Archive #20
February, 2015
Joshua Gray Is Back With A Culinary Offering Joshua Gray
La Fourchette
My father knew he was the only one who understood me. I dressed like a gypsy lady, wore hand-sewn hippie dresses from Mom’s wardrobe while my sister found the Poloroid. I wasn’t gay because of it, I wasn’t gay, because my father tucked me into bed one night, and asked what I think about before I turn out the lights. I didn’t say, Boys. So after the divorce, after the crying, the rejection, the pain of abandonment, he took me downstairs to meet Bennie, because he knew the way to heal my heart was to involve French food. It was here I learned there was more to life than clams, that a funny way to spell muscle meant shellfish soaked in white wine. I learned then that there was yet another type of mousse, and homonyms made a lovely theme for a palatable meal. My dessert was a gift from the gods, revealing the inferior mortality of pudding. On our way back upstairs, my father armed with a better way to make a steak, with a chuckle, he admitted he may have been wrong all along; as I sported a wide smile below twinkling eyes. I felt rather gay. Read the poetry of Joshua Gray Read a profile of Joshua Gray Katherine Gallagher: In The Blur, Focus Katherine Gallagher
At the Playground The March wind whisks against us: my son, three, starts the roundabout refuses to get on himself. Today he has planned ahead, says it's his turn to push me, watches me on board and I'm away. I enjoy being passenger, store all this for later - the afternoon's lulled moves, everywhere spring heady and he in the foreground racing his years, reminding me to take care, hang on. The ground spins, blurs; he begs it with each command, checks I'm not going too fast. 'You can't fall off,' he says smiling, assured. I know it, this steady pace contains us both, days overlap: he will perhaps never love me more than now. Read the poetry of Katherine Gallagher Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher We Are Pleased To Welcome Poet David Thornbrugh To Our Pages David Thornbrugh
The Stars My Destination
Though I loved them, the science fiction writers of the forties fifties sixties got so much wrong. We are not commuting to Moon Base Goddard, let alone folding space and time to plant colonists on the crystal moons circling Alpha Centauri. The single massive computer serviced by monochrome high priests of punch cards has shrunk to the palm of a tattooed teenager twitching to the digital beat of hologrammatic heart throbs, and the forebrains of the rats have not yet begun evolving under the onslaught of the radiation sparking off the skeletal high beams of our ground zero cities. Though the robots are on their way, they’re not likely to need a set of rules to restrain them any time soon. But every day the paranoid dream of the world as one big factory town and everyone a resident forced to buy on credit at the company store comes closer. Every online order of a book DVD or food item brings the future closer. Not the UN we should fear but discount books shipped free sports shoes sold for less than the blood shed making them, the corporate logo stewing in DNA sweat shops as we sleep and dream and forget how close the stars once seemed to be. Read the poetry of David Thornbrugh Read a profile of David Thornbrugh Poet Leslie Philibert: Two Poems Of Winter Leslie Philibert
Snow Train As the snow is tidal in the trees, consider the tracks and the dark tons asthmatic with steam, cold as the moon`s slight, black as the stars are hidden, perfect as a pulse of wheel; dead crate of steel that rests and waits then moves by magic quiet through the night Garden Ship The winter is enamel; buckets of cold, sodden pots of forgotten growth. Snow ship. Trees taut with tackle of frost. Earth hard as the white sea, adrift and lost between seasons made of ice and sorts of rain, not going, not sailing. Dull and still as December. Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert Read a profile of Leslie Philibert VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet Phillip Carriere Phillip Carriere
I Cannot Offer You Here the winter taps me, sings sour in the crippled bark, down to an empty root, bears the burden in the wrinkled wasted years, makes thin and runny syrup that pours upon the cakes but fills no losing mouth with taste. Here with rheumy eyes, deliberate piles of ruin, the words can fill no crest with florid feathers blown by early wind nor change the chancre of the sullen waiting grave no matter the childish flower plucked. Here in deviled brain, Red Knight seas fall into mosquito hummed deserts and the last mask river is torn from the vein blasted face; I cannot offer you a painted harbor nor gentle wind, nor song, nor grace. Read the poetry of Phillip Carriere Read a profile of Phillip Carriere We Warmly Welcome Poet Ramesh Anand To VerseWrights Ramesh Anand
