Archive #53
November, 2017
Death is My Tailor
Death has fitted a suit in my size and favorite color. He brings it wherever he goes, and in those crazy moments when my chest begins to tighten, or my automobile careens, or a fever sits like a whore on my brow, Death slips in and has me try it on. Just to make his minute alterations, in the event I will need something smart to put on for when I go with him to the station. Because he knows I won't be caught dead in what I die in. I watch him working--pins between his lips, he hums to himself, drawing out the black threads of danger, disease and despair, his hand white like a bird, fluttering off as it rises with a flourish, the needle--a fish in the beak of his fingers. He mentioned once, as he adjusted the crotch of the second pair of pants, how much better it is for all concerned that we, quoting the poet now: die more lightly than live, and how better to do that than to put on something equal to the occasion of our passage? Read the poetry of Will Reger Read a profile of Will Reger
What it is to covfefe in the sun
it could mean that my neighbor is jealous of me. and why not. take a look at me. I am beautiful. they are not. my garage door opens with a single push of a button. they stoop in the sun and pull on the iron like James Brown separating himself from the earth. I can think they cannot. I changed my pants this morning, while they wear the same clothes. I held a job. get a pension, raise a flag in memorial they get food stamps. their kids are well fed. they have big stomachs. while I sit alone peering at my single fish. Read the poetry of Dana Rushin Read a profile of Dana Rushin
Beard Fixation
What’s this beard thing anyway? Everywhere, defining a generation, overflowing to the one before. Started small, sudden explosion. Not seeing one’s the anomaly. Sports, bus stops, ordinary dudes, everywhere. Males connecting thing? Sub-species marking? But not me? Until last week. The urge not to shave irresistible. I didn’t. Rebellion. Primal instinct. Male instinct. Viking. Pillage, plunder, rape (figure of speech only). Still stubble. Resolved to go the distance. Stick it out. Glorious release... till itch or food gets lodged in hairy follicles repeatedly. Or Summer. I’m sweating like a pig. Such is life. Ned Kelly would agree. Read the poetry of Martin Christmas Read a profile of Martin Christmas
Driftwood
Wood drifted into floating sleep buoyant dreams ebbed and flowed tangled limb desire swept through her empty branches logged and lodged in her knotted mind tumbled smooth skin sonambulant senses wished for his bare bark to envelop her sea damp contours offering her the fantasy of sap rising – heartwood restoration but a drift she was dry and dead inside yet the sea journeyed her home to a shore where lovers saw her poverty and loneliness they adorned her with sentimental souvenirs and she became someone else’s memory. Read the poetry of Rowan Taw Read a profile of Rowan Taw
Reply to Billy Collins’s “The Lanyard”
The other week I was ricocheting off the bloody walls of my psyche as another pale cis male friend’s face softened over Billy Collins’s “The Lanyard.” I found myself searching out the word in an unholy host of electronic dictionaries. I have seen people use lanyards. You can wear one to hold a whistle, as women do, walking mean streets-- or a knife, though not one as large as the blade my coworker Marietta Melton brandished in the subways of Philadelphia. Every day, she braided her daughter’s hair by the filthy Schuylkill, beading the strands-- black over red, white, and blue. But a lanyard is not only a chain. A lanyard is a lifeline, saving a ship’s sails as they strain in opposing winds, whiter than milk from a mother’s breast or the formula I sucked from a rubber nipple. But this poem was going to be about how as the oldest of five children birthed in fewer than six years, I gave my mother a lot more than a damn camp lanyard. Here are thousands of meals, she said, and here is how you prepare them. Here is your right-hand girl, I said, which you made with a little help from the patriarchy. But this is what I want to say to her now: Here is the larger gift. Not the sentimental fantasies that cling to power like rich old Republicans, but the grateful admission that despite endless chores from your and my hands, I was as sure as a girl could be that the songs I wove from love and longing were not useless and worthless things, and that alone would be enough to make us even. Read Billy Collins' poem "The Lanyard" Read the poetry of Angele Ellis Read a profile of Angele Ellis
