Poetry

Writing poetry was the first type of creative writing that Cristina ever engaged in.  Her early poems were the content of homemade birthday and anniversary cards for family and friends. 

Later, she found her true poetic voice in college, sharing her verse for the first time in 1997 at a live, on-air broadcast of WXPN’s “Live from the Writer’s House” hosted on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.  It was the audience’s enthusiastic reaction to those three poems that exhilarated her and made her want to continue to write poetry..

Experimental and geared to the spoken voice, below Cristina shares some of her recently published poetry.  Enjoy! 

• The New Border - Published in Soul Fountain (2009)
• Closer - Published in Soul Fountain (2009)

The New Border

We’re working in a world that seems to be manufactured on decoder-ring methodology.

Everything is cryptically simple but unnecessarily complicated.
People don’t speak frankly, but in small circles of logic that wind up getting us nowhere.
So here we are, without progress, feeling somewhat disappointed.
If half the fun is getting there
And we go nowhere
Where’s the fun in that?
I’m not inspired anymore by what’s out there.
The passion is gone.
Revolutions are requested via email or text message and the real voice is muted.
Some say we’re louder with this technology:
The-email-heard-around-the-world type of impact.
But it’s harder to connect when the only sound
Is the ticker-tacking of my fingers on the keyboard.

I wouldn’t even question any of this except
I miss your voice
And was wondering why we never talk,
Only connect.

I feel like I missed something when I got online.
Someone assigned me a UNIX account
I asked others for their addresses and so we started the dance:
AOL, Yahoo, Hot Mail, G-mail.
The carousel keeps circling by.
The same strange horse faces distorted by mechanical music.
We’re all pretending its fun but wondering when we can get off.
But we can’t because whenever we stop
The cursor is blinking and we must press on.
Even ending this poem is difficult.
I have no more words but the cursor keeps asking “What’s next?”

What’s next?
What’s next?
What’s next?

Copyright 2009 Cristina T. Lopez

Closer

Carry the stroller up the stairs,
Take off her coat then mine,
Set her up with Cheerios, a book and some crayons,
We’re already into a reading from St. Paul and I try to give an ear
But it’s hard to hear with her stomping in the pew greeting our neighbors behind with a wave and a smile.
Then she’s off.
Eighteen months and her joy is roaming the foyer of the church in black, patent leather Mary Jane shoes,
Every crevice of Mary’s gown a place to dip her finger.
Every plant and flower a jungle to explore.
Every parishioner who made it to 12 o’clock mass her audience.
I look at the altar, a million miles away, bathed in the tranquility and ritual of the Mass.
I am far from it, far from God despite being in his “house” as I always tell her when we get ready for church.

Between the holding, the chasing, the clutching, the soothing and the carrying
God’s voice is a quiet, gentle whisper,
Hard to hear with so many distractions,
Hard to distinguish as she’s trying to take off her shoes, grab the woman’s hair, tear pages from a missal.

Back in our seats, I try to pray but end up wishing
To get through mass with no more yelling the names of letters she recognizes in her picture book.
The innocent question of “What’s this?” for every object she is seeing for the first time.

I close my eyes to ask God for patience.
She tires easily and goes to her thumb for comfort.
To soothe her and hold her close is to smell her soft hair.
“Mama?” she prods me and I look at her.
She is in my hands in every way.
God has given her to me
And when she asks me for my help,
It is God’s voice that is trying to make its way to my ear.
It is His voice trying to pull me closer.
I hear, “May almighty God bless you…”

And I know He already has.

Copyright 2009 Cristina T. Lopez