Archive #44
February, 2017
French Creek Water Trail
Sometimes they surge through telephone wires or drip from the kitchen faucet my father couldn’t fix. Memories are always moving-- streaming hot fudge down Dairy Isle sundaes after soccer practice, sweat and sweet meeting for the first time. Or the pouring, moments after my mom says, “It’s gonna rain-- look at the cows laying down,” cruising by a farm past highway 98 in a Chevy that still runs like the effortless flow of gossip in a one stoplight town, Population: 997. They trickle into my nostrils: trace of wood chips, gasoline, the flood of burnt blackberry pancakes for breakfast. Sometimes they spill over, tears down cheeks after a punch from my older brother. But the swiftest circuit in Saegertown is French Creek, the blue vein that never runs off course. The one that separates the school from the Dairy Isle, the one that George Washington was once on in 1753. My father told me never to swim there-- his classmate drowned the Friday after high school graduation in an inner tube, among friends, swallowed by a strong undercurrent. Population: 996. The boy’s mother still left the porch light on, every night for thirty years until she got swept away, too. That’s why the river is muddied, not blue or forgiving. It is clouded with the bodies of a twelve-year-old girl whose canoe buckled in June and a six-year-old boy, ever curious that toppled into a whirlpool. 995. 994. 993. All were carried away as my mother will be, and my father, my brother (though he’ll put up one hell of a fight) and someday, me, even with grass safe beneath my feet. Read the poetry of Kara Knickerbocker Read a profile of Kara Knickerbocker
Warriors
I move through the jungle cautiously, stealthily, alert for the slightest movement. Body tense, spear poised, I sniff the faint breeze trying to pick up a scent, sweat, meat, fear, anything that reveals the foe. A bush moves where it shouldn’t. I raise my spear, aim, throw. I move through the jungle, cautiously, stealthily, alert for the slightest movement. Body tense, rifle poised, I sniff the faint breeze trying to pick up a scent, sweat, cigarette, fear, anything that reveals the foe. A bush moves where it shouldn’t. I raise my rifle, aim, fire. My drone moves over the jungle hopefully unobserved, camera alert for movement. Body tense, joystick firm, I hover at 1500 feet eager to pick up a trace. A bush moves where it shouldn’t. I aim a missile, push a button, launch. Read the poetry of Gary Beck Read a profile of Gary Beck
from Selected Tanka
reading a bedtime story to my son again he asks me to spell T.S. Eliot ❦ conversing through our mobiles across the table … my husband asks me is it raining outside? ❦ falling under its own weight a dandelion flower … my son runs in all directions to fill his basket Read the poetry of Archana Kapoor Nagpal Read a profile of Archana Kapoor Nagpal
when the lion awakens
from within so much dark emotion lives deep within us locked away from centuries past idling by and unafraid able to unleash itself most unexpectedly almost anything can spark its wickedness awakening from dormancy and revealing bloody secrets only unknown ancestors ever knew subsisted like a lion suddenly enraged instinctively you rush from out of the bushes rip apart the innocent lamb quietly devouring any remnant of yourself Read the poetry of J Matthew Waters Read a profile of J Matthew Waters
well and rightly
Loss becomes more common place next to years lived, well and rightly, left to grass covered hillocks and gravestones. I know now that kith and kin includes the land as well as the relations that one inherits in blood and bone and breath and love and life, the last time I thought about it, includes losing those both kith and kin and I will end with a small hillock of my own of green grass and the breath of wind, well and rightly. Read the poetry of Kathleen Everett Read a profile of Kathleen Everett
Mommy
