Marlene M. Tartaglione was born & raised in New York City. Her creativity manifests poetry, children’s literature, the visual arts; her work, published nationally & abroad (Hong Kong, Sweden, Australia, Canada, the UK & USA). A recipient of 4 poetry awards, she has been nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize. Ms. Tartaglione’s writing has been presented in venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, NY Book Fair, Society for Ethical Culture, Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Her MBA work done at NYU; she also holds a B.F.A from Cooper Union, where she studied with poet/scholar Dr. Brian Swann.

(for Adam Wyeth)

 

the art of dying *

 

… I suppose it must be a lot like flying, this art

of letting go: Much like the Heart 

which loves too freely, then learns for sure

what cannot be, or that 

                                   which no longer is so… 

The art of dying: One’s final point

of departure–

            in fact, the most ancient form of flight…

The hardest part, to shed each layer 

like onion-skin, so that air

& light 

must at once flood in;  make both buoyant

& spiritual

their newly-found, & felt, wings…

The art of dying:  To know, embrace 

then forfeit 

a poignant broken-heartedness, that trove 

of pain positioned  

to become your sudden death, but– now,  

a new transition; no longer heaviness or even

labored breath– just pure openness 

like an aperture  

which stuns the will with its sharp focus–

a stark readiness... This, an eager mode

& higher plane

of perfect vision– Wisdom which heals

& unbinds; un-blinds the corporeal orb

to become a true Inner Eye– one knowing

neither fear, nor tears, nor even a show

of blank hindsight;  just the gift of embracing

the welcomed Unknown– its unseen future 

a behest to one’s reconfigured form. 

 

      … Like the baby bird which must now

leave its nest (this first flight a coaxing 

both thrilling, yet terrifying)   

one steps onto a brink

                             of surprising, fresh hope 

— a warm, rising motion alight 

in weightlessness– as if, not even trying… 

    & so– 

a Shift: solely Alone. Nothing to bring, 

grasp or hold… One feels only a thrust 

of pure faith, in trust of the freedom 

to do what one always knew one must:

…Embrace a Savior

                  for Whom one’s behavior 

             has gained either distain, or favor…

greet this new Night– or Day;

confront & uplift

the Come-What-May 

as if an ethereal sail, or wing– 

                                               then simply… fly away.

(*Inspired by Adam Wyeth’s book of poetry by the same name, The Art of Dying.)

 

What Does The S pider  Know Of War?

           … When a spider meets another, it thinks “food,“

not “friend”:   It doesn’t feign or posture

welcome, greet Soul-mate or Long-lost Brother, pretend 

it seeks the thrills

of a feud, or caress...   It simply kills:                                                 

Death is what it does best. 

 

… & so, in the wider world of humankind, where names

are often misnomers & humankind   itself

a glaring oxymoron, the idylls of love

still rank high in esteem

while men, 

like their words, often mask what they mean:

Their cruel games incite, divide– deem losers & winners; 

yet– like spiders, they spin on & on– 

        Killing-machines

with no End-or-Beginnings…

                            But the spider weaves its web to feed:

                               It claims no dogma, but to breed.  

The spider does only what designed to do, its legacy

a fine precision

          of patterned-purpose & order.   Men,

on the other hand, proudly assume the role of marauder,

vexing/ perplexing each other ’til little is left…

But, mayhem or murder, theirs is a more-tangled web

of intrigue, mire & stress: Man spins for pride/ for power,

excess… Yes:   sadly, more & more

                         it seems    

the Worst of Man is Spider’s Best: 

                                             Like his harsh fellow-predator,

                                              Death is what he does best. 

 

“Spoken with the optimism of winter light                                                              

… You are the natural disaster she has made her own…”

(Randall Jarrall)

 

Fielding Land-Mines

 

      … Swinging back-&-forth between laughter & disaster 

just as a small child maneuvers 

the rings

of a beloved jungle-gym, I, too, negotiate grace

       as I nimbly slip through Time & Space:                    

Foothold on pavement or air (firmament a frenzy of stars                          

exploding like land-mines), streets now

are nothing to me

but strata complicit with gravity:         

Gravity, crude entity which cheerfully

drains & drags one down, just as you, for years, have

weighed so heavily upon my Omni-patient soul…                  

…….. 

Since I never knew where I stood with you, I’ve learned

to tread lightly: sit, swing, glide– dance or drift, each

a means to navigate our harsh reality, its truth a

surging, nonetheless, towards a most-unorthodox trajectory.

Clinging, as if in mid-heaven, to my own staunch survival, 

I, too, aspire spiritually to grasp your ethereal

(if imaginary) presence, errant bones-&-body

which stubbornly dangle so vividly (& distantly) before me.

