The Sheltered Poet

J.T. Whitehead

2012-01-03T18:08:00.001-08:00

Interview with an American Writer

Q: “Could you name your biggest influences?”
A: “French artists
“& Indian gurus.
"German philosophers
“& Black blues.
“Irish poets
“& British rockers.
“Dutch brewers
“& Jamaican farmers.
“Hyperborean climates . . .
“& . . . naturally . . .
“American blood.

{J.T. Whitehead}

Samantha Seto

2012-01-02T14:10:00.000-08:00

Relative End

The sidewalk etches the words
deep into the pavement.
I cower at the sight,
bury my face into my jacket,
only to realize that it’s an illusion.

In subway trains, the images blur together,
creating a nonsensical web.
Familiar bustle at the station in late afternoon
is restless and alerts surrounding traffic.

Music arises, light from outdoors,
Pedestrians dance in the streets,
as I drive past at walking speed.

The winds sway a swing at the park,
with sunbeams on its convex shape.
Rectangular blues and purples
reflect the water’s light from a nearby lake.

Downtown bus, unscheduled
stops a few meters away, rounds a curb.
The driver looks back at me,
I am forgotten.

Gravel beneath my feet erodes blisters,
hesitating to take me home.
I hold my breath for a second,
to take in fumes that only pollute me.

The silver maple tree drips water from its leaves,
clean dirt beneath rosebuds holds weariness,
I stand only a few meters away
from dreary weeds that grow.

Dusk in dark gray and blue shades in horizon,
signifies half-moon shadows.

{Samantha Seto}

C. David Hay

2012-01-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

Wings

Oh, to catch the winds of flight
And soar where eagles go,
To leave the woes of troubled souls
Behind me far below.
I'd listen to the song of birds
And sail in endless flight,
Then chase the sun through cloudy paths
And play with stars at night.

The boundless heavens for my home,
The breeze to lift me high,
To rise above my mortal bonds
And never have to die;
Knowing I had found the way
To trails where angels trod,
And when my wings could fly no more -
I'd take the hand of God!

{C. David Hay}

Frank DeCanio

2012-01-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

Gossamer Girl

Could artifice work such a toxic kiss
despite its guile? Demure, yet filled with grace,
she glares at me as if she might dismiss
me out of hand, and put me in my place.
She doesn’t play like novices who scowl
to snuff out flames of passion that they stoke.
But like some hungry spider on the prowl,
she’s poised to pounce on quarry with one stroke,
as soon as they’re entangled in her web.
Indeed. When I approach this stern cashier,
her sweet hello accelerates the ebb
and flow of my heart’s racing blood. And fear
in my glazed eyes assures her she holds sway
as her smile spins the silk that dooms her prey.

{Frank DeCanio}

Mackenzie Brown

2012-01-02T13:10:00.001-08:00

What Are You

You are my pencil.
You carve charcoal tinted
graphite solidly onto the
page below; successfully
transporting images that
rest in my mind.

You are my tool.
Your sharply sawed edges
slice through the toughest
membranes; hoping that
what you discover exceeds
what you currently posses.

You are my weapon.
You represent the extent
of my fears; where reality and
fantasy converge. In exploring
the possibilities, I find
your infinite usefulness.

But I am the Author, the Creator.
I am the floor water spills over onto;
the ideas that are too extravagant
and many to stay in their cage. I use
you to express myself. I am your
beginning and end.

{Mackenzie Brown}

Michael Zadell

2012-01-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

Interstitial

First light ignites the placid air
of a vaulted darkness
blown wide open

and from that arc
of sky in disrepair
the radiance of morning

rages
out of a spreading glare
of derelict clarity

and what cannot be penetrated
is shoved aside
to the margins

where our spirits
spend our days
already vindicated

wrapped in shadowed weather
leaning into our lives
like water

nudging us past those streams
that forever lead us toward
but never really get us here

to a reef of the heart’s own making
on an
interstitial ocean

awaiting our return to ourselves
until the interrupted night resumes
like a fever

finally broken.