Remember when you beat on his chest, called him a drunken sot, pushed him back into his old green chair, drunk, overstuffed, his eyes crossed, body limp and breathless? Ward, you screamed, and called an ambulance. Afterward you pulled me into bed, your hamarm vicegrip held me against monster breasts. Later your hamhands palmup witnessed to the bedroom ceiling: Please God forgive me! I’ll never say another nasty word to him, Lord. I promise. I was ten years old and squirmed for release, but you grabbed my face. Your father almost died tonight, you screamed, as if it was I who had slammed his cross-eyed maybecorpse into that chair. Inside your carpmouth lipstick deathsmile, your swirling bedroom purling toiletflush melting dresser dissolving ChanelNo.5stink deliquescing turquoise jewelry chrysallised chemicalpink cheerylava cough medicine vertiginous vortex of bedroom sucked into liquefying family crapper soultrap-- not enough of me left in your hamlock, not even enough of me left to puke. Two days before he died, you wished him dead. Had the Lord heard your witness? Had He felt your hammy palms cup His ether? Did He read your deathline there-- how, at ninety-six, you’d take two days to die, husbandforgot, sonforgot, and ask, in your deathchild voice, where has my mommy got to? Read the poetry of Charlie Brice Read a profile of Charlie Brice
Central Park Ramble
I enter the park at 72nd Street, where Imagine is written in stone, and wander down the drive, across the old bridge, over the mist that veils the other shore. I follow the blacktop path, to the fork in the road, marked by a gnarled oak tree clinging to life, its roots twisted around a slab of granite. Going to my left, I see the gray walls of the castle on the hill rise above the trees, access to it cut off, isolated by a cross-traffic canyon. You can’t get there from here. At the comfort station, a guy in drag and a cowboy pose outside the men’s room. “Gotta extra smoke?” “Yeah.” I oblige “Need a boy-friend?” “No thanks.” They wait for somebody, any body to cruise on by. I wander past the out-cropping of bedrock to the clearing, a patch-work of shade, shadow, and sun, spread over the carpet lawn. Couples on blankets, picnicking, snuggling, men and women, men and men, women and women, someone for everyone to move on and out of the darkness, into the light. I stroll by the boathouse, across the drive, say good-bye to Alice, Hans, and Humpty, watch the sailboats slide and glide over the reflecting pool, and I fade on to Fifth Ave. held down only by the pull of gravity. Read the poetry of Peter V. Dugan Read a profile of Peter V. Dugan
Peach Trees
The two small peach trees out back Are dressed with a thickness sprayed green And their limbs bountiful weighed with fruit So they seem to be like weary mothers, overlong for birth Making a path ponderously through the yard, Waddling in their fat, glorious splendor, As we, animated dancing fools Celebrate the coming harvest. So richly blessed with bushels, we laugh While their overload, sighing, breaks branches. Limbs worn weary, sigh again, Will this be done with soon? Properly done, excess fruit should be shorn Early delight of twelve billion buds overwhelmed us No farmer’s wisdom nor books of bloom graced our yard Enthused delusions let them grow. Unruly child. With abandon. A Collaboration From Reka Jellema
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Surely
if I’m writing this I’m still alive and there isn’t much to be done until after breakfast at which time the noise in the air will be deafening and the girls from across the street with fangs for teeth will announce their candidacies for empress of the field in which pumpkins grow so large you can build your own universe and bear your children who will become serpents in the grass devouring and spitting each other out at such a rate that one may wonder if there will ever be a safe place again to call one’s own as you hide in the shadows hoping to survive if only for another day. Read the poetry of Jeffrey Zable Read a profile of Jeffrey Zable
Artwork by Sharon Brogan. Click photo for larger view.