from Selected Haiku and Tanka spring’s end my infant fingers the fallen petal ❧ the crows are vanishing at twilight my child stretches the end of play ❧ night blossoms the elders swing dance in the neighborhood ❧ cut off kite the sound of children fading with it Read the poetry of Ramesh Anand Read a profile of Ramesh Anand Three New Haibun From Poet Angelee Deodhar Angelee Deodhar
Selerang Barracks The arid landscape, an endless plain of fractured hillocks and cracked river beds as the distant horizon hovers on uncertain light, the whopping thrum of rotors scissors the sky and suddenly in a dust cloud kicked up by the helicopters’ wash, all hell breaks loose . . . the speakers repeat the staccato gun fire from the four corners of our home theatre system. Was it like this for my father, a prisoner of war of the Japanese in Malaya? But over there the jungles were lush with bungarus, mosquitoes and fever soaked dreams . . . buying carpets the aromatics of Kashmiri saffron tea Read the poetry of Angelee Deodhar Read a profile of Angelee Deodhar Want Fame? Read Steve Green's Verse First Steve Green
Life on the Median
There comes a time in every life we achieve the tranquility found in that moment of pure epiphany When we finally accept the reality we'll never be a famous celebrity No autographs No quote seeking media dogs or obsessed groupie sycophants Not even a cheesy TV retrospective when we die Happiness is accepting that the ultimate victory of reality is survival Being that spunky little cog living contently in ordinary anonymity Read the poetry of Steve Green Read a profile of Steve Green A New Poem From Poet Marie Anzalone Marie Anzalone
In the Flesh I saw a prayer on Sunday. It was sitting on the sidewalk hand beseeching me the scent of madness in its eyes, the calculation of a survivalist mathematician on its mouth. presence strips desire to its basest element: light-skinned people have money to spare. he was angry that I did not; lips turned to snarl, the 5th such, that day and I wished to know his poem, but more, I wanted there to be a way to share mine, too, with him not a walking bank card that already, 3 families take what little I can spare: often, there is not enough for me, that shadows cut deep all ways, in all directions. I saw a prayer, and in my honesty I could not be its answer that day- and what hurts most is the not knowing where and how to direct a wellspring of righteous anger- by rights, his- the prayer turned to poetry the poetry was lost in dust and the day’s refuse and maybe, indifference won another prize. Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone Read a profile of Marie Anzalone Charlie Brice And Zorba—The Z Man (with audio) Charlie Brice
Catching Jesus ☊ Ohhhhhh Jeeeeesus, I’d yell, and Zorba would redefine desire, reconfigure yearning, reconceptualize predation, and lose it in the way only a 95 pound white German Shepherd who thought that Jesus was a squirrel could. After “sit,” “come,” “stay,” and “down,” I’d taught him that the true vicar of Christ on this earth was a squirrel. Interrupting his wails and squeals at the door, his psalms of religious fervor, I’d imitate a southern Baptist preacher. “Do you believe?” I’d ask. “Do you accept Jesus as your personal savior?” “Yes!” he’d bark, “Hallelujah,” he’d cry. When his zeal reached launch-strength I’d let fly the door. He’d scream down our porch like a Comanche in those old racist westerns, or like fat Auntie Ursal when she caught me spying on her flesh-folds during her bath. Imagine a young squirrel as this white toothy blur blasts across the yard; a vision of massive jaws closing on its soft, crunchable, body. Imagine the shrill realization of being food. Even before terror, the squirrel brain transmits scram, guides it to the nearest tree where safety hides in tall branches. Their parents, who know this game, wait until the last second, then bolt up a sycamore leaving Zorba to dance, a squealing sparring partner, roping-a-dope for Jesus. He’d stand guard, like a soldier on Mount Olivet waiting to drive his sword home, although the Z man would never vinegar a wound. At night, when raccoons and skunks made it too dangerous to let him run untethered into our yard, I might yell “Oh Jesus” anyway, to test the verisimilitude of his faith. The Zorbster would run panicked circles round our living room, screaming and moaning, dog language for, there must be some way out of this house without relying on these human nitwits to open a door. Clearly he was hoping for a miracle, the parting of the walls, the dissolving of the windows, or visions of many Jesuses dashing around the house, on top of the bed, under the bed, in the bathroom, caught in the sink, ready to sacrifice themselves on the altar of his ferocious delight. But there were no miracles for Zorba, whose happiest moments were with us, wherever we were. Last week his great legs finally failed. His decline was swift. He still sought Jesus, but a viewing reduced him to a mournful howl, front paws painfully raising his kingly chest, then back down. He could do no more. His execution was scheduled for 3:30 in the afternoon. At 9 that morning he made it 20 feet down our walkway. “We can’t do this today,” I told my wife who, always more connected to reality, shook her head. At noon he soiled himself in our front yard, his sphincters deadened by his diseased spine. His desire to please puddled in shame, he turned away from us, the lake, and life. I held him when the doctor started the injection. He took it sitting up, too regal to lie down. I told him how much I loved him, and what a good dog he had been. He’d catch Jesus now, I said. I told him this and patted his soft white fur until he no longer felt my desperate touch. Read the poetry of Charlie Brice
