SN Gazette Poetry

Columbus, Ohio USA
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Pedro The Cat, Poetry Editor
email pedro@shortnorth.com

Return to homepage www.shortnorth.com

AUGUST 2010

Summer Heat 1

Thick Humidity
Sun-bleached blacktop, dusty streets
And the sewage smells

Summer Heat 2

Cool Olentangy
River breeze through shady limbs
And the sewage smells

State Fair Game

An Elephant Ear
Spicy Bahama Mama
Hot Dog on a stick

Unlocking the Clues

My mother works at the sink board,
her dress stained with summer-bruised
peaches and berries.
She fills rows of empty jars.
Other times I hear the sound
of peas spill into a wooden bowl.
Her chiffon dreams are lost
in the day’s labor.

At night she searches for first stars.
My father sits on the porch,
leans against the rail.
His straw hat tilts skyward.
A blaze of fireflies softens
the ache of harsh words.

Tree-tossed

This morning I watched it
rain under the trees,
stirred from
myriad leaves
by a gentle wind
and earlier shower.
The trees wept while
sunlit spots danced
along their trunks.
Apparently,
everywhere,
the price of
Light
is
Tears.

JUNE 2010

beer bottles, plastic
bags lie under tree in park -
animal droppings

Nonsense and Dissonanace
a symphony in shock major

Cymbals crash timpani rumbles.
Symbols clash a nation stumbles.
Counter point and counter punch.
Media brass, a thoughtless bunch,
Drive rude discussion
With deafening percussion.
As strings stand guard
And winds blow hard
On screen a one-man band
Can’t seem to find his civil gland.
Fire the conductor he’s no treasure,
Composer too for good measure.
From dark of night to glare of noon,
Out of sync, out of tune,
Mock and shock, nothing to lose,
A tormented symphony of cable news.

MORNING

Awakened by an angel – no, a small bird
Whose silhouette with wings outstretched
Looks like an angel, making many trips
To the outside wall – must be a nest there.

Remembering the dream of bright art cars,
Lined up in a row, and me in a studio,
Looking over fanciful-pictured books.
Ah, the best of both worlds.

Art and Books,
Books and Art,
And angels.

Looking out on a perfectly-fashioned May day,
The consciousness slips back into body,
Everything’s okay today: plants, breakfast,
Transportation – must be some mistake.

When all goes right, it seems so odd,
Fruits of work, positive thoughts,
Eating well not too much,
And providing for others.
Ah, the best of family.

Adults and Children,
Children and Adults,
And angels.

Getting away with something, like we did,
The swimming pool had a jukebox.
We swam and sang then, even in the rain,
But not with lightning – out of pool if lightning.

This life is full, crowded with incidents,
Falling in like petals forming a nest
Of memories, and trusting continuity will hold
Til death parts mind and body.
Ah, the best til lightning.

Water and Music,
Music and Water,
And angels.

It’s not so much successful as blessful.

just one animal
will cheat his own brother or
kill for pleasure - man

MAY 2010

i feel as though i'm
exactly halfway through life –
half fool, half empty

From a Deep Slumber (I awoke)

I awoke from a deep and troubled slumber, only to find a
blazing sunlight pouring in through my windowpane.

And as far as the eye could see in every direction,

Fields and fields and fields of daisies...

The promise of you my love.

if this world is my
imagination, i'm an
accomplished dreamer

APRIL 2010

Morning Song

It is five o’clock in the morning.
I see nothing wrong walking alone
This old Appalachian road – tucked
In by hills – listening to birdsong.

The entire ensemble is playing:
Timpani by ruffed grouse and a chat,
Thrushes’ silver notes accompanying
The vireo string section in E-flat.

A Carolina wren, cheerful bard,
Yodels from a wooded rill,
Accenting tanager, oriole, bunting,
And a prairie warbler’s rising trill.

Other than myself, the only listeners
Are a flying squirrel in his loge,
And a trio of deer gowned in beige,
Volunteer ushers, I suppose.

The genius composer though unknown,
Hints in dark ways I am unaware
Of ice ages, corridors of time flown,
Of secrets unsuspect in music so rare.

haiku, gentle bud
opens to curious sun:
illumination

Finding Home

I drive through the night.
Lights blink, secret signals
from distant houses.
The small towns become a blur.
Unfolded maps on the car seat
show crisscrossed lines,
connecting dots.
I circle one that leads to home,
open the door on familiar
scents.

The search for my casa,
a protective place never ends.
It’s like coming home on a rainy
spring night,
the rain misty in my face,
shoes wet from splashes.
I close the door, safe from damp
air.
The cat purrs, wraps warmth
around me.

Radiant Sun

Inside the house
By the washer and dryer
On the walls
By her cat’s litterbox
Hung
A small collection
Of handmade suns
Suns with eyes and noses and mouths
Suns that said, “See me. I am here.”

~
She must have found comfort in the light
The light of hope
The light of peaceful sharing
The light of love.

~
Her life was like that of the sun.
Her warm, full heart
At the center
Her arms
Reaching out
Reaching
Reaching out
With so much love,
With so much love.

The Estranged Equestrian

She stood in the middle of the empty field.
As she turned, she crunched hard clods under her boots.
She imagined the popping charge of hooves,
The muscles moving under flesh,
The steam exhale above large teeth.

She felt she smelled moist spring air in the sharp wind,
Although she could almost see the recent desolate snow
Standing in the landscape.

She remembered galloping through farmyards and streambeds,
But also the precision of the dance,
The scent of the sawdust in the ring.

She slapped her thigh to the imaginary horse lingering
At that certain place by the fence.

Pedaling down Third
Where it is like a freeway
Fast as cars downhill

MARCH 2010

THE END OF AN ERA
Good-Bye to Cousin Laura

They called last night from Dewitt Rehab to say you had expired.
The caller spoke broken English
So I had her repeat the news I dreaded to hear.
She said you died peacefully.
That you even had broth for dinner.
THE END OF AN ERA.
I called the Hotel Beacon (your home for so many years) to share the news.
Denissa, who answered, said you ”would never be forgotten at the Beacon.”
John, from the hotel, called to say he was sorry to hear of your passing
and that “you were loved at the Beacon.”
THE END OF AN ERA.
Sarah, your social worker, just called to say she was sorry for our loss.
She too said your passing was peaceful.
THE END OF AN ERA.
And, I just spoke to John at the Krtil Funeral Home.
Your burial will be tomorrow at Forest Green Memorial Park.
You will be in New Jersey then, not New York.
In the Jewish section he told me.
THE END OF AN ERA.
I’m afraid of the end of an era.
What do you do when a generation belonging to you expires?
Now I will say, “I used to have a cousin Laura who lived in a hotel all of her life in New York City.”
Dr. Tupper at Dewitt called you “ferociously independent.”
A lovely way for you, Cousin Laura, to be remembered at ninety-one years old.
Good-bye dear Laura Bythiner.
You will be missed.
THE END OF AN ERA.

Sharon Weiss is a Short North gallery owner. Her first poem about Cousin Laura,
“Don’t Apologize,” appeared in our September 2009 issue.

Penance

January came, and the second anniversary of his death,
His memory shrouding her in the brown and white
Herringbone woven coat she had worn since then.
Stepping inside the house she shrugged off the coat,
Placing it ever so gently on the kitchen table. Tonight,
On the way home, the thought had popped into her head,
It was time to let it go. Her husband would be ecstatic
With her decision, time and again he had hinted,
Seeing the poking threads, and again at each lost button,
That maybe it was time she thought about buying a
New coat. Yet, she had continued to wear it. Why?
She really didn’t know. It wasn’t like her dad had ever
Shown any interest in her life. They had expressed few
Words to each other when in a room together, she
Uncomfortable to the point that she would try to plan
Her visits to her mom at times when she thought he
Wouldn’t be at home. She had never been able to relate
To him anymore than he could to her. Still, she had
Picked the coat out of his belongings after his death,
Had worn it that whole first winter. But then came this
January, and with it a shifting somewhere in the passages
Of her heart. Why had she worn it so long? Was it
Because it was a way of wrapping his love around her,
A love he was never able to express in real life? Did she
Wear it because she liked the style, how it reminded her
Of an episode of That Girl, a show she used to watch
As a teen? She chuckled at this, knowing it was a girl’s
Coat, that her dad, who loved to frequent thrift shops,
Had bought it not knowing the difference. Or did she
Wear it as some form of penance because somehow
Deep inside herself, she thought that if only she had
Put forth more effort, things could have been different.
Taking a pair of scissors from her desk she clipped
Off the remaining buttons, putting them in a small tin
In her sewing box. With a permanent marker she
Wrote on the lid, “Buttons from Dad’s coat.” She didn’t
Know it then, but for years to come she would open
That tin, take the buttons out and roll them like worry
Stones in her hands. Buttons…the only piece of him
She had left to hold onto, tangible evidence of a father
She so wished she could have learned how to love.

NOVEMBER 2009

Incursion

My poetry has left my head,
given up its sprawling nest.
Smothered by the books I’ve read,
it’s flown back to my heart instead.
There it sits and cheerlessly chirps
a song oddly bereft of words,
so mute that it cannot be heard,
except by other lonely birds

OCTOBER 2009

John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

Ohio needs the Fall
and I wake up
suddenly the siamese mao of
it all
the black cat
doorstep
reminding me to pump
3 bucks
worth of nickels
into the flat tire
of a grand prix -
pack a smokes
under the tulip tree
reminding me
that the United States
needs
- poetry
I'm the President
of Poverty
under the shade
of this here
tulip tree

Season of Lament

Autumn returns, with morning air
sharp as the taste of a tart plum.

Starched leaves, raked in heaps,
look like colored clothing sorted
for washday.

Against the porch wall folded lawn
chairs lean in prayer/pose,
yearn for summer sun.

Soon snow will cover the ground
like a shroud. Winter, an unbidden
guest, will feast on my thin bones.

wind is silent, yet
i hear the leaves laugh as the
breeze tickles the trees

Buddhist book’s best proof
comes as, mindfully, i touch
its rough-hewn cover

Three Tenors

If I start humming
The fridge, the AC, and I
Make a nice trio

Flying

Looking out of my office window
the sky is an endless shield of gray.
The flowers along the path shiver in
their dusting of frost.
It is a blustery Pooh kind of day,
the trees raining leaves upon the lawn
in an endless ballet.
Winter is fast approaching and I am
filled with melancholy, longing for
a kite to fly, a tree hole to explore.
Yet I cannot be sad.
Honey comes in many forms.
I have tasted honey sweeter than
that made by any bee.
When I look upon your face and you
smile, the gray clouds dissipate.
I step out of my worries as surely as
a woman sheds her party dress,
anticipation overriding the disheveled
heap on the floor.
Winter holds no power over me.
It is enough to bask in the warmth of
your loving arms, my soul soaring
as high as a new kite in spring.
I am gliding on the wings of your love.

See how I fly!