My Past Came to Visit Today
my past came to visit today we sat together in the garden both thicker, older, milder each carries memory of the other each carries memory for the other we stretched out our legs rested our shoulders back watched the koi drift in the pond & pulled in our nets of memory each, for the other Read the poetry of Sharon Brogan Read a profile of Sharon Brogan
Rejection Letter
Begin with a cordial greeting. Name the victim, peacefully. Call it out. Only once. Yodel across the margins. Ease in the word decline. Like a broken leg skiing on a broken slope. Suddenly. Leave it out of the letter. Simply include it for the Submittable form. Put forth your appreciation for the now, nameless. Writer. Poet. Thinker. Doer. Submitter. Keep it to a few sentences. Don’t overthink the obvious. Sum it up briefly. We appreciate you taking your time. We wish you success. Best of luck in placing your work elsewhere. Don't sugarcoat, or over-butter it. Keep it together. Peacefully end it. Be generic. Email template. With regards. Wishing you the best. Drop a name or two if you wish. Let it flow. Like an endless river. Then build the dam. Read the poetry of Alyssa Trivett Read a profile of Alyssa Trivett
Blue
Blue skies, blue sea, a day of sparkling sunshine, with a shimmering horizon. And then, out of this blue, You, smiling sadly with your lovely blue eyes. I knew you from the back, you said, the cut of your hair, your bright blue mac. I wanted to see your face again, it’s only fair, you’ve seen mine. You must have done, me, being who I am. I wanted to smell your clean hair smell. So I took a chance, and here I am. I wanted to abate the sadness. I nodded. Yes. I know it’s true. It’s all been said and we won’t be sad. No blue moods on this bright blue day of smiling sunshine. We’ll go together now, for now and be glad. After all, one way or another, everything will end in tears, I said, So let’s take our now time and chance the rest. Read the poetry of Lynn White Read a profile of Lynn White
No One Looks at Old Men
I sit in my coffee shop, day after day, moving the spoon to catch the white streak the overhead light swirls in my cup. Sit and watch no watching. Maybe I could change that? Light up the gray faces on the counter stools. Next Monday I will wear shoes that don't match, maybe a tennie and a boot. Tuesday, a pink polka dot tie, with my Purple Heart pinned on, outside my coat. A large, orange comb in my left over hair, Wednesday. Thursday, the rainbow bandanna my only daughter gifted me long ago. On the first day of the weekend, my teeth in a glass on the table. But that would not be nice to the young waitress who wears the watermelon uniform. She doesn't look at me when she always smiles, but she is very careful with my cup, filling even when it is almost full. Then, Saturday, my old, rusted service revolver. Just set it in on the table in full view. Would the cook notice as he does when I sit too long? I don't come here on Sundays because it's closed. Read the poetry of Vern Fein Read a profile of Vern Fein
Valedicition Without Central Metaphor
You were my coup de foudre, my love at first sight. In French, this means stroke of lightning—electricity running through my stunned body from crown to sole. Love, you were blind. From birth, your eye muscles twitched, your deep nearsightedness strained beyond correction—much less cure--by any surgery or lens. Congenital vertical nystagmus—life sentence to magnified text, to voice synth, to print pressed close to your gorgeous face. A petal between pages I shut to keep blooming somehow. A wing’s shadow. All the sad songs that make blindness a metaphor for failure, unperceived fortune, letting me/you go, I must redact, skipping at that phrase—scratched record, heart’s needle jumping and moving on. Love, I tried to say goodbye without leaving, but no-- the radiance of your presence receded from my flesh. Once we walked hand in hand, pressure of small fingers on sinuous palm affectionate and directional. I cherished everything about you—your monocular scanning street signs, a steampunk periscope. The cane you hated, albino spider crouched folded by the wall. Love, oh careless love—the quiver of your mood-ring eyes, darkening to blue, drew me to your sky, both canopy and ground for coupling. Shaken by the foreplay of desire. Read the poetry of Angele Ellis Read a profile of Angele Ellis
Winter Onions
My little round sleepers with lots of coats on, mud huggers with a tribal bottom perfectly lined up at the bus stop of spring, soft under the cold loam, a miracle despite the banality of hidden numbers; time to drink tea as I wait in a cooling garden Old old is the smell of lavender, washed faces, the dust brown of waxed furniture, bouquets of veined hands that hide pearls in indian boxes, alongside cameras that fled across years, heavy-eyed then there is you, the way you change, you are half of these years, not just the ebb, but a wave never slight Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert Read a profile of Leslie Philibert
Worlds Within a World
