Archive #40
October, 2016
Beheading
I flinch not from the javelin, the spear or the bullet, Nor am I shielded in cast iron. Still, heart and vein are safe From thoughts of life and force, Getting lost within the four chambers. It is the reverse side of fear Where vulnerability is offered with both hands That I hide from your eyes. The diversity and opulence of the square inch of skin, Swathed by the stealing gaze, Makes the most intriguing attribute of us. Something growing in a certain place of my world That comes unclothed and at risk, First to the mirror, then to the touch of your hands- It is the very neck of love. When the face falls like a cowed Cain, It is such a reminder of the otherness In both of us, as sin and grace Inhabit the rest of the world. Read the poetry of Witty Fay Read a profile of Witty Fay
October
the afternoon sky black, baby blue, charcoal gray, streaked white, full of specks, birds, windblown leaves; the hissing trees jiggling and a witch with pointed hat, broomstick, shoots like an arrow behind two big pines and goes down along the ridge line somewhere as the air turns ice cold and a mile-long train of crows, ragged scraps flap their fingered wings over trees blood-red and tangerine. Read the poetry of Wayne F Burke Read a profile of Wayne F Burke
Early Fall
The decision has arrived A leaf begins to fall After a season of work and art Through a circular path of cold air Sometimes attracting light Other times shade but always down How green the long summer days After an early expansive arrival Now this once and only time has ended The leaf blows over the countryside Blowing where it blows Becoming the earth Out on the Bay ~After Two Barcarolles by Ned Rorem In a boat rowing over low surf Under an immense sunlit sky Rising up gentle swells To see the sparkling light Then down into the spray Rising up gentle swells Then down into the spray In a boat slowly rocking I row over deep blue-green waters Hoping to go from here to there To take my inland soul Out on the bay for dreaming Read the poetry of J T Milford Read a profile of J T Milford
Forest
Bladed shadows Whir through minutes Where skinned landscapes Drew beneath fingers Winter reigns glass dry And wives sleep Drifted down torn from Shallow goose flesh Rutted canyons Break with smiles Mud stained walls bleed The yet unknown Specks of change Rattling pockets Like subway tokens I stand In this old growth forest Tasting dew From mossed leavings Waiting for the sun Read the poetry of Heather Feaga Read a profile of Heather Feaga
In Between
Somewhere between two waves between first and second base the way time shifts a second becomes a minute the platform becomes a stage. somehow an ant remains frozen- skittering stops A wave freezes and time moves into a backwards paradigm up through the hourglass particle by particle and our breath becomes breathless and changes into a lumpy swallow and I think maybe I will My mind becomes a part of yesterday’s thinking and my words sink into a state of rest between the rug and the floor where dusty secrets are swept scared and some dissolve into visible air never to be loved or hated remaining suspended there as we walk through and return and sometimes just sit and watch as in a dream when the sun settles underneath leafy trees as leaves sprinkle shadows at my feet. I become camouflaged. Read the poetry of Michele Riedel Read a profile of Michele Riedel
In the Streets
There was a poet in the busy street downtown He was silently handing out his poetry amidst noisy passers-by I visited him once twice on the third visit we talked shared poems and smiled He said: passers-by pass by and stop at my eyes never come in Poets in the streets are stones thrown away to infinity breaking windows and glass I met a poet in the street shyly handing out poetry amidst shrieking cars and people I stood by him and handed out his poetry and we both started singing out our poetry Passers-by passed hastily away stoping at our eyes sometimes but never coming in Read the poetry of Amauri Solon Read a profile of Amauri Solon
Things I gained that winter
Slap of river Esk through narrowed ice channels among black frost rocks and night cold-- almost xmas, and huge houses lit like amber with the sun behind seemed far from the winter slip of the track-- too much to drink, we arm in armed crunchfooting under boughs like wet coal. She was there for a winter—her sports coat patched wet by frosted branches-- blonde hair dark beneath a knitted hat-- snub-nose pushed with laughter-- the light dipping and falling-- she was there for a winter and like that night's crystal charm-- at the first murmur of heat, she was gone. Read the poetry of Gareth Spark Read a profile of Gareth Spark