Baptist Zen Manifesto (Ice Box)

translucent ghost manipulate eat language
delicious those
like some nefarious velvet corduroy character
asking needing
long open women pedagogue pictures
deft temerity
worshiping secretly above that only roil than storm
broken
said blush men shake voices laughing droll
they of one will
soar like the next two-two torpid power zeal
bleeding feet
vast fresh chocolate caramel road lust
exploring lake hits
night club will ameliorate all essential want
above then
secrete individual lather smell make squirm
eternity men
missive mellifluous fecund obdurate light
soon make growl tell
impecunious not for porcelain clean father
may word beauty
see how the garden goddess dances to the day whisper fiddle
understand the influence of the hard circle sea
luscious peach mother
when said veil embrace vapid space
some rhythm obtuse
here need sit gorgeous ike deep water
must void yesterday
perhaps hence breeze have drunk time heart
sister daughter
like bring never eat girl usurp abscond god
this die green

SEPTEMBER 2009

Don't Apologize

Don’t apologize for growing old
I think it makes you sad
The photo of you when you were thirty isn’t important to me
Who you are now is important
You looked so pretty in the lobby of the Hotel Beacon
Your black and white checked coat accented your wavy white hair
You were proud of your white clutch handbag
It was lovely
Didn’t we have fun at lunch
You said your rare hamburger and sliced potatoes were “delicious”
You were hungry
It did my heart good to see you eat so well, Cousin Laura
You sipped your black coffee and said it was delicious
My hot tea was good too
When our lunch came to an end, I watched you gracefully apply
your true red Loreal #350 lipstick, without even a mirror
I imagine you applied it exactly the same way when you were a mere thirty years old
Don’t apologize for growing old
Who you are now is important to me

Not Forgotten

A thing of beauty is a joy forever...
- John Keats

Victorian homes like once proud ladies
hide their frayed edges of wear
behind wisteria vines, or fragrant honeysuckle
that clings to a paint-peeled trellis.
Wicker chairs on porches, imposing turrets,
lace curtained windows indicate a different era
of horse-drawn milk wagons,
children rolling hoops down cobblestone streets.

I want to peer inside, see the curved staircase,
an Axminster rug that cushions sound,
the writing desk. (Someone sat here, shared
recipes and latest news with sisters,
perhaps a poem or two.)
Light sifts into the room, its warmth a silent
embrace.

Old homes, a reminder of solidness,
a gracious way of life still exists.
Some restored in bright colors, called
“Painted Ladies,” are again desired.
I wish I could age as gracefully.

HAIKU

things change; present good
will go bad – knowing this, I’m
nostalgic for now

AUGUST 2009

Too Busy

She seemed reserved, even shy.
Remarkable that anyone in law school
would be reserved, let alone shy.
We found her notebook and saw
that she had written, "Hurt and Bitterness,
Hurt and Bitterness," over and over,
line after line, page after page, "in passably
good handwriting, too," one of us observed.
Much too busy with matters much too important
to spend time on our discovery, we just laughed.
But it wasn't our usual laugh.

HAIKU

each day I accept
myriad things I believe
unacceptable

Napoleon

Napoleon, I'm broke
I see you on the other side
of the street,
I cash in.
Napoleon I'm alone, so alone
yet you blunder to glory,
I enter the code on the side
of the macaroni box,
loathe the lottery.
Napoleon, Napoleon
I see you in the supermarket
like Ginsberg sees
Whitman -
I sleep in the same bed of
green grass I was
raised on; I see the same sky
- different clouds

JULY 2009

The heart door

Last night the wind visited
your house and blew on
the door but the door

was not opened. There was
nobody home. Today I visited
there too knocking at your door.

The door is always
closed. How can I meet
the occupant? Perhaps I will
come back again

tomorrow early in the morning.
I hope you'll open the
door for me!

JUNE 2009

Please don’t panic. It’s not a piggy pandemic. It’s just a cold – and a poem by Bill Keating.

Just a Cold

It’s just a cold,
But I cough and drip
And feel so old.

My head throbs,
My ears ring.
And when I sneeze
My nose will sting.

Everything is such a bore
When my head is full
And my throat is sore.

I cough and drip
And feel so old,
But I tell myself,
“It’s just a cold.”

HAIKU

distinctive face haunts
me – where did I first see it
and why do I care?

City Pastorale

Bare feet curled around the legs
of a cane-seat chair
I sit at my mother’s oak table, now mine.
My friend Yetta, her old slippered feet primly together,
smiles across.

We dip into bowls of strawberries
drowned in Cool Whip
and glance through lace curtains
to where a huge maple crowds the window.
“Look!” I cry as a cardinal
pins itself like a Christmas bow
to the lush, green leaves.
Yetta slowly turns
and we stare at the crimson bird,
then quickly relish the red berries in our bowls.

Moving through the doorway
past the first snow of white clematis
old bare feet and slow-slippered ones
trace the perimeter of the flower garden.
I pick a few bright forget-me-nots
and, half-joking, threaten to send bouquets
to relatives we seldom see.

There is only the spirited conversation
of birds rustling in the grapevine,
and the murmur of a mower far away.
Resting on our canes we smile knowingly
at each other, a pair of aged shepherdesses
quietly guarding a new flock of summer bloom.

MAY 2009

Rainy Spring

Nature’s dress is in a mess,
A hillside full of squish,
The rain begets small rivulets,
I look out from tea and dish.
Honeysuckle shouts out, “Green, green green!”
Hyacinth murmurs pink and grape,
Daffodil utters butter, long stems careen
From moist heads in downward drape.

Nature’s cape falls from her nape,
Old leaves compress into the loam,
Warm and wet we don’t regret,
For mushrooms make loam their home.
Morels we scramble with the eggs,
The onions, succulent, home-grown chives,
We drink spring’s flavors to the dregs,
The air, the soil, the skies.

Fragments For Spring

The last snow falls from eaves
of houses.
Winter loosens its hold
as an infant might kick aside
a warm shawl in a carriage.

The thin green bones
of daffodils push up
from thawing ground.
Blossoms explode.

Swatches of silk kites
create a carousel of color
against the sky.
Sudden flash of a blue jay
completes the poem.

Other moms
look so cool
in their clean white blouses
bra straps firmly in place
belted khaki shorts
not giving anything away

Other moms
drive museum minivans
their sliding doors can open
without fear
that someone will see in

Other moms
buy perfect teacher gifts
wrapped neatly
so thoughtful
and germ-free

Do they get
all-over body hugs and
poems from their daughters
(she loves me more than ice cream!)

When I sigh heavily about my disheveled appearance
or my less-than perfect thighs
my warrior son leaps to my defense
you are a strong mommy, he says,
and he seems to have no doubt

When we walk together
we leave a shimmery wake
of sparkling love motes
and footsteps made of hearts

The News

After you leave it won’t stop raining.
A beautiful butterfly has stopped
very graciously in front of my
window. What a pleasant surprise. I
think she is telling me you’re safe.

Universal Garden

Under sky, under sun,
Near to the heart –
Illuminate.
Vibrations hum, and
Ever gladly the garden grows,
Reaping the bounty of love
Sown with every seed.
Alive, most joyously alive, we dance to bring the
Light.

Grandfather’s gnarled great
Arms lift our spirits and our song.
Rain falls, a gift from the sky.
Drink and breathe deep while
Evening’s colors bring the magic of the
Night.

© Julie DuSablon

JANUARY 2009

Sing

What you're hearing is a
matching Lark singing from the
bottom of my heart. Wait
and listen through closed eyelids
and smile slightly. So warm.

Birches

Black marks on white bark
of birches
look like an artist
daubs paint
along the trunk.
Trees cast
a length of shadows
across snow.

Birches stand like cutouts,
silhouettes against
a winter sky.
Snow swirls
in secret laughter,
breaks the stillness
of a bleak day.

A cardinal bursts
into the scene,
and like a bright drop
of blood
disturbs the white.

time's eternity
overwhelms - everything
reduced to nothing

Too much of watching
the tube, not enough living -
so no new haiku

HAIKU

erratic weather
reminds: no seasonal mold,
each day is unique

DECEMBER 2008

a little bit of christmas every day

when i used to see the future
it would scare the shit out of me
i’d see twenty years at a time, twenty years away
i would see very specific things,
it would terrify me, now it is fun
it’s a little bit of christmas every day

all the territory in my mind
that is to say all the territory in the world
is not familiar, therefore savage

Soul Love

I awoke in a park
In the middle of winter
At the start of the dark,
After all the trees
Had been uprooted,
And turned upside down –
Their branches and leaves
Buried in the ground;
Their naked roots inverted,
Pointing toward the clouds.
And around these upturned trees
Dogs chased dogs,
Allowing me to see
That errant electrons
Swirling around
The nuclei of atoms
(The substance of
Both them and me)
Were just different dogs
Chasing other dogs
Around other upended trees
In other desolate parks
During other winters
Of eternal soul love.

HAIKU

UPS man spans
world with gifts; each day, Christmas –
modern, brown Santa

•

fall morning, spring day,
summer evening, winter
night – odd paradise

•

met two old men – one
swinging glad, one raging mad –
which will I make me?

NOVEMBER 2008

I Get High In The Highest Part of Ohio

I get high in the highest part of Ohio,
I overlook the hills and watch the waving wheat.
The vast sky invites pouf clouds darting over,
Streams and barns pop up and faithfully repeat.

Lanterns glow made of jars of fireflies dancing,
Red-roofed barns dot terra firma underfeet.
Rural life favors those unsavory trailers,
Log cabins run away in history’s retreat.

AUGUST 2008

EMU

Oceans of regret and nervous laughter can’t drown
the disasters of yesterday. She’s already long gone
as is the air in your lungs, her picture in your pocket,
the hope you never trusted anyway.
The strange voice on the machine that night
was lecherous and slurred
like rusty barbed wire ripped through your eardrums.
It was your fault really, for listening to the messages first.
Luck be a dying bluebird in your caged head tonight.
Sleep is a myth for the dumb.
Her lies blur faster than a poisoned hummingbird’s wings at dawn.
Dreams, like hungry cavities packed with sugary confessions,
induce madness in the dark.
The clock strikes, the phone rings,
the black thorns of betrayal dig ever deeper
into an already perforated heart.

The Power of Memory

A teacup in time
swirling with the milky past.
Love’s decadence the sweet honey
Taking up too much room on the palette
unless the bitterness is also savored
Then all that is remembered is a
placebo of replacement and
Eternity seeps out and all that is
recalled is
Empty of life.

Saltwater Days

Remember the machine at ocean side,
or at county fairs that spun batter
from shiny pans into taffy.
I used to watch the metal arm pull
the confection up and down,
then sideways, stretching it
like a skein of yarn a woman might
hold between her hands.
The motion, as well as the results,
satisfied me...pastel-colored candy
to suck on and melt in my mouth.

Such simple days with elemental
pleasures have disappeared.
Now I flounder in an upside down
world.
I am pulled in many directions,
fragmented, bitter without you.

JULY 2008

Breakfast is Served

Toasted English muffins spread with peanut butter and grape jelly.
A simple meal, it is all I have to offer.
I pour you the last few ounces of orange juice, knowing as I do
that you prefer to drink your fruit while I relish the taste and texture
of a ripened orange.
The coffee is served black; I haven’t made it to the store for cream.
You smile nonetheless, the lines crinkling around your eyes,
and you tell me the meal is deliziosi!
I know you would have preferred better, but you are so sweet,
the idea of complaining would never cross your mind.
The day promises to be pleasant, the sun a shimmering sphere
climbing leisurely over the horizon.
There is no need for words, only the need to touch, our bodies
positioned on chairs but a hairsbreadth apart.

We sit in comfortable silence, this breezeway our personal bistro;
birds the orchestra, serenading us from backyard trees.
A blue jay flies across the yard to perch on a nearby branch.
You say it is as blue as an azure sea.
No, I tell you, it is as blue as your sparkling sapphire eyes.
You chuckle then flatter me; saying, Mi Cherrie, they are just eyes,
created solely for the purpose of drinking in your beauty.
Now it is my turn to laugh.
You are no more French than I am from Mars.
Still, I feel a blush wash over my cheeks.
Almost a year together, you still move me with your infatuation.
Our eyes lock and I perceive the hunger rising in yours.
You take my hands, fingers caressing the palms.
Pleasure beckons inside the door.
I feel the need to hurry, yet… there is time to be patient,
the day after all just beginning, the night so far far away…

The Flood

A river winds slowly through my mind
Its movement barely noticeable –
an erosion not worth the worry;
a delicate degradation

It upsets nothing –
not the laundry list of chores
nor the nagging voice of doubt

And yet,
it makes its way

Winding through mountains of memories
and
valleys of thought

Slow and persistent
your waters creep
to the bow of my mind

And there they stop –
pooling, dilating;
drowning the day
until,

I open my mouth and the waters rush out –
flooding the pages, soaking my skin

JUNE 2008

Guardian

The heart lies hidden,
pulsating with life.
No evidence shows where hurts
are sheltered,
fears stay,
within which chamber love is confined.
A paradox,
for scars are sometimes found.
Guard carefully, heart, the fragile
life you hold.

