Breaking Radio Silence by Kristina Jacobs has been released by The Next Level Publishing, April 2022. Released as a Kindle Select April 2022. Breaking Radio Silence is a chapbook with poems that explore breaking silence and speaking your truths.
It contains the poems: Radio Antenna – Dark Visions, Earth – Trembles Proceed Anger, Morning Bites, The Art of Manifestation, : An Orientation : to Kindness :, Smart Horse (Dumb Kid), The Tease, The Hidden Ones, Growing Up Country and 4:44.
Growing Up Country
by Kristina Jacobs © 2020
Tromping through long grass
and waist high weeds in the back field,
past the gar pond and its stinking mud flats,
warnings to watch out for wild hogs
still ringing in my ears
Over the rusty barbed wire fence
I went most afternoons
ignoring faded old “no trespassing signs” –
into the Florida woods
for a long ramble
Avoiding the poison ivy gently swaying from live oaks,
and the tangled fingers of Spanish moss draped limb to limb,
it was impossible to ignore that it was dripping hot,
even in deep shade
Boulder strewn pine needle beds
offered cool seclusion, perfect daydreaming territory
The destination was always unplanned,
but it always ended the same,
slow or fast – the afternoon always ended
in the the shaded pines of the graveyard
a few miles from home
Macabre kids,
playing in the graveyard
we were respectful enough to keep our distance
from cars carrying visitors
and never spoke to anyone there
but spent the late afternoons
making up life stories for people
with only gravestones for company (and us)
The date they are born,
the date they died
A cross, a dove
a saying or scripture,
clues to a life
Military stones and babies
got quite different stories
than those we knew nothing about
though we often wondered,
in death, did they know their neighbors?
Soon enough, darkness would begin to fall
and we’d need to make the trek home
much faster than the rambles that brought us
I’d say goodbye to the spirits
and thank them for sharing their stories,
they’d thank me for the visit
They seemed lonely, no one came to see them,
no one else cared to hear their stories,
to listen to the lessons they’d learned or
just what they missed about life
I’d promise to return…until one day,
a long time from then, I didn’t
I can still hear the bell
on the front porch ringing,
calling me home for dinner –
as I crossed the border
from one place to the next
Dirty and tired,
thirsty and hungry,
I’d hurry home
with my out of bounds secrets,
the heady scent of gardenia
filling my nose
as I turned the knob,
home, for now –
but it’s just a memory
Check out the chapbook and purchase a copy online at: https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Radio-Silence-Kristina-Jacobs/dp/B09WQ896R3/
Available now as a Kindle Select Exclusive and Print
Kristina Jacobs is an award-winning poet and the author of eighteen poetry chapbooks including: Grey Weir, The Wildwood Guardian, Slipshod Mornings & Meandering Midnights, Inside Invisible, Dawn After Dusk, Dept. 56, Drawn by Grace, Sparks, All the Purple Days, Charm All Over the Place, Chasing Ordinary, The Heart of the Otherlands, True North, Just my Luck, Breaking Radio Silence, Lucky 13, Crook-Tailed Tales (with co-author Gary Azerier) and Signs Point Left. She is also the author of the science fiction fantasy novel, Gateways Through the Penumbra and a short story collection, EverHollow: Stories from the Otherlands.
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