Those Things That Just Are
In a field of Octobers the deep sun wrestles with blank spots of sky - it warms the very tips of our fingers and shuts our eyes against the heat. We can squeeze the last light out of any day and nestle it close in the palm of our hands. And it is with the single strands of friendship - those delicate threads that gather us together that keep us strong if strong is needed. Between our pages the notes on doors and scribbled along the edge of the air - we whisper our deepest secrets in code with blinks of an eye. Or sounds between the sounds. There are place-settings and jumbled tightrope tricks of the wrist and we can sit anywhere and there is room. Read the poetry of Amy Soricelli Read a profile of Amy Soricelli Samantha Campbell: Soon, A Mother
To the Addict Named James
When the man from California asked if you were alive, I was thrilled to be the one to answer yes. I didn’t tell him I named a candle after you, how hours after the wick went out, you called, left a message, I called back, left a message, and by noon you were safe again. I didn’t tell him I washed and folded your clothes, tried on that shirt, the red, white, and black plaid flannel – the one your mother gave you – and took pictures of myself in the mirror. I didn’t tell him it took less than three seconds to fall in love with your legs. The man from California didn’t believe me when I said you were clean. Now, almost a year since I didn’t tell the man from California these things, months after your latest disappearance, I name every candle, star, tree, and bus stop James. This time, if you don’t call, if you don’t leave a message, after I throw up one of my ribs, I’ll tell the man from California it’s your voice I hear every morning, whispering never is a long time. Read the poetry of Mark Dennis Anderson Read a profile of Mark Dennis Anderson |
this evening
this evening cat thinks of cat light, drizzly rain spider web flutters from a corner of the ceiling a web I could remove, yet, was here with grandmother a web my grand- mother knew. . . so, just this cat, rain, and web the poetry of an evening Haiku bring me upriver erase my grey hairs and thoughts tell me my story Read the poetry of ayaz daryl nielsen Read a profile of ayaz daryl nielsen
A Flock Made Flesh
The sudden birds erupt upwards In a shower of speckled confetti-- Startled starlings taking wing. Like my love in feathers For you my dear darling-- When you turn and preen So spectacularly. Buddhist Constipation Haiku Face red with straining-- Zazen on white porcelain… Life is suffering. Read the poetry of Daniel Klawitter Read a profile of Daniel Klawitter
Something Silent
that empty/heavy feeling a walking oxymoron moron the little voice says for even trying morning feels choking, grainy afternoon is soft and sinking evening drags on, kicking up the day's dust night is calm but the mind still paces and morning comes again words are hard to chew thoughts are slow and weary like two tired and dirty feet that must keep walking I must keep walking, breathing seeming fine through seething teeth lines buried in the sand between my brows are telling something silent that empty/heavy feeling Read the poetry of Rosa Saba Read a profile of Rosa Saba
beside the river among cockspur hawthorn bowers-- a catbird’s cry ❦ above blowing meadow grass-- the tree swallow’s sudden dips and swoops ❦ the harbingers of autumn nodding in woodland shade-- purple asters ❦ sailing among cabbage whites and coppers-- thistle seeds in the wind ❦ parched September earth-- joe-pye weed’s early sepia inflorescence Read a note about these haiku Read the poetry of Wally Swist Read a profile of Wally Swist
Autumn Wrinkles: A Haiku Sequence
calm twilight a blossom circling in its fall on the lake wrinkled face of wind inside and outside of me autumn wrinkles autumn waterfall listening deep to my inner voice all the journeys i shouldn't have taken – sunken boat Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of Ramesh Anand Read a profile of Ramesh Anand
Writing at Dawn
memory recalls-- scenes reaching out of silence fragments lodged between pauses this yearning to keep pictures from melting away like knowing by heart the shapes of sculpted canyons after a ruby sunset has flared out ghost shadows flooding the plain when the full moon rises and you follow the trail past sheer walls remembered-- later setting down glimpses of sky and smells until the view clarifies and stills elements of perspective resolve as the night gives way to cool rocks at dawn-- writing faster Read the poetry of Emily Strauss Read a profile of Emily Strauss
Beside the Road