Asleep on the subway steps With her tattered heart And broken spirit Token dish with a few carelessly tossed offerings Who were you in the other world Before you crashed and burned in this one? Old man Remnants of your hippie past To which you cling so desperately Tie-dyed dreams Love bead longings No longer relevant for anyone But you Funky chick Plugged into your music While the rest of the city Hurries by But you don’t care It’s all about your own beat Conference call chic Couture concerns With boardroom blues Can you pencil in a moment from your Agenda-filled life Long enough to notice anyone else? Honky tonk cowboy With a guitar on your back The concrete jungle Seems a long way From your home-on-the-range life Ivy league wishes With elitist strides Textbook case Of dissertation dilemma And classroom confusion They are us And we are them Each of us living in our own worlds While trying to get by in this one Read the poetry of Jill Lapin-Zell Read a profile of Jill Lapin-Zell
Ode to the Outlaw
~ “Where have you gone my…” Blessed be the outlaw the Lone man lost, but Found on mountains too Wild, too free To be tamed. This outlaw This wild man wild Like winds that blow Through trees that cannot Be found… somewhere, lost, On the sides of distant Peaks. This Wanderer, this cowboy Of plains and places That cannot be found on Any maps. Where the Hawk sits. Where the stream falls Down from snows that tumble Down from skies which were dark once, So long ago. This wanderer, this Outlaw of songs that whisper Through pines and that knock On doors in mountain towns but Once answered… once answered the Door opens to aspen songs and Freedom and winds that crest the Hills and fall back to words sung once So long ago… so long Ago that I think of a man Straightening a picture once and Gazing back, gazing back with Wild eyes of plains and mountains and Nights spent by open fires beneath open Stars that smelled of… Rain of, Such sublime, sweet, Freedom? Read the poetry of matthew Henningsen Read a profile of matthew Henningsen |
Swan Song
How hangs the moon? Its swells all aglow contained in essences unguessed, or unremembered. How dies the sun? Its fires all but claimed, mortgaged to the teeth, unable further to dim. The stars still hold their own, it seems. Orion still hunts the bear, faithful mutt dogging his footheels, bow at the ready, at least until one or another of its strings explodes across the sky, uncontrolled, reckless. If there’s a lesson in it for us, mudbound, entwined, encoiled in rumored codes, blind to the stipulations of our own existence, it will be told too late, our gasps of recognition insufficient to sustain us. Read the poetry of Mikels Skele Read a profile of Mikels Skele
A Long Weekend
Sometimes life is overwhelming, like when you take the day off work and sit in a car for hours on end to spend six minutes on stage reading words from a page in aid of a fundraiser, and you stand beneath the cross and try not swear or say something contentious, and you see ethnicity and try not to worry about all the little things that might go wrong. You go on corporate away days where they make you relax whether you like it or not, and then hop on Thomas and ride Clarabel home through Drayton Manor Theme Park, holding hands with your girlfriend – because I’m pretty sure that’s what she is – as she’s worried sick on the Apocalypse. You go shopping walking through warehouses and wandering through the market, and sometimes you even go to dinner. Then you drive back home or fall asleep in the passenger seat because you’re reading but your little eyes won’t stay open, so you watch a season finale and stand up speaking slowly at The Rose and Crown. Sometimes a weekend is all you need; all you need is love, and love I’m feeling. Read the poetry of Dane Cobain Read a profile of Dane Cobain
from More Selected Haiku
ripples on the pond echoes of a moment past darting dragonfly. ❦ the past is not there do not try to re-connect dreams cannot be hugged. ❦ distant mountain range grasses dancing in the wind one lone cloud drifts by. ❦ those not forgiving burn the bridge of forgiveness they must someday cross. Read the poetry of Thomas Canull Read a profile of Thomas Canull
honest
destiny is good full deep self isolation breathes odors deeply the peeling paint is beautifully falling from the walls to the floor I need contentment to form a new opinion of my newest self accuracy the only things sure are constant anger and depression my eyes see blurry my ears hear blurry my mouth speaks blurry my hands scratch words on the walls and the floor Read the poetry of r soos Read a profile of r soos
Dérive (Drift)
Look there, a gold leaf drifts in the breeze floating down through the now bare trees finally alights upon a bleached white skull that has laid there since last Halloween. coffee pot makes its melodious growl the old cats tail thumps keeping time blueberries sit in a purple stained bowl I wonder why you haven't gotten the mail. thoughts, like the leaf, drift in your mind time passes quicker than it did as a child your little dog barks chasing some leaves coffee in tow, another apple log to the fire. blissful blues waft from the parlor stereo the cat looks up as the horn section plays you return from your walk down the drive the pancakes sound wonderful you know? Light on the desk flickers in the fall wind I write another verse to the poem of us tossing the ink, but it doesn't sound right breakfast awaits, I dérive to the kitchen. Read the poetry of Ken Allan Dronsfield Read a profile of Ken Allan Dronsfield
