Editor’s Note: Janet recently deceased Sept.27th 2016. Writer/Editor/Poet she was a good friend & will be greatly missed
 
Janet P. Caldwell is currently the COO of Inner Child, ltd., Humanitarian, Reiki Master, Poet, Published Author, 5 degrees to separation, Passages and Dancing Toward the Light . . . The Journey Continues, many anthologies, magazines and more. To read more of Janet’s work please visit the links below.
 
www.janetcaldwell.com/
www.innerchildpress.com/janet-p-caldwell.php
www.facebook.com/JanetPCaldwell
 
 
(i.)
 
5 degrees to separation
 
I learned to count early
Read the bible too
Wrath, punishment
Seemed no absolution
Separate at five
 
In the morning
When I was defiled
Five screams a minute
Five shiny points from
The glass shards
 
Five fingers, to check off
As I calculate
In five minutes I’m clean
and new
Separated by five degrees
 
Five from what I don’t want
To remember, anything green
Black or brown
Make it easier
Five letters/numbers are my friends
 
The ceiling fan;
Wood, glass, white, brown, brass
Another set of quints
A quick escape
When I should need one
 
My rabbit hole with
Back-doors aplenty
Five senses all shut down
I’ve got good and can count
Before what might happen
 
Safe in numbers, hidden
When I separate from myself.
 
©2001-2014 Janet Caldwell
 
 
(ii.)
 
Weep for the Child that Never Was
 
Tears fall down my face
for a child with no name
A child filled with anguish
suffering disgrace.
 
How could they have lied
and treated her so
Why didn’t they love her
just let her go?
 
Buy her new clothes
fill her with song
Mess her up more
you can’t be wrong!
 
She grew up with walls
forever all around
The music you played
she couldn’t hear a sound.
 
You look at her now
with disgust in your eyes
You can’t see her though
she wears a disguise.
 
Hand-made by you
so carefully sewn
With coagulated drops
all her own.
 
You thought that you knew her
but there’s no way that you could
She’s not what you think
behind the mask stained with blood.
 
© Janet Caldwell 2001 – 2014
 
 
(iii.)
 
Daddy # 2
 
I Remember him
 
Glassy blue eyes
Fingertips brown
Black greasy hair
Forehead high
Child killer
Sick bastard
 
I Remember me
Scuttling like a rat
Running from a cat
Scattering across the tile
 
Like a roach on fire
When the lights came on
Better scatter, Daddy’s home!
 
I Remember (séances)
Straddling his head
The Shoulders so high
Calling up the dead
Peering in the sky
Let the dead arise
It’ll stop Daddy’s cries.
 
I Remember Abuse
Dancing to the belt
That beat me blue
Decorated with welts
 
Daddy, I Remember You
 
© Janet P. Caldwell 2003 -2014
 
 
(iv.)
 
Child’s Lament
 
I assume you’d say that I’m
As beautiful as I was when I was six.
I think … (I’m jinxed)
Mother Dear, what do you think of me now?
 
I really must know… I’m lost.
Did I say that I miss you?
I’m sorry if I haven’t.
I feel like Anne. Always have.
 
Did my beauty transpire when, I cooked your
Supper? Was I special when
Your sick fuck of a husband
Molested me? Made it easy for you,
well, answer me?
 
(If only in my mind, for my mind, I’m losing my mind . . . again)
 
Tell me, Mother, I want
To understand. (Significance?)
Myself, a wisp of value
I don’t have far to go.
 
It’s an indistinct trail, but
I try. Just explain it, please.
I forgive you.
Everyday.
 
And I will
I promise.
All the way to the grave.
Can you help me now???
 
©2002 – 2014 Janet Caldwell
 
 
(v.)
 
