Archive #30
December, 2015

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Tracey Gunne And A Mother's Fanciful Architecture

Tracey Gunne

 
  Imaging of Interior Structure

   So hard to imagine
   these thin white lines are bones
   and these crazy shapes
                          eloquent as shadow on water
                          will be arms I will hold
                          and eyelids I will kiss
                          and a heart I will know

                          After six months I feel you
                          move inside, touching all
                          the dark corners you created

                          At first I dreamed you
                          some kind of nymph
                          weaving veins
                          moving patiently like a spider
                          building yourself a temporary home
                          and I wondered if you were scared
                          in the loneliness of my womb
                          your hands
                          pressed against some invisible light

                          like tiny stars

Read the poetry of tracey Gunne
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​

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Joanna Suzanne Lee's Poem Of Tradition
And Change

Joanna Suzanne Lee

 
   




It was never quite like this,

the shallow wading pool of past, its pink
mermaid-clad collapsible sides filled
with dead grapevine Mom wrestled
from the cage-wire fence & sunk
in its bathwater depths to be made more
pliant for the working. Once I buried
a burn there, dip’t surreptitiously
from a showoff jump on Old Miss Judy’s
just-rid bike, my shiny white shin in stark
relief to the gap-black teeth of her red-
haired grandson. I remember, too, the stains
of walnuts that fell like dull tennis balls
all around the pool’s pressed grass;
a quarter a bucket all Indian summer long
while Mom cut & shaped & dried
under the shade of the bitter leaves.
I keep one of those wreaths cornered
in the utility closet under winter coats,
still, dusting its thick ribbon & fluffing
up the bow after every first frost has passed.

Read the poetry of Joanna Suzanne Lee
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​

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Robert Nied: A Father, A Son, And Time

Robert Nied

​  



​The Ride Home  ☊

​When you were a baby I stayed home with you
I heard your first “daddy” at breakfast and “fox” at the      zoo
I taught you to say “astounding” to impress your mom
And “oh crap” when we saw crazy neighbor Tom
I washed you in a bucket, on the balcony outside
I laughed myself silly and felt amazing inside.
 
I fed you guacamole and refried beans
When I changed your diaper it was nothing I’d ever seen
I took you to the park and the hardware store
We picked up acorns and screws for the door
We sang songs on Main Street so far off key
That people at the bus stop, craned their necks to see
When I read you books I did voices and sounds
You laughed and you laughed, at the characters we found.
 
I met you in Boston this morning for tea
I heard you say “dad” and ask about me
We walked to your apartment so you could play me a song
Written for a friend you hadn’t known that long
It was full of heart and a strange sense of peace
For a young man your age you seemed so at ease
You said “oh crap” when I told you about the time
I walked down Main Street pretending to be a mime
When I left for the train you said “enjoy the ride.”
I knew I already had and felt amazing inside.

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​

We Warmly Welcome Poet Angele Ellis To The Pages Of VerseWrights

Angele Ellis

    my invisible woman  ☊


had vulcan green veins beneath her clear carapace
like the ones rising on the back of my hand / flesh i chew    raw
in my sleep. no map to anywhere / my aging chrysalis
imperfect as she was perfect / down to implied fingernails
her blank face / bald transparent casing / for a smug pink walnut.

her seven magic openings were soldered with plastic
invulnerable even when i buried her in shaley dirt.
i crowned her with pitchblende / radium trapped in greasy peaks
of luster. her heart was wrapped red meat / while mine turned
lump of black crystals / x-ray power burning through its cracks.

so many times i wanted to travel / to climb out of there.
only once did i come close to the mountainous border.
wellbutrin shot pure night through my willing capillaries
pulling my invisible woman back to her safety box
whose cardboard dark quelled hunger like holy communion.

this is what i never told you / friend i never would have met
when i woke / before the failure on my fissured tongue 
leaked apology / ineluctable acid from its dying 
battery of excuses / memories I could not contain
disappointment tore at me / stripped me like cellophane.