Made for durability and protection, a grey canvas work glove, lined in blue, with wide cuffs, reminiscent of railroad engineer attire, lay flat on the road. It probably fell from a truck. It will be missed. Half a pair of work gloves – What use? The article may be reclaimed, by carefully retracing the route from the previous day or so. Might belong to the owner of the lawn abutting the road? Or a workman who maintains the yard or services the furnace in autumn? Loss, being half a pair, lies in the first longing; the catalyst for the lessons of love. Read the poetry of William Fraker Read a profile of William Fraker Clarence Wolfshohl With A Little
|
Clarence Wolfshohl
|
Patience, Audubon, Phoebe Audubon sat in a cave for days—I don’t know if also the nights—to grow familiar to a nesting phoebe. He wished to tie a string to her leg to see if she’d return to the same nest the next year. He read while he sat, only moving his eyes, his hands and wrists to turn the pages. I don’t know what he read. His plan worked. The next spring the phoebe returned and sat unmoving watching Audubon. After three days she tied a string around his ankle. Read the poetry of Clarence Wolfshohl Read a profile of Clarence Wolfshohl |
ayaz daryl nielsen
|
Three short poems from ayaz daryl nielsen |
everyone, a neighbor
born in the heart of
these Sand Hills
on a remote ranch
homesteaded by our
Danish grandparents,
life as cattleman and
beloved uncle, sturdy
friend of neighbors
surrounded by all
who loved him
as a lifespan ends
Uncle Arnold, you
were what poetry is
Two Haiku
old wallpaper
the soiled and faded roses
how to say good-bye
❧
how do I love you?
both silly and serious
and still unfolding
Read the poetry of ayaz daryl nielsen
Read a profile of ayaz daryl nielsen
born in the heart of
these Sand Hills
on a remote ranch
homesteaded by our
Danish grandparents,
life as cattleman and
beloved uncle, sturdy
friend of neighbors
surrounded by all
who loved him
as a lifespan ends
Uncle Arnold, you
were what poetry is
Two Haiku
old wallpaper
the soiled and faded roses
how to say good-bye
❧
how do I love you?
both silly and serious
and still unfolding
Read the poetry of ayaz daryl nielsen
Read a profile of ayaz daryl nielsen
Lynn White
|
Lynn White Warns: Be Careful What You Say...And Promise |
A Disappointing Day
If they hadn’t asked her
to smell the nice scent.
If she hadn’t remembered
the scent from before.
There would have been
no screams, no stamping
up and down on the trolley.
The nurse would still
have her cap on
and the doctor would have
no fist or feet marks
on his white coat,
no red hand mark
on his pale cheek.
There would have been
no shock, horror reports
to those who had put away
Red Riding Hood
and were waiting
anxiously for news
of their little girl.
But they did ask her.
They did ask her.
The scent wasn’t nice.
She knew it.
And there was no ice cream
afterwards either.
They’d lied about that
as well.
A disappointing day.
Read the poetry of Lynn White
Read a profile of Lynn White
If they hadn’t asked her
to smell the nice scent.
If she hadn’t remembered
the scent from before.
There would have been
no screams, no stamping
up and down on the trolley.
The nurse would still
have her cap on
and the doctor would have
no fist or feet marks
on his white coat,
no red hand mark
on his pale cheek.
There would have been
no shock, horror reports
to those who had put away
Red Riding Hood
and were waiting
anxiously for news
of their little girl.
But they did ask her.
They did ask her.
The scent wasn’t nice.
She knew it.
And there was no ice cream
afterwards either.
They’d lied about that
as well.
A disappointing day.
Read the poetry of Lynn White
Read a profile of Lynn White
Jeffrey Zable
|
We Warmly Welcome Jeffrey Zable To Our Pages |
Waiting to Hear
I was writing my memoirs when all of a sudden I ran out of life. I had only three sentences but I thought they were good ones: I was born caesarian when it was still considered a precarious operation. Next, I had sex with a blond named Dolores in the backseat of my parents’ Buick Special. And finally, when I realized I had grown old, I couldn’t decide whether to commit suicide, or keep flipping through magazines until I found a coupon for a new life. I could say it’s been a long strange trip and that I’m still with the same therapist who I pay $200 for a 50 minute session in which I whine and complain, but find that when we meet again he can’t remember a thing that I’ve said. If I felt lucky I’d venture out into the darkness, but I’m afraid of the streets at night and I never turn out the lights in my bedroom. For now, I think I’ll make myself a salami sandwich and wash it down with a bottle of pop. And who knows. . . maybe some day I’ll return to my story with some brand new insights that will fill many a page. I know that the world is waiting to hear from me.