Sugar & Spice
 
Hey, Pom Pom girl, swingy
Red and blue, shake it
Shake it, cheer so loud
Until the acid bleeds your throat
 
Green eyes glaze and glisten
Smiling through the bile
You pretty little thing
For everyone to see, but
If they only knew, and could
See the scars beneath
 
The make-up, the crafted image
They wouldn’t be jealous
Now would they Blondie
Surely not of you?
 
You’re all grown now
If you believe a calendar
Hiding in a house, in plain
Sight, an icon for everything nice
And all that spice, so spice that nice
 
But tell me, what the
Hell happened to you?
A funny thing, frequent
Thoughts of suicide
A whispered middle-aged craze
Still hip, staying in style
 
You’re still pretty, my silly girl
Even with your head
Crammed in the toilet bowl
 
When did it stop being easy to cheer?
As you count the vomit chunks
Regurgitate love, empty
Your soiled soul.
 
Feeling better now?
No, I didn’t think you would
How about a pill? You know
That you can’t drink
Too many calories to consume
Remember? Pissing in the sink
 
I’ve been around, seen
Everything you’ve done
The things that you can’t handle
I saw you scrub and scrub.
 
Wipe at the dingy stains
From his dirty love, that stench
Perfume won’t hide.
 
You had to find a way
To survive the attentions
Of an unconvicted felon
That uncircumcised bastard
Who brought dinner home
 
You do it still you know
Those little tricks and games
Recount the vomit chunks
one-two-three-four-five
 
Hurry, hurry, hurry
That filthy secret’s visible
Flush, flush, flush!!!!!!
 
Tidily out of sight, out of mind
Your filth is in the sewer
A safe-deposit box
For unwanted truths
 
So you can facade the day
 
© Janet Caldwell 2002-2014
 
 
(vi.)
 
Father Figure
 
When Daddy bellowed, I couldn’t hear.
The octaves were past my recognition,
decibels too strong for understanding,
all finer points disappeared.
I recall being tired, taking care of the family.
I was ten and close to breaking, didn’t
need his yelling, or the strap that cut. It’ll
be over soon, bleed girl, just bleed.
 
I was fortunate, so very cared for in
public, what was my problem?
“Nothing, nothing”, I said, needing to
show deference, defiance and not dread.
The piss in my bladder burned, needing release.
 
I reached for the gun, shoved it in my mouth.
The taste of oiled metal gagged me. Why
should I suffer? Twisted the way shit can work.
It’s him, the hateful bastard needs to go
 
D
O
W
N
 
Going once, going twice.
Gone, I peed. Release.
 
Janet Caldwell 2001-2014
 
 
(vii.)
 
First Haircut
 
With her thin lips
she kissed Daddy
good morning.
 
She hated the sight,
the stale smell of him
and abhorred the facade.
 
Madness surrounded those
at 223 Deepwood Drive;
residential death.
 
At seven her mother was
working. Daddy had to get
the girl ready for school.
 
Cursing, he broke a comb,
trying to get it through
her waist length hair.
 
With a movement
that would startle the
comatose,
 
Daddy grabbed a butcher
knife and ambled over to
her chair.
(1-2-3-4-5)
 
She faced the wall, lined up the tiles,
attempting purple dreams.
Throttled screams, burgeoning walls
she could direct into tile accounting.
 
She closed her eyes tight now,
continued keeping ceramic book,
and waited.
 
Terror filled like before,
would he kill her
or beat her this time?
 
Her mind raced and flashed
to past images.
When spittle flecked her face,
welts and blood
decorated her ass.
 
An old waltz…
A dance that never ended pleasantly.
Grabbing her blond swirls in his nicotine
fist.
 
He muttered and sawed her spirit,
and hair, up to
Janet’s tiny neck.
 
Her tresses had been one of the few things
she liked about herself. The hair
once wrapped around her like satin
comfort.
 
It made her feel safe at 3AM.
Count girl count. (1-2-3-4-5…)
Another piece of the child died,
piled on the kitchen floor.
 