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​

Two Short Poems From Poet Ramesh Dohan

Ramesh Dohan

 
​ Pillow Talk

 Our ménage à trois by candlelight
 The various absurdities: black lace
 I move my body smell next to yours
Your spice of Zanzibar. 
Mine rains, yours pours          
Your pleasure and sighs
What if I made you hear this as music?
I am winding down
Only the night is wound up tight


Summer

The morning swung open like an iron gate
We walked down the path to breakfast
A cool wind blows this very moment
Stirring the steadfast willow leaves
The wheat bend, the leaves of the peach tress
In a chorus line
The invitation was for you
Rest with me under the linden tree
As the sky returned to baby blue,
the swifts do not sing
what they do well

Read the poetry of Ramesh Dohan
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Eleanor Swanson And The Eye Of
​The Beholder(s)

Eleanor Swanson

  Sketch

  A river scene forms slowly in the sketchbook.
  Today the artist experiments with watercolor.
  He has an audience who murmur about
  the sketch, imagining what river the artist
  will have depicted when the painting is finished.
 
They imagine, as he paints, the flowing
rivers of the world. As he paints
their thoughts become busy with
images of their own. They imagine
the Li, a tributary of the Yangtze. 
The Loire.  The Colorado. The Nile.
The Ganges. The Irrawaddy.
The Amazon; the thinkers are beguiled
by what they believe they will see
as details emerge with each brushstroke.
 
They dream while awake of hippo pods,
ancient temples, funeral ghats, the Valley
of Kings, mountains, grand chateaus,
the planet alive with each flowing river,
each with its own capacious heart.
 
The painter paints light. Light and shadow,
warm reflected light, sky light, direct light.
He himself has drifted into the flowing
waters of a dream, tangled in half-formed
images.  The uber-river flows silently
through his mind.

Read the poetry of Eleanor Swanson
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​

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Poet George Freek Continues His Homage To Chinese Poets

George Freek

​   Mourning (After Ou Yang Hsiu)
 
    Leaves are blown by the wind.
    They fall blindly.
    They’re blown from my
sight and from my mind.
Each is a tiny death,
which blows away to join
others of its kind.
The night is starry-eyed.
It’s as long as the black sky.
The moon hides.
The clouds close their eyes,
like women at prayer,
who think nothing of me,
when they drift by.

A Poem About Nothing
​(After Su Tung Po)

The sparrow builds a nest,
but the wren sleeps in it.
The world’s a nasty place,
even for the human race.
Stars dance on a December night,
But December winds
nose through the streets                                                             
like hungry swine,
searching for scraps to eat.
Half drunk, I watch
from my doorway. The moon
goes up like a curtain
on a play. The show
is old and stale. The end
is predetermined.
But I’m unable to turn away.

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​

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Lucy Logsdon: Do Not Believe The Title; Believe In The Poet

Lucy Logsdon

 
  My Last Poem  ☊

   I am the perfect poem; I am so
   well-behaved.  Look at how my
                     lines line up like a gentle, even
path through the forest.  My
tone's cultivated, gently assertive.
My meaning well tended.  
I do not want to startle the
reader.  No sudden bloated
opossum corpses lurking around
the corner, no stumble
into tangled thickets, chiggers,
thorns.  No strange rashes
or itches, just a gentle stroll
until...of course, there's an until,
there always is.  Sudden wind.
A drop in temperature.
Lightning strikes have been
detected 2.1 miles from this poem.
Take shelter.  Lightning strikes now
detected .1 mile from this poem.
Severe weather has been pinpointed
exactly where you are.
Hail breaks through the lines'
canopy.  A wind sheer carries
off your best thoughts.  A mistake
has been made.  Fatal errors have
occurred.  There is too much
muchness in these woods.
Time to bushwhack your way
out.  Poison ivy, ticks, copperheads,
everywhere.  No matter.  They
are you.  This is
what you grew up with;
this is what you know.
A fellow hiker shouts over
the gale:  you appear to be struggling.
Perhaps you should turn back.
To what?  The melancholy of my bed,
the nursing of failing limbs,
the encroaching immobility,
a pillar of salt.  Give me 
what you've got.  In this poem,
I will walk until I die,
I will crawl on all fours
until I expire.  I will
go out as I came in.
Naked.  Howling.  Hole.

