Splendor from Ashes: The Poetry of Emergence - Softcover

Rizzolo, Ingrid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1491716592 ISBN 13: 9781491716595

Publisher: iUniverse, 2014

Synopsis

From the heartbreaking ashes of abuse, a poet emerges to share a poignant collection of lyrical verse that details her journey as she moves from shame and brokenness to realize resilience and strength. Ingrid Rizzolo, a seasoned New York City educator, opens her heart and her life in her poetry, revealing an honest and authentic portrayal of the pain, fears, and confusion born out of physical and psychological abuse. With raw emotion and painful vulnerability, Rizzolo describes her transformation after she is betrayed by a handsome Romeo and led down a dark path where she must overcome many obstacles-both internal and external-in order to heal and move forward into the future as a stronger, more confident woman. Splendor from Ashes is a moving compilation of poetry that opens the possibilities and provides hope for anyone suffering from life's most complex challenges. "Dr. Rizzolo has captured the essence of true expression through her poetry that gives one an escape to flirt with their imagination, past memories, and often unspoken thoughts. A must-read for all poetry enthusiasts" -Dr. Anthony B. Spivey, DBA, professor

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Splendor from ASHES

THE POETRY OF EMERGENCE

By Ingrid Rizzolo

iUniverse LLC

Copyright © 2014 Ingrid Rizzolo
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-1659-5

Contents

Free Fall, 1, 
Scripting (2003), 3, 
The Dwarf (2003), 4, 
The Ambush (2003), 5, 
Crossroads (1995), 6, 
The Sequel (1995), 8, 
The Fight of Faith (2003), 9, 
The Abyss (1995), 11, 
The Princess (2004), 12, 
The Penitent (2004), 14, 
Rising, 15, 
We Are (2004), 17, 
The Returning Soldier (2004), 18, 
In Remembrance (2004), 20, 
What? (2004), 22, 
The Sixth Day (2004), 23, 
She Is (2004), 25, 
The Corporate Plan (2004), 26, 
Regret, 27, 
Departure (2004), 29, 
In Repentance (2012), 31, 
Unlike Us All (2013), 32, 
Adieu (2013), 33, 
I Did Not Know (2013), 34, 
No Entiendo (2012), 36, 
Rising and Firing, 37, 
Dreams (2013), 39, 
Defiance (2013), 41, 
Aggressive Ethnicities (2013), 42, 
Is Life a Bounced Check? (2013), 43, 
Adjust (2013), 44, 
Ranking (2013), 45, 
Who Are You? (2013), 46, 
Standing, 49, 
A Cry for Transcendence (2013), 51, 
Soul Music (2013), 52, 
Emancipation Is (2013), 53, 
Tribute to My Mother (2013), 54, 
Death (2013), 55, 
Drink Your Sangria (2013), 56, 
A Two-Tier Family? (2013), 58, 
What Became of Jim? (2013), 59, 
Lost in Babylon (2013), 61, 
Missing the Beats (2013), 62, 
Standing Tall, 65, 
I Don't Break; I Bend (2013), 67, 
The Towers (2013), 69, 
In the Silence (2013), 70, 
He Says (2013), 71, 
The Everlasting One (2013), 73, 

CHAPTER 1

Free Fall

    Scripting (2003)

    She penned the life that was to be;
    naivety and bliss of youth
    furnished its tone and hue.
    Then life, the chameleon, reared its head,
    smudging the masterpiece.

    A good educator but
    an ethereal marriage but
    a beautiful baby but

    the marauding twins—
    pain and abuse invaded her lair,
    eventuating the destruction
    of almost everything
    classically holy,
    issuing forth from this paramour,
    her lone Romeo
    throwing her empire into chaos.

    The action never follows
    the script the author pens.


    The Dwarf (2003)

    I fear the power in your eyes.
    At the moment of your wrath,
    the woman in me shrinks
    to be the child you demand me be.

    I fear the death in your eyes,
    but this dwarf must hero be,
    cowering, placating, martyring her soul
    so her kids won't have your eyes.

