Night Sky

Until you learn about Chanukah
and the lamp that burned
for eight days,
you look at the colors
of lights and wish.

Then you learn
of the Winter Solstice
and DiWali
and other days
other names
that flip the tongue
as the calendar
turns, grows

And then every flame
in the dark
by any other knowing
starts to glow, aligns -
a planet now born
to guide you.

Facebook Fail - Try Again

Facebook Fail - Try Again

Frannie Zellman


My Dear Sir,

From my profile
you see
that I have written two novels
on the way to a third.
Have edited, poeted, blogged,
politicked, folksonged,
spent numerous words
on matters great and small
and of insubstantial consequence.

Yet the very first thing
you tell me
as a Facebook Friend
is that I would look great
in suspenders?

Winter Solstice II

Winter Solstice II

Frannie Zellman


Winter Solstice II


Longest night of the year.

We stand near waves.

Meeting for the last time,
we summon up morsels
of courage.

"I understand"
is not what I say.
But my icy left hand
meets your gloved right
as if to acknowledge
what worked.

Clouds scud
over rocks
and find themselves
over land.
The hours pass
in wishing,
as if one right word
could absolve.
I scream silently.
"Have you forgotten?"
But my un-sounds
 arch over the Sound
and fall in.
Your face shuts off,
determined not to relive
or grant leniency.

The cold sinks in.
All around us,
air closes,
pulls night deeper.
Once upon a time
you pulled me back
from a sure fall.

Have you forgotten?

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice

Frannie Zellman


Winter Solstice

Everything plods

toward the new moon.

When you get up at one PM,

there are only three hours

of light left.

Better to make hot things,

burrow into the house

like a sleeping squirrel

hiding its stash.

If you make a fire,

it burns low 

 sparks will

not catch,

but drift toward flakes,

then ash.

Early Winter Sunset

Early Winter Sunset


Grey day, warm.
We didn't see the sun.
Yet around 4:15 PM
pink strips flanked clouds
then swirled into nuclear light.
The clouds grew thick and dark
above the heart of many colors
each egging on the other
as if red had decided to break
into bright that it hurt to name.

Long after the sky drew to black
You could detonate the light
underneath.

Flying

Frannie Zellman

Flying

In those days before the flight

I dreamed the plane crashed 

because I weighed so much.

Yet when I finally boarded 

I felt wings.

I forgot weight, height, breadth,

volume,

time, day, month, year.

In sleep, radiance, now become aroma,

suffused what was once my body

and stole over the hidden stars

like the milky breath

of flowers.

On waking, dark.

Suddenly on one side

the plane exploded into sun.

And I, the flyer,

straddled the edge

of night and day

as if I'd been born

to stalk heaven.

Big Fat Bitch

Big Fat Bitch   (From Fat Poets Speak:  Voices of the Fat Poets' Society)


Frannie Zellman


I am not a nice or good fat woman.

I do not have a friendly bone in my body.

I do not cook. I hate playing with babies.

I am not eager to do kindnesses.


I do not pretend sweetness.

I do not give easily or happily of my time or ideas.

I like to shut the windows, bar the door and grab a book.

I do not exercise.  I do not eat healthy foods,
       whatever those are.

I do not have large soft breasts.

I don't have a fluffy yielding belly or round cheeks.

I do not bring home baked bread to gatherings.

I don't do merry.

I walk fast and frown and make angry faces
       at people in my way.

I tend to order in and eat the rest of the pizza for breakfast-
       cold.

I elbow my way into subways and push thinner passengers
       aside.

I do not apologize in any way shape or form
        for what or who I am.

I am fat and likely to remain so, which poses absolutely
        no problem for me.

I am a bitch and likely to remain so, which also poses
        absolutely no problem for me.

Eat shit, world. And down the rest of your assumptions with it.

I leave no room for you.