From the Lake of Awakening
(A Tribute to Georgia O’Keefe and Her Painting: From the Lake)
She danced the dream awake
Draped in water-colored plumes
Her bare feet beat the wooden planks
As heartbeats from the womb
Demands, which dipped and swirled
Thoughts, which spun in place
Released and given wing
Leapt across both time and space
In indigo-bunting of deep-sea green
Edged in downy white
Arms swung forth in pilgrimage
Whence souls and Gods unite
Dreams now given wing
Dance freely through the room
In daily meditations
Of water-colored plume
Janelle L. Streed
02/22/03
Circle of Fairies Reply
In autumn woods on moonlit eve
Down path of misty, mossy weave
'Neath canopy of golden leaf
Gowned in sheerest purple sheath
She finds the fairies waiting
Their welcome flashes plaiting
'Tween the tall-stalks all a waving
In the breezes misbehaving
Let's get naked, dance, rejoice,
Laugh and sing in child's voice
In the backyard, autumn's eve,
With a mindset to believe
Anything is possible
And paintings come to life...
Janelle L. Streed
10-11-03
Eve of Silence
A bitten apple left to rot
Upon the darkened moor
You ate a bitter poison
From the flesh you’d hungered for
You dined upon my body
Rolled my juices on your tongue
Cried God’s name in rapture
On the climax I had wrung
Then found the seedy haven
Deep inside my ripened skin
A danger to your morals
Birthing secrets from within
Hence forth, when prayers go answered
Pause before you dine
For sometimes fruits are apples
Sometimes apples are divine
Janelle L. Streed
12/02
Exposed
Minutes ripen past their prime,
age-spots browning over time,
rotten skins of fruit awry
left to spoil, shrivel, die
Forgotten hence and thrown away
upon a mound whence maggots lay
to feast upon one’s hell-bent youth
until a shovel finds the truth
Her lid lies cracked to human eyes
in culinary, grave surprise
of past regressions, willful deeds,
which bore the fruit of fertile seeds
On hallowed ground, they sprout anew
to feast upon her compost stew
of rags to riches, judgment day
her wanton past caught up today
Immortal fangs in Karmic laws,
her past, exposed in careless flaws
of buried clues unearthed
Janelle L. Streed
February 2000
Sacrificed
One might feverishly covet
the scent and beauty of
summer’s heady rose
from a distant bed
of hibernation
but never
need
nor
desire
to let spring-
fed tides in ritual
sacrifice baptize her
thorns or fall to her feet
in blissful worship of Venus.
Janelle L. Streed
24 October 2003
Born on the 14th of January 1965 at 6:25 a.m. in Sioux Falls South Dakota, Janelle's a Capricorn Sun with a Gemini Moon and Rising. A story teller from an early age, she began entertaining neighbors, friends and teachers alike with her mischievous stories of fantasy adventures and make-believe foes. Having learned early the punishments that came for speaking fiction, she turned to writing poetry and picture taking as a means of self-expression and release. Now, after 20 years of writing, she's come out of the silence to speak her truths at last...
"I write to breath deeply the essence of life and exhale the spirit in word."
Janelle has been a student of Echo Bodine's in Psychic Development and Hands-on-Healing for the past three years, does Tarot readings for friends and family and is a firm believer in "all things possible". Her poetry and photography have been published in various magazines, e-zines, poetry anthology books and on CD. Janelle has also been modeling for GinELF since 2003, was featured in the Doral Adventures (R.J. Reynolds & Company) Magazine in the spring of 2002 and did a television stint on Good Company in 1984.