Read the poetry pf Jeffrey Zable
Read a profile of Jeffrey Zable
I was writing my memoirs when all of a sudden I ran out of life. I had only three sentences but I thought they were good ones: I was born caesarian when it was still considered a precarious operation. Next, I had sex with a blond named Dolores in the backseat of my parents’ Buick Special. And finally, when I realized I had grown old, I couldn’t decide whether to commit suicide, or keep flipping through magazines until I found a coupon for a new life. I could say it’s been a long strange trip and that I’m still with the same therapist who I pay $200 for a 50 minute session in which I whine and complain, but find that when we meet again he can’t remember a thing that I’ve said. If I felt lucky I’d venture out into the darkness, but I’m afraid of the streets at night and I never turn out the lights in my bedroom. For now, I think I’ll make myself a salami sandwich and wash it down with a bottle of pop. And who knows. . . maybe some day I’ll return to my story with some brand new insights that will fill many a page. I know that the world is waiting to hear from me.
Read the poetry pf Jeffrey Zable
Read a profile of Jeffrey Zable
Judy Melchiorre
|
Judy Melchiorre Observes A
|
Untethered
He stares at the stranger in the back room,
who wears the same pajamas every day,
talks to the mindless television,
describes busy-ness yet does nothing.
She takes her pills with sips of water,
gasps small breaths of air,
eats half a sandwich.
She speaks of demons
with sharpened claws,
he sees no devil-spirits,
only an untethered cast to her eyes.
Read the poetry of Judy Melchiorre
Read a profile of Judy Melchiorre
He stares at the stranger in the back room,
who wears the same pajamas every day,
talks to the mindless television,
describes busy-ness yet does nothing.
She takes her pills with sips of water,
gasps small breaths of air,
eats half a sandwich.
She speaks of demons
with sharpened claws,
he sees no devil-spirits,
only an untethered cast to her eyes.
Read the poetry of Judy Melchiorre
Read a profile of Judy Melchiorre
Marianne Szlyk
|
Marianne Szlyk's Poem Is All
|
The Space Between
She remembers riding, being driven
from county to county on state roads
two blue-black lanes cut through
cornfields, no houses, trees, or towns,
no radio or mixtape in the old car,
only their words, only talk.
Or maybe they did not like the same music.
He liked disco; she liked hip-hop.
Fifteen years after, she mourned John’s death;
he did not even own one Beatles CD.
She didn’t know what was there
beyond the car, the road, the books they’d read,
in-house gossip, the stars he knew but she didn’t,
the drive to Indy or Champaign.
She didn’t know about the trees
or the wildflowers she was not seeing.
To her friend, this was still the East,
only twenty four hours’ drive from the coast
fueled on Diet Coke and cigarettes
bought at Wal-Mart on Route 26.
Having left home, she imagined
that she was changing
in the space between, going someplace
different from where she’d been.
She shook her newly red hair then.
She shakes her short brown hair now.
Back East again, she puts on her glasses
as if to see all that she had missed:
the abandoned farmhouses,
the yellow and red marigolds that outlast
trees and walls, crumbling brick towers,
people who emerge from whitewashed storefronts
in someone else’s online photographs
of all that grows in the space between.
Read the poetry of Marianne Szlyk
Read a profile of Marianne Szlyk
She remembers riding, being driven
from county to county on state roads
two blue-black lanes cut through
cornfields, no houses, trees, or towns,
no radio or mixtape in the old car,
only their words, only talk.
Or maybe they did not like the same music.
He liked disco; she liked hip-hop.
Fifteen years after, she mourned John’s death;
he did not even own one Beatles CD.
She didn’t know what was there
beyond the car, the road, the books they’d read,
in-house gossip, the stars he knew but she didn’t,
the drive to Indy or Champaign.
She didn’t know about the trees
or the wildflowers she was not seeing.