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​

Kathleen Everett Finds Sustenance in
​Myth and Earth

Kathleen Everett

​ Paper Cranes

  The path folds into itself,
  an origami of leaf mold and gravel.
  Its edges drift into stiff hedges of
deep dried grass,
shifting ever so slightly in the spring breeze-
fluttering like paper,
paper cranes,
that fold their wings
and unfurl to fly.

Someone, once, folded a thousand cranes,
a symbol of peace or redemption or grace,
I forget which.
These cranes took flight
and flew with ibis and stork,
heron and egret,
until the fragile paper wings drifted slowly,
silently
into the flame,
consumed.

All that was left
was an origami of ash,
for me to shovel into the garden
and work into the soil
to feed the roots
and nourish our souls,
with peace or redemption
or grace.

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​

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Edjo Frank's Poem Of Hopeful Melancholy 

Edjo Frank

 Melodies in Blue

  I hear melodies in blue
  see tear lines of water vapor
                   chasing tiny silver jets
                   to borders of imagination
 
birds circle bored and lazy
no perceptible wingbeats
unaware of day or time
endless blue playground
 
memories float ashore
vanished pictures come alive
I paint familiar portraits
against the graving sky
 
black clouds in my chest
cover the blue of mind
stories I wish to deny
engorge beauty of day
 
peace breathes silently
yearning for sunset
tokens of understanding
shine and rise
 
moisten my lips
with sweet gratitude
open my ears
melodies in blue

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​

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VerseWrights Welcomes Poet J T Milford
To Its Pages

J T Milford

  The Garden Party

  There is something about spring that says fleeting?
  Yet again dazzling spring is everywhere 
                     With the return of shimmering light
The chairs are white umbrellas green 
Mandeville red white and pink 
All veiled in early green
Hibiscus and roses are impatient to
To show their subdued night colors
The patio lights a mysterious gathering
Of distant stars a party of floating dreams

We are all outdoors drinking Sauvignon Blanc
Under a rising moon that brings 
A diffused stream of milky liquid light
With soft conversations about today tomorrow 
The girl with green lips and Manuel De Falla
Here we are a fleeting party of friends
Suddenly Barb says
How beautiful the rising moon
On this early spring night
A night that captures us with its dark luminosity
That will always keep our hearts close

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Deni Howlett Confronts Kin And Class

Deni Howlett

​  



Fatherland

He stands in grand swish of splendid silk suits,
curls of ghostly cigar smoke climb idly,  
belching out from below, perhaps an aftermath
of when he dined with the devil on fish and
chips, debating world politics, war, peace,
the raging heat, the damn price of rising petrol,   
to ranting about rebels ruining their heads, playing
Russian roulette with drugs and mounting debts,  
drinking Fosters label instead of flat lemonade, hell -
such a disgrace, as he strokes fine grey’s sprouting
from his ears, singing to his sharpened samurai
blade within, as we cling to edge careful not to cut
tender flesh, careful - for if not that, then tongue
of large proportions would lick and lash,
jerking fine hairs among speckled freckles up
to face flexing cane between fidgeting thumbs,
laughing so loud the carpet cringed,
concealing itself pitifully in silly patterns,
so we could count swirls in colours, pretend
rivers were racing to anywhere else,
but here. Not here. For here is like hell,
nowhere, but everywhere, majestic in its fear,
and so far down, that’s what Daddy said,
so far down, if he chucked us we’d crash land
into the hideous lair of the devils house.

