you liked my transformative tricks
and now for your treat: biopsy benign.
Here’s your phone. Call me sometime.
Gotta go now, traveling light.
No need to get up, Madge, but
keep the cat on your lap!
I’m leaving as a mouse.
ARCHITECT OF ANXIETY
The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films
about them.
-Alfred Hitchcock-
Uranium sand on wine bottles in
the villain’s cellar, a Notorious
macguffin, catches viewers’ attention
exposing your unique art. This status
feeds fame. Spellbound fans psychoanalyze
your creative chillers made more famous
by a self-sketched profile. Mesmerize
an audience with deep fear, wild Frenzy
and lovely, cool-headed blondes, to neutralize
the horror, add your wry humor and see
your imitators try to duplicate,
through the Rear Window of eternity,
criminal sensuality, first rate
fear, Suspicion and gallows humor.
Your successful trademarks still scintillate,
beyond a Shadow of Doubt, great fervor
in audiences of all ages today.
Architect of anxiety, terror
and the framed macguffin, you led the way
into a stories spinning with Vertigo,
sex and death, your mainstay to outweigh
obesity, your renowned status quo,
and early childhood unhappiness.
You conquered your own Psycho-
logical fears, weakness and darkness
to become a Saboteur of the fate
that might have arrested your success.
An observer, your need to extrapolate
art, even from Strangers on a Train,
permitted your gift never to stagnate.
The letter M on the phone, so mundane
in its own right, became synonymous,
with this thought: Dial M for Murder: plain
allusions originating from your genius.
The Funeral March of a Marionette,
by Frenchman Charles Gounod, I Confess,
draws up from my brain, your silhouette,
line drawn by your hand. Humming these haunting
Rich and Strange notes, this inspired poet
still ponders the rumor of the daunting
“no belly button” reports. That maternal
aspect of The Ring of flesh, a far reaching
connection to childhood’s abysmal
misery, once removed, certainly left you,
with no Stage Fright, assured and triumphal.
All this celebrity, but the statue
of gold, a Life Boat for notoriety,
eluded your grasp until, long overdue,
the Oscar’s prominent committee
proclaimed your life’s accomplishments worthy.
Note: A macguffin is an incidental plot element that catches the viewer’s attention and drives the plot of a work of fiction.
About the Author
Dianalee Velie is the Poet Laureate of Newbury, New Hampshire where she lives and writes. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and has a Master of Arts in Writing from Manhattanville College, where she has served as faculty advisor of Inkwell: A Literary Magazine. She has taught poetry, memoir, and short story at universities and colleges in New York, Connecticut and New Hampshire and in private workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her award-winning poetry and short stories have been published in hundreds of literary journals and many have been translated into Italian. She enjoys traveling to rural school systems in Vermont and New Hampshire teaching poetry for the Children’s Literacy Foundation. Her play, Mama Says, was directed by Daniel Quinn in a staged reading in New York City. She is the author of five books of poetry, Glass House, First Edition, The Many Roads to Paradise, The Alchemy of Desire, Ever After and a collection of short stories, Soul Proprietorship: Women in Search of Their Souls. She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women, the New England Poetry Club, the International Woman Writers Guild, the New Hampshire Poetry Society and founder of the John Hay Poetry Society.