    I fear the power in your eyes
    and your machismo ministry.
    I swear I'll cease to be the other
    who threatens your fragility.

    I fear the death in your eyes,
    so I'll pay tribute to you,
    O mighty one, plunderer of youth,
    murderer of dreams on a platform of rebirth.


    The Ambush (2003)

    You touched her kids,
    you wounded her soul,
    wracking her womb with pain,
    and shook her well-worn faith.

    Then leaky faucets finding gutters
    on her freshly pleated face
    gushed forth in insurrection,
    the last stance of the damned.

    Ungovernable thoughts, one-liners
    raced across her brain,
    repetitious, torturous rituals
    of excruciating pain.

    Her eyes grew wide in knowing—
    the knowing of the lost.


    Crossroads (1995)

    My God! My God!
    Why hast thou dealt so harshly with me?
    Why hast thou forsaken me?
    Why? Why?
    O God of my childhood,
    sweet gentle Jesus,
    I had not known You thus.

    Why are pain and unhappiness
    constant residents of my being?
    God, remember how we were
    intimate once, You and I?
    I was the lamb frisking
    in the green pastures of Your presence.
    We communed then,
    You and I,
    while all heaven looked on.
    It was good then, so good, Lord.

    Now visions of the grave rise
    before my eyes and scare me.
    Every moment I fear the end,
    for in the menace's eye
    is the ominous presence of death.

    And what is left?
    A God who seems absent,
    abuse from within and without
    at the hand of a stranger—lover and brother.
    Oh, my God, it never stops.

    I'm the cornered fawn,
    forever retreating
    before the heinous hounds of hell.
    I'll be good, I say to the menace,
    but that's not enough—
    nothing I do is ever enough.

    I weep in the shackling gloom.


    The Sequel (1995)

    I will not cry.
    I must not cry.
    This is no time to cry.
    I will insulate myself
    from the intellectual excrement
    of the bogus lecturer and philosopher;
    from the vain babblings
    passing for Biblical creed,
    mouthed by the unfeeling pastor;
    from the barbs of pseudo friends
    and the plotting of witch-hunting—
    pointy, index-fingered foes
    from the hell-bent conspiracy.

    Yes, I will ignore
    the whole shebang:
    pastor, principal, philosopher,
    husband, all.
    Then I will be safe.
    I do not care.
    I would not care,
    for caring imprisons.


    The Fight of Faith (2003)

    A woman without a city,
    without a space,
    a job, a home,
    a man,
    plummeting,
    plummeting
    to nothingness.

    Choices of death,
    choices of life
    parade before her,
    displaying their wares,
    each tripping over the other
    to make the stakes higher,
    to outbid each other.
    Wooing and courting,
    they come in their finest,
    in this marketplace of the perhaps lost.

    Tantalizingly death parades before her,
    crowding out the voice of her God,
    of her church,
    almost wiping from her
    the faces of her children,
    whose eyes caress her
    even now
    —as she stands in contemplation—
    with voluntary oaths of unconditional love.

    This makes her shamed,
    shamed by the thoughts that sabotage her mind—
    a faithless woman
    on the verge of bringing her God
    to roll in the dust of slander and ridicule.
    Goaded by the wicked, witchy fiend
    whirling scalding curses at her,
    biting and scratching, spitting fire,
    damaging—triumphing?
    No, never!


    The Abyss (1995)

    There comes a time
    when you give and you give,
    and then you can give no more.
    So the decision is made
    to do what you can.
    But you being you,
    you do and you do
    and you fight and you fight
    mercilessly.

    You become estranged from yourself.
    You step outside of you
    and wonder who you are.
    You find that you are a stranger
    looking at your children,
    and you are alienated
    from the pain or laughter they bring,
    for you don't want to feel.

    Everything is being drained,
    drained from you.
    You wish that something would snap
    and pop inside of you,
    hurling you into oblivion
    or to times of laughter—and soon.
    You don't want to think, think, think,
    for thinking seduces you
    and reduces you,
    and you fall like a dwarf
    before the Goliath of your thoughts.


