CORDELIA HANEMANN - POEMS

Cordelia Hanemann is currently a practicing writer and artist in Raleigh, NC. She has published in numerous journals including Turtle Island Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Dual Coast Magazine, and Laurel Review; anthologies, The Well-Versed Reader, Heron Clan VI and Kakalak 2018 and in her own chapbook, Through a Glass Darkly. Her poem, "photo-op" was a finalist in the Poems of Resistance competition at Sable Press and her poem "Cezanne's Apples" was nominated for a Pushcart. Recently the featured poet for Negative Capability Press and The Alexandria Quarterly, she is now working on a first novel, about her roots in Cajun Louisiana. 

The Stroke  
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Daddy, the day you died, I never got to say
I’d have stayed forever, waiting for words
to come. I hated watching you reach
into your new speechlessness, in the blank 
hospital room, to find some words 
swimming vainly in your brain.

Daddy, when you taught me math,
I was filled with questions. 
I got lost in strange equations,
in the formulae of givens, unknowns, 
incomprehensible constants, when
all I wanted was your words.

Daddy, that final silence…. After 
all the spankings; after the turned head 
when I came to kiss you goodnight. 
Was it because you owned the shadow 
at the door? What devils needed 
such exorcising when I was 8, 9, 10? 

Daddy, I beat myself up 
in your absence. You taught me 
so well—it all added up: unknowns
became constants; givens spelled out 
the incomprehensible gulf between us.


​

absence makes the heart 
​

I mourned your passing
because I needed your presence
needed for you to wake one day
and say ah my precious one
my daughter  but you did not
speak when you could
and then you could not speak
and now you cannot
and the moment has passed
and I no longer mourn
the absence I have always
had.

​

A Mind of Winter 
​

Cold crusts barren branches; 
the mind of winter comes.
What I have known recedes, 
as trees surrender leaves. 
Little remains. Names I’ve sworn 
never to forget, precious words, 
coveted over a lifetime of dwelling 
in books, fly out like shadows of birds. 

The I drifts in the frigid hour; 
ice crunches under foot, 
and the sun which should be here
is not; gray of sky merges 
with gray of mind, and the white 
outside is not so much white 
as devoid of color.

Liminal    ​

the real world
    takes flight            the way dreams do

breaks up into disconnected
    fragments             as dreams do

haunts our waking hours        
    in wisps of déjà vu        as dreams do

revisits us at odd moments
    sleeping in wakenness        as dreams do

lacks continuity 
    and comprehensibility        as dreams do

wants clarity but 
    beggars explanation        as dreams do

dissipates in a haze
    of ambiguity            as dreams do

entices with snippets
    of unrealized promise        as dreams do

fades into dis remembrance 
    oddly         just        as dreams do


​

The Leap         
​

Begin at the cliff’s dark verge, 
where edge meets air;    fall or fly
triumphant into the void,
without reason or will,
wingspan, muscle, or sinew--
trust wind and wonder,
as when the musical note 
leaves the violin, strains 
towards the ear, becomes 
desire—or nothing, 
cacophony—or everything.


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