No in a Moment

In a moment used to mean endless time waiting for
my request to be answered.
Today it meant the sweetest unfolding of my life in
the hands of the ever present.
No used to be bitter and rigid, frustrating and
disappointing my expectations.
Today the gentle no became the withholding of events
I’m not yet prepared for or fluid enough to
receive.
Today no in a moment became yes forever.

APRIL 2008

Play Back Tape

Mid-April freeze,
January brother reluctant to leave.

Last night’s ‘Featured Reading’ flat,
grand impact of cucumber sandwich.

Wife left. Stare at stained glass birds,
bunches of rosemary upside down, half-
closed dresser drawer, nursing bra.

Kid lost job. Pick up insurance; dog
to vet; car repair; tuition due –
heartburn...apparent ulcer.

The cat died. Two days thought
a while since it moved, crusted food,
water floating calico hair.

Weak batteries – replace.
I can get some poems out of these.

She Seemed Familiar

i couldn’t tell if she was a girl or a woman
she had traveled to Europe by herself
and most recently Poland

i couldn’t reckon her age
she seemed in some ways like a child
she talked about her church group
and her volunteer service
with the plump spirit of a youngster
but she also seemed older
wiser, having experience she wasn’t
letting on to
– maybe good parents?

then i looked at her hands
hands aren’t ambiguous
they were child’s hands
bare, unlined, steady
and open

MARCH 2008

of all who have died,
good and bad, not one’s returned –
must be better there

Musings of a Renoir Cat

My moment of fame – to be chosen
for Renoir’s painting, Julia Manet with Cat.
That’s me – just “Cat” – no name recorded.
What pleasure it gave me,
sitting for Renoir.
I had to be still while he worked,
sketching my body in quick strokes,
later painted to resemble me.
I don’t recall any compensation,
but I’m certain other cats were envious.

If you think my fur soft, you should have felt
Julia’s gown – silky-soft – like the secret places
behind my ears that I liked stroked.
Julia’s lap was comfortable as she held me.
I snuggled into an easy pose.

“Charming,” I often heard after the painting
was finished.
At first I thought the compliment was for me,
but Julia did have a winsome smile.

Signafusion

Over a store’s large window,
GRAND OPENING!
On the front door entrance,
SORRY WE’RE CLOSED.
In a corner of a window near the door,
PARDON OUR STILL REMODELING DUST.
Are we to celebrate?
Wonder how long to wait?
Or quickly buzz three B’s to ventilate?

The Lady Vanishes

In Hitchcock’s thriller,
The Lady Vanishes in 1938,
the title role is played by a Dame,

an oatmeal-tweed connoisseur
of music, tea, and conversation.
The last trace is her name

written in steam fogging
a dining car window – no silk scarf,
no gold cigarette case, no kid glove

found on the platform of adjoining cars.
Her film rescue reveals
she went from retiring governess

to British spy – overpowered, drugged,
consigned for “questioning” elsewhere.
She traveled as well from a film

history of Oh, Genteel Lady, A Lady
By Choice into the modern movie idiom
of The Lady Takes a Chance.

What a thrill for Hitchcock
to drop the white glove of “Lady”
for the bare knuckles of “Woman.”

FEBRUARY 2008

Mr. Blue Collar

In the alley shadows fall as
broken beer bottle teeth bite through overworked boots
on the long walk home from unloading trucks.
Of course there was last minute overtime, production quotas
being what they are and corporate is crazy as ever ...
Mr. Blue collar greets me more often than not as I pass
by this backyard. He bows regally into the last of the day’s
sunrays, his tomcat stretch cut short by a shard of green
glass beneath his paw. He wears a collar of blue, hence the
name, but more importantly he is a workingman’s cat.
His people understand all too well those oppressive, trapped
feelings of no options, no way out, no hope of anything better ...
I mean, they always make sure to keep a window cracked
for Mr. Blue Collar. A way out, an escape. The dignity to
move around as he pleases, the decency of keeping his hours
his own. This suits Mr. Blue Collar just fine.

work week prison – with
evenings and weekends as
the exercise yard

© Rick Klaus Theis

Skin Red From the Hot Water

the first time i saw a naked woman
i was thirteen and i opened the door on
my mother’s best friend’s 17-year-old daughter
just getting out of the shower and reaching for a towel
i remember her being blonde and athletic and statuesque
and the towel was white and the room was yellow
and one foot was in the shower and the other on the bathrug
and her skin was red from the hot water
i was very embarrassed and i slammed the door shut
i hoped that she hadn’t noticed or that if she had she didn’t know
who had invaded her privacy like that
she came out later and whined to her mother
“mom, one of the boys opened the door on me
when i was taking a shower”
after i heard her say it in front of me
i became indignant
she hadn’t noticed that it was me
or she had and
she didn’t know my name
or she did and i was so far below her
she didn’t care
i was just a twerpy brat in too much
of a hurry to get into the bathroom

To Judy

Rules that I can’t live up to,
The same battleground we’ve been through.
Things that you put me through,
To prove what I am not sure.
I need room to breathe or just to exhale.
The work you gave me to do
I did, but not anymore.

Answering Machine

I let the machine get the phone
It’s usually just a bill collector
Or a telemarketer
Sometimes my brother calls
To make sure I haven’t
Really gone and killed myself
That’s mostly it
Once I picked up
Hoping it was you
But some Indian woman
Wanted to approve me
For a new Master Card
I just let the machine fill up
With all the detritus
The daily sorrows
And I sit around in my underwear
And type it all out
On another machine
Transcribing really
I erased your last message
By mistake
That was back in August
And now it’s
Already December

Old Doctor

Your six feet fill the doorway.
Pencil poised
you question, note in file.
Owl eyes check.
The white coat crackles
as you bend to examine.
“Breathe out. Breathe in.”
From bits and pieces
You connect the whole,
arrive at a verdict:
“Take two each day
and call if there are problems.”
You glide to another cubicle
unmindful of the crowd demanding miracles.

Nearby, your replacement
wearing a new gold band
orders tests,
shots, prescriptions;
is in and out of the cubicles
faster than a bird can shake a feather,
always ahead of the multitudes
waiting for loaves and fishes.
“Let’s get this show
on the road!” he announces
in the outer office.
The receptionist whispers,
“Thank God it’s my last week here.”

Waiting the Mile

On the first day she
ate biscuits for breakfast,
On the second day she
had designs upon the moon –

On the third day she
invented cake;
And on the fourth day she
took a bite out of the wind –

By the fifth day she
knew her lover wavered
And she was willing
to wait a mile for him –

A mile in silver slippers,
holding a silver rose –
No reason to be out of fashion
even while holding the bag.

Knocking on wood is lucky.
Life is just a bunch of bargains.
She added the rose to a lovely garden
of dried longings.

The Painter

She wanted to paint the sky
Red
So she bought a skyscraper
To get rid of all the blue
And she stole
Jacob’s ladder
Because
A stairway to heaven
Cost too much
And she climbed
Every step
To get to the top
Where she scraped away
Until the sky was grey
And after she ran out
Of oil
And acrylic
She cut
Four fingers
And thumb
And she painted the sky
And knew that it was good
As she fainted
And fell
Onto a bed
Of white roses
That she stained
Red
Ending
her
body
Of art
The days went by
And no one noticed the sky
Until
They were bleeding

Previously published in real.m
(Silenced Press, 2007)
www.silencedpress.com

DECEMBER 2007

Winton’s Trumpet

In the lonely
dark
privacy
of winter.

A Buckeye leaf fell.

A crocus bulb
thrives
under the rotting warmth.

Spring,
like Winton’s trumpet,
will dream sweet music.

That kid showed up at the back door again this morning,
crying because her boots got stuck in the mud over there ... again.
I have told her at least a hundred times to not go over to that playground
while it is still so muddy under the swings.

I tell her, "Don't go over there any more.
Your boots get stuck every time and you'll just be
running back here in muddy socks, crying at me again.

"It is simply the nature of things at that playground,
and you ought to know by now that it is not going to change."

... What a stupid kid! My words keep her safe, inside, for a little while –
until she looks out the window;
then she wants to play and the playground beckons ... again.
And she starts thinking this time she's going to be smarter than to let that happen ... again.
And then she goes out and gets stuck ... again!

Eye am just going to have to keep a closer watch on her –
I will try to not let her get out ... again.

Eye really know now that I just can't take my eyes off her for a whole second.
I'm so glad that 1/4 second rule pretty much works –
when I can remember to use it –
because I'm really sick of fetching her boots and cleaning her back up for the next new day ... again.

© Loran Elizabeth Conley
Little Hocking, Ohio

Well Before Monkeys Were

being hurled into space and caged in
test laboratories, they were confined
but thriving in the monkey house at
Wheeling Park, West Virginia. I know,
because every year in the 1950s while
at our annual St. Catherine’s grade
school picnic we would go inside to
see them. It isn’t hotdogs, pretzel sticks
slathered with yellow mustard, snow
cones, nor fun house mirrors that I
most remember. Not playground rides
or swimming in the pool. Forget about
grade school singsongs on the bus,
songs like Twenty Five Bottles of Beer
on the Wall and Found a Peanut. No,
these memories pale next to those of
the monkey house which is what held
the most allure. So dark inside you had
to wait for your eyes to adjust, it was
monkeys here, monkeys there, monkeys
monkeys everywhere, and boy oh boy,
did they ever smell! They were furry
chattering acrobatic maniacs swinging
from limb to limb by their prehensile
tails, their beady eyes following your
every move. Grinning, grooming,
boisterous monkeys, with bared lips
showing yellowed teeth. Loud, messy,
and aggressive they had no shame.
With their sexual anatomy on such
raucous display it’s no wonder slightly
embarrassed sisters always tried to
hurry us through while behind their
backs we girls giggled and the boys
hooted and howled, pointing out every
set of rump pads, every wrinkled pair
of blue balls. It was quite tantalizing,
slightly risqué, enough to put a blush
on any proper Catholic girl’s face.

city streets show it:
give a monkey a horn, he
can’t help but blow it.

Monkey Business

As we walked up to the door to knock, the
house seemed the same as others on the block.

At my six years of age I was timid and shy,
so I stayed close to daddy, a six foot four guy.

As dad knocked on the door, a scream from inside
made me want to run back down the street to hide.

We entered the house, I holding back, it
scared me to enter .... what was the racket?

Then, there it was, on the swinging door,
a cage with one monkey, it sounded like more.

It chattered, and shrieked, and jumped up and down.
Did he just want attention as he acted the clown?

The door swung back and forth, and it shook.
It scared me so badly I hardly could look.

I held my breath .... then gasped for air.
The stench he emitted was beyond compare!

I don’t remember how long we were there.
I mostly remember the scariest scare.

We never went back. That made me quite happy.
Instead I went swimming next time with my pappy!

Role Reversal

“Monkey see, monkey do,
monkey does the same as you”
chant girls at school recess
in sing-song voices
as they jump rope to rhyme.

Boys daring and adventurous,
clamor over monkey bars,
becoming bolder each time.

At the zoo behind a glass
enclosure,
monkeys swing from branches,
dangle on ropes, tumble about,
amuse us in their play.

See, children lean on glass,
press palms & noses against
the pane.
They point and gape,
feign fright when monkeys
linger near.