To her friend, this was still the East,
only twenty four hours’ drive from the coast
fueled on Diet Coke and cigarettes
bought at Wal-Mart on Route 26.
Having left home, she imagined
that she was changing
in the space between, going someplace
different from where she’d been.
She shook her newly red hair then.
She shakes her short brown hair now.
Back East again, she puts on her glasses
as if to see all that she had missed:
the abandoned farmhouses,
the yellow and red marigolds that outlast
trees and walls, crumbling brick towers,
people who emerge from whitewashed storefronts
in someone else’s online photographs
of all that grows in the space between.
Read the poetry of Marianne Szlyk
Read a profile of Marianne Szlyk
Judith Brice
|
We Warmly Welcome Poet Judith Brice To VerseWrights |
Lesbos
Up onto the rocky shore they washed,
small bodies between
delphinium blue and sparkling
breaking waves, which tumbled
from the Aegean water, the sky--
but no one new knew their names
Up onto the rocky shore they washed,
yellow life jackets that were only toys,
never promised
to be devices for flotation,
for rescue
never promised to save lives--
no one knew whose lives, what names
Up on the rocky shore break more waves,
more small bodies without names,
families lost;
no play in the summer sun,
no splashing in the salty sea.
No one knows their names.
Read the poetry of Judith Brice
Read a profile of Judith Brice
Up onto the rocky shore they washed,
small bodies between
delphinium blue and sparkling
breaking waves, which tumbled
from the Aegean water, the sky--
but no one new knew their names
Up onto the rocky shore they washed,
yellow life jackets that were only toys,
never promised
to be devices for flotation,
for rescue
never promised to save lives--
no one knew whose lives, what names
Up on the rocky shore break more waves,
more small bodies without names,
families lost;
no play in the summer sun,
no splashing in the salty sea.
No one knows their names.
Read the poetry of Judith Brice
Read a profile of Judith Brice
Dana Rushin
|
Dana Rushin: What Else But Love? |
the spirit of the deep keeps watch
In my daughter's old schoolyard, the building is boarded
up now
with curly dock and eclipta growing thru the brick
walkway
like those brown folk in Gauguin's Polynesian journeys,
next to the chop shop that, according to Ms. Walker, was
raided three times this calendar year. She makes a
motion
with her teeth out, of engines and transmissions sitting
in
their oil and trans fluid like a kind of burgundy blood that
will not dry. The posts for the wire fencing standing
erect,
one bent by an Alero in sudden reverse; the fence long
stolen by the scrapers. Nearest where the pit-bull strains
his chain
between blue moons and ambulance sirens; it is his
ceremony of interring. His way of finding freedom and
perhaps some interlude of love. What else could it be?
What else can anything be but love if you do it all the
time?
If you do it until it chokes you?
Read the poetry of Dana Rushin
Read a profile of Dana Rushin
In my daughter's old schoolyard, the building is boarded
up now
with curly dock and eclipta growing thru the brick
walkway
like those brown folk in Gauguin's Polynesian journeys,
next to the chop shop that, according to Ms. Walker, was
raided three times this calendar year. She makes a
motion
with her teeth out, of engines and transmissions sitting
in
their oil and trans fluid like a kind of burgundy blood that
will not dry. The posts for the wire fencing standing
erect,
one bent by an Alero in sudden reverse; the fence long
stolen by the scrapers. Nearest where the pit-bull strains
his chain
between blue moons and ambulance sirens; it is his
ceremony of interring. His way of finding freedom and
perhaps some interlude of love. What else could it be?
What else can anything be but love if you do it all the
time?
If you do it until it chokes you?
Read the poetry of Dana Rushin
Read a profile of Dana Rushin
Kat Lehmann
|
Kat Lehmann Goes to the Heart of the Matter—Joy |
A Heart Made of Hearts
A heart is made of hearts,
one from each loved one –
collaged in their keeper (that’s me),
an emotional cacophony
dependent as a colony.
What do the hearts do all day?
They pump as a matter of business, thud-ump,
thud-ump.
Sometimes they meet for tea
to marvel at their filigree.
But mostly they bleed.
A heart so divided
is always mourning, always rejoicing, always terrified.