Read a profile of Charlie Brice Hear this poem in the PoetryAloud area |
Tim Buck, Land-Locked, Contemplates The Ocean Tim Buck
shanty I have not seen the ocean in 40 years. The ocean makes quite a différance. A difference between time and open wind. A deferment endless into the faint horizon. Derrida's word of distance confuses the seabirds -- white shards twisting unseen within the airy tube of an infinite kaleidoscope, where nothing is settled. But being landlocked makes roots groan and Death grin. If one lived beside the ocean it might be different. Enigma and great liquid might bring a calm delirium. Disappearance would no longer be such a problem. Touching vastness with actual eyes halts questions. And the far roll of waves in psychosis and liturgical play has nothing in common with country ghosts ....who complain of how heavy they felt before dying, with no boats in ...sight. Beside the ocean one most likely has no time for dry moods and sad heaves of rooted hours. It must be so open there that even birds recover. Read the poetry of Tim Buck Read a profile of Tim Buck We Welcome Poet Laura Lynn Brown To VerseWrights Laura Lynn Brown
Physics for Poets, Chapter 1: Entropy “Physics is hard. Commendably, Piel does not reduce the subject to metaphor; this is not physics for poets.” -- Washington Post book review German scientist Rudolf Clausius coined the word in 1865. He took en- for contents, -trop- for transformation, meaning “contents that have been transformed.” He thought the meaning would always be the same. The second law of thermodynamics says heat can’t transfer from a colder body to a warmer one. Emily Dickinson, having read true poetry, felt so cold no fire could warm her. The poem took the top of her head off, where her heat escaped. But she could pour her heat into her poems, which in turn can suck heat from her readers and leave them with that absolute zero feeling, so maybe that’s not a good example. To understand entropy, think of teens. Thermodynamically, entropy also means measuring the amount of thermal energy that’s not available to do work. A teenager, a lump in the bed late on Saturday morning unable to help carry the groceries in. In information theory, entropy means “A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.” A group of kids play the gossip game around the table. It starts “Mr. Shafer has hair in his ears” and ends “Mr. Shafer is here and he’s queer.” Entropy is how much truth got lost. Disorder or randomness in a closed system is another meaning. The rest of the house gets regular airing and frequent traffic, but all are forbidden to enter the teenager’s room. the floor is obscured with clothes – who can say Whether they’re dirty or clean? Yet the CDs are neatly filed in alphabetical order. Mainly it means what most of us think it means, “the smashing down of our world by random forces that don’t reverse.” The universe winding down like an old-fashioned wristwatch. Energy lost that can never be regained. A teen’s first car, beautiful in the sun, until she sees a dent on the driver’s door that wasn’t there yesterday. It will never be the same. Read the poetry of Laure Lynn Brown Read a profile of Laura Lynn Brown Marsailidh Groat On Forming The Formative Marsailidh Groat
Scripture Once, you were very young, and your skin was soft and pliable; every step was new, and so there wasn’t time to be scared of uncertainty, as long as the warmth of your mother’s arms were nearby. Grown ups would carve messages into your body, and they would stay there, even if their words were soft and their touch gentle, because what else could you know of the world than the words of those who had already seen it? Don’t sit like that. Your father’s told you before. How soon did you learn that your body isn’t yours? Did you have long to play in the mud, to look out at the world rather than down at yourself? It isn’t ladylike. He isn’t drawing pictures because he’s a boy. A small child, dressed in dungarees, asked: why is the screen blurry? He needed glasses, couldn’t see the shapes on the page but how could anyone have known? He’s more interested in the cars and trucks. Read the poetry of Marsailidh Groat Read a profile of Marsailidh Groat Poems from Milenko Županović (in English and Croatian) Milenko Županović