Janet Caldwell 2001-2014
 
 

Janet P. Caldwell Bio
 
Janet wrote her first poems and short stories in an old diary where she noted her daily thoughts. She wrote whether suffering, joyful or hoping for peace in the world. She started this process at the tender age of Eight. This was long before journaling was in vogue. Along with her thoughts, poetry and stories, she drew what she refers to as Hippie flowers. Janet still to this day embraces the Sixties and Seventies flower power symbol, of peace and love, which are a very important part of her consciousness.
 
Janet wrote her first book, in those unassuming diaries, never to be seen by the light of day due to an unfortunate house fire. This did not deter her drive. She then opted for a new batch of composition journals and filled everyone. In the early nineteen-eighties, Janet held a byline in a small newspaper in Denton, Texas while working full time, being a Mother and attending Night School.
 
Since the early days Janet has been published in newspapers, magazines, and books globally. She also has enjoyed being the feature on numerous occasions, both in Magazines, Radio and on Several Web Sites. She has gone on to publish three books. 5 degrees to separation 2003, Passages 2012 and her latest book Dancing Toward the Light . . . the journey continues 2013. She is currently editing her 4th book, written and to be published 2014. All of her Books are available through Inner Child Press along with Fine Book Stores Globally.
 
Janet P. Caldwell is also the Chief Operating Officer of Inner Child www.iaminnerchild.com/, which includes Inner Child’s Ning Social Site innerchild.ning.com/, Inner Child Newspaper paper.li/1innerchild/1326347159, Inner Child Magazine www.innerchildmagazine.com/, Inner Child Radio www.blogtalkradio.com/inner-child-radio and The Inner Child Press Publishing Company www.innerchildpress.com/.
To find out more about Janet, you may visit her web-site, Face-book Fan Page and her Author page at Inner Child Press.
 
 
 
 
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goodreads.com/author/show/Robin Ouzman Hislop
http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorrobin.htm
http://www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
www.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop
https://www.amazon.com/author/robinouzmanhislop
http://www.innerchildpress.com/robin-ouzman-hislop.All the Babble of the Souk

Sometimes the letter is so good, you want to publish it too, so we will:

Dear Poetry Editor, Motherbird:

Somehow, it’s January, and only this past week have I had to worry about putting a real coat on to go outside, and haven’t even bothered replacing my regular canvas shoes for boots. For most of the winter, any snowfall has melted on impact or within hours, and for the first time ever, my neighbors have had no trouble keeping their sidewalks cleared of ice. I even heard an Eastern meadowlark somewhere up in the trees this morning, its voice standing out stark against the regular winter cackle of crows as if it, too, was confused, and needed to tell someone about it.

Thank you for reading my poems,

Holly Day

Diana

When I was 13, my mom was best friends with a professional photographer
who grew pot in her back yard. She also had a daughter my age,
who went to the same junior high as I did, and partly because my mom
wanted to be on the good side of her new dealer, partly because
she was worried that I didn’t have many friends, she really pushed
a friendship between me and this new girl.

Diana was okay. We did have fun together. But she was upset
that I wouldn’t wear makeup, that I wore jeans and t-shirts
to school instead of dresses and high heels, and especially
since I didn’t care that I was a fashion casualty. She’d invite me over
to her house after school and spend hours and hours giving me
makeovers, then totally flip out when I’d show up at her door the next day
for school, wearing my hair and face the same way
I always did. She told people at school she was only my friend
because she felt sorry for me, which I got to hear second-hand
from the boy sitting behind me in English.

Sometimes I’d get pissed off at her for saying shit
behind my back, and I’d take off for home after school
without waiting for her at our usual meeting spot, and she’d
come running down the street after me, shouting my name,
begging me to stop and wait for her. When school
wasn’t in session, we were pretty good friends.
When we were at school, she barely spoke to me.

