Memphis Roller Derby – the Poetry of Motion

On a recent Saturday night, sitting on the floor in the suicide zone at roller derby kept me entirely engaged. Shooting photos and trying not to end up as skate-kill , I wanted to try something different. The last time I shot roller derby, the photos were gritty, high contrast , and  in black and white.The focus was on fishnet stockings and scars. Both of us have changed. The derby is trying uniforms to present a more sports- like focus.I wanted to convey the beauty of motion, so  I panned, banished the flash, and moved whichever way pleased me at the moment. I’m curious to hear your opinions.

1205 Somewhere Street

1205 Somewhere Street

B.J. Silberman

Another former beauty queen,

Orphaned in her prime,

Waits dressed in her daytime best.

Sunshine through the transom

Casts no memory.

Waved watercolored glass protects her secrets.

 Standing outside, we can only imagine her story.

The Power of a Photograph

Power of a Photograph

B.J. Silberman

Old photograph,

A form of visual poetry –

In an unrehearsed dance between black and white.

If you can listen with your eyes,

The story hides in the shadows.

Where tricks of light

Make the obvious invisible,

Give substance to memory,

And place time in the palm of your hand.

Bibliophile ” The Book Lover”

Bibliophile or The Book Lover

B.J. Silberman

For too long I searched

In books with worn bindings half-hidden on dusty shelves

Or in bold-faced bestsellers

For answers from more experienced lives

To the questions

Which reappear

As if they  have an internal calendar.

Unwilling to admit to possessing the opportunity

To fit my pieces

To write a life

Where self-knowledge is just a plot twist away

And becoming the heroine is less frightening.

Old Glass Bottles

Curator

B.J. Silberman

An invitation to play

Unearthed in an antiques shop

Glass vials glow

In an array of rainbows

Musty albums lean

As unwrapped gifts

Where the confetti of nameless portraits

Spills off their pages

Emptied china teapots

Witnesses to everyday dramas

Reveal not a word

But huddle together for warmth

While lackluster souvenirs of distant places

Keep company with worn luggage and postcards

Their journeys tightly bound

In ribbons

To prevent escape.

Who She Might Have Been

This photo is a collage of a painting in an antique shop of a young woman that was dated 1957 and a photo of a dress form and frame in another antiques shop.They make me wonder who she turned out to be and if she became herself.The poem that follows “Appropriately Frayed ” is not an ode to myself but to women who accept who they’ve become.

     Appropriately Frayed

More comfortable in my own skin,

Fitting the place I’ve earned

Where loosened threads allow room to breathe.

My unbound pages

Can dance in the breeze.

A few worn spots – wrinkled, dog-licked

Add a layer of interest.

While my eyes still seek

the unexpected and untried.

 Valuing the questions more than the answers.

Cherry Tree Ballet

A Ballet

BJ Silberman

Roseate petticoats swirl in pleasure

Practicing a familiar ballet of

Pirouettes, jetes,and  arabesques.

Pink and pearl blossoms

Rain gently.

Spent silken petals

Spread their kimono

Over newly green grass.

Silently , hoping not to awaken summer.

Lady Slippers or Grandma’s Dancing Shoes

Lady Slippers

BJ Silberman

Wrapped in tissue paper memories

Grandma’s dancing shoes

Napped on the top shelf of her closet.

The silk slippers with pearl buttons,

Remnants of another life,

No longer fit her knobbed feet

and twisted toes.

On laundry days,

Grandma’s aprons,

like kites

Trapped in mid-flight with their tails dangling,

Competed with the zinnias for attention.

While her house dresses,

gay paper lanterns fluttering in the breeze,

made the garden ready for a party.

When the washing was hung,

Grandma danced barefoot

on the grass.

Ready Made Ancestors

Ready Made Ancestors

B.J. Silberman

Nameless faces creased on cardboard

Stare up at me from a scarred metal box.

Stopping to make their acquaintance,

I gently dust them off

And begin to imagine lives

For the brothers half-disguised by sweeping moustaches,

For the girl whose teasing eyes don’t fit her straight -lined mouth,

For the tiny sailor who hasn’t yet tasted the ocean,

And for the stern-shawled matriarch who has seen too much.

The reunion interrupted,

They take joy in making me guess,

But give nothing away.

Unable to explain

How they came to be abandoned

Into a company of strangers.

Yet, silently offering a past

To those willing to adopt them.

Abandoned Home

Abandoned

B. Silberman

Turning onto a side road

Demoted by the interstate

Into a memory,

A lonely house holds its breath.

 

Dressed in rusted metal lace

And silvered siding,

Its parched paint wrinkles

Soften in the late afternoon sun.

 

Drunken doors whisper invitations.

As porches sagging from the weight

Of remembered footsteps,

Discourage casual visitors.

 

Ambitious vines strangle columns and posts

While roses cavort shamelessly.

The laboring sound of  wasps and wood bees

Muffles its pleas for  rescue.