Fire
The truth shines covered with ash of burned lies the eternal fire Christian faith. Vatra Istina sija prekrivena pepelom spaljenih laži na vječnoj vatri vjere kršćana. Read the poetry of Milenko Županović Read a profile of Milenko Županović Poet E. H. Ford: Making Sense Of The Past... E. H. Ford
Vietnam...Untitled
Tears down the walls of my unplanned heart. Running from you feels the same as running toward you. Comfort for a time seems a sweet savor and then the knives in my mind fillet reason across the splinter of time remaining between us. Miles and memories mixed equally form a preparation to be shared amongst future patterns, closed to all but the most intense lovers. Dusty memories piled high in a steamy jungle of pain. Dreams rot fast in hate’s temperate zone. Faces too young to have seen that which was spent so willingly by so many. Thoughts shift easily from tomorrow to yesterday, by-passing today’s miracle. I’ve run away so many times my dreams need sleep. What is there to see once the day to understand has passed? Read the poetry of E. H. Ford Read a profile of E. H. Ford A New Poem From The Pen Of L.L. Barkat L.L.Barkat
Dear-- 1 What if 2 What if the only way she could write again required a white cup 3 And the cup, would she pour herself into it? Or, rather, bring it to her lips. 4 What if 5 What if she held the cup very close, by its delicate white handle, and whispered into the hollow. 6 Something like-- I was five, and he said pick mulberries with me; I could show you the tree on which they weep and sway. And her mother held her chin and said, tell him no... it would spoil your hand-sewn dress. Read the poetry of L.L. Barkat Read a profile of L.L. Barkat Neil Fulwood Finds That Crime And Verse Can Go Together Neil Fulwood
The Collected Poems of Cody Jarrett
1. They’re real short, see – just the few things I managed to jot down between hold-ups and shoot-outs. Short poems in stark lines – short like the space between the cosh and the skull, between the finger and the trigger, between the getaway car and the state line. And if any of you cheap bums says I’m ripping off The Hollow Men, you’ll be wearing your face backwards. 2. This is how I see it – a man’s what he is and if the law don’t allow for that, things heat up. But what a man is to his Ma, when it ain’t about guns or money or liquor, that’s different. So I tried to put it down pretty, use the words like they were flowers not spent cartridges. I tried, Ma. 3. The best of ’em died young or just quit writin’. Rimbaud gave up everything he had, done with poetry at twenty and ready to take on the world: soldier, traveller, man of business. 4. You get to thinking about legacy and reputation, what they’ll say as they lower the box. You get to thinking about what you did, how it was shaped by where you came from and the folks you knew. You get to thinking about what matters, whether you made it to the top of the world or whether the world blew up in your face. Read the poetry of Neil Fulwood Read a profile of Neil Fulwood Ana Caballero Gives Us Yoga With A Difference Ana Caballero
Bikram Love Triangle Five minutes late to class and we got spots, spots apart. But, a mirrored column in front, so we could check each other out. I watched you get hot in Ardha-Chandrasana, as you poured your head between short, upstretched arms. Then cut a sweat with the six hip Utkatasana dips, but by then, you were primed. Garurasana is your most improved: right toes wrapped around left calf, as you pulled both shoulders down and back. Because of a displaced disk, Dandayamana-Janushirasana cannot be, but your Dandayamana–Dhanurasana could be the figurine on the hood of the first Rolls Royce. Tuladandasana is Sanskrit for Balancing Stick. With this, your face confirmed last night we had too much to drink. When I took my Dandayamana-Bibhaktapada-Paschimotthanasana bow, I bowed deep for your face and the knowing of how it thinks. A lycra girl spread into my view in the Trikanasana triangular screw but you reemerged, bold, for our Dandayamana-Bibhaktapada-Janushirasana balancing fold. In frontal Tadasana I surveyed your chest with the remembering look reserved for carved stone and snowy boulder crests. Once more, in Savasana, I thought to tell you that Pavanamuktasana is called Wind-Removing Pose, so you can laugh and say I should do it every day. The belly-flat series of Bhujangasana, Salabhasana and ....Dhanurasana made me want to be your rubber mat and come between the fake rock floor and your beech wood back. Even in Supta-Vajrasana – be the royal blue under you, cup each knee and persuade your leather quads. I delayed my Ardha-Kurmasana to watch your nose grasp the ground. You trimmed your thinning hair but look younger, even as you hover. Finally, at Ustrasana, your eyes and my eyes and almost there. After Ustrasana, my eyes. Your eyes, I thought, not quite there. In Sasangasana, nothing in your face asking to be read, my chin between my knees, all that blood to the head. So I gave meditating face in the Janushirasana, Paschimotthanasana, ....Pada-Hasthasana flow, a mature woman devoted to her personal growth. But when I caught you will, but not reach, the Ardha-Matsyendrasana twist, again, I let you get big. In Kapalbhati, upturned palms upon my lap. Lips pursed, exhaled hard. A seated disciple with third eye bright and practiced breath that yields its fire. Read the poetry of Ana Caballero Read a profile of Ana Caballero Mike Jewett's Poem, The Flood And The Fish Mike Jewett
