Poems
by Evelyn Wallraff

Who do you think you are?
I wish I knew my fate
Or how to use the rest of my life
How long it will be to oblivion
Or maybe coming to live again
As a moose or a goose
A queen of the courts
Or a witch with warts,
A nun or a whore
With nothing or more
Opulence than before.

— ca 1993


The Silken Thread

You hold me by a silken thread
Of neither's making…yours or mine
No mystic sixth or seventh sense
Could except by chance find
my mind and heart crannies
to accomodate the twining tendrils.

It's loose, this leash, this hold you have
Purposeful pulls are pain and sidestepped.
It's inadvertent pulls I dread and hope you hope
And yearn as I to feel from time to time a tug or two.

I know you're caught in tendrils too
I couldn't however ever
Pull the leash on you
Even though you know I know
You want me to.

Emotional Emollient

Out of the messy morass moves a moral
Barren bones begin to bleed
An aching artery is articulate
Only death is heaven
Life is a painful hell.

Courage can control the canker
Bind its bloody breaks
Cushion and callous the unsheathed claw
Bearable borders are born.

A period apportioned to the task
Soothes and turns the tide
Somehow slips the suction
And substitutes a scar.


Written ca 1945 when Evelyn was dating and falling in love with her future husband, Fred Wallraff:

Airport

Windowed building white, and clouds
Palm tree bench where last we sat
Bereft of sadness by your presence
Sun silvered plane and then the rise
And circling, smaller blending sky
Your eyes on mine and parting steps
These last are mine alone.

Apache Trail

A desert April day
A picnic lunch and more than food
The canyon views and mountain lake
The winding trail and splendor scenes
The hesitating lights and darkness
Precipitous in mood and space
A sandy hole we dug and left
The ribboned road with walls of night
The cooling blue Apache lake
And then at last, the breakfast dawn
With eloquence both they and you
Awakened me.

Champagne Eve

A whim,
A long awaited symbol
That you understood
And understanding added
Overflowing ecstasy to the
Glass already full

Moonlight Night

A dinner dance and white corsage
The balmy starlit sharow walks
And more than one that moonlight night
With touching hands and lips
We spoke and seated, watched
As chaperones, the lunar light
T'was then I knew
I loved

Mount Lemmon

The sunlit desert drive and climb
The winding roads with cooler height
Mountain grandeur…vast expanse
A pause…to savor and to store
The sample of magnificence
The scent and tread of pine
With wind and symphonic melody
The steak,…fire… and the rest

These are just a few of the many poems she wrote during her lifetime.