The hearts fill my heart like a project:
so bloated, contradicted and panicked,
desperate as an addict.
In this tapestry threaded with textured loss,
the patchwork finds comfort
while scattered loved ones roam,
leaving heart-trails through space-time,
like breadcrumbs to home.
What does the tapestry do?
It filters the flow, netting for a pearl.
It warms like a crowd huddled in diversity,
and eats like a vagrant in scarcity,
anonymous as a city.
I offer you my quilt of threadbare rags,
carefully gathered and colorfully stitched,
fragile in its hoarding like binding sheaves.
An obsessive curator of precious gems, grieving
and groveling to keep away thieves.
But all of this fades when I sail on your breath –
and my grounded heart,
heavy with hearts,
grows wings…
with a harmony that sweetly sings.
Read the poetry of Kat Lehmann
Read a profile of Kat Lehmann
A heart is made of hearts,
one from each loved one –
collaged in their keeper (that’s me),
an emotional cacophony
dependent as a colony.
What do the hearts do all day?
They pump as a matter of business, thud-ump,
thud-ump.
Sometimes they meet for tea
to marvel at their filigree.
But mostly they bleed.
A heart so divided
is always mourning, always rejoicing, always terrified.
The hearts fill my heart like a project:
so bloated, contradicted and panicked,
desperate as an addict.
In this tapestry threaded with textured loss,
the patchwork finds comfort
while scattered loved ones roam,
leaving heart-trails through space-time,
like breadcrumbs to home.
What does the tapestry do?
It filters the flow, netting for a pearl.
It warms like a crowd huddled in diversity,
and eats like a vagrant in scarcity,
anonymous as a city.
I offer you my quilt of threadbare rags,
carefully gathered and colorfully stitched,
fragile in its hoarding like binding sheaves.
An obsessive curator of precious gems, grieving
and groveling to keep away thieves.
But all of this fades when I sail on your breath –
and my grounded heart,
heavy with hearts,
grows wings…
with a harmony that sweetly sings.
Read the poetry of Kat Lehmann
Read a profile of Kat Lehmann
Valarie Bacharach
|
VerseWrights Welcomes Our
|
Journeys
You lie on the narrow berth, stare
at the bottom of the bunk
above. Tears form, overflow,
roll down the sides of your face,
dampen ears, neck, the flat pillow
beneath your head.
You make no sound.
Silence has been burned into you.
Don’t tell your mother’s lullaby.
Your questions shuttered behind lips
stitched with the thread of your breath.
Never an explanation--
A dead father, fraud, poison, suicide.
You are 18, away from home for the first time.
The troop ship rips through rain-drenched waters
across the dark skies of the Atlantic,
bound for Europe’s battlefields
and broken bodies.
You will survive this war, bury
its horrors in the hidden place
under your bones.
But now, on this night, you curl
in on yourself, contort
your body into the man
who will become my voiceless father.
Read the poetry of Valarie Bacharach
Read a profile of Valerie Bacharach
You lie on the narrow berth, stare
at the bottom of the bunk
above. Tears form, overflow,
roll down the sides of your face,
dampen ears, neck, the flat pillow
beneath your head.
You make no sound.
Silence has been burned into you.
Don’t tell your mother’s lullaby.
Your questions shuttered behind lips
stitched with the thread of your breath.
Never an explanation--
A dead father, fraud, poison, suicide.
You are 18, away from home for the first time.
The troop ship rips through rain-drenched waters
across the dark skies of the Atlantic,
bound for Europe’s battlefields
and broken bodies.
You will survive this war, bury
its horrors in the hidden place
under your bones.
But now, on this night, you curl
in on yourself, contort
your body into the man
who will become my voiceless father.
Read the poetry of Valarie Bacharach
Read a profile of Valerie Bacharach
Janet Aalfs
|
Janet Aalfs Studies The
|
Channeled Whelk
Within the spine
another spine, memory
a ribbon of eggs. Venus necklace
strung in silence. Countless
perfect specks become
large pear-shaped bodies
of turreted whorls.
Buffy blue-gray sculpture,
such fine revolving lines,
within memory, another spine
small as a grain of sand begins
the wordless form that ends
hurled from surf to shore.
