Archive #24
June, 2015
Two Short Poems From Poet Laura Lynn Brown Laura Lynn Brown
Feeding Time The baby doesn’t want strained peas or cottage cheese. His lips won’t part for apple tart. He can’t be coaxed to eat his fish. He hurls the dish against the wall and starts to squall. But when the piece of buttered bread he spurned as dead has hit the floor-- he points, asks “More?” [Note: the form of this poem is a “minute,” a 60-syllable poem with a specific syllable-per-line count and rhyme scheme. It was invented by Verna Lee Hinegardner, former Arkansas poet laureate.] Ship of Tools Train of spoons, speedboat of forks, forklift of knives, kayak of whisks, wheelchair of tongs, toboggan of ladles, lifeboat of graters, golf cart of corkscrews, Conestoga of peelers, paddlewheeler of mashers, magic carpet of mortars, motor home of pestles, pedal boat of scoops, school bus of spatulas, spaceship of basters, bathysphere of cleavers, convertible of zesters, Zamboni of timers. [First line borrowed from Dana Levin’s poem “My Sentence."] Read the poetry of Laura Lynn Brown Read a profile of Laura Lynn Brown Two Short Poems From Poet Ali Znaidi Ali Znaidi
a drift into the unknown black ants scathing my skin those stings really do matter an anesthesia similar to touching thistle a drift into the pleasures of forgetfulness Synopsis of a Ghost Story In the surging waves of the howling wind that bites the flesh of the sand your music will dispel the thick mist. Did you see how the sunset amazed the ghosts? Read the poetry of Ali Znaidi Read a profile of Ali Znaidi Leslie Philibert And Two Poems Of Absence Leslie Philibert
Widower Knowing there are many words for night; night watch, nightshade, nightfall but none for the space of a halved bed, an envelope stretched, flat with white; unslept in, and hands devoid of a trace of perfune or rest warmth, a slight breath, a gentle curve. Let him cherish the lost presence of a drowned moon of darkness long of standing time. After You Left After you left, I fell asleep Lost in a web on warm cotton and Sudden space, stretching in your bed. Your dream catcher turns in the light, A trace of Eau-de-Cologne hangs in the air. I find a poem by Rilke on your pillow, An open book, almost lost by reading; Ich finde Dich in allen diesen Dingen. But then I lose myself again, outside The traffic has stolen you like a thief. Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert Read a profile of Leslie Philibert Amy Billone's Haunting "Paris to London" Amy Billone
Paris to London
Before the train plunges into the sea, I watch grazing deer and horses sprinting, green grape vines and high corn leaves, skinny full grown leaning trees beside baby saplings cradled in nets, fields of wheat, scattered rolls of hay, an ancient cathedral tower. French students smile, shout. They must have lived for thirteen years-- In their voices, such wild joy. I am sad to hear it. They laugh together, beautiful, young. (We pass another cathedral tower). The children practice English: I love you, but... one day...a boy says and a girl mimics him, giggling. Others repeat: I love you, but... one day...They laugh until their bodies shake. I see no people outside for hours. Only a solitary man, bald-headed like my father, leans shirtless over blades of grass. He must be far away from home. Then dancing sheep and goats and purple flowers. More youthful laughter: I love you, but... one day...My strange familiar grief, and still another old cathedral tower. We Extend A Warm Welcome to Poet Jocelyn Mosman Jocelyn Mosman
Fragile Woman Our slit wrists are severe weather alerts, and we are sounding out unnatural disasters. We bleed until our palms are clasped together dripping our prayers onto cracked canvases. We keep our hearts like angel wings, growing a feather with every heartbreak, and I know women who are flying right now. They bleed out too many days without sunrises keep tally marks on their flesh, wait for their chance to breathe again without having to bite their tongues, and swallow bloody saliva that tastes like their unspoken self-defenses. I know women whose DNA turned against them, created a pallet of brown and grey and emptiness, never satisfied with their shade of pretty. I know women whose hearts are breaking without the metaphor. They are pleading without any god for a new one before theirs erupted in the ER… 2015 has a way of breaking women's hearts, and teenage girls are bleeding out broken futures. I know women who are performing exorcisms on their spirits, hoping that their unholy ghost paints their wings white with every slice of the knife. Fragile women, bodies made beautiful, and self-destructive. We aren’t meant to bleed like martyrs. Don't cast down your faces, look into the places of your body you've never seen. Every hair is a part of your halo, every scar is a rose petal for you to garden with self-love. Fragile women, we are born to be strong, ashes being relit into the fire we started from. Let our bruises become candles guiding our angels with broken wings and misplaced spirits home. Read the poetry of Jocelyn Mosman Read a profile of Jocelyn Mosman Dana Rushin: Death And The Dark Dana Rushin