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We Welcome Poet Ram Krishna Singh To VerseWrights Ram Krishna Singh
A Selection of ........................Tanka She is no moon yet she drifts like the moon, takes care of him from the sky-- meets him for a short, waxing leaves him for a long, waning ❧ Yearning to meet him she turns a silk-worm spinning love-silk in cold night-- stands in a shade melting tears like a candle, drop by drop ❧ At the river she folds her arms and legs resting her head upon the knees and sits as an island Read the poetry of Ram Krishna Singh Read a profile of Ram Krishna Singh Richard Biddle Writes Of A Nightly Ritual Richard Biddle
Oiling Her Ears They could be curled up creatures gently dreaming or softly scalloped mushrooms eased bracket-like from your fecund silva moods. Whisper-warm with gossip and furred like fruit mould, they swirl into waxy-dark muteness. I nuzzle these lobes of jellybean flesh – With these tools: bottle, pipette and cotton-wool we perform our aural ritual. You turn your head. I draw the amber lube up into the glass tube and squeeze its fluid salve into your gluey lugs for relief. From deep inside your blocked chambers, air rises and pops; reminding me of trapped, drunken spirit-level bubbles. Ironic that after all these years I’ve failed to hear you. As I dab the oleaginous overflow from your cheek and neck, I listen to your breathing, my deafness a different disease to heal. Let me restore the balance here too. For now though, sleep submerged in your underwater-head and when morning comes and with it your audibility, you’ll talk and with all our senses, I’ll be open to you. Read the poetry of Richard Biddle Read a profile of Richard Biddle From E. Michael Desilets: A Little Episode in Paris E. Michael Desilets
Learning French At lunchtime Laura’s left lens fell out and shattered on Rue de Furstemberg. Her ....French was Hackensack bad but she pronounced “merde” with Edith Piaf perfection and at that moment fully grasped the concept of “le mot juste.” She gasped and spent the rest of the misleading afternoon half blind misreading emails, headlines, pursed lips, raised eyebrows, furtive glances. Well, c’est fucking dommage and all that Parisian whatever. She had exhaled the entire day by the time she confronted François in the boudoir. He removed her one-eyed glasses and proffered her a glass of Grand Cru Red Bordeaux and a glance she loosely translated as What’s the good word? I have a “mot” that is “juste” for you, my little baguette, she said naked to the gorgeous bowing and vowing blur he had become. It tickled her to let it trickle into his ear. Read the poetry of E. Michael Desilets Read a profile of E. Michael Desilet Shan Ellis Shares Her Poem, "Poetess" Shan Ellis
Poetess Solitary chewed end pencil sedately perched on desk, yearning tap tap of fingers in thought waiting for rhythm and flow to return with the muse, missing in action hidden beneath a velour vail of strung together ideals. Tendrils of hair cling spiraling around her weapon of choice, her most precious object, collector of angsts tendrils thoughts accumulated in strings plucked from a weary scalp. Her art, forgotten? Scribbled forms in tatty Avant garde notepads battered dogeared doodles – Questioning her own reality against a tirade of other people’s ideas and ideals. These idiosyncratic semi autobiographical meanderings, an honest reflection of one woman’s perception, Or her illusion of what life is like through tired blue eyes. Read the poetry of Shan Ellis Read a profile of Shan Ellis Joanna Suzanne Lee's Latest Poem: "your heart" Joanna Suzanne Lee
your heart has grown old. worn down by the lonelinesses of a hundred empty homes, sunken in like fingers fallen too long asleep in a hot bath. how else do you show me the moon, its silky- ink silhouette stained on our back door, and not kiss me? there is no monitor that measures love. tell me: when was the last time it leapt? got a running start and just jumped? heedless of chasm, of canyon, of distance? of the finish, the fear, the flatline? your pulse plays its thud-thump through limp veins, forgetting how to thunder. if i could see you the way the lightning sees, from inside the storm, i would find it damp and dark, with slow rivers and huddled walls, a crumpled fist written with little scars but untouched, too, by moonlight. Read the poetry of Joanna Suzanne Lee Read a profile of Joanna Suzanne Lee A New Poem From Poet Edjo Frank Edjo Frank