from Eight Selected Tanka Silent as the heron beside the pond we too search for our sustenance in dark waters ❊ Alone today at dawn the mist rising the geese heading northeast taking me with them ❊ We sat by the lake turning into fog letting go of our ties to the earth ❊ Brighter and brighter the sun shines naming the cities it has awakened Read the poetry of Mark Gordon Read a profile of Mark Gordon
Borough Park
The sun filters through windows hitches onto tales nine decades old. A spectral witness-- I watch you and Maggie dressed in young boys’ clothes, steal cherries from the neighbor’s tree. Years later, you, your brothers and sisters (my uncles, aunts) roll up the parlor carpet, crank the victrola dance the Lindy Hop & the Shimmy. I still can feel the polished hardwood floor vibrate beneath nimble feet. When I’m no longer here can no longer dream of stepping from the kitchen door of the brownstone on Kenmore Place to the garden can no longer imagine the peonies in full bloom when my older sister was born or envision the glider that seats four— Who will recall the fragrance of the grapes? Or the goldfish swimming in the rock garden? Will such memories evaporate or keep sailing by— a ghost ship in a shifting sky? Read the poetry of Judith Dorian Read a profile of Judith Dorian
Dividing-Line
He sits and looks into the space of the table, lights a chain of cigarettes over his head. His heart is burning down to his shoes. It should never have happened, this battle. But she's gone. . . He can't believe it, he can still hear her on their net of wild stings gathering her things, leaving wrapping up the life of her own she was always telling him about. Read the poetry of Katherine Gallager Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher
It Would Feel Better
The phone is quiet. It would feel better if someone called with thoughts to share. The front door closes, leaving me behind with my dog, cat and hard won independence. It would feel better if they stayed, suggested coffee, a bit of conversation, exhibited a sliver of awareness how quiet this house becomes when doors shut. I am naked with my needs whether sun finds me or not; light does not make my world clearer. When front doors close me out, wants and needs escalate isolation inherent with blindness. Naked to the world, imagine those who see my vulnerability, circle its dark perimeter, then resist breaching this enclosure. It would feel better if they crossed its threshold, filled a chair, sip from proffered mug, brave to throw an empathetic lifeline, ask, What is it like in there? I'd attempt a grab at truth, describe what feels missing—lost forever-- what feels possible. How an extra minute of friendship gives warmth where light can't. With only night for comfort, I feel left in a solitary stance. Am encouraged to call—anytime I'm in need. I need the impossible: to understand why. It would feel better believing I'm not to blame. The phone might ring—bring humanity, empathy, friendship. The front door might open; invitation accepted to step inside my home, fill the emptiness within this heart, light the space between our souls. Read the poetry of Ria Meade Read a profile of Ria Meade
The Longest Night
The winter solstice seeps into the silent house. He sits for hours outside of a darkened closet. Heat from the furnace ripples bags of immaculate dresses, rows of pressed slacks, boxes of unwrinkled blouses. He steps over a crumpled damp bathrobe, neatly hangs it next to her scarves. A ringing telephone goes straight to voicemail. At dawn sunlight struggles through gaps in the curtains. White snow shimmers in the cold. Read the poetry of Frank C. Modica Read a profile of Frank C. Modica |
Bird Season
The leaf-bare sky, porcelain, robin’s egg, Auracana-egg, cerulean, is frangible, cracked open by the errant shot and the thump-thrum trajectory of the wily grouse in flight. ♢ star crossed she specializes in constructions using egg shells old coins and bits of string and wire he writes poems in pencil and shifts from free verse to rhyme without reason they live on other planets a million miles away and gossip on the radio with seven hours delay Read the poetry of Ray Sharp Read a profile of Ray Sharp
She Sits with Me on the Bus Every Day
Our dads drop us, we wait together. Then we sit on the bus. We talk sometimes. We talk all the time. There are terrific silences. Next year she is going to college. I am going back to high school. And the year after that. And the next. The bus isn’t crowded. There are other places to sit. Barbara always takes the window, and I always take the seat beside her. At my school, the boys’ school, I get off, and the bus goes to the girls’ school a few miles away. I’ve never been to it. Don’t know where it is. But I like not knowing. I like looking in every direction and wondering where she could be. Read the poetry of Barrett Warner Read a profile of Barrett Warner