Tornado Watch, 1963 This, is where Grandma pointed: A spot on the orange butterfly wallpaper where Papa splattered; his Tip Top cigarette papers and the tin of his half full Prince Albert crimp cut, the last thing he held. "Their Gods ridiculous and themselves past shame" Milton wrote. Because as you grow older spots on walls can transform themselves like little children getting over the measles. Is there any greater scatter of chickens into their wire house than wind? Longer this time than normal but their little thin asses taking position. I've grown now to compare the diaphysis and epiphysis of all things: The Blackened spirit that brings forth life. The end of sorrow. How hippie and with such impractical sadness the explanation of the locomotive is. "This is where the kitchen was. And in this spot, right here next to the overturned cow, was where we took our meals for 43 years." Even in the hollow dark, the sadness wore on. Read the poetry of Dana Rushin Read a profile of Dana Rushin Wayne F Burke And A Pointed Reminiscence Wayne F Burke
The Maid after my grandmother went into the hospital my grandfather hired Lena, a maid, big as a refrigerator with silver hair parted in the middle of her skull and plastered to her head like a shower cap; she took the nearly empty catsup bottle and run water from the faucet into it and returned it to the table; after dinner she encouraged the four of us kids to beat each other with pillows that we were not allowed to touch, and she roared with laughter as we slipped and slid across the linoleum, the only time the four of us ever did something fun together but the fun ended when my grandfather walked in with a face grave as sin and hawk-nose pointed at Lena who laughed at him too: levity trumping leviticus. Read the poetry of Wayne F Burke Read a profile of Wayne F Burke A Lush New Poem From Poet Witty FayVerseWrights Extends A Warm Welcome To Poet Lucy Logsdon Lucy Logsdon
Twisted ☊ The surgeon has straightened me out as best he can, my bones fused, twined with stainless steel. Pins harness my skittish vertebrae, ball bearings support my questionable spine, my sideways being. I am myself, but a new construction, too. People treat you different when you are no longer bent. I see it in their face, the absence of dismissal. The lack of quick and fulsome pity, the small smile. I fear my spine, leaning, listing, going slant again. I fear the return to what I was. I have become an expert on curvature. I’ve learned a world of new terms, acquired fluency in deformity’s language. Kyphosis. Stenosis. Scoliosis. Hunchback. Call my misshape what you will. I could say that’s gone, the titanium rods are all inside, my crooked’s my secret. But one can only hide so much. The defects are always .....there, like the flaws in a weakened bridge, the mending plates in a rehabbed house. Straight’s been way overrated; the cripple lurks inside. And she comes out, whenever there’s something I don’t like. I tilt, I stumble, I shuffle down the corridors. I remind you of what you’re not. I shoulder myself against walls. I keep the center off. Two Short Pieces From Poet R. H. Mustard R.H. Mustard
River
You said you'd meet me behind the stadium, showing up in your boyfriend's car, unlocking the door to let me in, holding me closer than before. You drove in silence across the river, to a secluded place I'd never been, pulling me forever into your dark current, finally whispering, you had to get back. I barely managed to stumble away when you dropped me off, no longer knowing myself in the mirror. Prenatal I crave a deeper silence, out of earshot from probing questions, loud voices. I've stopped answering the phone, listening to voicemail, silly names, pointless suggestions about my future. Better the phone rings on and on, until my being unavailable becomes normal. Kicking in the deep end of the pool, we swim past one another lost in thought. It's quiet with ear plugs and the bottom seems a long way down. Ceaseless talk, pretense, lies drop away; all I hear is the pounding of blood in my ears. Read the poetry of R. H. Mustard Read a profile of R. H. Mustard |
Polly Robinson And The "Glow" Of A Childhood Memory Polly Robinson