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Karla Linn Merrifield: Fragment Becomes
​Metaphor

Karla Linn Merrifield

        
 Archival Artifact

 quoting from a loose-leaf
 sheet of ruled filler
 recto in bold red
                    Woolworth’s R-4963 N-3
                    verso partly in cursive
                    partly printed
                    in fountain pen’s black ink

                   They made us
                   alone in the world
                   hopeless or not
                   not anymore
                   look forward 
                   David
                   believe all this
                   The sun
                   and the stars
                   come out

                   Not a diary entry not a poem but
                   sans salutation sans signature
                   unfinished perhaps
                   and undated (probably autumn 1968)
                   it is the undelivered note
                   of possibility rendered impossible

Read the poetry of Karla Linn Merrifield
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Three Short Poems From Karen O'Leary

Karen O'Leary

   Haiku

    silk ribbons--
    the smooth strains
    of her song

​Unwritten Book

pages
turn in the wind…
regrets and time wasted
unfold in solitude’s corner
untold

The Puppet
    
Selling out, he hopes the strings
    will lead him to the life he craves.
Dangling, he dances to the whims
    of the one who claims him.
Cutting the bonds, he sacrifices
    fame and riches for freedom.

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We Extend A Warm Welcome To
​Poet Caleb Coy

Caleb Coy

​ Week People

​ Monday morning is Bob
 and Bob hates his job
Bob says hey to Fred in the hall
who says hey back to Bob in the hall
the coffee percolates, drips
a long day, a long week
and it all goes downhill from there.

Meet the sisters:
Fat Tuesday, Hump Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday
drinking martinis round a table every afternoon
and sleep heavy that evening
after they hang up the phone
full of the day’s gossip.

Friday announces herself
steals the show
is twenty-three years old and
addicted to coke.

Saturday morning wakes up late
does not remember Friday or
what he did to her.
He sits in the house all day in his socks
when she’s not running marathons
or out of town

Sunday afternoon is an old Brit sleeping
in a musty armchair
a wooden cross hung limply on the wall behind him
a glass of brandy forming condensation by his side
and as he snores
the game blaring on the telly

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​

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Scott Thomas Outlar Shares His List For Santa

Scott Thomas Outlar

 What I Want for Christmas 

  Can you give me
  more neuron synapses
  flashes
  that create passion?

Can you give me
more fire, more suffering,
more love, more art?

Can you give me more truth?
Can you give me more poetry?
Can you give me more wine?
Can you give me success

Can you give me less
of all the things
I do not need?

Can you give me more space,
more time, more awareness?

Can you give me more health,
more alertness, more mental acuity?

Can you give me my future,
up front, on loan, in the present?

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Leslie Philibert Shares Two New Poems

Leslie Philibert

        
 
  A Single Image of Clock Children
​  (for Syria)

Flywheels enamel
with heartblood,
aortal ticks hesitate

before the dull bang
of a falling fist;
the fat knuckle

of the next hit,
tick tick the
small ones,

the eaters of dust,
stone-eyed they fall apart
like lost time,

the weights that
regulate all this
are unbalanced.


A Mowed Field, After

Anklecut but running;
cornchildren at break,
dust and more dust.

Flight the cutting
of a lost sanctuary,
legless with shock

at life turned upside.
Stubble the blunt cut,
the wait of the expectant
loam, under the farrow.

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For Matthew Quinn, Cutting The Grass Becomes Metaphor

Matthew Quinn

 
​ Push Mower

  A bright summer day,
  I walk behind
  the familiar roar
                    which turns

the dangerous blade,
which cuts its straight swirl
through row upon row
of inoffensive blades.

If I gaze at the green grass,
mesmerized by progress,
it could be any sunny day
of any year since my twelfth.

Grandfather James sits
under a shade tree,
observes traffic on the road,
monitors my progress.

Vincent tastes
cool well water, then returns
the porcelain cup
to its nail.

David hikes
into the east woods,
rifle at the ready
for rabbits in the underbrush.

Eternally unchanged,
they act out their lives
from the corner
of my eye

as I march forward
set on my task
of mowing down
what lies ahead.