Who is trapped or free,
those watching, or the monkeys
swinging high in trees?

RECLASSIFICIATION
(Scientists: Apes and Humans have 99.6% the same DNA...suggest re-classification of Apes)

Reclassification

WHAT! ... 99.6 the same???
Well, OUR .4 is purer!
To open old Darwinian wounds
Will surely cause a furor.

I’d like to make a valid case
To reclassify mankind.
I think for all his ‘grab and growl’
His species should be canine.

Territorial, with war he gives
The ‘one-legged salute’
With acid-rain and torn up earth
There’s nothing he won’t pollute.

What he says his God made perfect,
He destroys to redesign.
How can he, with the way he acts,
Claim origin so divine?

I think that man should ape the chimps
(Of course, no pun intended.)
To classify them both the same,
Why, the apes would be offended!

Monkey Sales

At my local grocery store the produce department’s
been overrun by a gang of furry monkeys. As you
enter this section you are greeted by jungle music,
plastic palm trees, exotic plants, and green vines
which dangle from overhead. Scattered here and
there are the monkeys, each assigned his own
aisle of produce and manning his own toy vehicle
filled with vegetables or fruit. Each wears an
appropriate hat – a captain’s hat for a cruiseliner
of coconuts, a pirate’s hat for a pirate ship filled
with lemons and limes, a ball cap for a tractor
trailer of Idaho potatoes – you get the picture.
The first monkey to greet me is Banana Sam
who sits behind the wheel of an old pickup
truck its bed piled high with bananas, his name
embossed in bold red letters on the band of his
big straw hat. He can hardly contain himself
having a big toothed grin, as if driving a truck
full of bananas was the best thing ever happened
to him. As I walk through the aisles I’m
wondering what bozo thought up this tactic.
I mean why do we have to have a gimmick?
When did we stop letting fruit sell itself?

Seeing the old truck I am reminded of when I was
a child and the produce man came by once a week
rain or shine. The truck had a bell which would
tinkle as its driver grinded to a stop in front of our
house. My grandma would don her shawl, grab
her pocketbook and head out the door, usually
with me in tow. The bed of the truck would be
laden with boxes of fruit and vegetables and she
would let me help her pick out any variety of fresh
produce. Oh, the bliss of biting into a sweet purple
plum or luscious peach, a plump red tomato, its
delectable juice dribbling down my chin! To this
day this is one of my fondest childhood memories.

Produce was the real deal then not this polished
version we are offered today, shiny and all spiffed
up like a new pair of leather shoes. Back then just
looking at it would start your mouth to watering
and you didn’t need a bunch of furry funky
monkeys to hock it either!

Monkeys

They say we came from monkeys. I wish I was still a monkey.
Monkeys don’t have to pay taxes.
Monkeys don’t have to pay the rent on time.
Monkeys don’t get speeding tickets.
Monkeys don’t have inlaws.
Monkeys don’t end up in divorce court.
Monkeys don’t have to buy anyone a birthday present.
Monkeys never say, “It costed me the shirt off my back.”
Monkeys don’t have to take a bath.
Monkeys don’t have to use a fork, knife, and spoon.
Monkeys don’t have to say grace at the dinner table.
Monkeys don’t have to go to church on Sundays.
Monkeys don’t have to go to school.
Monkeys don’t have to watch their tone of voice.
Monkeys don’t have to pay union dues.
Monkeys don’t have to dress up for a job interview.
Monkeys don’t have to register their hunting rifle.
Monkeys don’t have to register for the draft.
Monkeys don’t have to wear glasses.
Monkeys don’t have to say “Sir.”
Monkeys don’t have to pay alimony or child support.
Monkeys don’t have to stand in line at the grocery store.
Monkeys don’t get caught in traffic jams.
Monkeys don’t need a haircut.
Monkeys don’t need to shave.
Monkeys have more hair on their chest than I do.
Monkeys don’t have to pay for a wedding.
Monkeys don’t have to punch a time clock.
Monkeys don’t have to get up at six o’clock in the morning.
Monkeys never need a lawyer.
Monkeys can’t be fired.
Monkeys never get reprimand.
Monkeys don’t get written up by OSHA.
Monkeys don’t have to answer the door.
Monkeys don’t have to answer the phone.
I wish I was still a monkey. Don’t you?

© Mark Stoll

NOVEMBER 2007

A Season's Truth

From the edge of the cornfield
where pumpkins lay tangled in their vines,
you chose one bright as a harvest moon.
I watch you, aware of your strength,
carry the fattest one you could reach
around.
My knife was ready, my grandson.
I transpose your pleased grin into a pumpkin
smile.
We cut the top, scoop life onto yesterday’s
newspaper.
November days end. The pumpkin shrivels.
Its mouth curls in a lopsided shape
like toothless gums of an old man.
You look sharply at me, acquainted in a brief
instant with age,
and, I afraid, glimpse the shrunken man
I might become.

city sounds claw to
the top – the winner i hear
through plugs in my ears

Ruminations

Along a blue highway
cottonwood leaves
flash and bell
in the wind.

Some pock
and mat
the grass, refuse
last rites.

Others snap and twist
at the sanctity
of rakes, pop
and crawl from bags,

taunt the tires
of trucks,
sky in the rush
of diesel incense.

A few escape
to village streets,
but most to farm
fields, recall

the cows that eat them,
again and again.

Divine Voices

Time flies faster than we can fathom
yet there are still so many questions
left to answer

but in our race to solve each mystery
and reduce our world to singularity
let us not be too hasty

and forget to take the time to listen
for Divine voices in the wind’s whisper
and enjoy the simple pleasures
tucked away into the folds of life

the warmth and crackle of a fire,
a deep breath of crisp fresh air,
a pause in simple silence,
the honor of innocence

these will be the memories
that we will grow to covet
in the Autumn of our days.

OCTOBER 2007

Listen Canary

His little birch cage
teeters on twine
from the parlor ceiling.
The listen canary lets a trill
escape his beak and the echo
flicks the marble floor
with a soft ping.

His yellow feathers peel back
when caught in the wind,
when the old woman, delicate,
leaves the glass window
open like a jewelry box.
The golden wings pin back
and he stretches his crispy beak
against cold air.

He listens to the gust, supple,
an antique breeze,
as it creaks the trinkets
in its path, twinkling them.
Sometimes he hears a wind chime
or an old, plinky swing set,
or only his sunset feathers
rustling.

Prison Visiting Room

Through the doorway an orange tree flames
against the backdrop of a blue mountain.
Red-gold leaves rain upon the copper grass.
In the green shadows of the cool room
women knot themselves into families,
pressing a year’s endearments into one
brief brush with the free world behind – ahead.
Facing inward, some ignore the maple,
the burning arrow exclaiming the answer
beyond the far hill. Behind self-closed doors
they search each other, and try well-worn keys
to the tight pattern of the legal locks.
Atlas-like they shift their problem world
and question those nearby for a pat word.
Yet there are the wise ones who lift their eyes
and see the blue beyond the mountain peak.

SEPTEMBER 2007

Gone

The house is empty now of his energy
though manifestations of its presence
thankfully remain.

In a dorm on some campus
he rediscovers passion –
he had it when very young –
in the rows and rows of model cars
he’d line up on steps of our rented double;
in the leggo-roller coasters he’d build
wherever space invited – roller coasters we’d
step over, hesitantly, for weeks, vacuum around.

He had it in flashes in 7th and 8th grade
despite our well-intentioned suppressions –
we had good intentions – to keep him from harm.

Now, away from our watchfulness,
perhaps he’ll flash
out permanently, our smothering concern
a thing of the past

as he learns what we should have allowed him –
to fail, to fall, to bear disappointment;
to laugh loudly, fully, to risk,
to surge with life.

Perhaps, despite and because,
he will forgive us after all.

Genesis Retold

Immortal angels, bored with perfectness,
wandered from the Firmament unduly.
Rejecting God, they donned garments of flesh
and strayed onto the Earth, verdant and fruity.
God scorned, and of His angels thus bereft,
bade them, “Go and live. It is your duty.
Go love and hate and weep about your death,
so, you may come to comprehend your beauty.”

Wander Lost

When the routines of life
shroud my peace
and cause me to wander lost

I long to be a small fish in a big pond,

to lose myself in the bright spot
of the next road's vanishing
and to be born again in foreign eyes

I then awaken in remembrance
that happiness isn't meant to be rationed
out like thin grey gruel

each day's dawn is a sweet symphony
and as long as I hear the music
my dreams will have to die another day.

What a Surprise

to see you
as I was getting
off work
You stopped by
you said
for a cup of coffee
I smiled
as the words
escaped your lips
both of us
laughing
at this
Both knowing
it for the ruse
it was

When you followed
me home
so I could change
did you happen to see
my smile
in the side mirror
I was hard-pressed
to keep it
on my face

It lit up my car
like a tiny sun
bounced round
and round
from ceiling
to floor
Tried to
unlock the door
and the windows

Said it wanted to
ride in your car

I’ll Never Forget

that time the old couple sang to us in the backyard
they sat on chairs, the man with a banjo missing a string
and the woman with a guitar
the rest of us shared blankets in the grass
and cried as the sun went down
and they played old songs
written in the mountains
he would forget which song to play next
and she would prompt him with the title
and then he’d ask her how it went
but she didn’t know she was very modest
and then he’d climb into it
they lived next door
they owned the house my friends were living in
they hadn’t raised the rent in years and years
we were all happy for a moment
for a moment we had captured the secret to life
we couldn’t believe it.

Filler

Sometimes I feel like I’m
Just filling space
Like a poem
In someone’s newspaper
Glanced over with
Morning coffee
And a piece of toast
Hoping and praying
That somehow I don’t
Wind up, crumpled and stained
On the bottom of
Some cat’s litter box.

JULY 2007

Peaceful Patterns

Peaceful patterns playing in my mind,
Warring words quit warring for a time,
Wandering brain cells hoping for to find,
Peaceful patterns playing in my mind.

Yesterday, when I spoke to my friend,
All my words seemed to twist and rend,
Yesterday, all my integrity had to bend,
But today, I’m not thinking of my friend.

Peaceful patterns playing in my mind,
Warring words quit warring for a time,
Wandering brain cells hoping for to find,
Peaceful patterns playing in my mind.

There are places in the soul,
That peace seldom knows,
Still there are patterns
where the silent wind blows,
Peaceful patterns where the quiet grows.

Peaceful patterns playing in my mind,
Warring words, quit warring for a time,
Wandering brain cells hoping for to find,
Peaceful patterns playing in my mind.

Peaceful patterns of yellow and blue,
Patterns where the gentle swans flew,
Patterns from a slow dance I knew,
Peaceful patterns like the morning dew.

Peaceful patterns playing in my mind,
Warring words quit warring for a time,
Wandering brain cells hoping for to find,
Peaceful patterns playing in my mind.

WE ARE ALL CRAZY AND LIFE IS GOOD

there are those who for the sake of inner peace
choose to no longer leave the privacy of their room
there are all those who just need to flee the city the state the country
there are those who worship the sixties by the light of their plasma televisions
and there are those wearing bikinis walking blissful
and barefoot over the broken glass in the street
can of beer in one hand, cell phone in the other

The Second Cup of Coffee

The second cup of coffee comes later in the day’s routine.
It just doesn’t have the pop of the first. It usually comes because there is some left in the pot.
Would it be a waste to dump it?
Let me be like the first cup of coffee.
The second one really isn’t needed.
So drink up and enjoy me.
Don’t drink me because I am there and there’s nothing better to do.
I like being first and needed.

eternal
there is no need
to gobble your pleasures,
for love is infinite and
you are eternal.

JUNE 2007

The Doe

There is a doe grazing on the lawn of the building just below my home.