Kepler
Passing between Earth and a star, a slow creeping heralds a body in motion. Possibly a body in no solid-state, or acridly molten, or maybe the stillness of a body under extreme pressure with surface sculpted by wind, topiary of inviolate water, suspended in orbit. Could be some far-off moon. Could be terrestrial. Passing between Earth and a star, the transit is precisely numerically captured. As though no sisal twined to nets can catch fish. As though no palm can cross your arched back, no murmurs or rustling in the darkness. No crisped edges of butter lace cookies, no wine stain on the edge of the tablecloth. As though there did not exist the nape of your neck. I measure you by your shape outlined in moonlight passing between the bed and the doorway. Your transit is etched with photometric precision. The lens of the Kepler, the mirror of my eye. Read the poetry of Jen Stein Read a profile of Jen Stein
Kaleidoscope and
Harpsichord As I've told my wife too many times, the meaning of any poem hides in the marriage of cadence and sound. Vowels on a carousel, consonants on a calliope, whistles and bells, we need them all tickling our ears. Otherwise, the lines are gristle and fat, no meat. Is it any wonder, then, my wife has a problem with any poem I give her to read for a second opinion, especially when the poem has no message and I'm simply trying to hear what I'm saying and don't care if I understand it. The other night in bed I gave her another poem to read and afterward she said this poem was no different than the others. She had hoped I'd improve. "After all," she said, "you've been writing for years but reading a poem like this is like looking through a kaleidoscope while listening to a harpsichord." Point well taken, point well said. But then I asked her what should a man do if he has careened for years through the caves of his mind spelunking for the right line for a poem only to hear his wife say after reading one of his poems that it was like "looking through a kaleidoscope while listening to a harpsichord." What should he do--quit? "Not a chance," she said this morning, enthroned at the kitchen table, as regal as ever in her fluttery gown and buttering her English muffin with long, languorous strokes Van Gogh would envy. "He should write even more, all day and all night, if need be. After all," she said, "my line about the kaleidoscope and harpsichord still needs a poem of its own. It's all meat, no gristle, no fat." Read the poetry of Donal Mahoney Read a profile of Donal Mahoney
Wild Roses
Never since has a scent been as strong wild roses in front of the cottage the sea’s salt breath on the petals my mother’s complexion her suntan lotion & I without knowing it then was opening like a rose like mother’s mouth when she said good morning like the sea when it revealed the shadow of a fish awareness revealing that there was besides my flesh another world that asked me to travel it with gentleness and caring to honour it with my eyes then much later with words. Read the poetry of Mark Gordon Read a profile of Mark Gordon
The Dying Delta
After a Southern dream of a young woman in a white dress sprinting across the lawn of an antebellum mansion, chased by some bearded guy with a gun waving the flag of the great disorder, I get down to sadness in a cypress swamp. Landscapes suffer and who knows a delta's needs, a blue sky in brown water, a marshland getting by on luck and the dutiful splendor of the merest forms of life. In sweaty khakis and heavy boots, I trudge through the swill clouds of a lowly heaven where egrets are angels and the alligator is god. Time to pray, I'm thinking. Time to pray. There are laws of nature that are not themselves anymore. Yet their small print holds me up though knowing it's the likes of me who made them what they are - shrinking waters, ghost trees, decaying mangroves and a vanishing frog. Your killers once ordered slaves into the fields to the great whip of heat and called them songbirds. That's how they abandon their true history. Now you are nothing but the lie behind the legend - an estuary of a once mighty river, a waif abandoned to the homes and highways, and we all know what charity that brings. Read the poetry of John Grey Read a profile of John Grey
Superhero Tendencies
Tending to directives from somewhere else—Meanwhile and Suddenly and Next time-- Placing her into a trajectory She can obediently follow, with thought: “In a way that is sudden, something acts suddenly, I react equally and here is collision, against a collusion, for the good. Here: I can be heroic!” Meanwhile, she sits because this is what she does: Sit here at work, sit here on bus, here at home. At times, she is in the path of cleaning, cooking, Grooming, being. With obeisance, without Question. She looks up at those directives, hand-lettered And Nietzscheian. Or anti Nietzsche. She can’t figure it out. Read the poetry of DeMisty D. Bellinger Read a profile of DeMisty D. Bellinger |