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Emily Strauss And A Zen Observation

Emily Strauss

 
  Sitting Zazen

   Uphill past the bison grazing
                  on the grasses of early spring
up the steep track blazed
by deer and elk to the top
 
a flat crest looking down
on a thin muddy creek
and naked badland ridges
yellow patches of fossil dirt
 
he climbed fast in the dawn
mist, his breath visible
in the cold shadows
laid out a pad, began
 
stretching in slow delicate
moves before he sat facing
east, back straight, eyes
closed to enter the silent
 
day alone, a tiny figure
motionless for an hour
I watched with binoculars
waiting for a reprieve.

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We Warmly Welcome Poet Robert Walicki
To Our Pages

Robert Walicki

​      


Beautiful

After the reading, she kept saying Beautiful as in the                   poems,
though I kept thinking of the tortoise shell clamp
 
grasping the back of her hair as she walked
away, the door of the bookstore closing,
 
clang of door chimes on glass, unintentional slam
of metal on frame.
 
Beautiful, excitable chatter of poets,
crisp stacks of chapbooks, spines unbroken by discovery.
 
Beautiful, the new cheese in the back, cheddar orange
the crackle of wrapper, thin plastic seeking the memory of its shape.
 
Beautiful, the Amish wine, Dandelion or Strawberry.
I can only remember the purple Llama on its label, smiling.
 
Beautiful, the sound of a book being pulled, swish
of leather, a novel rubbing another’s back as it’s taken off the shelf.
 
Beautiful, the chairs being stacked up, their slim chrome legs,
their elegant scalloped backs.
 
Beautiful, each friend leaving, a hand on an arm, a kiss
each Good bye, I’ll see you soon. The song in their throats.
 
Beautiful, lights going out, beautiful smear of hands
on glass door, the light-caught ghosts of touch.
 
Beautiful, the sound of their shoes on wet ground,
shimmer of asphalt, the speckled light they walk on.
 
Beautiful, the books left alone to gather dust
stand on their spines in the dark,
 
the quietness of their own folded thoughts.

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​

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We Warmly Welcome Poet Catherine Baker To The Pages Of VerseWrights

Catherine Baker

      Green Man in midwinter

      Green Man’s bone weary.
       His breath stinks of ditchwater
       and half-bletted sloes.
                           His cuffs are full of leaf mould.
                           Frost tendrils snake through his beard.

                           Fierce ice-rimed owl calls
                           waken him grimly at dawn.
                           There’s no rest for him –
                           the world in its winter sleep
                           turns inside his wakefulness.

                           Rain slips down his neck,
                           but Green Man keeps on walking.
                           Nothing’s growing now
                           but the kingdom of the dark.
                           He’s beating the bounds for us,
​
                           holding his lantern
                           against the lowering sky,
                           whistling tunelessly
                           a song of hard-won patience,
                           a song of the earth, turning.

              Haiku

             gulls body the wind
               tilting through the leaf-spirals
               in the fling of trees

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Marsailidh Groat Ponders Life In
A Great City

Marsailidh Groat

 

 
​  Reflections on a Familiar Journey

Each time I return, I am struck by the absurdness of this city,
by the vastness that once seemed to swallow me whole,
so huge I thought I would disappear, lost
in its mass of streets and boroughs.

It has been so bright that, at times,
I’ve had to peer cautiously through half closed eyes,
and at others, been smothered by a darkness
that clings so greedily I lose all sight of myself.

People here are fast, fierce and passionate,
brought here by ambition, or lust for discovery.
It is a place of extremes; of lavish extravagance
and crushing depravity.

World famous icons seep into the norms of everyday life,
until a reminder is brought by a child or visitor.
I have inhaled deeply, choked on smoke,
lost and regained the excitement, the wonder.

I have fallen in love,
been so inspired, and so broken,
wandering through streets both new and familiar
as the world watches through a screen.

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​

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Poet Liam Porter's Gratefulness at Christmas

Liam Porter

​  Christmas Thanks

   All year I had unwrapped them.
    Gifts of time and patience.
                      Understanding and encouragement.