A young girl walks by on her way home from school, glances at the wild thing,
never slowing her pace.

Across the street a dozen people are playing or watching tennis, the balls
bouncing over the nets as always.

This morning’s paper, page 5, left side, below the fold, a story said that one hundred
American troops died during April in Iraq.

The doe, lifting its head, nostrils scanning the lawn for danger, finding none,
bowed its soft brown neck to the grass and ate.

Looking Back At 35

Decorum and dreams dance among
the painted faces of the night

the fast and new have
washed over me in wonderful ways
only to leave me yearning to know
the true wisdom of easy and slow

I have journeyed long through
the fallacies and naiveté,
still believing when
hope was a fool’s game

enduring the storm until
the truth was so salient that it
cleansed my soul like fire

the world looks a bit different
on this side of life
priorities have shifted, idealism is sifted
until there’s still some black and white
but many more shades of grey

urgency there is no more
yet I see how deft a thief time is
as it whisks these words away
before they are even frozen in form

the minutes can free or enslave us
but now I’m beginning to relish
each second’s worth
and the true value of things
especially comfortable shoes

Six String Savior

Listen to a mean guitar.
Listen while you drive your car.
Listen while you shop the mall.
Listen while you’re playing ball.

Six string saviors make my day.
Six string saviors really play.
Six string saviors play it all.
Six string saviors have a ball.

Carlos plays a Paul Reed Smith.
You know who he’s playing with.
Well, Santana, as they’re known.
California, that’s their home.

Perry plays a six string lead.
Fingers move at lightning speed.
They are known as Aerosmith.
Count the women they’ve been with.

Crosby, Stills and Nash and Young.
Every song that they have sung
They have done acoustic style.
Sit and listen for a while.

Springsteen had his Glory Days.
Hendrix had his Purple Haze.
Hank has lots of rowdy friends.
Hope the party never ends.

Nugent has a Stranglehold.
Heavy metal rock and roll.
Working hard and playing hard.
Heavy metal superstars.

Six string savior in my face.
Six string saviors don’t play bass.
Six string savior, mighty loud.
Six string savior, mighty proud.

MAY 2007

Am/big/u/ous
(A homophonic double entendre)

Knot so big,
she harbors a tied
quite through and threw
from crown to tow,
as grate as it is fast.
Whet and hardly warn,
She brooks unseamly past
a wayward lune,
who treads a wile,
allows the pretty foul
to waiver and pitch,
her slight outline
following its coarses,
until accession of cast off breaches
wakes up her mite-y rues,
tries the bounds
of her titanic forces.
With roil flare,
she heaves her size
upon this awed buoy.
So deep, the seas…
Why, she’s
in deed
a swell swallow!

© Sharon Reeb

APRIL 2007

Touched

The masseuse’s hands knead
muscled knots,
lavender scent
awakens senses thought extinct.
I drift
from pressuring tasks,
the debris of the week.

wonder how it would be if we
massaged our children,
our animals from the moment they rise;
if we massaged each other
from the moment we rise.

So tilted is the Earth

A silver knife stabs a silent sky,
As a stream of bright stars
Bleed from its wounds.
So tilted is the earth
That even the sky must shed blood.
Who will salve the suffering stars?
Who will climb the rugged mountain
To nurse the night sky?

The Philosopher

Big bird
Balanced on blighted branches,
Noble in its indifference,
Savage in its flight.

Carrion carrier does not care who
Passes before its immutable eyes
Until motion moves
The stoic philosopher to kill.

Beyond the Shadows

Raindrops collect on tree limbs,
create a jeweled necklace
as I might wear.
Birds, undaunted by rain,
sing surprise songs.

The cat stares out the window
at birds that flutter by,
then curls up with his own dreams.

In the silence of the room
I imitate the cat – find a book
of poems – perhaps Emily Dickinson,
who wrote invitingly of spring,
and begin to read.

I am content, until I look up, aware
of the black shadow of a crow,
looming across the glass.
The near-spring day seems less
promising. Fears intrude.

I wonder what’s ahead in the shadows.
Soon it will be Easter.
Do the dead, remembering talk
of a resurrection, grow restless
in the dark, frozen ground?

The Crow

A crow landed on the porch
roof by the north end
window, the sky sickle grey,
shuddered to a stop.

I nodded good morning
to its gaze.

She flapped one wing,
the other down, neat,
tucked as if to roost,
and flat-footed across the roof,
and flew to perch on a maple
in the yard next door.

Her mustard eye never
left mine.

MARCH 2007

Tanpopo

One sip
of genmai
life becomes
a beautiful sigh

nothing now exists

but a steaming bowl
of soba

spicy tuna rolls

and a kind
of kindred peace
that makes tolerable
the troubles of the day.

© Eric Vance Walton

Your Pleasures

Your pleasures
Have never been my pleasures,
Although I appreciate
Your beauty and potential.
As far back as I can recall
I have engaged in
Your forms of fun
With an open mind –
And been disappointed
By the shallowness,
The puerile nature
Of your games.
There are no resonances
With my intelligence;
Even less so with my soul.
I feel I am taking part
In the cryptic ceremonies of
Some alien race
For the purposes only
Of cultural exchange –
A glimpse into
The superstitious liturgies,
Rote reptilian rituals,
Of some backward,
Hermetic sect.

Your pleasures
Have never been my pleasures.
They are the mutually reinforced,
Grotesquely repetitious rites
Of some OCD society –
A colossal dysfunction
Meant to distract
From the complex concepts
Of being and nothingness,
And coping with same,
With one purpose:
To coddle the brain.
Causing it to remain
A rudimentary organ,
Never to flower
Into a true equal
Of the universe it mirrors
And which mirrors it in return,
Bursting forth in magnificence
On so many levels –
Microscopic, optic, and telescopic –
And in so many dimensions –
No point and a single point;
Height and width; depth and time;
Objective subjectivity and
Subjective objectivity;
Spirituality; emotional reality;
And myriad other defining attributes
Operating across multiple geographies,
Independently and in unison.

Your pleasures
Have never been my pleasures,
Except the very basic one
Of enjoying the attention
And the physical sensation
Of a “love at first site” rush,
A love that now lies time-worn
In the many aborted attempts
At deeper mutual connection,
As much my blame
In failing to conform,
Or fate’s blame
In allowing this mutation
Of my consciousness/brain,
As it is yours
In accepting and promoting
Pleasures so mundane.

FEBRUARY 2007

Option For a Broken Tomorrow

Future
In need of repair
Smile - scream
Mundane things
We moan, fear, don’t share
I wanna sail on the opaque lake
Stare to a new morning
Tear down nefarious schemes

entertainment junkie

a brazen silence fills the air
and was repelled by meek
and hollowed minds

astonished not, I was to this
for minds asleep
tend not to reason

imagination’s atrophied
they chase excitement
again to feed

behold the silence when it comes
silence rarely lasts
too long

© Eric Vance Walton

CLOWNS

I don’t like CLOWNS
Their big crimson frowns
Fluorescent orange hair
Bloodshot eyes that stare
Faces chalked white
Gives me a fright
Stupendous red noses
Bouquets of fake roses
Shoes with broken soles
Clothes full of holes
Cymbals and kazoos
They all make me blue
Big floppy hats
Plastic baseball bats
Fake pots of glue
Big hammers and screws
Painted polka dots
All their goofy props
Don’t know how to speak
Greet you with a shriek
Mimicking and mimes
Talking rhymes
If they come to town
You won’t find me around
They only bring me down
‘Cause I don’t like CLOWNS!

JANUARY 2007

Before the Poem

Far away
Someone is stitching together
Their strange resume
Their dive into the stars
On a certain otherwise
Unmemorable
Day

Far away
Someone is remembering the names
Of all the gods
Those strong dwellers of Olympus
Radiant
Resplendent
All crowned with halos
Of human foibles

Far away
Someone is watching the sparrows jab
for crusts
And feeling in their pockets
That really
There is nothing more
To give to the world

Far way
The leaves curl up into their tombs
And there is to be no denial
No matter how far
Someone goes

Far away
Someone is stitching together
All these images
And ersatz trivia
While the hand doles out change
And the body stands in line

This is happening

Subway chaos swirls
Around bamboo flute's soft sound--
Eye of hurricane.

My Poetry Wallows in Colors

My poetry wallows in colors.
'Takes a dip, now and then, in frothy moods of midnight ink.
Pearly pink, it splashes around in sable sounds,
sulphurous rounds and livid rhythms smoldering.
Sometimes it plays in a dappled pool
with a sunny muse,
green and dull,
a flowery mute
that thrashes in a brassy moat
and strokes its silent notes,
but my poetry longs to swim.

My poetry wallows in colors.
'Wades in the shallows of fathomless oceans in ponderous fashion,
pitching in surges of florid emotion and thunderous passion.
It doesn’t want to dabble in red tides of gospel
where the rhetoric is hollow and can poison with one swallow.
It longs to dive under that shadowy Wonder,
to hold its breath, explore its depth,
return to the surface with a vivid yellow fish.
For now, it casts a primitive net,
but my poetry longs to swim.

My poetry wallows in colors.
'Lolls in suffused lagoons, or combs the gray dunes for driftwords,
a landlocked maroon, stumbling on the shore, looking seaward
at the mermaids laughing, silvery sirens twisting in the tangerine light.
'Yearns to splash among the Titans who wield an emerald fire.
Instead, it ponders in puddles muddied with riddles,
longing to be skillful, limber, and nimble,
dreaming of symbols, crystal clear,
so anyone who listens can hear
poetry swimming in colors.

© Sharon Reeb, 2006

NOVEMBER 2006

Mums

Why do mums remind me of funerals?
Do I stem from a stock that always perished in the fall?
Did every living member of my line
Expire at the thought of winter,
Like Baby’s Breath,
Too fragile to survive until the daffodils rise?

Perhaps I am simply too stingy with my blossoms,
Unwilling to give up any but the tardy to the dead,
Tulips for birth, roses for love and mums for expiration.

Though when honesty sets shimmering fall leaves,
I realize that mums are a gift from a future lover,
Sent to celebrate our imminent embrace.

Mums remind me that many blossoms have faded
Since last I saw the glacier lily
Push her gentle fingers through the insensitive snow
To greet the smiling sun of spring.

When spring fails to inspire my soul
To do the hard work of greeting life,
Reaching through winter’s morbid covering
Toward the ever warming light,
Then mums will remain in the memory
Of a mind too tired to wait for daffodils.

Modern Martha

Her living room was green and gold and gray,
and everything was in an ordered sphere –
the emerald Cogswell chair; across the way
a sleek gold couch with lamp and table near.
Above the sofa, flanked by twin stands small,
quaint flower prints in gilt frames nicely matched
on gray mats, three abreast. At the south wall,
around the glistening panes, precisely starched
white curtains ruffle-edged a sunny scene.
No stray book, dust, nor crumpled magazine
broke the spell of perfected housekeeping.
It seemed a shame – the dusting and the sweeping
were steady tasks, and Martha could not find
the time to brush the ravelings from her mind.

Lines below my eyes
Are like old friends,
Added by time and trials.
Good and bad memories,
But all mine.

