featured Gulf Coast poet Laura Peña

Laura Peña was a featured poet during our last off the page poetry series event in May, 2015. The two poems below, Scales and Ten Minutes, are the work of Laura Peña.

Laura Peña was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. Currently she is a bilingual elementary school teacher. She has been published in di-vêrsé-city, Boundless, Houston Poetry Fest anthology, The Bayou Review, Harbinger Asylum, Illya’s Honey, The Red River Review, and The Texas Poetry Calendar. Laura has read in venues around Houston and Austin. Laura is past president and current recording secretary of Gulf Coast Poets, is a member of The Poetry Society of Texas, Academy of American Poets, and The Writer’s League of Texas. She is also part of the critique group Poetry Works Workshops and credits them for the many achievements she has reached thus far. Laura organizes Poetry Out of Bounds each year which is the official kick-off event for Houston Poetry Fest.

Scales

After Wallace Stevens

The night is a serpent

slithering over the breakwaters.

It slinks over undulating sands

and between your feet.

It spreads its shroud everywhere - -

its engulfing shroud.

The cerecloth fastens to your body

and is transformed

by the skin and teeth of you.

The filaments of your eyes

tear on the edges of the breakwaters

and in the grains of the shifting sands.

Laura Peña

Ten Minutes

My cluttered office

has pieces of furniture

crammed against the walls.

Books of poets known nationally

and known only here in Texas

stand side by side

on the shelves like sentinels.

My dog lies on the futon.

Notebooks, pens, papers,

occupy every inch of space.

Stuffed under the weight

of Writer’s Kits and journals

my early stories - I have not

read them in decades. 

Is that my voice?

That shy girl afraid to show

those adolescent longings?

My coffee mug sits with a few dregs

of coffee grounds and sparkles of cinnamon.

How I like to sweeten it instead of sugar.

How to spend these last ten minutes?

My husband said with someone

he loves -  not writing.

But writing is what I do.

I would spend my last

ten minutes with him

a pen in my hand

writing on our arms and legs.

Maybe the blast

will tattoo the ink

under our skins

and we’ll be hung

on the ruins.

Laura Peña