{Michael Zadell}

Erren Geraud Kelly

2012-01-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

Kenlynne

something was different about
her tonight
it was the clothes, the
hair
the hat that tried to hide her feminimity
but only enhanced it
it comes as natural as the way
she walks
the way she puffs her
cigarette
ever blase' to death
she can only take certain kinds
of crazy
otherwise, she just walks
away
and it's not going out of my
way
to follow behind her
some women would kill
for her curves
she thinks its no big deal
and doesn't work at it
at all
and i don't think god
is fair or unfair
god is just god
sometimes, i don't think we should
work at it at all
there should be some things
that just drop into our lives

{Erren Geraud Kelly}

Natalie Jeanne Champagne

2012-01-02T12:24:00.000-08:00

Love

We are not in love
But, yes, we do love
We do not kiss
But instead read each other’s lips
He might draw me a bath
Scented like lavender

When the sun has fallen
We lay side by side
Though we do not touch
We are not in love
But, yes, we do love

Laughter can be intimate
A hand held sensual
Fervent passion
Explored with the mind
And not the body
We are not in love
But, yes, we do love

{Natalie Jeanne Champagne}

Michelle Macfarlane

2012-01-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

Burning Clouds Before the Day Ends

A black crescent moon swallowed the sides of his head
which contained entire galaxies of complexities
and standards and measures of faith.
Soothing included a bedtime story and
helping move a grand piano down a
staircase for a neighbor. A massage
was merely an uncomfortable interaction
of strange intimacy.

The earth was merely a super glued rubber ball
that bounced around and shook the
inhabitants around and up and down.

It was the good, the bit of melted cheese in a sandwich
or the laughter of tickling a daughter’s knee which
mended the useless rubber ball into
a place worth existing.
He was not a man of only simple moments.
He drove an exotic Mercedes with brown leather
seats and heated cushions for long winter drives.

A man of his word, unless he merely forgot or changed
the terms and conditions of an arrangement.

Books on history collected no dust on his shelves
as he constantly swallowed the black ink
into every pore and surface of his being.

He did not ask to be remembered by the masses
He did not want his name to span the ages.
He would survive through unanswered questions

Their path destined by a need to understand
black crescent moons that burned
clouds during daylight.

{Michelle Mcfarlane}

Susan Marie Davniero

2012-01-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

Legacy of Emily Dickinson

Lore of legend raise
Gifted poet’s praise
The creative source
For poetry’s course

Solitude inviting
Recluse for writing
Pinning away alone
Set the poet’s tone

Life of isolation
Denied recognition
The myth has last
Recluse of Amherst cast

Success later came
In posthumous fame
Her poetry is left
To speak for itself

As legends grow old
A story left untold
By the poetry creation
Legacy of Emily Dickinson

{Susan Marie Davniero}

Donal Mahoney

2012-01-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

No Hypocrisy, No Cant

The lioness is wont
to practice no

hypocrisy, no cant.
The lioness

will topple her objective,
grapple with it till

all palpitation
finally is still.

The lioness then laps,
completely dry,

what unavoidably
may spill.

Before He Goes Bare

You'll never see him again, you say,
but what if he brings to your room
a midnight poem he says
he's written for you.

Will you read it together
a couple of times, out loud,
as you have in the past?
And what if he then

shoots like a rocket
into the forest, igniting the fire,
as he has in the past.
Will you see him again?

We have the children
to think about.
That's why I'm here.
We all need to know.

{Donal Mahoney}

Peter Layton

2012-01-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

Sand

I've been taught to
sleep with my weapon
eat with it
feed it its shells
oiled, cleaned,
we are often as one
it grasps much I
hold deeper inside
you
sharing this space and not
hearing and feeling all I can't say
the late night hours tick
the hard closeness of them
saying my epistles to you
you seeming
the dust of morning
nearby, wishing everything away
I'll hold this
warm dark wood
inside like a candle flame
the deeper inside smoking cold shells
readying to do me harm
I'm always armed, night after night of same
the cold framed trees
the starklights
the cold
held in.

{Peter Layton}

Earvin Wilson

2011-07-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

Seeing Things

It takes time to see a lot of things, and yet,
in a lifetime, we seem to not have the time.
When we could just stop one day, and watch
a beautiful sunset.
Walk along a shore, and just be in that time.
We can miss so much, looking for it all,
like not noticing the mist off the roaring waves.
It's cool in the summer, barefoot in the
grass of morning dew.
But it takes a lot of time, to see a lot
of things, when all we got to do is look.
That's when you can really see the joy,
In seeing things...