Candles and Splinters Apples stacked on racks Father made; wooden, tough, splintery, like Mother. The cellar doors creak, a cast latch speaks with a clatter as the doors shut fast. My hands search for matches–forbidden matches– and candles–forbidden candles– a saucer to catch the wax. The scent of apples, gift-wrapped in old newspaper, blend with candle cologne. I breathe the clagging coal dust in the darkness of the cellar. A dozen steps down from the sliver of a frown, on the brow of a peevish mother, her ire aimed at me for climbing the ancient oak tree. ‘Not ladylike,’ she said, –raised her hand–I ran– ‘Come back!’ I’m caught in a soft candle glow. Read the poetry of Polly Robinson Read a profile of Polly Robinson Paul Mortimer's Poem Employs Wall As Metaphor Paul Mortimer
Dry Stone Wall Builder This one particular stone has its place. Weighed in his hands, turned over, turned round. His keen eyes scan surfaces for notches, ridges, flat spots. Seeking for a point where it can interlock with the wall that already armadillos away down to a gate. The day is hostile, cold wind slicing everything needle rain hunting for anything. Ragged moorland sheep, constantly chewing nothing much, hunker in the lee of the grey wall. All the time he carefully adds stones making sure compressional forces alone are binding. He’s found his place. Repairing an enclosure that cannot contain an impulse to extend the past into future. Read the poetry of Paul Mortimer Read a profile of Paul Mortimer Stefanie Bennett's Paean To A Polish Poet And Diplomat Stefanie Bennett
The Care Giver ~for Czeslaw Milosz It was justice you saw that day, the tin Whistle and toy drum Left near the windowsill. On side, the candelabra Wrestled with decay As you'd done through many A forgotten year Composed Of mild stupor And Warsaw's tilled servitude. If I could draw a sun-scape margin Around the hospice hour, Add a peal Of Winter bells Consoling to the ear... call "Come! All you unseen freedom Revellers! Come Play in this Forensic nursery Of before And after." Read the poetry of Stefanie Bennett Read a profile of Stefanie Bennett Poet L.L. Barkat Offers A Unique Sonnet L.L.Barkat
Upon Learning that Fur Was Lost in Translation (and then learning it wasn't, but too late for this sonnet) What did fine French Cinder elles wear besides glass, what high class did they hope to flaunt to the ball, what gall muster towards, "I do"? Did they eat ash, secret, pretend inside, ache for privilege to take midnight steed ride to prince, to price, to prove flamed thoughts, undo braided tresses, guesses; did they have clues about the way ever-after collides in fives, in tens, muttered end lines tight shut, a fight to rise between odd hours ticking, tripping like a da-dum tapped short, slight cut into small rooms, I am's that jam, turning coated slippers towards spondee minutes spent as splintered moments on silk shorn string? Read the poetry of L.L. Barkat Read a profile of L.L. Barkat For M. D. Friedman, The Inspiration Is All M. D. Friedman
Finding My Own Moon there is something in this skinny howl of coyote that juliennes the night as if it were a brick of dark chocolate something that chases its own tail in wild circles contagious with the joy of a dervish something in that slide up to the high howl and in the quivering sustain that follows that chills the blood and makes me stop whatever I am doing to find my own moon Read the poetry of M. D. Friedman Read a profile of M. D. Friedman We Extend A Warm Welcome To Poet Yuan Changming Yuan Changming
On Another Rainy Day: for Liu Yu It rains a lot in Vancouver Often does this rain remind me of The days when you sojourned here With my family, after Father left all of us While walking in the rain, you would Recall, under my big umbrella How you once waited in a drizzle With me in a broken basket on your back To cross the widening river, not far From our village when I was crying hard For a large spoonful of flour soup (you were too Weak and too hungry to produce any milk) Seeing you do nothing about my hunger The ferry man asked, Where is its mom? I am his mother! You replied, tears rolling down With the raindrops on your childish face How old are you then? – Almost 17. It is raining again in Vancouver, and beyond this rain Your voice echoes aloud on the other side of this world Read the poetry of Yuan Changming Read a profile of Yuan Changming Neil Fulwood, Victim Of A Repeat Offender Neil Fulwood