Milk Cartons

Those little pictures on milk cartons always seem so
ineffectual and insubstantial to me, as though
I have the only milk carton with that face on it
and I myself am entrusted with finding the face in my refrigerator

attached to a living being, perhaps hiding somewhere in my house
as if there aren’t thousands of other houses with the same picture
on their own milk cartons. It seems

that something as tragic and grave as that of a missing child
would warrant his or her face carved in Olmec proportions
in giant blocks of butter or cheese, or stretched out over the frames
of automobiles, plastered on the sides of city buses,
skywritten in intricate detail by cropdusting planes

milk cartons just seem too small to carry
the weight of something so important.

Whispered Into Your Ear

If my skin was flayed from my body, and only
Red, wet muscle held my bones together, would you
Still want to take me in your arms, hold me close, swallow your
Revulsion at my ragged state? And if

This thing inside me can’t be killed, and instead
Wastes me into a picked-over shell, will you
Still tell me I’m beautiful when I’m in your arms, as you
Brush the clumps, the dry knots, out of my thinning hair?

Will you still love me when I’m less than
Skin and bones, a faded memory, a pile of photographs
Rubber-banded together in a shoebox hidden
Under our bed? Or will you painstakingly count off the days that must pass

Before the people around us allow you to forget?

Lunch Break

I can only imagine why he takes so long
To return from the bathroom every day at lunch, picture
Him straddling the toilet, left arm stretched out in supplication to some
Drug god like I’ve seen on television, needle
Dangling precariously from the vein it’s rooted in
His eyes rolled back in his head in delirious orgasm

Or maybe it’s some official religious thing, not a heroin-based religion at all
He’s kneeling before the stand of urinals, facing some static
Compass point, dragging an ancient stone blade over his body
Tattooing new lines across his stomach
Piercing his tongue and ears with a practiced hand
That draws little blood. For all I know
He could be covered in chicken excrement from noon to twelve-fifteen
Every day, using his cigarette break to entreat his homeland gods.

All I know is that I will not continue to use my own lunch break
To answer his phone line, will not take orders from warehouse men
Redirected by the note on his door to ask for my help instead.
From now on, I am in an official state of meditation when his desk is empty.
I am sleepwalking, and am not to be disturbed.

The Things that Come Back When You Finally Have Time

After she was moved to the nursing home, my grandmother
began having reoccurring nightmares of being chased,
held down, raped, again and again. The night nurses had to keep
changing her medications so that she could sleep through the night
quietly, without dreams

so she wouldn’t wake up the other residents. “Your grandmother’s
had a hard life,” said her social worker when we came to visit.
“She’s a strong woman.” She went on to tell us
that years before, before my mother was even born, that my grandmother
had been attacked by a neighbor, that there had been this huge
controversy regarding whether my grandmother was a slut
just asking for it, and had been leading the much-older man living next door
since she was thirteen, fourteen

or if the man, an upstanding member of the community, who ran
the only grocery store in town, really was some sort of monster
some leering thing that hurt little girls. In the end, my great-grandparents
dropped the charges against their neighbor to keep things quiet, put up
a 7-foot-tall wooden fence between the properties, just tall enough
that they couldn’t see the man as he went about his yard
that he couldn’t look over the fence into theirs. My grandmother

went away to work on the family farm in Wisconsin, attended the tiny
Catholic school attached to the neighboring parish
and when she came back, after high school,
the incident was never discussed again.

Sixty years later, she’s having nightmares about being attacked
telling strangers about the rape we never knew about, so doped up
she doesn’t recognize her own children, her grandchildren. “She can’t
do without the medication right now,” says the social worker
when we express concern about her rapid decline, the way
she falls asleep in her chair when we visit as though exhausted, how sad she looks.
“All we can do is hope the dreams go away
once she feels at home here.”

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, since 2000. Her published books include Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, Piano All-in-One for Dummies, Walking Twin Cities, Insider’s Guide to the Twin Cities, Nordeast Minneapolis: A History, and The Book Of, while her poetry has recently appeared in Oyez Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry book, Ugly Girl, just came out from Shoe Music Press.