JEAN FINEBERG - POEMS

    Jean Fineberg is a professional jazz musician whose poet father left a new poem for her every day.  She recently unearthed a book of poems she wrote when she was eight years old.
                Jean has studied with celebrated poet Kim Addonizio, and has been published in Soliloquies Anthology, Vita Brevis Anthology, Uppagus, Riza Press, FLARE: The Flagler Review and Literary Yard.
      She has received seven residency fellowships at art centers around the USA, where she alternates between writing poetry and music.

In The Shadow of Fame
​

​I was a tiny star
in a big galaxy
 
backing big stars in arenas
where nobody knew my name
 
posed wearing only silver paint
for People Magazine
 
played  a TV show on a rotating platform
stoned on mescaline
 
did what I thought a star should do
seduced groupies
 
the doe-eyed teenager
with “help me” scratched on her stomach
 
the waitress
who cried all night
 
the bikini girl
who slept with all the boys too
 
when the shadow of fame grew long
and the big stars deatomized
 
some morphed into holograms
and started GoFundMe campaigns
 
I’m a big star in a tiny galaxy
world famous in my town

Bragging Rights
​

​My father wanted me to be a doctor
but he lost bragging rights because I’m a blues musician
 
I play him my latest recording
He shuts it off, saying the drums are offensive
 
They remind him of those awful boys with gold teeth and backward caps
who pull their cars up too close and blast their so-called music
 
I snatch back my CD
At his 80-year-old friend’s dinner party, I give it to the host
 
Who passes it around and proudly plays the whole thing
really, really loud
 

Openings and Closings

​When my heart was ready,
I lifted my mother’s album
bulging, tattered
from so many openings and closings
 
glamorous headshots and movie stills
as Martha Graham’s youngest dancer
Broadway programs and playbills
and  New York Times reviews
 
square snapshots
with ombre scalloped edges
retired
from their mounting corners
 
here she is as a Thai princess
surrounded by courtiers
her hands
doing their own ballet
 
as Dorothy in toe shoes
and a pinafore
flanked by the Tin Man
and Scarecrow
   
The binding, disintegrated
like her bones
The cover, a half hinged door
pendulous like her skin
 
 A career
of yellowed clippings
and a dancer
freed from their moorings
 
I scoop up the flaky scraps
and watch them pirouette
into her favorite vase,
next to the urn with her ashes
 

The Accidental Parent ​

​Your mother said she’s not a kid person
but you needed to root in good soil
she offered, and I took you
 
You never said “you’re not my mom”
When I checked your backpack
and made you change that shirt
 
When I found your weed
you asked, “can I run away?”
I said “no that’s not how we solve things”
 
You wouldn’t let me hug you
when I took your arm
you slipped it out of your sleeve
 
I never said “you’re not my child”
when the police delivered you drunk
and you hit me
 
You ignored me
at your graduation
so I snuck photos
 
you introduced me as mother
I’m happy to be auntie
but you’ll always be my daughter
 
 
 

Vernal Musinigs
​

​(1)
early spring
purple pushes
on the screen door
 
plumes
of lavender
and lilac
 
and once again
love seems
possible
 
 
 
(2)
With dizzying delirium
I drop, dazed,
into the blaze
of blood orange
California poppies
 
my angel escapes,
surfs the Santa Ana winds,
spirals, plummets, and
plops euphoric
into the poppies
 
chattering
like schoolgirls
on dress-alike day
posing for selfies
for poppygram