The Inspiration Thief I have been cleaned out: that observation I made on the bus this morning and filed for later use – gone; those words overheard in the staff canteen that wanted to be an extended piece for two voices – gone; the quirky concept that threaded itself through the gunmetal smoking-break tendrils like a mantra – gone; the idly conjured fragments dancing like Disney elephants around the office, blowing kisses – gone. No prints, no traces; just a ghost’s shadow on CCTV*: a thief turned blacksmith, my words shaped as his. *security cameras Read the poetry of Neil Fulwood Read a profile of Neil Fulwood "Rice Paper," A Poem From Poet Layley Lu Layley Lu
Rice Paper There’s a wind where comes my Australian boy through the barley in this place, foreign upon foreign face of mine squinting through dust that is not mine. I am a fetish and he is a blistering fever blowing through my cluttered machiya, carnage upon carnage staining my sheets and carpet, but walls not mine. I long to cry. I long so much for my honesty through testaments heaping cloud upon useless cloud in the emptiness of this place that is not mine. Read the poetry of Layley Lu Read a profile of Layley Lu Brandy Clark Takes Flight (Almost) in her Newest Poem Brandy Clark
Paper Wings Back when I was little, I wanted to be a bird. I wanted to fly, to soar over the earth in the crystalline blue skies, soar with the robins who taunted cheep cheep from the trees. So I fashioned myself a pair of paper wings-- construction paper,snow paste, feathers drawn on with brown and black crayon. Creations clutched in tiny, sweaty palms, I set off to the backyard swingset, its metal rusty and warped. The perfect launching pad for my ascent, my mission. Each step carried me up to the slide. The robins continued to taunt me in a mocking chorus, but I ignored their taunts, turned, wings outstretched, and jumped. Gravity, a cruel parent, sent me tumbling down to the grass below, the green cushion not enough to protect against skinned knees and the torrent of liquid embarrassment cutting through the dirt and grime on my cheeks. My invention ended up on the ground, two sandaled feet stomping an angry waltz onto a pair of paper wings. I didn’t take flight this day or any day after that. The gentle breeze refused to keep me aloft, it did not urge me toward the clouds. Read the poetry of Brandy Clark Read a profile of Brandy Clark  Witty Fay
Womanly I stay with the sentence until it is done Measuring all the silent words That lurk behind the uttered lips. I wish they wouldn’t bustle up my throat To choke me blind and dry With the smell of old blood. And then your mother-of-the-pearl smile Smoothens the flowing of all syllables Into the face of the world, And I turn into a wizard of the unspoken, Throwing troths at the trees that bear no fruit Until branches, like full breasts, touch the arbor of the .....sky- I do it blindfolded, on fleshy hips. Read the poetry of Witty Fay Read a profile of Witty Fay We Warmly Welcome Poet Ken W. Simpson To VerseWrights Ken W. Simpson
The Heavenly Line I was a passenger on the Heavenly Line stopping all stations and running on time starting early on a lifetime's journey innocent, guileless and gullible willingly, but lacking initiative passive and compliantly pliant introverted, programmed, unable to think learning by rote but understanding little emotionally, socially and sexually repressed wondering who and why I was lost to those who had reared me on my solitary journey Going somewhere on the Heavenly Line. I escaped for a time at Fantasy Station finding salvation in the imagination with stories and pictures of distant places a magic storehouse I could explore and enter escaping behind a phony facade eluding imagined jeers and taunts alienated because I failed to adapt fleeing from that world and into another where I was indoctrinated and taught to believe the unbelievable naïve and uncritically accepting The fog which lifted eventually. Listless, helpless people waited on the platform at Stillborn Station vacantly milling, vainly hoping the demented, the crippled, the unborn for a hope that would never arrive when we were leaving someone fled and frantically attempted to board hanging on desperately as we picked up speed flailing wildly backwards, into the past where the immortal soul awaits its fate for the grace of eternal life Or damnation in Dante's hell. In a compartment all alone I learned to discriminate between the scenes outside and the thoughts within my mind to see other faces in distant places solve problems and deal with doubts about being born without knowing why with travellers on the Heavenly Line trying to understand a creator to acknowledge and venerate a loving, forgiving and wrathful figure linking fatuity with hope and the means to save the souls Of travellers on the Heavenly Line. In the darkness of the night entombed within a speeding monster dreaming nightmares of the horrific kind losing my way in some alien city confused by changes in every scene I awakened relieved jolted free from fantasies escaping into a silent, private world of creativity, fulfilment and contentment free from the wars being waged outside by disembarking at Serenity Station some distance from its destination knowing I was as close as I would ever be to a place that didn't exist leaving behind a ghost train Going nowhere on the Heavenly Line. Read the poetry of Ken W. Simpson Read a profile of Ken W. Simpson |