Smile
the rain waves goodbye in the chill of early morning a narrow strip of light stands out against eastern horizon I smile footpath in the swamp marriage between gravel and mud nettles to hide the curves snakeweed lures me to the waters I smile white sheep sail a blue sky the wind holds her breath at the far end of the field the gundogs rush a grouse I smile nature’s heart counts time and space unchallengeable its creation to feel and touch the pulse of life embrace my loneliness I smile Read the poetry of Edjo Frank Read a profile of Edjo Frank "Alkali," A New Poem From Poet Emily Hone Emily Hone
Alkali The water lies opaque, and still on the highway, glistens, then evaporates as you draw near. O’er the left, windswept, dry to a brittle chalk white, that barren floor of alkali. Just to the right, subdued, honey-hued, a flame that doesn't glow as bright. Clamped by the vice of dread, as the road before us spread, farther than our own eyes ....would bear to see. Wisps of feelings had, trapped hot against the rocks, on the hills rolling by, beside and beneath. Misplaced words, quipped obliviously, snuffs, buries the flame. This soul sits opaque and still, riding across the highway, as dry as the ghost of that sea. When you draw near...... You end me. Read the poetry of Emily Hone Read a profile of Emily Hone A New Poem From Poet Narendra Kumar Arya Narendra Kumar Arya
Split Me Apart Make my million pieces Flush them away, In Tsang Po, to the hungry seas Where grow carnivorous trees. Crush me Under your global intellect, Reducing me to pulverized anonymity; I am a narrative of infinitesimal impact Continuously retarded by your quizzical sense. I am as scattered as the earth Hyphenated, impoverished, gendered, hypnotized, From the enchantress of development, Of ideological lullabies, Doomed to experience From Hobart to Havana. Read the poetry of Narendra Kumar Arya Read a profile of Narendra Kumar Arya From Wally Swist: A Man, A Dog, And...Peace Wally Swist
Portrait Ed is leaning against the chain link Of the portable cage he has moved To the grass in the barnyard where He is speaking to the Rottweiler, The aging rescue dog, who cocks His head, and holds his muzzle up To listen to what Ed is saying to him, As he coaxes him back to health After the surgery in which the massive Fatty tumor was removed from His back and side. Ed speaks to him With as much care as he solicitously Places the old faded tablecloths In the bed of daffodil shoots, whose Spears have been warmed these nights Of late April frost. Through Ed’s Tenderness, the Rottweiler has nearly Grown into a dog whose visage bears The look of supreme loyalty, even with A glint of gentleness mitigating The ferocity in his steely brown eyes, Although it would be against Anyone’s better judgment to stick A finger through the woven steel Of the dog pen. When Ed unlatches The lock and walks into the cage to place The shiny metal bowl and the plastic Water bucket on the ground, the dog Backs away to make room then sits down And looks up again in tribute to the man Who has taken him walking the meadow Behind the barn late past twilight And into many a dusk. The stiff April Wind blows through Ed’s white beard, That flutters against his chest, and his Shoulder-length hair. The dog’s eyes Sparkle as Ed rubs his head and beneath His chin with one of his calloused hands. When the wind lets up, everything appears To be resolved again, everything seems To have been restored to its proper place, Within the sacredness of the day. Read the poetry of Wally Swist Read a profile of Wally Swist A Moving Lyric From Tracey Gunne Probes The Denouement Tracey Gunne
After Everyone Left you searched for me in the backyard the cellar door open but not all the way did I try to leave? hiding from the words you offered after too much wine if only I'd given you my heart to wear or carry in your pocket then allowed you to bury what remained beneath the willow tree where the dandelion, red clover will hold our secrets Read the poetry of Tracey Gunne Read a profile of Tracey Gunne Cheryl Snell's Latest Poem, With Artwork By Janet Snell
Artwork: Janet Snell (Click to enlarge)
 Cheryl Snell
Voyager She enters a room as if it’s an undiscovered island. "Where is my other house? I want to go home." For her losses, I grieve. I cannot bear to watch her wander, lost in her small places. I remember how she loved the panoramic-- the prairie she was born to, the cathedral ceilings in the living room, Mosquito Lake cradling our sailboat. Space made her feel safe. Now when she reaches for it, she tells me she doesn’t know how to leave; even as she steps her feet into my brother’s big shoes and slides them forward as a child might each one a boat she’d like to glide away in. Read the poetry of Cheryl Snell Read a profile of Cheryl Snell Read a profile of Janet Snell |