POETRY

TWO POEMS

by Leslie Dianne

THE LAST TRIp

We were arguing about
something as usual
Canada, sun blinding
white and mountain
magnificent, was a
battlefield that winter
we lined up troops
in Vancouver, skirmished
all the way to Hope,
wrestled over the map
in the Fraser Canyon,
disappointments
twisting like the road
that took us to Banff
Our fighting never
took us anywhere
except to the end of us
and the beginning
of alone

RUBBERNECK PROCESSION

We gawk at accidents
slowing down our
frantic pace on the highway
to stretch our vision
into the mangled metal
we stare at the
shattered headlight
the upside down hood
the airbag inflated
waiting to exhale
thirty yards away, the
other car is twisted
into a sculpture
glistening and shining in the
disappearing dusk
some bits illuminated
by the blue light of
police cars
others remaining
as black as sky
when the stars turn away
all of it as final
as the child’s empty shoe
straddling the lanes

Leslie Dianne is a playwright, poet, novelist, screenwriter and performer whose work has been acclaimed internationally at the Harrogate Fringe Festival in Great Britain, The International Arts Festival in Tuscany, Italy, The Teatro Lirico in Milan, Italy and at La Mama, ETC in NYC. Her stage plays have been produced in NYC at The American Theater of Actors, The Raw Space, The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and The Lamb's Theater, and at Theater Festivals in Texas and Indiana. She holds a BA in French Literature from CUNY and her poetry appears in The Wild Word, Sparks of Calliope, The Elevation Review, Quaranzine, The Dillydoun Review, Line Rider Press, Flashes and elsewhere. Her writing was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.