Dr. Thea Iberall is an award-winning poet, storyteller, ghostwriter, editor, playwright, and scientist. She has had over 50 poems published in literary and on-line journals and anthologies including The Southern California Anthology, Spillway, Poetic Diversity, and numerous other journals.
She says, “Writing a poem is like trying to tell a story in as short a space as possible using as many dimensions as possible. It has the essence of a moment without any unnecessary words. It is told with sound, texture, images, metaphor, structure, and rhythm. I memorize my poems so that I hear every nuance of each dimension. Someone said I take a huge subject and bring it down to one word. I love watching the audience's eyes as they connect with my stories and I make them laugh and cry in the same breath.”
On
the Sanctuary of Artemis Dying
In a place like St. John's Monastery
the wall she sees scales fifteen meters
juts out like a broken nose
scoured by the idled sight
of innocents incised in blackened
rededos, a flat faced John
forehead marked, his brother
James skin broken, drawn.
And the floor, remembered from a pagan
temple, marbled slabs made numb,
aged, for a time and half a time
seemingly 2000 years or more
as endless rows have come and given
will, gray-fashioned until not
one more footfall could be taken
whether by moon or under blood.
Invisible, she stares, reflected
bowing to the sons of thunder
who unaware, not caring
have crushed the back of Artemis.
In a place like St. John's Monastery
the wall she sees scales fifteen meters
juts out like a broken nose
scoured by the idled sight
of innocents incised in blackened
rededos, a flat faced John
forehead marked, his brother
James skin broken, drawn.
And the floor, remembered from a pagan
temple, marbled slabs made numb,
aged, for a time and half a time
seemingly 2000 years or more
as endless rows have come and given
will, gray-fashioned until not
one more footfall could be taken
whether by moon or under blood.
Invisible, she stares, reflected
bowing to the sons of thunder
who unaware, not caring
have crushed the back of Artemis.
© 2011
Thea Iberall
Thea Iberall was a Featured Poet who read her poetry at the November 2011 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Thea Iberall was a Featured Poet who read her poetry at the November 2011 Second Sunday Poetry Series