Name: Selene Steese,  Email: selene_writes@yahoo.com
Web Site: http://www.matchlessgoddess.com/index.htm
Selene has been writing since age seven. She is a poet first and foremost, with several hundred poems to her credit. She also has three novels in progress and has composed more than a dozen songs. “Writing is what makes me want to get out of bed in the morning,” she says. “It keeps me alive.” Selene has self-published three poetry chapbooks: Evidence of Poetry, Mind of a Poet and Love, Paperdust & Dreams. She has had poems published in The Crazy Child Scribbler, Baker Street, The Sacred Grounds Anthology,The Crockett Signal, the very first issue of The Carquinez Review, and Spire Magazine’s Spring 2003 issue.
Letter to Myself

I do not know if you
will hear these words above
the din of everyday, yet
I will speak them:
you are worthwhile.

There is that in you
which could move mountains
if you became dissatisfied
with where they stood.

Inside your soul you fight
such battles; let them go.
Doff your armor, sheath
your sword. Melt them down,
reform them as a bowl
to catch up your tears, ring
with the round tones
of your laughter

cradle the well of your self.

Wait no longer to live
your real life. Go out
and grab the tail of the rainbow.
Bend it across the roof
of your one true home
upon this Earth.

More precious than you
could ever guess, you are
the light that paints
rainbow hues across the sky

you are the bright cascade
of colors shimmering along
the soft, silver bellies of clouds

you are the pot of gold.


Sonnet Boom

Because I can be anything I choose.
Because no one said you can’t go poem
again,
I will remove the shackles from my muse
And waltz away, bequeathing her the pen.
Because I love to write more than to breathe,
Because words are food and rest and sex to
me
The voice that sings inside will never leave.
And whosoever I wish to be, I’ll be.

I am a sonnet in full rainbow burst.
I am a sonnet in funerary clothes
I am a sonnet for better or verse,
I am a sonnet written in prose

Because I can, and because I want it
I shall write my soul and show a sonnet.

 Amo, Amas (I Love, You Love)

Walk this worn path
with me.
Keep hold of my hand
around the turns. Wash
my feet when we stop, sore
and exhausted and I
will wash yours.

Lie beside me,
your body warm
in chill dark.
Reach for me
across an ocean
of mattress, quilt,
lightlessness—and I
will reach back.

Hold me when/
I cry. Say
you understand, even
if you don’t.
Give me any advice,
just so I hear you,
and know
how to pilot through
all the pain.

Look at me/
with eyes gone
hazy with lust.
Caress my lips
with yours. Make
me remember desire.
Slip fingers across
arm, belly, breast
as though nothing
softer ever existed.

Give me nothing
more than all
you are. Demand
I give you
everything in return.
Add the length
of your arms
to mine. Together
we’ll coax constellations
out of orbit,
lighting the way
to our dreams.


Awake

I am awake 
Today, and my lust is
boundless –
I roar and dream and
drink up risks
challenges and sorrows,
swallow down joys
Weep, wail, laugh, dance
Then beg
for more

I take a step outside
my door and

pause

to breathe in Summer morning
coolness and green-scented breeze.

Today I am awake, and stars
await discovery
behind a spectacular dome
of blue.

I am, today, awake
and the call of all alive thrums
in my rushing blood, cresting
in drumming waves against my heart.
  .