Categorically Speaking: A Collection of Poems

By Alexandra Moss Zannis

Alexandra Moss Zannis resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Besides writing poetry, Alexandra and her husband, Andreas, were a professional singing duo, performing around the world in concerts, night clubs, theaters, and on television.

She is a member of Northeast Indiana POETS, Indiana State Federation of Poetry Clubs, the National Federation of State Poetry Clubs, and the Back Room Poets, a critiquing group. She has been published in the Raintown Review, The Pedestal Magazine; The Red River Review; League of American Poets; and in various poetry books, such as Penhaligon Page. Ltd, Wales; Poetworks/Grayson Books, Connecticut. In both the 2009 and 2010 Senior Poets Laureate Poetry Contests, she was awarded the prize for best poem submitted by Indiana Poets. Other publications include the Pennsylvania Poetry Society Prize Poems of 2009; Nature in the Hooserland (Shadow Ink Publications); awarded prizes in the Ohio Day poetry contests; and in the 2007 issue of Encore, published by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466941250

Alexandra Moss Zannis

Alexandra Moss Zannis resides in Fort Wayne, IN. She is a member of Northeast Indiana P.O.E.T.S., The Back Room Poets, Indiana State Federation of Poetry Clubs and the National Federation of State Poetry Clubs. She has been published in the Raintown Review, the Pedestal Magazine, the Red River Review, League of American Poets, and in various poetry books such as Penhaligon Page., Ltd, Wales, Poetworks/Grayson Books, Connecticut, and in Encore, the National Federation of State Poetry Clubs editions . In both the 2009 and 2010 Senior Poets Laureate Poetry Contests, she received awards for best poems submitted by Indiana poets. Her first volume of poems, “The Open Wound and Other Scars”, was published in 1999. In 2012 she published “Categorically Speaking” which can be purchased through Amazon.com. She also has published chapbooks, specifically Mother Goose Deciphered and Quips for Quacks.

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© Copyright 2012 Alexandra Moss Zannis.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-4126-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-4125-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909917

Trafford rev. 06/08/2012

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CONTENTS

The Open Wound

The Leaf Of Life

Who Was She?

I Am Woman

Color Me

Tongue-In-Cheek

Anger’s Whetting Stone

A Fetus In Cadiz

The Masticator

The Dark Cell

Despair

Old Age’s Denial

The Old Purse

Cocooned

Mimi’s Prayer

The Mournful Reed

Trilogy On Love

The Remembered Kiss

Fusion

The Plague Of Love

Forbidden Love

The Possession

Comparison

Song Of Despair

Metamorphosis

We

Chips Within The Stone

Burning

Sans Regret

Eye Of The Beholder

The Sweetest Song

The Web

You Speak With Forked Tongue

The Last Of The Wild Oats

Closure

Hail Kissinger!

With These Pledges… .

Blood Letting

A Tyrant’s Death: Praise Be To Allah?

Crossing The Aisle

Herding Sheep

Save This Seed!

Mississippi’s Measure 26

Ode To The Dandelion

Comparing Crowns

Farewell To Summer

Song Of The Cicadas

The Nightingale’s Lullaby

Prostate Rain

The Gentle Rain

Winter Shadows

Give In To The Night

The Tears Of The Earth

The Dance Of The Dust Ball

Drought

Schisms

Onslaught

Mourning

Lamentation

The Immortal Tree

In Memory

The Final Flight

The Irrevocable

I Walked In Your Shadow

Shades Of Pain

Tear Down The Shrine!

The Brilliance Of The Stars

Bones

Homophobia

Lazarus Resurrected

The Last Farewell

Without Hope

My Father Wore Trojans

A Preference Of Bedding

Nobody Came To My Funeral

The Last Bequest

Masochistic Love

I Drink To Death

The Itch To Plant?

The Pleasures Of Scotch

Curiosity

The Joys Of Winter

In A ‘Clintonized’ Manner

No Tears For Monica

The Joy Of A Youthful Bladder

My Old House

To A Cleavage

A Joyful Ending

True Love

Love’s Competition

The Shrinking Skirt

The Designer Man

The Age Of Cloning

The Marriage Vows

The Holy Word

The Playboy Centerfold

The Serpent

Fossils

THE OPEN WOUND

We are forced into life

through the open wound,

smeared with its blood

and entangled in its placental snare.

Each day of our lives

we are impaled and gored

by the relentless traumas

that pierce our inescapable net.

The wound is within us,

never healing, but seeping

with the blood and tears

of our infinite sorrows.

THE LEAF OF LIFE

How deliciously iridescent was the budding leaf

when it burst into bloom on an extruding limb of the tree—

another leaf sprouting forth from those that preceded it;

another leaf to burden the boughs of that time-worn tree;

an added weight until it no longer could bear life’s fruit.

But what a tiny leaf—no danger to fell the tree, no danger

to bend the bough to the bone-filled earth. I shimmered

and glowed from the dew that caressed me at sunrise,

bouncing and dancing from the touch of the morning breeze,

singing as the surging sap filled my tiny veins;

I expanded and thrived in the sun’s dappling shadows,

growing rich and lustrous with the cleansing of the rain,

expanding into an age-ripened leaf able to comprehend

my identity among the fledgling leaves, able to sense

my uniqueness among the flowering branches.

Then one day, bursting with the strength of my youth,

I tore away from my roots, snapped the stem that held me

and leaped onto the winds of flight that bore me upwards

and onwards into the swirling currents of life.

Freed from my umbilical cord, I soared into the future.

Aspiring heaven and seeking to reach unimagined heights,

I strained to