We Warmly Welcome Poet Karen O'Leary To VerseWrights Karen O'Leary
Twilight Splendor Autumn’s colorful hues have come and gone. Silver strands replace youth’s golden tresses. Gentle strength flows through her wrinkled hands. Though bones ache, a smile lights her face. Her fragile body encases a warm, generous heart. When she eases into a room, others pause in awe. In the middle of winter, her faith flows on. Simon says Simon says take two steps back-- spring layoff Read the poetry of Karen O'Leary Read a profile of Karen O'Leary Samantha Reynolds: Big Questions From The Little One Samantha Reynolds
The big questions You used to ask me about death in the dark in the whisper voice you use when you don’t want your stuffies to hear but now you are so cheerful about it pointing at old people in grocery stores asking me with some excitement if they are almost dead yesterday you cornered me and wanted to know if people ever die the night before Christmas I tell you people die every day in a tone that tries to say death is not scary but perhaps don’t bring it up so loud in public so you whisper back with wide eyes what does Santa do with their toys? Read the poetry of Samantha Reynolds Read a profile of Samantha Reynolds E. Michael Desilets: Two Locales, Two Poems E. Michael Desilets
Broadway & 116th mounted police were waiting for him at the subway exit he wasn’t about to explain he was headed home from an old movie Spencer Tracy Me and My Gal Joan Bennett during demonstrations cops on horses discourage explanations and prefer you gallop wordlessly down the hill toward Riverside Drive and enjoy the jittery Jersey skyline Locust, Near 9th She sat on the hood of his car again hunched in the dark smoking her old brand. She had her reasons and a key she wouldn’t use. Four floors up also in the dark but smoke-free he gnawed on microwave pizza. It tasted like her tobacco tongue and made him cry. He refused to show himself at the window. That had been Cool Hand Luke’s mistake. She would be out of cigarettes and gone before the paper hit the stoop faithful at least to her punctilious boss. Read the poetry of E. Michael Desilets Read a profile of E. Michael Desilets Alaskan Poet Rivka Zorea Laments The Warmth Rivka Zorea
This Year it was the year Without Winter No pillow of soft snow No children leaning into icy wind In Eegeegeek In Shaktuliq and Kotzebue the children did not laugh catching soft flakes on their tongues Huddled around the school where village elders gather the Raven flies silently his usual raucous laughter is now only a warning and the polar bear sits facing the sea Read the poetry of Rivka Zorea Read a profile of Rivka Zorea Tracey Gunne's Latest Poem Is A Delicate Balance Tracey
Gunne
Growing Up On Our Street You captivated my lonely days by painting white lines we were meant to jump into and through your hair hanging loose and always longer than mine you were delicate like the hand me down socks your mother kept forgetting to mend she was too busy cooking Sunday night dinners where she'd serve herself last so I thought it would be you who'd need saving but in the end it was me my dad outside at 2 am screaming at the trees to stop dancing as my mother tried to capture him like a frightened bird Your house was safer for sleepovers we'd spread pillows on the cold floor the secrets you whispered were stories I already knew but I loved how safe it felt as we tucked ourselves in and how you pretended to believe all the lies I wanted to be true and how you hid a flashlight in case the darkness made me dizzy I remember wanting to touch the soft skin behind your ear after you fell asleep without me and wondered if anyone else could be willing to love you more We are mothers now to daughters who we teach to be brave to walk away from men who run mad into the dark streets We remember to tuck them in We remember to mend Read the poetry of Tracey Gunne Read a profile of Tracey Gunne Two Poems, Two Moods From Jacqueline Czel Jacqueline
Czel
