Archive #54
December, 2017
Appropriated Lessons
poets stress over a single word-- the single word— the definite or indefinite, writing about nothing, or something worse-- obscurity, what can't be expressed, a paradox found here or there. Meaning only arises coincidentally, not with what is stated but how, a reconfiguration of bits, a rhythm of a throbbing heart— this is what poets stress, the strain of the ear. As if penetrated, poets push back into the flesh of sounds spoken aloud, but seldom talk of empathy, about understanding soft hands-- this is missing from the hard silhouette of a dark ridge, stark lines full of thunder rolling, the beat of rain, that heartbeat of definite words, that rhythm of breath. Read the poetry of Emily Strauss Read a profile of Emily Strauss
Sky Lines
(lines written in honor Of the outlandish language That so colors the clouds of children) How can the clouds be So un-pretentious As to represent everything, Swimming, at times, along Like a gangly monster fish? In a pre-pubescent sky The flurry of clouds And an occasional sun Make a stew of the heavens Unrecognized by wisdom. We all dance in potato sacks Until we fall before we finish Under the undulations of the atmosphere Where all possibility is counted. So we have that first encounter At some undefinable point That begins a heady fermentation That becomes some other world, And our last sip of wind. Read the poetry of Phillip Carriere Read a profile of Phillip Carriere
Valediction
If I had known, the day before you left, that the cold fires of dawn would never be as warm, nor that birdsong would not be written for me alone, but that I would hear it as a stranger; if I had known you were never to return with the turning tide to the harbour of my bed, nor to reply when the winds followed you, calling in my lonely voice with its plea to come home; if I had known the hour of my loss, I might have died slowly upon the last kiss, or saved my tears and stoked the night fires with your name, until love was burnt to ashes. Read the poetry of Kerry O'Connor Read a profile of Kerry O'Connor
Stranded
In every quiet moment You are there, Twirled in my heart… A single thread of music Through all the chaos, All the noise and pounding A single strand of notes Barely audible Barely a breath… But there you are… Fingers of strength Holding me tight.. My serenity My sacred light Stranded within Wandering throughout all I am Every moment feels Like the tenderness of a kiss A brush of lips to skin Heart to soul Eyes–quieting to be held by yours Every moment Has a gentle reserve Washing through it Passion sitting on the edge Slowly eroded into us Twirled away quick as it fell Stranded within us Faint musical interludes Of love, of light Read the poetry of Rhonda L. Brockmeyer Read a profile of Rhonda L. Brockmeyer
Son of no one ☊
There never was a moment for you when freedom could have ripped your destiny in two - where choice not chance could have uncornered your existence. Because you took every risk - collapsing in the shadows, coveting the Egyptian Buddha. Your breath is like a child’s, breaking on a slab of rock held close to your face. I would fan the sun for you if it would make a difference, if your shoes would stay tied and your rage would stay at bay. I would pluck the curse from your veins, if there was something to pluck, if it wasn’t acceptance and only acceptance that would change the curse, not remove it, but alter its outcome. I love your eyes, beneath your dark ridge brows. I hear you singing in the middle of the night. I can taste the salt on your lips. You want to be cold, but you can’t be. You were made this way, to enter the world at your own pace. You are elemental, wider than your history. You are not alone. And that is something. Enjoy this poem in the PoetryAloud area
Read the poetry of Allison Grayhurst Read a profile of Allison Grayhurst |
Nature
It is hard to reconcile. The trees turn a stunning orange. The streams run clear and sweet. The sky is the bluest we have ever seen, But people-- People hate each other despite Their natural ability to love. People harm each other Despite knowing how harm feels. How can the sun shine so brilliantly On hills so green while someone Raises a hand to strike a child? How can we be transfixed by a sunset But avoid the eyes of someone Succumbing to pain? How can we be brave enough To scale a mountain yet so afraid That we turn our backs on The most basic of human dilemmas? It is hard to reconcile. We can taste the salt in the ocean, Caress the warm sand And inhale the breeze like incense, But not hold the face of someone When they weep, Or embrace a stranger who seems Lost or scared or simply sad. How is that we stare at the moon And imagine a face, But turn away repulsed by A scar or a bruise? How is that we love nature But not ourselves? Read the poetry of Robert Nied Read a profile of Robert Nied
Broken