Empty then, held to an ear
like a mirror the ocean sings.
Wind, heartbeat, tidal
pulse, base to crown
at the suture, a broad and deep
channel spells a winding
terrace of dreams. Twisted columellas
cut into elongate beads:
wampum, each tongue-touched
curve, each mother-word forgotten here
yet lost, yet found.
Read the poetry of Janet Aalfs
Read a profile of Janet Aalfs
Within the spine
another spine, memory
a ribbon of eggs. Venus necklace
strung in silence. Countless
perfect specks become
large pear-shaped bodies
of turreted whorls.
Buffy blue-gray sculpture,
such fine revolving lines,
within memory, another spine
small as a grain of sand begins
the wordless form that ends
hurled from surf to shore.
Empty then, held to an ear
like a mirror the ocean sings.
Wind, heartbeat, tidal
pulse, base to crown
at the suture, a broad and deep
channel spells a winding
terrace of dreams. Twisted columellas
cut into elongate beads:
wampum, each tongue-touched
curve, each mother-word forgotten here
yet lost, yet found.
Read the poetry of Janet Aalfs
Read a profile of Janet Aalfs
Jorge Davis Bites His Tongue,
So To Speak
Jorge Davis
|
The Obstructionist I sat there holding, and rubbing my larynx, trying perhaps to find a word in there. But something shut me down. And the word lay trapped. And they began to pile up. All the while this extraordinary woman kept looking at me; kicking the table leg with her biker boots (and I know this because I have a pair just like them: sexy.) And the vibrations originating from those leather boots only exacerbated my condition. And she grew frustrated, and left; left me there, rubbing my larynx and wondering what a doctor would say: You will need immediate surgery; to remove that middle finger lodged in your throat, by the ex Read the poetry of Jorge Davis Read a profile of Jorge Davis |
Mikels Skele
|
Mikels Skele's With A Span Of Song And Lore |
Mackinac Bridge
In the center lanes, your tires
whine against the taut steel grid,
five miles of heartache
standing in for gray tarmac,
which knows nothing of music,
and so, stays mute.
In the center, in the heart, you can hear
ballads of the iron workers
who laid the steel across wind-warned
waves, whitecaps straining to reach them,
to pull them down among the generations
of sailing men and women, who,
heedless of candled windows and
widow’s walks,
never came home.
“You belong to me,“ sang the lake,
“you who know no bounds
but sky and steel. I will be your bed,
your limit, your last true lover.
Come to me.”
And they did,
and the bridge, knowing this better
than all the histories of men,
sings with the voices of ghosts
wrung from the iron waves.
Read the poetry of Mikels Skele
Read a profile of Mikels Skele
jacob erin-cilberto
|
jacob erin-cilberto's Motel, Where Love Has Checked Out |
do not disturb
sensibility checked out of the motel
reason became a vacancy sign
and love left without paying its bill,
now the neon light flickers with rage
and old age,
a bunch of rooms with empty beds
no one sleeps together in harmony
anymore
they stand at attention
with threats as bedfellows
munching midnight snacks
staring at the closet door
listening for monsters
praying,
the cleaning service quit years ago
the manager threw up his arms in surrender
and moved to a new country
but the lights keep flickering
enticing hearts to stop for comfort
and empty the closets of old woes
and restlessness
put sheets of poetry on the beds
let minds roll over in peace,
and maybe pay for another night
just to feel safe for a page or two.
Read the poetry of jacob erin-cilberto
Read a profile of jacob erin-cilberto
sensibility checked out of the motel
reason became a vacancy sign
and love left without paying its bill,
now the neon light flickers with rage
and old age,
a bunch of rooms with empty beds
no one sleeps together in harmony
anymore
they stand at attention
with threats as bedfellows
munching midnight snacks
staring at the closet door
listening for monsters
praying,
the cleaning service quit years ago
the manager threw up his arms in surrender
and moved to a new country
but the lights keep flickering
enticing hearts to stop for comfort
and empty the closets of old woes
and restlessness
put sheets of poetry on the beds
let minds roll over in peace,
and maybe pay for another night
just to feel safe for a page or two.
Read the poetry of jacob erin-cilberto
Read a profile of jacob erin-cilberto