…The Soul, fashioned by a Creator-God…

…The Sole, dark underbelly of shoe, fashioned by man 

for survival of the foot, that gifted tool

bestowed by Him to dismantle

our nemesis distance (that which you’ve skillfully wrought

between us)… but, unlike Christ, Who walked on water,

my footsteps are yet bound to the limits of natural law: 

Confined as such, they remain unwilling accomplices

to our nemesis gravity;   & so– you, too, a merciless,

unavoidable presence. Still, to side-step such issues, 

                   I summon natural law to petition natural law:  

 

Like hop-scotch or potsy (an adaptation of Brooklyn’s

street game), I, too, survive all odds 

by means of skillful jumping: I rise, move above

such mounting injunctions & their all too-pressing

circumstances, in order to adapt & change–

these, the tools of Evolution– significant, if not crucial

instruments of that ancient art called Survival... 

To state that 

…When first I met you, I felt as if Walking on Air… 

has now been raised from child-like hyperbole

to more than a practical reprimand: It has melded

into a mantra/ manual: one practical Means to an End.

From our very first beginnings, levitating above ground

has been, for me, a critical mode of movement,

perhaps (at times) an escape– pragmatic, 

an assurance of Getting There instead of Nowhere– 

a method of effectively Fielding Land-mines. In doing so,

I have avoided, at all costs, those invisible snares 

set obtusely, unwittingly, or, perhaps, even knowingly 

by you — yes, You–

      in the midst of the riddled & forsaken name of Love.   

F I R S T

 

You were mine first:  Before wife, offspring, joint-efforts

  & bank accounts; before contracts, covenants,

foundations & family…

Before you gave voice to that guarded life within

I summoned you first, from the depths of my longing– 

                  Invocation, excavation– a Destiny. 

 As passion attests to its height’s rising thirst, this heat

 never wavered, subsided: You, 

Time’s consort, embraced without & within,

 are that cohort forged as my soul’s wayward Twin:   free, 

yet bound with no mercy, or choice: 

                                            Together, for all of Eternity.

You were mine first: As if two planets collided– 

                      a universe begotten– you erupted–

spewing font, a spout of flaming water tethered to me 

   while yet wholly unbridled, this yearning sealed

   & not without presence… It is one which never quelled

nor quieted:  It moves beyond

   what Time’s unmasked & all too-clearly revealed–

A pre-ordained fire never cloned nor even quenched 

      … its Apocalyptical merging not to be forgotten… 

      It is one which lives on as its very own Axiom: 

       … A coal forever burning, clenched in the fist of 

                                                               What Must Be…

… What then, of this fate, as pointed as Damnation,

dangling from the eons upon which it is mercilessly pinned? 

It is pain’s proud paramour, its ancient & infinite memory; 

& so: Anyone with whom I ever tarried, or went;  

 whatever charts coaxed me to where I traversed to go–

You were always there with me, a cross

which I knew must be carried– that dark mask over  

each face I revered, as if it was your own; I, myself absorbed

while inhaling the breath, scope, depth & hope of Someday

… Somehow… Maybe.

It remains a molten lava/ burning orb flowing through my

anguished pores, each fiery orifice & abandoned crevice; for

You were mine first, but what’s worse, is… you are mine Last: 

 There is no one After, none past you–

as if a final light was snuffed, turned off

 in an empty room… & so:  See how this womb

stands as proudly-poised as a vacant tomb:  Silent. Still.

                                                         No Christ, light or Lazarus.

                  … for nothing resurrects, nor grows here, but fatal, fertile darkness. 

(for Alan Hovhaness)

 

V O L C A N O

 

Shrieking, speaking or swearing in sparks– the language of Fire–

who cannot hear what its heart proclaims?

Catapulting thunder

spawns an urgent throat & tongue, a baritone vocabulary.

This great shofar bellows, commands all of nature

to rise, celebrate or fear 

that which is to be feared or celebrated– abject joy or dread— 

each extending far beyond its own scorched edge.

… It is that to be heard,

acclaimed— even mourned…    

& so, transcendent Awe now dawns, erupts to reveal itself

like a bold & fiery season: Nature disrobes; explodes 

to divest itself then emerge again as if in ash & sack-cloth,

an endless cycle of petulance, penance, impermanence, renewal    

— Nature, dressed or unadorned, in all its fraught & fierce desire– 

teeming cascade, indictment of pain… or, perhaps, molten jewel.

*     *      *       

… spewing Light, 

the Divine Presence leaps forth, makes itself visceral 

& known, where– even from crevice, or steep abyss

(its deepest bowel 

of blackened earth) Heaven, for all

its glory & wrath, is incarnate again, if not holy… its miracle 

— for better or worse— 

                                                          once more wholly-manifest.