The Lark Falling
(After Li Po) I barely know in this pile of rotting flesh and bones, that blithe lark, ascending, as if straining to reach the sun. I tried and lost. His carcass seems to say. My race has been run. What was he hoping for, I wonder. Was he simply young? He hadn’t yet learned, the race is over before it’s even begun. Did he dream of those miraculous clouds in the sky? Did he learn they were vapor, and vanished like a morning mist? And so he quit. Did disillusion kill him, as it will you and I? I look at the budding peonies in my garden, how slow in arriving, and how soon they die. Read the poetry of George Freek Read a profile of George Freek
Checked Out
Mom approached the hotel desk and asked for Grandpa’s Atkins’ room number. The manager was sorry, but Mr. and Mrs. Atkins had checked out an hour ago. The problem: Grandma Atkins was back in Omaha, blind, obese, and drunk. She’d stopped traveling with grandpa years ago. My mother probably didn’t notice the intricate carving on the mahogany desk, or smell the mix of deodorizer and furniture polish, nor did she appreciate the plush carpet with the peacock design, or the cracked leather chairs that, no doubt, grandpa had sat in while waiting for the faux “missis” to arrive under the crystal chandelier in the grand lobby. No, I’m sure my mother recalled the day she returned home from fifth grade to discover her father had sold her pet pig, whom she loved so much she could never tell me its name. Read the poetry of Charlie Brice Read a profile of Charlie Brice
Why Taking the #6 Train From
the Bronx is So Awfully Difficult You don't know how people live she told me. How they crawl across the floor on all fours how they scream in the night, spit glass through those sounds in your head. You don't know how hard it was to end up here on the edge of this cliff. She's ranting on the #6 train in small puffs of black air. Sharing her small space of seat with a pregnant woman – shaking her fists at the holes in her sleeves. Those mittens will get caught like lies between your teeth. Eyes darting to her then me; a sliver of air fits between her coat and the long loose lines of my legs. Sharing thin strips of black hollow air/cloudy windows with names in markers Smeared across the glass. I drink my coffee - the swallowed up gathering of us in deep woolen coats and those blank, startled noises pushing us along slamming into stops and those lights from the tunnel. Read the poetry of Amy Soricelli Read a profile of Amy Soricelli
Sharon Brogan. Elements: Jen Maddocks, Lynne-Marie, Michelle Godin. Click to enlarge
Breaking News
Once again my representative tops the list of the most corrupt. Who will we be, without the Bill of Rights? What will stop this erosion of our character, the sea eating at our coastlines; greed and lust overpowering the powerful? Needless wars and careless heat, the coming dust of devastated forests -- heedless, we entertain ourselves, evening after evening, stories of murder, rage and retribution -- diversions from disaster, actual and impending -- this sacred land and others, no less beautiful, alive -- who will we be, should we survive? Read the poetry of Sharon Brogan Read a profile of Sharon Brogan
Lady in a Dream
The city sidewalk couldn’t contain her. She pounded out each step, black loafers shifting concrete, paving roadways. Fingers taught and skin tight, she gripped the plastic grocery bags as if for dear life. Three bags toppled her figure, pulled it left then right, then upright again. She had worked a nine hour day, just wanted to make it home, her awareness made thin by the computer office space hours. Each day pushed into the next, she filled it with eighty percent work, ten percent time, ten percent sleep. And the time she packed, stuffed up with dinner, friends, talking, poking, prodding, sighing, and some days, grocery shopping. And the sidewalk let her pass, let her dash on through, a rushing whirling pace of legs, a doing filling mess of limbs, and she moved like she moved and she thought that’s all there was, until there was not. Read the poetry of Laura Traverse Read a profile of Laura Traverse
Thursday's Ode to
Rachel Carson Rachel, to you it is this flower, late in life-- it blooms an orchid bud, scent of honeyed hyacinth. Will I be too late for spring? Can a garden plagued with early frost yield earthy fertile ground? The Harvest Moon was long in coming. Early Springs had been too tender, (or choked on so confused a death) but carried fields of buttercups at last to growth surrenders. Read the poetry of Janette Schafer Read a profile of Janette Schafer
