Archive #31
January, 2016
|
Boy
They pulled you out between White’s Mill and Currier Street about a mile from the bridge where you parked. The river is warmer than it was in March when everyone was looking and putting up signs and later on, looking less, checking on Facebook to report what your mom said, connecting the dots to fashion a lede. You were “Missing Athens Man.” Knives in the wood after a knife-throwing act. A stain of old pain in the rearview reflection. How come we hadn’t learned the lesson? You left your keys in the ignition. There was goodness there. In the swell. Everyone shouldering hope and doubt on competing scales. It seemed the proof you were looking for: if life has worth, people will fight for it; if people fight, living is worth it. It made sense, on its face. You had a great smile. I could see your mother’s hope in it. You wore your hair long and it made you look vulnerable. You probably would have hated this, but “sweet” is the word that springs to mind. This world is hard on the gentle boys. And I keep trying to recall if the pizza delivery guy had long hair or short, the week before Christmas we got pizza at work. Why should I want to put you there? What could it possibly matter? Your mother said she’d come for you. Just hang tighter. Once the weather turned, I ran the section of the bike path that bends to the river forward and back and forward again, pacing myself to its muted rhythm. Its crooked spine, infrequent joggers. The birds were sharp—soft—all together, both at once. The wind in the grass was a woman’s dress, a mouthful of milk on a taut clothesline Rivka Zorea's New Poem: A Sorrowful
|
My son plays baseball on the fields nearby. But you were a rustle in the thirsty brush, drawing my thoughts as my feet held the line because I saw the men huddled across the bank-- sonar trawling, sirens off. The water flashing its teeth in the sun. There and back, I took the bridge, culling the edges with my eyes, reading the gaps between the lines, seeing the eddies bubble and froth, disturbed by the dead limbs, big rocks, uprooted trunks. Trespassing on something that wasn’t mine. Even now, not sure what I’m doing here. But you see how absence becomes abyss and you think, God, how do they carry this? I absorbed you. Not impulsively, not all at once, but incrementally, with the herd. We swallowed you in desperate sips. You sank in, like tea, leaving leaves at the end. An archetype with a shape pulled from the caves. The lost son. Come back. Your brother has killed the fattened calf. For you. Come back. Won’t you hear? And now I want to take your picture down, so that she won’t have to. I want to hug my children tighter, preserving their shape in a better forever. We never learn. It never makes sense. You needed more time. Pain is a bridge. The paper said you left a poem behind. It’s April now. Winter was hard. The lilac is late this year. Read the poetry of Sarah Hina Read a profile of Sarah Hina A New Poem From Poet Angelee Deodhar
Photo courtesy of TheTeaTales.com
(Click on photo to enlarge)
 Angelee Deodhar
~For Aryan Today I will be gentle as I hold your feverish cough wracked form croon some nonsense sooth you to sleep caress your limbs press them gently give you a drink of juice sponge you gentle... will you do the same for me, son tomorrow? Read the poetry of Angelee Deodhar Read a profile of Angelee Deodhar Poet J. Matthew Waters' Latest Poem
 J. Matthew Waters
flash powder ☊ what have I contributed to the cause keeping the music alive and guarding elephants from poachers I’ve given up aerosol sprays and gasoline marlboro lights store-bought soup and religion how much more do I have to give that constant humming in my ear is that just a warning from my guardian angel or simply a reminder how those widely admired can easily be swept away like a night owl’s prey silently screaming absolution doesn’t exist in the blink of an eye and even if it did no act of contrition could prevent anyone from seeing the light Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of J. Matthew Waters Read a profile of J. Matthew Waters Two Poems From Mikels Skele: The Dark And The Light Mikels Skele
Paris, 15:42 Stuck. A small desire (coffee, maybe pastry) A Herculean labor. Such histrionics, A drama worthy of greatness, And I, only ordinary, Blindly stabbing. Yet, it arrives: Mousse au chocolat Crème brûlée Je n’sais quoi And coffee, A small, unassuming demi-tasse, Ordnance as yet Unexploded. What I Got I got my book of riffs, My bebop hat Stuffed on my head What I lack is bread I got the skinny pants I drive my Mini past The twilight boulevard What I lack is gas, man What I lack is class, man The mojo ain’t workin’ The jerky aint jerkin’ What I lack is a clue Read the poetry of Mikels Skele Read a profile of Mikels Skele We Warmly Welcome Poet ayaz daryl nielsen To VerseWrights' Pages
 ayaz daryl nielsen
The Tao of Brokenness A broken hub, thirty spokes without a center The wheel couldn’t turn nor remain upright if it was to be used The clay pot with a crack across the bottom would just drip and seep, even if it was needed An old homestead without windows doors roof flooring or the people to claim it as home empty of emptiness because of brokenness non-existence from lack of usefulness each, in its isolation, an exhilaration a clarity the adventure of broken existence Read the poetry of ayaz daryl nielsen Read a profile of ayez daryl nielsen The Latest Poem From Poet Marie Anzalone Marie Anzalone
Last Sunday I saw you clearly tomorrow, and I will search for you yesterday- this. This is trying to find Neptune colored ethics in a world that is just learning of the full spectrum of gray. When a man admires a woman, he praises her beauty. What recourse is for woman? There is no measured “goodness” equivalent, for defining a man. Only to see the way light hits the water at full midnight, when boundaries between whatifs dissolve in a soft closely draped fog I wear like a garment I can hold tight with one hand, or let fall as needed. When I sit quietly, I remember a future with you; and if I look real carefully at the horizon, all possibilities remain with the arrival of each last Sunday of the past decade. Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone Read a profile of Marie Anzalone VerseWrights Warmly Welcomes Poet
|
Poet Amy Billone And A Moment of
|