The hawks are back across the street. Male, female flirting from tree to tree shrieking notes of love and warning. In my front yard trees bud delicate green, small white flowers drift among branches. Their beauty blocks my view. My mother shovels oatmeal inside her bowl, thinks the aides hate her, sobs into swollen hands. I ignore her phone call, carry guilt for hours. A penitent’s garb halos me as I go to visit her. Her words twist in air: I thought I’d die before your father. I’m alone all day. I’m waiting to die. I love you. I’m a burden, don’t hate me. The azaleas in my backyard bloom lavender. The pond in the cemetery still wears its bareness, the water broken by two mallard ducks. The male in his coat of many colors, the female quiet in her pilgrim’s dress. Read the poetry of Valerie Bacharach Read a profile of Valerie Bacharach
Seeing
There the tree with its wrinkled torso and malformed arms exults; though headless and legless, it is forever pointing and bowing to the unseen. I sit, my back against it, trying to see. It hunkers down and takes on all that nature is permitted to give; I complain of every pain that slinks inside my bubble. But the tree is not one to fret the fall, the winter, the animals, the axe. Were it to fall and fold me now, would I suddenly see from some other realm that I was among the fortunate to have been planted there where my roots were free to clutch a place worth clutching? Would not billions from across the world trade their lives for mine? Because I have not wept in waters not clean enough to drink, I have seen. Read the poetry of Thomas Locicero Read a profile of Thomas Locicero
Listening Post
This patch of sand assigned me in this Wide world is where I listen. I hear Footfalls echo, pages turning in memory And history. I hear the few march, then The many, a swell of leather thundering Onto the strand. Clouds build in my eyes, Tears rain, and great waves crash. Much Is spoken from these roaring walls of sea. The cries carry far over the sands of my life And yours, all of us. Mercy bids they fade Into the caressing breath of a sea long ago. Today I listen to that sea whisper salt onto The scars trod by the many on that far shore. Read the poetry of Louis G. Heath Read a profile of Louis G. Heath
The Sun is on Hiatus
Moss the color of malachite weaves its way up and under bark crevices of an old oak. Enchanting furry tendrils reach out as I walk past, my head burrowed against the January morning fog. Because it seems the sun has vanished for the foreseeable future, I am so lost in grayness I resist the curled invitations to dig deep, to engage to applaud the colors of the fog even as it surrounds me. Read the poetry of Claire Weiner Read a profile of Claire Weiner |
Seasons
wisteria we step in puddles of confetti the hum of bees I know every word by heart the bleached husk of a small crayfish summer wanes ice skating on a bluebird day our winged feet
Yakima Ferry at Sunset
Tonight I could write a thousand poems no one should have to read. All around me are hippie grandmothers and grey-haired men with dreamcatchers hanging from the rearview mirrors of their Isuzu’s. Everyone is irresistible tonight: the man in his NRA t-shirt, the child on the upper deck screaming about licorice, the woman who cut in front of me to buy a latte. I am skimming the edges like every poet on this boat, starting my sentences with the easiest words--I love, I love, I love to travel home by ferry, the women who smile at the men they don't know, how my tongue feels in my mouth, a sort of heaviness that never leaves. Read the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon Read a profile of Kelli Russell Agodon
Alarm Clock
I never click on those stories the ones about accidents the ones about kids but I did this time read it quickly thinking perhaps that if I did it fast I would slip right past the sorrow but of course the grief pinned me right away under the weight of the rubble of all the days he won’t see it took away my air as if I had swallowed something too big which of course I had the impossible irreversibility of it and they didn’t say much about his family but I know I will think about them on Christmas on rainy days on this day each year I will buckle a little but eventually I will get distracted but not them I read once that people in the ache of grief don’t need alarm clocks for years they want nothing more than to stay asleep dreaming of the day before that day but the sadness comes suddenly each morning like being stabbed the streets are still quiet and she puts her hand on her heart where the wound has opened up again. Read the poetry of Samantha Reynolds Read a profile of Samantha Reynolds
Firth
Blue is the coldest colour, or would be if blue had any urge to storybook the scene. The firth is a choppy tonnage of slate-grey, drilling platforms a mile-long join-the-dots pattern from holiday cottage to North Sea, the rising land on the far side shaded to drab by cloudbanks. Night is sudden: stage curtains take their time by comparison. Colour is reduced to the lights on the ships and the rigs, blipping out some ‘When Eight Bells Toll’ code. Rain starts, gathers insistence; hardens to hail. The firth is black now, the edge of the road indistinct. Read the poetry of Neil Fulwood Read a profile of Neil Fulwood |