OCTOBER 2006

To All The Nights of Silent Sleep

To all the nights of silent sleep
When in my dreams a river flows
And falling leaves are mine to keep

The gentle wind through windows seep
The hazy moon through curtain glows
To all the nights of silent sleep

There is a land beyond the deep
Where it is only the Zephyr knows
And falling leaves are mine to keep

Swirling mists of light do creep
Through fields where the reaper sows
To all the nights of silent sleep

River valley, mountain stream, where all alone the sowers reap
Where water falls suspended where they froze
And falling leaves are mine to keep

Waves of air, waves of mist, waves of twirling heat
Is this the dream I would have chose
To all the nights of silent sleep
And falling leaves are mine to keep

© Timothy Middleditch

AUGUST 2006

San Francisco Water

Today three men escaped from Alcatraz
No one knows if they lived or died
They died
In San Francisco
with people eagerly waiting
on shores next door; working
to chauffeur three men back home

And my dad tells me
last weekend, he lived in San Francisco
in 1967 on a military base
with rolled military cigarettes and military watch dogs

And he rode the trolley; young boy
in the city; (“Thays sump-tin een dat watey”)
and somebody’s pink son, shuffled;
side-walking; with parking meter; draped
acrost shore board breast; (adjacent to trolley)
hair loving breast

He put a quarter in his mother meter
and laid down south to take a rest

optimism

tear down the dam
within you
demolish it
brick by brick

until it no longer
stands

until it is no longer capable
of holding back
the great river within

let its cleansing waters
flow freely
through your very being

let it drown negativity
let it be the hand that pulls you
into the eye of the storm

JULY 2006

a cup of water

a cup of water
two confused people
spill the water
and it
flows
where it
will

© Rick Klaus Theis

E-Mail From Some Russian Girl

Today
A letter
In the Internet personals
From Irinochka
25
No picture
But a profile of
The English-Russian dictionary
In all its nuanced glory.
She writes:
“I think that you are clever men
And I’ll have duty
To communicate with you.”
She writes that
She is not a rich man
But she resides
In a united and
Non-mercenary
Family.
She writes
That she works
On the post office in her city
That she is a postman
That she is full of
Dreams and fascinations:
Music, reading, movies
Nice communication
Sports
And other things which make our lives
Different and happy.
She writes
That she likes
Beautiful things and clothes
But it is not main for her
She writes that
She is an economist
But in Russia it is a difficult situation
And she cannot find work in her specialty.
She writes that
She anxiously waits for answer
That I may be the man of her dreaming.
How many letters today
Struggling over the words, Irina
Looking for the America
That I so casually
Throw away?

kind of blue

orange insect wings
floating on a riff
under a pastel canopy –
kind of blue.
warm yellow eye,
cool north breath.
a tight gray skirt
sprouting green,
survival inspiration.
red floral explosion,
young and old renewed.
black furry innocence... pouncing,
ants excited, too

If it could remain so... in Summer...
In death... in Fall... in love...
For a while... in Winter... forever...

Box Doll

Amanda found the worn toy chest
in her childhood home.
Attic dust almost obscured
an Art Nouveau Pandora on the lid.
She raised the cover,
and in a cobwebbed crevice of the box
the doll stood stiff,
black-eyed, ever smiling
beneath a green babushka.
The red jacket, pink and yellow laced,
vied with the electric blue-striped shirt
which hugged the pudgy wood figure.

She unscrewed
the head of the enameled toy,
removed a smaller replica.
Its vivid features
repeated every aspect of the first doll.
She twirled the second head,
and a third doll with fixed expression
showed itself. Other figures emerged
smaller, and smaller, and smaller
until five heads with
curved lips and painted dot for eyes
sat in a row beside
identical rounded bodies
whose hands forever clasped
across their zigzag lacings.

The sixth one, tiny as a thimble,
stood firm. Its head would not be moved.
Amanda held the stubborn one eye to eye
and copied the cold and unrevealing look.

“Do as you’re told, child!
Never meddle, and always wear a smile!”
Her stepmother’s voice pierced the years.

Amanda’s smile had grown on her.
Dark eyes still beckoned
to no particular person,
and no one in particular was aroused.
She became like the smallest doll –
a frozen nautilus, no chamber left
in which to hide, and nothing left inside.

In the dim upstairs
Amanda closed the door on Hope.
She grew small, thin,
crept among the old rooms,
crawled inside the big gas oven.

At the funeral, neighbors said
“She lived so quietly –
never bothered a soul,
always smiled.”

© Laura Hank Hilton

Sylvia Sebastian

Mexican doll in a dollhouse,
named by three-year-old Mistress Isabel,
a Mistress who liked to play with matches.

The doll’s dark-brown hair caught on fire
after Isabel lighted the two-inch high oven
in the kitchen of the two-foot tall mansion.

The five-millimeter-wide medical report read
“Sylvia Sebastian: Hair Scorched, Eyelashes Singed,”
the same eyelashes that once aroused Chinese doll Dex
by curling above the bridge of Sylvia’s plastic nose.

June 2006

The Human Kind

In the morning, in the fragile, quiet hour
Before you let the dog out, before you take a shower
You’re wondering, hoping too
You’re wondering anew, today.

Life and death, dark and light, such is the play
Past regrets, some triumph along the way
I know it’s not in vain
Although there’s so, much pain

I stumble and I falter, sometimes I have my doubts
But I know somebody who’s got it figured out
I tred a lonesome path, I’ve left part of Me behind
I’m a real person, I am the human kind

Best laid plans, oh how they seem to break
Give to the cause, the more you give, the more it takes
That’s just the way it goes
The more you learn, the less you know

Age and wisdom, overtakes you in your chair
Youth and innocence, somehow got left out there
The winter’s cold and grey
The rose will bloom again, in Spring

Past and future, one is yellow, one is blue
In the present, the scarlet-crimson hue
On the side, hands, head and feet
In the center, where, they meet

I stumble and I falter, sometimes I have my doubts
But I know somebody who’s got it figured out
I’ve tred a lonesome path, I’ll leave all of Me behind
I was a real person, I was the human kind.

Unsettling

Oak hand crafted
desk maker my own
father was a carpenter

Jesus’ father was
a carpenter; now

I am 22
and I’ve got a desk
made of wood

to lay my things
across;
spread about

junk

Trip Down the Greenbrier River
with a Ten Year Old Nephew

Come on, Aunt Laura!
He swings the heavy vine back to me.
Here goes forty years, I cry
then jump and swing across, a heavy pendulum.
Barely gaining a foothold, I crash
beside the crude plank raft
tied Boy Scout fashion
with my new clothesline
to its inner tube foundation.

As we ease into the muddy stream
I remember the giant snapping turtles
said to lurk below the surface,
so I seat myself in the middle
a mere six inches from the water,
hold my knees in place
and we are off –
my partner in his white sailor hat
guiding the raft with a long pole,
me sitting primly, breathing softly,
protected by the shadows of the Alleghenies.
We pole our way,
pioneers of the sea,
until we reach the safety
of the Alderson Bridge,
which I first crossed
forty years ago.

Rahsaan-3 a.m.-soul

3 a.m., energy waning
magic disc spinning
Rahsaan plays the hits
on his stritch
got to want to
scratch that itch
stay up long
like a hard-on
Rahsaan blows a fold in time
an ancient/future rhyme
dissolving pain, expanding mind
outside the wind blows bold
inside my soul grows cold
this town blows me
old
fuck it all
let the good times roll
blow man blow
Rahsaan-3 a.m.-soul

May 2006

Halliteration

The hazy half moon hangs
Hallowed in the heavens,
Hearkening the hardened heart
To the Harmony of the Wholly.

© Loran Elizabeth Conley

After the Hurricane

All that's left
Of life in a double-wide

A computer monitor
Resting its
Cracked skull
Against a downed palm
A waterlogged copy of
Basic Writings of Nietzsche
The Greater Tampa phonebook

Here’s the cat leash
But I
Still haven’t found the cat
I wander from
Heap to heap
Calling out “Gus...Gus”
In a voice just as waterlogged

All my clothes
Are blowing toward Texas
That is, except the pants I’m wearing
And the purple T- shirt
With its ridiculous legend
“Life is full of
Important choices”

Yes it is
I shouldn’t have moved here
I should have heeded the warnings
I should have married
Susan Walker
When I had the chance
I should have stayed landlocked
I shouldn’t have been born

That was what I was thinking
Picking at a buried
Coffee machine
When the blue heron
Landed in the ruins of the backyard
Demanding his usual afternoon
Turkey hot dogs

The Rain

I did not know the universe
had so much rain.
The daffodils you planted
Died long ago.
Even the dog drowned.

They should have warned us.
The children are ill now
From building the bulwarks.
Their noses run,
And their minds are clogged.

I should never have let you go.
I remember your face streaked,
Your hat dripping, unobtrusively,
As if all the tears of the universe
Were asking you to give voice
To their silent sorrow.

I’ll never find you now,
Swimming alone
In the lachrymose rivers of the world.

I can only wait here,
Wait with the children and my bucket,
Wait to be drowned
In the sadness of the world.

What Truth is
Innis Avenue Poem #8

On the other side of the rubble
sober as Ohio
Morning shadows splay
across an empty house
like dead swallow’s wings.

Shards of blackened light
edge the rotting plywood
whispering words of
frailty, disappointment, truth

softly
so
softly,

The ears of fattened rats are
listening.

in reality

in reality
everything
is nothing.

except that
to which
we give
meaning.

April 2006

Coffee Shoppe

Coffee with sympathy
Coffee with self-pity
I still remember when
I saw her way back then
Pretty as a porcelain doll
Somewhere in a dream

I saw her through the window
Working at the coffee shoppe
Over on the corner
Where I would park the truck
Fire underneath the ice
So I rolled the dice

Brilliant flowers
Remind me of Tiffany
Life is so fun
Life can be so funny
She’s better than the flowers
That come every Spring

February
Four years come and four years gone
Now it’s over
She said for me to just move on
She’s going to Arizona
Out there in the sun

Sittin’ in this coffee shoppe
Everything’s come up to how
Couldn’t think of a way
Of a way to make her stay
Out amongst the flowers
She left her garden gloves

Leaving

I see you leaving,
Taking your things,
And I am powerless
To stop this pain –
Pain I might have understood
At the beginning,
But for
My foolishness.

I see you leaving,
Getting out
While you can.
And I’m glad
I can’t stop you.
Hold you in my jar
And watch you die
An insect’s death.

You are leaving
In the sun-drenched Spring,
Free
To flower
Into something
Beautiful,
As you find
Your own way
And strength.

I see you leaving...
Leaving me
To wander
The suddenly expansive rooms
(Still in the grip of Winter’s chill),
Haunted by the echoes
Of your gentle laugh
And the fading specter
Of your soft, sweet smile.

Love is a lachrymose thing

Love is a lachrymose thing,
Listing through lassitudes of losses,
Crying over cares that will not resolve.

Lovers swim not in a river of forgetfulness,
But seem to drown in a lake of heartache,
Until another lover rescues the victim
To a land as yet untouched by tears.

Academics

Craig and I now resting with
Our flannels done gone and ripped

themselves
to

be careful
‘round them old machineries

Said papa old tuna
Fish papa

With albacore included in the
base of the jar

Faced papa loses his
Bait he say he
Does say he say say. Say
there old poppy what did you done

Catch with them imitation
Frog like

Sinkers

(done gone and lost my bait I did I did)

March 2006

Tuesday After All

Drinking cheap wine on a Saturday night
With half a mind to carry it on through Monday
A home-cooked meal under my belt
And a howlin’ wolf song in my head
Three weeks from now I’ll be in a rut again
But for tonight I’m Kerouac in Times Square

I wear a new suit but inside I’m beat as hell
The sun will rise again all too soon
But for now the moon is full of wonder
The night won’t take no for an answer
And the wine is nodding yes
And the stars are winking could be
And it might be Tuesday after all.

Wednesday

I’ve gone to
the art museum
to walk
around and look
for a bit

The sauerkraut
you left was
a treat and
I’ve marked
today’s psalm
in the good
book by
the chair

A Walk in Beechwold
Lune Variations

On the old zoo trail
I smell the lion
padding the creek.

Red door on black
trim nestled
among sugar maples.

A squirrel leaps a wire –
I mark
its passage.

Geese cluster by the river –
take one last dive
before heading north.

Dogs bark the mailman’s
passage from door to door,
herald news.