Pecking Order
We hung suet out on the deck today hoping the wrens would come and stay the winter, nest in the yard and next summer fill the air with song. In an hour or so the wrens arrived but minutes later the beak of a flicker hammered at them and they flew away. The flicker had time for a snack before a blue jay brusque as the weather came and took over. The jay as well had a snack before a squadron of starlings landed to feast and Fuzzy the cat rolled over the fence eager to leap. With the starlings gone the cat lost interest and moseyed around for a minute or two and then dove back over the fence. With no one around and the suet deserted the wrens came back and ate some more until the jay came back and took over again. Any minute now we expect to see the starlings return and take over the suet for a raucous dessert. Read the poetry of Donal Mahoney Read a profile of Donal Mahoney
Baggage Check In
Do you have any sharp objects in your luggage such as scissors, a screwdriver, a tongue not under control? Do you have any toxic substances such as organic peroxides, corrosives, poison in your veins and/or mind? Do you have any ammunition such as blasting caps, flares or information to harm friends who harmed you? Do you have any items not in transparent containers such as liquids, contact lens solution, a broken heart? Do you still want to fly from here? Read the poetry of Paul Mortimer Read a profile of Paul Mortimer |
Spill
ice before they even hit the ground, words spill forwards onto dark pavement, and backwards into my shallow shadow down into winter ground, and warmly into my frozen palms, shoved neatly into empty pockets, empty letters forming words spilling out into dirty snow drowning meaning, covering sound, forcing feeling to retreat, words spill meaningless, ice before they even make their mark beautiful, maybe but silent Read the poetry of Rosa Saba Read a profile of Rosa Saba
Fear Of Trains
autumn rain is akin to black tea, the burnt yellow of old growth watered, a train shakes the fields, like an old carpet snapping, birds shoot holes in the turbulent sky; the world is split like an apple, your head inside a bell, when it is over it is not over; the air hums with steel, too many eyes are in the undergrowth, evening's calm as brittle as toffee, shocked from coal and smoke, a heartbreath along rails. Read the poetry of Leslie Philibert Read a profile of Leslie Philibert
Cellaring
The wine sits in silence and grows into its fulness. The wine sits in silence and discloses nothing of its present nature. The smile of its finest moment is hidden-- so also the frown of its deep decline. The Blind Descent Legions march the earth-- they are not ours. The steady clap of doom fails to register. Foundations slowly fold back down to their ground unnoticed. The cries of birds do not signal the passing of America to unlistening ears. Unmoving cars caught in city traffic cough out apocalyptic prophecies-- only the dying trees can hear. Read the poetry of Bob Carlton Read a profile of Bob Carlton
Foreign Invasion:
and then it so happened, one time, you randomly asked of me, what happens if you fall in love? I think it is inevitably linked to any other type of foreign invasion. The host mounts a response; native elements prepare for defense or assimilation. There is cross-cultural juxtaposition, a lot of negotiation, some treaty- or cease fire, as the case may be. Castles are built in haste, moats defended. Rejection of an alien landscape, or surrender to a greater force. Be it for war, or be it a peaceful acquisition- there is no way to avoid confrontation. Love is always a full-scale foreign occupation: a coup of common sense, an installation of provisional governance. Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone Read a profile of Marie Anzalone
Divine Poker
Oh God— lay down Your hand, show Your cards! We have been here so long, the game must be over. Lay down Your hand on this worn, green felt Earth. Why do You wear a visor, never count Your chips? We have had beauty for snacks, pain for drinks all these many nights, sitting in our dim world, hats tilted down, cigars, cigarettes polluting our room. What do You have? A straight, a flush, a full house even four of a kind or just a skinny pair? Maybe You have nothing or are bluffing? What chance do we have! Show us Your hand. It is about Time. Read the poetry of Vern Fein Read a profile of Vern Fein
Insomnia