    The Princess (2004)

    Handsome prince,
    filed tongue,
    velvety thoughts—
    love's a grand idea.

    Grand idea,
    golden slippers,
    a rhythmic dance,
    filmy soft clouds,
    a fairy's white dress.

    White dress and veiled face,
    bright eyes,
    wedding march,
    troubled mother,
    sunset journey.

    Sunset journey,
    errant lover,
    dull eyes,
    dreary splendor,
    distant godmother.

    Distant godmother,
    demanding marauder,
    weighty vows,
    obscure pathways,
    a lost one.

    A lost one,
    weary stares,
    vacant core,
    painful ashes.


    The Penitent (2004)

    My God, I relent.
    What did I not do right?
    Which t's did I not cross?
    Which i's left I undotted?

    Was I too haughty, ambitious, proud?
    Please tell me, Lord.
    I might have erred in ignorance.
    For my errors I want to atone,
    so that the pain will cease.
    I hate myself for being weak,
    for being pain's unrelenting prey.

    Shine forth Your light in the valley
    of this approaching death
    that masks true faith
    in the circularity of its jagged labyrinth.

    Is there no absolution,
    no healing for the penitent?
    Why are wounds still raw,
    routinely reopened,
    exposing pink flesh
    to fresh infections?

CHAPTER 2

Rising

We Are (2004)

They are not statistics. They are flesh and blood; in fact, they are my beloved. I'll slaughter you if you try to put them on that list. A crazed bull, a sniper's fire, a terrorist by night will be identifiably tame by comparison if you touch my progeny. Don't tell me who I am. Don't tell them who they are. We are who we say we are. We are not statistics on some eloquent politician's tongue or mere figures to be juggled on and off a "nuclear threat list." We are not who you force us to be by your fancy rules and your atrophied sociological theories. We defy you and you and you—bold sucking, stereotyping, witch-hunting theorists prostituting identities and futures to your apathetic, lethargic, slothful psychology in your eagerness for acclaim. We name ourselves, and we are who we tell you we are, and not what your forced-ripe theories label us to be.

    The Returning Soldier (2004)

    Soldier,
    did you kill a man?
    How did it feel?
    Woman, did you leave your man?
    How did it feel?

    This woman
    did kill a man—
    not that man,
    this inner man,
    in partial suicides,
    in sneaky, slow dyings
    with the technology of
    sharp-shooting inner snipers
    configured by the Cain
    of conservatism.

    She was a terrorist against herself,
    blowing body parts to bits,
    soul and blood raining down
    upon a tortured landscape
    to join those of Abel
    in post-Edenic torpor.

    Be a self-preserving surgeon
    like this woman.
    Amputate the amalgam of selves
    that anesthetizes and forces you
    to choose another's interest over your own.

    But don't you dare sit in your sterile towers
    and politicize and sensationalize
    her cracks at survival.


    In Remembrance (2004)

    They remembered
    what latent joy is mine.
    I am the past they claim at last!

    Am I a newly invoked memory?
    Was I a shamed daughter
    sold by a raped and hungry mother,
    betrayed by a beloved twin,
    banished by an angry father?

    As I sniff through history's labyrinth,
    I wonder,
    Does this remembrance bid me welcome?
    Would you want to see me now,
    at the Atlantic journey's end?

    Have you wondered through the years
    what I have become?
    Do you really care?
    Is there a space in the family album
    that my likeness would fill?

    This bastard Ishmael
    craves the toys
    of the favorite son.
    To me, too, stretch out your scepter,
    mired as I am
    in this continuous warring
    across the fissures embedded within my soul.
    Settle the schizophrenia of the banished
    who hates yet loves you still.

    In the womb of my pain,
    I try to abort, acknowledging you as father.
    I spit curses at you,
    irresponsible, ancestral patriarch.

    I sought attachments from you
    that were not forthcoming.
    I grafted body parts that did not fit.
    Rejected by my DNA, these parts
    constantly minstrelize me.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Splendor from ASHES by Ingrid Rizzolo. Copyright © 2014 Ingrid Rizzolo. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1491716592
• ISBN 13: 9781491716595
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80