In Green Pastures Dare the roaming scapegoats live or die? Dare fat ewes and young lambs bleat or cry; where carcasses and silver casings are strewn; and warm pools of crimson slicken shades of ochre, ecru, marron - ebony and brun? Corpses into cut grass many mothers lower while o'er hills, patches of civil rights fade; A star, a badge, a scythe - a swift mowing blade. Song for a Sparrow I took a break from all social chatter and the evening news, I took a break - thinking, I wouldn't chirp the same old sorry song, or trill from my tree, the same old sad blues; but at last - at last, I know I must sing, for the Sun, the new morning, and all the hope it brings. Read the poetry of Jacqueline Czel Read a profile of Jacqueline Czel The Dreams, The Reality in Ana Caballero's Latest Poem Ana Caballero
I once thought I could know anything The death knowledge of the Buddha The clarifying call of Gabriel Former lives and abetting suns That enthrall worlds more able than mine I too never doubted my time supply To be the daughter of the dying father Who buries without the blow of love regret But my father is dying an excessive death With a wounded body that aligns Rare moments of life To the faint efforts of his mind And I do I offer my happy baby’s dance Ask about our mayor and the bad president So together We can wave our related heads with a laugh I bring home the foods he likes to eat Chocolate sugar-free A bag of sweet yellow tomatoes That falls when his good hand forgets to grab And when he insists on phoning my mother Makes a promise that he won’t speak drink I dial I do I dance Far from the Buddha knowledge of the giving death Deaf to the recurring chant of Gabriel Books by my bed and worlds of grace That I grasp But lack the good hand with which to grab Read the poetry of Ana Caballero Read a profile of Ana Caballero Michele Seminara: No More Meddling... Michele Seminara
Stop
Let's leave everything be. Let's just stop fixing. Perhaps if we let everyone settle clarity will be revealed. Today I entered the cathedral of the bush -- sought permission to walk the land; felt it granted. Was buoyed by a chorus of cicadas ululating their adulation to the Gaia of this world. (On Facebook a slowed down recording of cicadas — oh my, what exaltation! Beyond the range of men.) As I traipse through the bush in my rag of a dress, great slobbery dog loping at my side, a dishevelled woman with hands clasped behind her back like some unhinged Confucian scholar -- a brown snake crosses my path. It's an intimate moment, as if he has been waiting for me. What does one do in such a moment? Acknowledge, pass... Let's leave everything be. Let's just stop fixing. I want to open like that naked flannel-flower to the sun. Read the poetry of Michele Seminara Read a profile of Michele Seminara Allison Grayhurst: Two Poems Of Introspection Allison Grayhurst
Liquid Art Warm fluid reaching my lips, filling my mouth and strengthening. I am chased and must drink to survive, to gain a flow that does not fit amongst all this normalcy. It plops like an explosive on my lap and won’t allow me to forget or regret its pull and command. Like a ripe peach to the parched throat, it slides down and radiates relief to all sections of my spine. It owns me as does the rhythm of my pulse. It keeps me a part yet binds me as one. It is my surrender, my glad awakening. It is my freak .....show, my unhappy necessity: I bite, I swallow and then I am brave once again. Remembering Climb on board where my mystery is sharp and dangerous. The red light flashes on the cold embittered face - a pale grey against a rich tone of burgundy and black. On my shoulders, age and history are taken and every memory is pure, whole, experienced by the senses, is coming back like chaos ringing all around. Read the poetry of Allison Grayhurst Read a profile of Allison Grayhurst Daniel Klawitter And The Trials Of Human Language Daniel Klawitter
Speech Pathology The most important thing to say hasn’t been said yet. –Plato, The Republic II They whisper in your ear But stop just short of what You hope to hear And can’t articulate. Your mouth is mush- The unsaid phrase You anticipate Becomes: “hush child, hush.” Why so hard to speak When the garden of words Is so lush? Why do your eyes Leak and your heart beat thus? That fearful fluency That others trust In us is non-transparency, A dam that won’t bust. But even those who speak Extemporaneously on their feet With such seeming ease And compelling candor- Cannot exhaust or appease The desire for language To be more than precise. It wants instead to meander Beyond the limits of grammar To the unthought-of thought That causes one to stammer In the fraught-filled speaking. The best has not yet been said; How hopeful to have overheard- And silence is no cause for dread, For it precedes the spoken Word. Read the poetry of Daniel Klawitter Read a profile of Daniel Klawitter |