Houses tell of lineage,
love of wood,
another era.

german village

you’re a world within
yourself

take me in
ceaseless past

for it’s your antiquity
that we crave

as I walk your streets
and absorb your allure

contemporary urgency
is ignored

something long lost
is rediscovered

I am home

Dragon

I aim for control,
tame
my unruly tail,
position an eye
close to wings,
tighten my grip
for balance –
I dare not unbend.

February 2006

Owed to Oil

She's too incensed to wax poetic'ly.
Her sentiments are soaked with gasoline,
so saturated that, were match in hand,
would catch, and then ignite a mammoth scream.

ThuS, hell-enGulfed Medea would proceed,
Exxonerated from her ghastly deed.
Medusa's cap would wink a blackened eye,
Harkened to such pow'r to petrify.

Her spewing verse would loose Pandora's curse
which, once dispersed, could never be undone,
were Mercury, god of commerce, to exert,
on winged heels, a gallant Marathon.

Refinement BlasPhemes, bores a biting wound
and scrapes the stone in which she is entombed.
who dares to drive her to such riving terms
contrives to override the work of worms.

© Sharon Reeb, 2006

January 2006

Silently, the snow falls in the streetlight.
The sky brightens around the old Victorian homes.
Newcomers, old timers, scholars, and children of past residents
Switch their lights on, one by one.
Some must be grumbling about the snow,
Enriched by its beauty nonetheless.
Traffic arrives on the avenue
The muted sound of tires on wet pavement
Soothes my mind.
I leave my window and go to bed, covers high
Counting my blessings.

© Myra Bloom

December 2005

Words

these are words
simple words
that like slow Spring rain,
fall softly
to silence

a bridge between minds
yours and mine
are these words
that reach out
through time

to hold a few precious
moments of your life

these words.

Park Bench

What to make
of a woman's black glove

next to
a man's top hat

on a park bench
early evening

– mid-November

Appalachian Trilogy

#1
As an Appalachian son
You and I are one
the offspring of Mother coal –
with money our only goal,
which we hand dug by the ton
in the carbon lighted sun
We could not be whole
burrowed as a mole
down in that sooty hole.

#2
Down in Fourmile holler
coal dust upon the collar
and Papaw down in the mine
Grandmaw canned the greens
tomatoes, and the beans,
while the revenuers chased the ‘shine;

Good old gospel radio
on station WHKO
the Louvin Brother’s harmonies
along with the locusts in the trees
were there to say to Me
this is your heritage and destiny....

#3
The Cumberland River
thick and muddy brown
Pineville Kentucky
Bell County’s jewel and crown,
Abigail Goodin
in her gingham gown
how I long to walk
with her through downtown.

December Sun

Jack was a friend of mine
We sailed to Panama a few times
Up to Boston and Caroline
Hearts young, bodies too
Part of the same crew
Jack is gone but I’m still here

Jack he came from Baltimore
I met him on Virginia’s shore
I hope that I see Jack again
Jack he was an engineer
I the quartermaster
So many days we sailed the sea
Now Jack is just a memory

I guess Jack he got knocked off course
It could happen to anyone
It broke my heart to hear he died
Goodbye December Sun.

Fear

anxiety will be
a coward’s
end

forever they
conform and
blend

trying to fit the mold
of what a person
“should” be

instead of being
the person they
could be

November 2005

Hill Odyssey

“You can’t go back,”
they say; yet here I am
in late afternoon
beside the Alderson bridge.

A familiar oak
hangs like a comfort
above sun-silvered water.
One of the two
beneath its branches
might well be me
some years ago.

In the oncoming dark
dampness settles,
and I pull my jacket close;
then turn
a silver ring around my finger,
remembering trysts I’ve kept
on this and other bridges.

I stay to watch a strange black cloud
creep like an amoeba
devouring the sky.

the egg lady and I
(for Dorothy Gatterdam)

no ordinary seller of eggs she,
an antidote ...
for a time less civil, less human.

a kind soul,
warm hands reaching out.
they touch everyone.

not a nostalgic icon from another time.
a simple expression of what
a person can be any time.

if i see, look around;
our town has other Dorothys.
practitioners of human kindness.

her eggs, finest jumbos,
no less plain and clear
as Dorothy herself.

i will not miss her.
i will remember she was human.
human to me.

*Roman at 85

I
Sitting on the steps of his studio;
brushes, tubes of paint, stiff
like his long, thin, delicate
fingers drooped over
bony knees.

“61 years is a long time
to love a woman,”
remembering in warm
september sun pouring across
his black face, wide smile,
impish eyes.

“I hope she’s waiting for me,
I want to go along now!”

II
Canvasses, old wood frames,
cracked faces, veined hands
gather dust among the ghosts
of Burkhart, Bellows,
a loved woman.

Drawing no more.
Painting no more.
Satisfied to wait. To lie down,
warm his body, once again,
next to Iona.

© David C. Hetzler

*Roman Johnson (1917 - 2005)

October 2005

Blue

Her upstairs bedroom seems papered
with curled leaves. Maybe
the paint is coming off or maybe the walls have
developed petals, an excess of her love.
Flashback:
my sister and I are
sorting through Mom's things.
Ida loved blue:
gray-blue tweed suits
chalk blue sweaters
everything blue:
the blue chenille
on her bed and the dead plastic
telephone beside it.
Her silk neck scarves?
Each dotted with cigarette burns.
And when I was a continent away
and unable to sleep I knew
Mom
was nodding off with a cigarette
in her hand, and sometimes when the sky
is wild with blue scarves
I dream of chicory
and bed jackets
crocheted afghans - even the satin
linings of her blue trenchcoats
have been pockmarked
by lit Salems
when she reads late at night - and yes
I bear the same vivid flesh burns
as my mother.

© Elizabeth Ann James

Plaid

Today I am plaid,
hemmed tight and
too short
for the body's fitting

I don't blare charm,
or stocking yellow,
my color; an
eyesore
in the walk of
busy street glory

I am worn in,
factory tailored
and armied
second hand,
just short of
cigarette burn and
rodent matter,

I harbor dirt
deep within
hard pressed yarn
and
cotton stain dye

But I am still showcased,
still upright in my day

Still sat upon
and gay; in all that is,
the pattern style
of ageless
garment.

© Adam Gellings

Class Reunion

Coffee turns lukewarm. We each glide
bakc on thin ice memory. Thoughts,
plumaged birds flushed from a winter
thicket, surprise us with clarity.

Remembered hurts return: missing last
point of a game, never asked to dance,
loss of a friend.
Foolish, how secret hurts long buried
still have aching powers.

Failure to meet perfection shadows
our lives like shards of ice
that crack beyond belief from a dark
opening in the pond.

© Betsy Kennedy

Untitled #VII

To be true to one's self
and atone for one's sins
to forgive and forget
that's when it begins;
seeing life, through a new lens.

Cities of Significance

I enjoy the insanity of solitude,
revel in the liberty of insignificance,
so why must I see mansions of meaning
reflected in the retina
of your quiet eyes?

The skyline in your eyes
invites the outsider
to dwell in the suburbs
of your urbanity,
made significant by your smile.

Succumbing to the dark
is as easy as dying
but rest is impossible
while I live in the city lights
of your almond eyes.

Red Dye #9

Her name was none of my business, or so she said.
Her eyes were insane asylum grey and crazy as hell.
Her hair was dyed red, rusty well water red, the
color of half dried blood.
I’m usually king of the staredown, but damnit if she didn’t
force me to check the time on a watch I didn’t own.
I swear she smiled or snarled. She was no stranger to
tension. Looking into her eyes was like staring down a
double barreled shotgun. To hell with it anyway, pull
the trigger. She winked one then her other anodized iris
at me.
The rain began and she didn’t even flinch when a large
drop exploded on her forehead like a gunshot, direct hit.
Blessed be she was a treat, and pass the anmmunition I was
a mess. Nothing new really.
Now her face was tilted skyward. She fumbles at her collar
for her headphones. The opening drums of “Sympathy For
The Devil” fill the bus stop where we wait with broken
hearts and bated breath for the number nine bus into
downtown. The rain felt charged, almost baptismal. We both
got soaked, went crazy, waiting to be saved.

I See

I see in his eyes,
I see in her eyes,
I see in my eyes
I see in your eyes:
sadness,
softened only by the hope
that animals can love.

September 2005

September in Ohio

Crossing Champaign County on highway 256,
manure, evidence of the Amish who
flourish by the rural berm,
trying not to be noticed.

Soybean leaves have turned butter yellow green.
Fields swollen like the breasts
of a lovely young mother.

Corn grew past the eye of an elephant weeks ago.
Stalks heavy with seed, feed, and bread,
are now bending with age
and are tired of being green.

A yellow tail hawk perches on a rolled bale of hay
staring into the mowed acres, hungering to dig its talons
deep into the back of a small brown mouse
whose purpose is to move life forward.

Soon the reapers, cutters, balers and gatherers
will finish their job. Steel will again slice
black Ohio dirt, rows narrowing into another spring.

To be like Keats

Oh to create something free
Whose presence would live and would outlast me
That would state to the world, “I’ve been there”
That would mix with ideas, and spawn something new
Out of my control, but beautiful too.

Getting Ready for the Purple

I am eighty-five and my neighbor, Charlie,
has snapped my picture
standing in a bed of cosmos in the side yard.
Sturdy jeans hide knobby knees.
A new candy-striped Dockers shirt hides bony arms
and blends with the pink and white blooms.
Laurie June at the Better Image Beauty Bar
has teased and sprayed my thin hair to a fare-you-well.
New Reeboks complete the scene.
Standing tall against the tall fragile fronds
I am Grant Wood strong.

When I am old, really old
I will mail this image to Willard Scott
and he will say,
“Look at this beautiful little lady - one hundred and one!
Note the sharp vintage outfit and the 1997 hairdo.
Lives it up at the B Alive Senior Casa in Miami.
They say she still works in the gardens there.”

When I Am Old

When I am old my teeth will sleep
in a jar of water beside my bed
I'll wear plastic curlers, polyester scarves
Outline my lips in the brightest red
I'll check to be sure I've locked the door
Then check again ten times or more
I'll lose my glasses and my shoes
then forget what it is I'm looking for
My cupboard will be over-stocked
with packets of creamer, pepper and salt
I'll hoard tiny butters, jellies and jams
though I'll tell myself I won't
When I am old I'll talk to myself
Ask you over and over what you said
Sit and stare from my rocking chair
while amusing myself with tunes in my head
I'll slobber, burp; I might pass gas
That I'll be a "hoot" there is no doubt
On second thought...on getting old
You can just count me out!

August 2005

Yellow House

I must bid adieu to this cheap bungalow
where women, more than just a few, used to come and go
if walls could speak and slanted floors squeak anew
I think at last that they would remember You
and how in your ecstatic orgasm would genuinely cry
I know I shan’t forget, how could I? how could I?

As My Daughter referred to as “Daddy’s little yellow house”
ever replete with darting errant mouse
an ideal haven for a poet, a drunken Irish souse
where else could I walk off the porch and piss –
and my gibberish there to expouse?
I would be most remiss, but so much more than this
upon this weary shack we’ve left our knack
bent over sink, on the floor, in the sack
so then Luv, give us one more kiss
basking in morning afterglow, so apropos.

Line of Fire

And I was rolling violently
And I was rocking frightfully
I took part in his bed
In preference to going home.
I was not to be trusted
I was rocking good news
I was flesh and bone
Ubiquitous
Splashing happy
Sparkled liquidness
Entertaining hopes
And language
Of a consolatory nature.
Surprise and pleasure
Diabolical villainy
Do you read me
Grace and freedom
Peppermint and not alone.

Back from tennis

Back from tennis all sweaty
we fell into bed naked
humid envelope of summer surrounding
intent to linger on the coolness
of the sheets.