I saw days that had unravelled into chaos,
packed up again; all those broken pieces
squeezed back together. Spirits fortified.

I had basked in the warmth of friendship,
taken solace from endearment,
then stored each precious moment.

When Christmas came, I replayed them all,
a movie-reel of magic memories.

Then, with paper I sat
to wrap up in words
all I could offer in return.

And simply wrote…

Thank You All.

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​

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For Diana Matisz, It Is Time To Move On

Photo art by Diana Matisz (Click on picture to enlarge)

Diana Matisz

      
     "I wish I may..."

      I wish I may
       I wish I might

                      I took down the jar
                      of wishes from the shelf
                      where they’d been reaping age
                      held them to the light
                      one by one,
                      searching
                      for a hint of viability
                      and found them dead
                      or dying
                      I’d kept them
                      much too long
                      hoarding their promise
                      their glittered edges
                      still keen with risk
                      they’re nothing to me now
                      but tin-whistle waste
                      I strike a match
                      and into the smoke-gray
                      quittance, I say

                     have the wish
                     I wish tonight

                         Read the poetry of Diana Matisz
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​

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Donal Mahoney's Poem For The Season

Donal Mahoney

  New Pickle on Christmas Eve

   Paddy stops at Rosen's Deli
   and orders brisket 
   on a Kaiser roll, a dab 
of horseradish, a new 
pickle on the side.

"Latke, too, Sol. Coffee later. 
No dinner tonight.
Maggie's not feeling well.
I'll eat here and take a tub
of noodle soup to go."

Paddy eats and meets Sol
wrestling with his register.
"How's Mrs. Rosen, Sol?
Haven't seen her in 
a month of Sundays."

"Could be cancer, Paddy.
They operate next week.
Things don't look good.
Doc says everything depends 
on what they find inside."

Paddy has no idea what to say.
He knows Minerva Rosen better 
than he knows old Sol.
Years ago she handed him 
his first new pickle.

"At church tomorrow, Sol,
Maggie and I will pray hard.
I hope to God it works.
At times, praying's all 
anyone can do."

Read the poetry of Donal Mahoney
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​

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David Klawitter Makes A Personal Statement About Poetics

Daniel Klawitter

  

  Dogmatics

When it comes to poetry, I am quite ecumenical.
I’ll take it light & lyrical in terms of versification-
Or narrative, experimental and also confessional.
Some slam poets do sound a little too identical-
Making one wish they’d avoid verbalization.
Nevertheless, let us embrace the nonprofessional.
Free verse is fine and so still are sonnets.
Rhymed or unrhymed, irregular or formalist:
Poetry is a church of many different denominations.
As long as craft trumps emotional vomit,
And semblance isn't senseless–or the music subordinate:
Let’s allow each one their particular call & vocation. 
My tastes are catholic in the sense of: universal. 
If a poem is well done, it will seem irreversible.

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​

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Laura Madeline Wiseman: A Bridge Between Fantasy and Reality

Laura Madeline Wiseman

  

 
​   One Foot Wide Bridge

We don’t know where to walk, to travel, to go. We sidestep snow, hike frozen, watch rocks to not trip into melting. Our dog, Thirteen, pulls, all puppy, laps puddles tannin dark, mossy. We are alone or not. We hike everywhere Thirteen isn’t allowed. Geese honk. Hippies shoulder kids. You’re playing a hiker, though lack pack, sustenance, or clothes to gird against otherworldly chill. I am hiker, still, share my feast on rock ledges, as we walk crisscrossing paths. I stand on a railing, lean. You ask, What are you doing? as if I might jump, as if I might need saving. I’m not going to jump. I already saved myself. I am looking for the pine forest, the place where girls giggle topless, the swords and horns in the glen. The place where long haired people in peasant clothes smoke pipes, say, Someone just built this, meaning they had no part, meaning some things aren’t human-made, that veils part, mists cloak one place from another, the place that doesn’t have to set us apart. When we find the stone stairs, the spring, the pine forest, I say, Let’s never leave. You say, Okay, because you carry no fairy charms, no hope to resurrect, no more grief and I carry no crimson jeweled mantle to test, no war-fury, no cup of ivory-gold. I am sea-born, water lady, some imaginary queen, shifting into bird, tree, and stone. We are what storytellers make of sister, brother, lover, and into popular tale. I take your hand. You hold my token. We cross this bridge forgetting what we didn’t do, and saying what we should’ve said.