{Poem by Earvin Wilson}

Roger G. Singer

2011-07-20T18:24:00.001-07:00

Faithful

My fingers greedily crawl
into spring soil;
a salve for hands deep pocketed
from past winter winds.

Up into me an aroma
spills my senses to warm.
I breathe in the green flavor
of growth
while studying the land.

Faithful is the change
that tilts the earth,
raising the sun with blessing
onto the place I live.

I will swim in the suns hold,
opening my shirt,
forgetting my shoes and
welcoming screen doors.

{Poem by Roger G. Singer}

Kevin Cole

2011-07-20T18:12:00.001-07:00

This Sidewalk Was More Interesting

This sidewalk was more interesting
In the evening leafy sun
A whitewashed wall
Some roses
A tended hermit’s yard

Paths like free verse stanzas
Trellised vines in poet’s light
A garden of word solitude
A summer of the mind

A few steps in the June past
An evening’s finished pages
This sidewalk was more interesting

{Poem by Kevin Cole}

Brandi Underwood

2011-07-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Smudged

I throw the Twain pages into ember flames. Edges of paper turn crisp brown. Reflecting from my brother’s eyes ink words change hues now inflamed violets. By time twilight runs its time clock, the bottom of the black oil drum ash collects. Bully points out the smile the ash forms. We move along. Towers of charcoal window panes stand evergreen roots a hundred feet long. Billy sees an odd indigo magazine. He sits along the curb edge. His eyes flip through jargon he did not know.

Before the Drop, lands in the central plains grew lush, and kids sat in class and knew that their destiny was like whispers easily re-written. Now out eyes are crisp with dry morning tears. Every sunrise I check Billy for indigo rings almost like bruises. A side effect from radiation. We travel. Our legs grow weak and muscles inflamed by time twilight with few stars. Another side effect partial blindness. Age three towers of red legos towered over me. Now towers of brittle charcoal threaten to crumble. Our bodies turn to ash.

Food: number one priority. Keep moving for Billy’s sake, or his bones will crumble to ash. In Mother’s womb when the Drop came. Radiation seeped through her skin. Now he’ll never know how moist grass feels against your feet. Instead he feels dry lakes of ash. Solomon’s towers are now dawn’s past. Frankenstein, I will remember the story. I will remember inflamed faces as I shoveled dirt upon them. Death’s blanket won’t make me forget mothers crisp eyes of indigo. Six years to the day, to the hour since the Drop. Happy Birthday Billy. Indigo Streams and irises of his eyes still deep, just like hers were. Our night cradles ash flakes. As I lay, I feel the warmth of dying embers. Few travelers along the road but memories of faces are inflamed in the back of my head. In time will I forget what they even look like? No! Just how I will remember the yellow sun. How I miss modern towers. Dreams crystal cut sky with diamonds scattered. The one thing that never changed. Towers with panes of glass still firm in their steel frames, before the flames of burning indigo hues. Story books, fresh from press, typed words to life. Crisp mountains soothed reader’s moral. Now it’s reduce to ash flakes at bottom of countless barrels. I read Frankenstein to Billy. He’ll know stories because of me. I will teach him words are treasures that bring truth inflamed.

The sun rose in the powder sky. Men gazed at clouds with inflamed sins still lingering. Our world was at peace. What a lie. Plane engines buzzed, and boots stomped, towers never stood after the turning of the key. We all know the date October 22 1962. The horizon would shine bright red before the dawn, now indigo shadows replace. “Don’t blink this world changes in an instant.” Ash falls as rain daily. Billy’s tears smudge, but his smile still remains crisp. Crisp, inflamed ash towers no indigo.

{Written by Brandi Underwood}

Peter Lattu

2011-07-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Our Trip to See the Trey McIntyre Project

Saturday night we were off to see a dance performance by the Trey McIntyre Project at the Sidney Harman Hall across from the Verizon Center. We hopped the Metro at Huntington.

There was an intriguing crowd on the subway into the city that night… a man in a kilt with a frame backpack… a woman in a long celery green formal evening gown with bare shoulders listening to her iPod… an older man in jeans and an indigo kimono top in a wheelchair reading a small book… a blonde woman dressed in black and white with a gift bag writing her card on the way to a party… two young women resting their boots on the handicapped seat… a woman way behind us coughing… all this on our train ride to Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter.