Idle touches fell as public radio
massaged our minds.
Gathering up limbs
caresses grew to strokes grew.

Smashed against each other
every muscle contracted
yet more relaxed than ever,
Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard
the perfect backdrop against
which we threw our passion.

That day we grabbed a piece
of heaven and held it
for the best minutes.

Spring lips

the same Spring lips
which kissed me,
later told me
Winter lies.

I Will Be Remembering You

I will be remembering you when
woods are cool and weeds
are hidden

When last year’s leaves are still
damp beneath this year’s green

When trees tower expectantly in April,
reluctance in their bursting buds

When there is need for touch and
warmth and love’s caress

When bodies lace space and
muscles push waves into
burnished skin or transparent skin

When birds careen and dip, divide
the sky

Whenever a man and a woman
reach toward one another,
press tongue against tongue,
thigh against thigh

Whenever a moment is becoming

Before daystroke -
sunrising
and sunsetting –
forever.

Tracks

This is how I see us:
railway sleepers that bore
the rattling trains, splintered

friction-sparked in speed,
weathered grains from rain,
round-worn edging
from years of wear;

this is how I see us:
tracks no longer used,
summer heat swelled out
what juice remained;

we’re lying bolted still,
we’ve never moved,
we’ve never really touched,
though lord knows others think
we climbed the tracks at night
regained our bolted beds by day;
but we just lay there side by side
strips of track.

Match made in heaven;
Each sec together sublime –
Heaven fails sometimes.

June 2005

Bumper to Bumper

Bumper to bumper, butt to butt,
get off my tail, you crazy nut.
Don’t be antsy; don’t be rude.
Don’t you be a useless dude.

Back off, Nancy. Back off, Jake.
If you don’t, I’ll hit the brake.
Don’t you ever tailgate me.
I’ll get even; wait and see.

If you want to be a jerk;
I will make you late for work.
Think I’m gonna slow way down.
Take all day to cross this town.

Then you’re gonna see my tail.
Hit my car and go to jail.
If you want, I’ll show you how.
How you gonna like me now?

Get some sense and get some brains.
This is not a railroad train.
Leave some space between the cars.
The way you drive is just bizarre.

A moron taught you how to drive.
I can’t believe you’re still alive.
You can’t drive that car too well.
You’re a dim-brain; I can tell.

Where’d you get your license, Mac?
From a box of Cracker Jacks?
No, you’re not that smart, I bet.
You don’t have a license yet.

Time is a Terrible Place to Be

Time is a terrible place to be,
Littered with lost promises
And the shards of broken dreams,
A terrain to be traveled
With a roadmap of remorse,
On visits to dissatisfied friends.

One would surely have a better time in space,
But it contains the landscape of loneliness,
Hours of emptiness,
Where no one exists to pass the time.

© Doug Rutledge

When I live in outer space,
I will hold up the moon,
Walk barefoot through moonbeams,
Step toe on a five-pointed star,
Swim naked in the Milky Way,
Warp-run through sunspokes –
Then leap into the velvet void
To spread stardust and moonbeams
From my hands to Earthfolks
Down below, over there, out there,
Everywhere!
And always
To hold peace in my human heart
For all.

second chance

wash over me like
a warm rain
that comes in waves
to sweeten a bitter soul

awake me
like an ocean breeze
that breathes the
warm breath of hope
into my heart

Full Moon

Fool moon, full of pride,
Beams all night, so sure his light
Has its source inside.

May 2005

The Gardener

After winter’s long and terrible blight,
I resign myself to the safety of the fire.
I resist exposing annuals to light
And trimming back the ragged briar.
Like old Grendel, the cold monster winter,
Will only return to the mead hall of spring
And once again, all my good friends murder,
So I sit by the fire, as spring’s joy sings.
But the bright warrior resists my despair
And summons me once again to hoe and rake.
Thus last year’s beauty I again repair,
And past happiness I start to remake.
The gardener bears a mental burden
As the thinker who can not resist the sun.

One
we undulate like roiling
waters cascading ever down
and then spilling ourselves
waqntonly, wickedly
wondrous and holy
on the banks of our dharma
two rivers as one, becoming ocean.

© Ken Elam (to dellzell)

Untitled #II
To Transcend My own Desire
Ego, Lust, this belly fire
To Sing Bass in the Holy Choir
Speaking Tongues unknown to liars
To such do I Aspire
Such Joy to acquire.

© Ken Elam

In the Photo

In the photo my mother is
Beautiful. Though in black
And white I picture her cheeks
Rosy, as pink Chablis. Her hair
Cascades thick and wavy, to meet
The soft slant of her shoulders
Covered demurely in a dark dress
I imagine, a shade of red. She is
Smiling coyly for the camera,
As if she is the holder of some
Secret or about to spring a surprise.

The couch she sits on has a dark
Background smattered with clusters
Of tiny white blossoms. Behind her
The wallpaper is enmeshed in huge
Leaves pointing skyward. Poised
Between each two leaves is a single
Flower. The linoleum is a typical 50's
Pattern of multicolored and sized
Diagonal stripes. In the photo my
Mother is a constant in surroundings
I can only describe as busy, and
So she has been all of her life.

The photo was taken after my older
Sister's and my birth but before
Those of our siblings. Long before
School days, dating, marriages,
Grandchildren, divorces and all forms
Of crisis imagined or real, which have
Turned her once vibrant brown hair
To gray strand by strand. Long before
Wrinkles claimed her face, arthritis
Wreaked havoc on her joints, osteoporosis
Settled in her bones …

In the photo my mother is
Beautiful. She is poor but happy,
Innocent and trusting, hinging on a
Promise, glimmering with
Love.

Portrait

I see the tall, fresh zinnias
on their stiff, green stems
with starchy, ruffled petals
painted in full color range.
There like a speckled one herself,
stands my Aunt Nora –
her blue flowered percale
melding with the crisp zinnias,
black hair pulled tightly in a knot,
dark eyes laughing from a worn face.
A gnarled hand clutches a few bright stalks
picked for the company table.
Her breast pin sparkling in the sun
pins the whole Renoir scene.
She moves away with effort.

Now she is gone, but when my zinnias flower
I remember the brief cameo –
Aunt Nora, zinnia in her time.

Caught in the act

Caught in the act of living,
His seemingly eternal motion
Is temporarily frozen
By a photograph.
In that view
He truly looks immortal.

But that was then and this is now,
Now for me, but not for him,
For he is frozen in time again.
This time not by film, but by death –
Not for a time, but for all time.
This time he is frozen in all aspects,
A leaf torn from the plant of life.

We, too, are leaves waiting to die.
We are the eggs of ghosts
Waiting to hatch.

The Picture

This is how I looked in 1948
With white nurses’ shoes
And a tie curled up around my bosom
But now I’m dead and the picture does not care.

The tie offered masculine authority
After the war.
It eased the curve
Of my bosom,
As it tucked into my
Girl’s waist
But now I’m dead and the picture does not care.

April 2005

Lost

Lost in place.
Lost in space.
A loss of face.
Face the loss.
Replace the place.
Fill the space.
No big disgrace.
End of chase.

Lost

The Thoughts,
The words,
There –
Then Gone.

March 2005

wooded path

Life is rather dull today
there's nothing much to hold me still
my attention's roaming here and there
boredom is a bitter pill

A walk along this wooded path
will surely cure this bout
Imagination can overtake
this servile beast without a doubt

As I set out on this wooded path
I arrive in no time at all
beneath this great canopy of leaves
my existence seems quite small

as chipmunks forage for their feast
through wide-open space
self-absorption is abandoned
and is gone without a trace.

The birds grace me with their songs
the landscape comes alive
my sullen disposition is
transformed before my eyes

when the doldrums come to visit
and just won't seem to pass
spark Imagination's sunshine
find yourself a wooded path…

© Eric Vance Walton
www.EricVanceWalton.com

Bird Feeder Blues

I bought a bird feeder and put it in a tree
So lots of pretty birds I’d hopefully see
Really enjoying their coming around
In all colors, sizes, sweet chirping sound
Until one day appeared ... a chattering clown
He didn’t like millet, corn or grain
Only the sunflower seeds would he claim
And day after day, this bandit, he came
Leaping, sliding, twisting in mid-air
To get at the sunflower seeds that were there
Doing it so gracefully, without fear
No matter what barrier I’d place in his way
It did not deter him nor cause him to sway
Growing weary of trying to outsmart him
In this game of wit we seemed to be locked in
I went to the store, and this time I bought
Only sunflower seeds, filling them to the top
And I sit and laugh, for now I find
He’s graciously allowing the birds to dine
In his “squirrel” feeder, isn’t he kind?

February 2005

bureaucrat

it’s just too bad you’re at the wheel
malignant corruption
breeds a FRUSTRATED ANGER!
shining charisma and glistening virtues
show themselves ever
Two, Four and Six.
outright lies do soothe the masses,
contorted smiles behind dark glasses,
It’s so so sad you’re at the wheel.

© Eric Vance Walton
www.EricVanceWalton.com

If I am to be a poet:

I must like coffee-houses
and jazz music
Smoke clove cigarettes
learn to blow smoke rings
Contemplate the rain
wearing black boots
Write with fountain pens
swearing off cell phones
Dress myself in thrift store
avoiding name brands
Never speak in clichés
or quote “Friends”
Sleep till at least noon
and own cats

Otherwise I’m just a girl with a note-
book
who likes Dickinson.

Baghdad Is Burning
March 22, 2003

I. Bombs blast at palaces –
at political enclaves,

Bombs laser-laced and
satellite guided,

Bombs scarring ancient
Mesopotamia,

Bombs barking their
explosive sound
burning our ears,

Bombs beyond our human
beliefs and values,

Bombs to burn a bad, bad,
man and his sons,

Bombs for you and bombs for me.

2. Oh ancient city ‘tween the
Tigris and Euphrates,

Oh ancient city of
first writing,
Of ancient Law Code of
Hammurabi,

Oh ancient city of
first ziggurat,

Of architectural wonders,
Of ancient worship

Of Astarte Queen of the Stars
she of the Heavens,

Of ancient home of Abraham
in Ur, City of Gilgamesh,
he of the first Hero’s
Journey and the first flood.

Bombs like raucous rhetoric
bellowing from
bulletproof rooms.

3. Oh say can you see by the
dawn’s early light –
In the name of our nation –
Baghdad is burning,

By the rocket’s red glare –
We could see that “our” oil
was still there.

And the bursting bombs
keep the banging of drums

Drawing out the curse
on the head of a bad, bad,
bad, bad man and his sons.

Oh rock me now in the bosom
of the big bombs –

Oh say can you see, or are you
blinded by the sight
of Baghdad people maimed and dead –

Or the sudden soldier facing death
and destruction!

Standing in Line to Sigh

Standing in line to sigh,
The world groans
Before it dies.
While waiting, it wails
Its moribund misery,
Mitigated by revenge,
Ravaging revenge manufacturing misery.
Singing songs of sorrows,
The suicidal world sighs
And groans again before it dies.

You look in the mirror but don’t want to believe
That the truth is worse than you could ever conceive

So numb from the dumbing down
Even your inner-child is suffering now

In the mirror there’s a face, it’s not starving but just the same
More stupid we become while we ‘win’ at this crooked game.

Working hard for our SUV’s, suburban homes, plasma TVs
While a third world child is happy with a bed and a scrap to eat.

Nero is fiddling, believe me, new Rome is burning and its people are yearning
For truth but they would have to be deprogrammed before learning it

So irate is our state of affairs, we feel hollow inside
But we pop another Prozac, go to our cubicles and swallow our pride

Day after day after day after day
The more I see, the more I say

Will it be North Korea or Iraq we attack?
The only thing I’m sure of is we’ve been Bush-wacked.