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Bethany W Pope and the Lyrical Dancers

Bethany W Pope

   
​    The Dancers on the     Green


​We gathered on the lawn to watch the old
Heroes mar their whites with mud and wet grass.
Open fields were made for dancing; yellow
Knots, fabric flags flapped from elbows and the 
Noise of sleigh bells sang; strange data.
Only the old bearded clown (a small tear
Wounding his motley) understood. As we
Stood there, watching those dancing old men, clowns
Went round the circle, seeking women, the
Handsomest girls. They carried cake in their
Ash-wood bowls, for fertility, a shiv
That planted babies in their wombs. No, I
Gladly refused it. I want no children;
Only poetry. It is like dancing.

​Read the poetry of Bethany W Pope
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​

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Jocelyn Mosman: No Ordinary Muffin This

Jocelyn Mosman

 Eulogy for a Muffin

  It was a good muffin, 
  the way it crumbled gently
  as it touched my moist lips. 
  It knew no other mouth but mine.
  It was made with care 
and dedication and love,
baked from some kitchen. 
I don't know who baked it, 
but I like to pretend it was
a big burly man with a beard. 
Something about this muffin,
it tasted like strength, 
had the consistency 
of my father's belt, 
and taught me patience 
as it melted on my tongue. 
A beautiful muffin! 
Its aroma filled the entire room,
smelling of sweet pumpkin 
and spice and all things 
naughty and nice. 
It reminded me of Christmas-
the one we had at my Grandma's 
in Pennsylvania 
after Grandpa died. 
It was sweet, 
but had just a hint of salt. 
I can't be sure if the baker 
cried when mixing ingredients, 
if he, too, had felt loss. 
This muffin left its remains sticky 
on my fingers 
like ashes, 
like play dough, 
like muffin dough 
if muffins are made 
using dough. 
(I'm not sure, I don't cook.)
I wanted to know 
the man behind this muffin, 
the great bearded one. 
I wanted to meet the two cats, 
calico and black, 
that crawled up onto the counter,
blocking the view of 
the recipe, 
and made this man create 
this muffin 
literally by scratch. 
I wanted to know this muffin man,
the one who lives on Drury Lane. 
He created a muffin so insatiable,
metaphors won't do it justice. 
A muffin like that would win 
poetry slams 
because it was so poetic
when devoured, 
and the empty plate,
licked clean by two cats, 
calico and black, 
looked more like a broken heart
than a well-loved dish. 
The plate and me,
me and the plate, 
we tasted the tears
of the man behind this muffin. 
We both knew tonight, 
there would be 
no more 
inspirational muffins
to kiss us goodnight.

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New Tanka/Tanshi From Poet Debbie Strange

Artwork by Debbie Strange

Debbie Strange

​dog nails on hardwood
waken us at four a.m.
a mouse in my shoe

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​

Two Short Poems From Poet Gary Metras

Gary Metras

 
​Midnight Shower

 Naked but for wedding band,
 he slips out the shower,
 towels off and slides into bed.
 
Her breath slow, steady,
the dreams calm, or none at all.
He settles, sinks into the rhythm.
 
In this cave of sheets, blanket,
and bodies, life continues unnoticed,
a ring of gold in the dark.


After Five Generations

The auction was yesterday.
All the milkers went and the breeders.
What’s left will be trucked to the slaughterhouse.
A few pounds of tough steak for the freezer.
Next week the tractors and balers go.
After that, the memories.

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​

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