Wide awake and fully aware I am swept up in the steady fast pace flow of the midtown rush hour on 8th Ave. I wonder, if I slow down or stop will I be carried away or shoved aside like the homeless, the fallen leaves on the stream of humanity? Will I be washed up along the banks of this meandering river, waterlogged, submerged, unseen, side-stepped, avoided, ignored; left only to watch the surge of life pass from eddies, pools, alcoves, niches and side streets? I wait on the crowded platform to board the train alone in a throng, I am lost in an existential nightmare. I take my seat, look around the railroad car and ponder are we just passengers? Is this my reality or is it shared by others? I close my eyes to nap, & try to accept that this is as good as it gets. But then ask, will I always be on the outside looking in? I know Richard Cory sleeps in peace. Read the poetry of Peter V. Dugan Read a profile of Peter V. Dugan
Vacation Day
I play Twister out of bed, machine cord wrapped in sheets. Having electric dreams of sly neighbor cutting the lawn at five forty five on a Saturday morning. I trot into the shower, and washing machine cycle myself only to glide on Swiffer. I'm the custodian, after hours with headphones bigger than crooked halo hat I slamdance with the mop as I flame-throw dust and start an afternoon band with pots and pans railroad clinging as I switch gears and change magician hands. Bang my head into the mailbox, and flop around the grocery store like a dead fish playing slingshot boomerang with a volleyball net, in sweated out trucker hat cement. Days crank on. And then I think of all the sewing pattern people I know, borrowed laughs from and stitched into my coat. Only to hang around in coffee shops and shoot straw wrappers at my worthless stanzas. Read the poetry of Alyssa Trivett Read a profile of Alyssa Trivett
A Mountaineer’s Lament
~Found on a ridge on a lonely trail. You cannot find it if You looked even so Hard. Down deep tunnels in Quiet mountains. In Trees and lakes in Towns that died long Ago. You cannot Find it. More so think to see It in sunshine mist on half- Cold winter days. The form Far off on hills that almost seem To wave, To us… A lone bird that sits Pensive in the cool Morning air. You Cannot find It even if you looked even So hard, So still. Read the poetry of Matthew Henningsen Read a profile of Matthew Henningsen
Sarajevo
I want to run away sometimes, not from home but to home. Back to cracked roads, and unfinished houses - I want to kiss on the bridge Franz and Sophia died on. I want to sneak into cathedrals, stare into the lights and colors; envying a God that isn’t mine. I want to lean on Austro-Hungarian walls while Egyptian ice cream gives me brain freeze. I want espresso 10 times a day, crepes at midnight beside eternal flames, and book stores, kissing couples and laughing friends. I want the passion, the love, the constant music of the city. Kept safe by the mountains, thirst quenched with rivers, put to sleep only on a Monday - even then still slightly dancing to the hum of Sunday’s song Read the poetry of Sejla Srna Read a profile of Sejla Srna
An Aging Writer
Possibly there is something on the bed, and possibly this something is an old man, And what then? Archaeologists suggest digging in the bedroom's formal arrangement of elements where bony cheeks glimmer in morning sun, nostrils flutter like flags, waking can be viewed as complete. He is no longer judged by the quality of his flesh, merely his inscrutable artistic intent. Age is eighty or so but intention knows no limit. Nor does imagination. Something is incomplete. The insoluble needs solving. It is not about belief. That's his priest's domain. And there are no leisure options - just interruptions. There's pills of course - to tune down the heart, to regulate the stomach. And new studies suggest... but he never reads new studies. Doctors, he reckons, only exist to bother the intelligent. Not even accounting for the size of the bills they send him. He grabs hold of the bedpost and stands. For a moment, he's bones, skin tissue, hair. but then his mind kicks in and he rubs droopy eyes with droopier knuckles. Another day on his own terms. It will take the form he's planned for it. A history of Thomas Jefferson. A primer on Lepidoptera. Maybe something in the middle. American history versus moths. Writing has always been an impulsive media. First, coffee to evict the ghosts. Then, as per protocol, that old creaky chair, the typewriter. It's how he's been doing it for sixty live years. Arthritic fingers take to the keys like a fish to a puddle of rain. Read the poetry of John Grey Read a profile of John Grey |