Emerging from the Metro, we walked past the Navy Memorial with pleasant memories of its summer concerts. Regrettably, the Navy Memorial Visitors’ Center itself no longer displays changing daily reminders of events of the day in Navy and Marine Corps history. We used to enjoy reading those historic reminders as we walked by its window. But tonight a red carpet was out for a film showing at the Center – an inviting touch.

On the way to Harman Hall we noticed the packed restaurants and bars. Lots of people were walking along the sidewalks, including a couple pushing a baby and a small white dog in a stroller. A woman in very high heels walked into the street to avoid the grate.

The performance consisted of three dances: Ma Maison, In Dreams, and The Sweeter End, all created by Trey McIntyre in the past several years. Ma Maison featured eight dancers in death’s head masks with recorded music by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Sister Gertrude Morgan. There was a bit of vaudeville and a sequence channeling the Roaring Twenties with an ecstatic Charleston. The death’s head masks reminded us of how death is a part of life even in present pleasure, like a New Orleans jazz funeral. At one point the dancers formed a chain of death as in Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal. A hint of plagues and coffle gangs was there in that chain of dancers.

In Dreams, set to recorded music by Roy Orbison, was created for the Ballet Memphis in 2007. The Sweeter End brought us back to jazz with more recorded music by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The dancers were costumed in post-twentieth-century urban grunge. Sweat flew as they vamped exuberantly to jazz of yesterday.

The program did not have photographs of the dancers in the company so we could not tell who was who except for Jason Hartley, one of our favorites from his days with the Washington Ballet. His characteristic casual soaring lightness remains and we were happy to see that he is now assistant to the artistic director as well as one of the dancers.

Interestingly, this dance company makes its home in Boise, Idaho. All of the dancers are sponsored by someone, including several by people in Boise. Idaho is a long way from New York City, that fertile center of contemporary dance and ballet. However, Trey McIntyre’s company showed no sign of missing the big city. His dances are twenty-first century creations, chic and modern.

After the show, we stepped out into the street and into rain. Several people were wearing police badges with black bands. Later we heard on the radio that it was National Police Week with events downtown. There was track work between Pentagon City and Braddock Road, so our train took twenty-five minutes to appear at Gallery Place. On the way home was a woman wearing a silk kimono in circles of color on black with a purple obi. Back at Huntington, we got in our car and headed home after an exciting night out.

{Essay by Peter and Alison Lattu, May 18, 2011}

Joy Olree

2011-04-30T15:41:00.001-07:00

To Dance

My light it shines for all to see,
I am translucent yet fully seen.
My spirit it bids me dance, my
feet they follow suit. I am for
whatever reason a servant of
what is.

But, if in Gods’ wisdom it was
never meant these feet to move
then let him to my soul speak,
because it is for him, I worship
this way.

{Poem by Joy Olree}

Jeff Steinle

2011-04-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

Beginning Alone

We look out to a cosmos of gargantuan expanse
Willing passage into night’s starlight dance
Wise nephilim through technology reveal
What histories thieves waive and conceal
Canals on Mars were proof at the last centuries turning
Chime in the millennium at a comet cult of lost souls learning
Consider crop circles two guys, two hours, a board, and a six
Crazy, silly, weird times and people humanity shall never lack
Iconoclast astronaut ingest the ambrosia via the ajar adytum
Inquire off the pale blue dot for isles of forgotten wisdom
Inhabitants valiant venture off verdant earth to the celestial
Skyward toward the face and ruins on Mars evidence of alien
Sanctum sanctorum awaits, satori, the ephemeral, the golden
Splendorous contact will raise God’s subtle and divine
shrouding
Stellar enormity belies eminent humanities imminent fated saga
Epochs will pass on emerald planets in the ebony void of space
Eclipsing ancient evidence keeping the enigma of a solitary race
Echoes of past revelations where vast galactic alibis will
astound
Eternally an Eden of stars and vestal planets will be found

{Poem by Jeff Steinle}

Robert D. Lyons

2011-04-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

As Daylight Fades

Minutes become hours.
Hours are sprouting to days.
Time slowly withers away with the beating of my heart,
But spreads like my fears,
Which have now become phobias.
Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day,
And to my utter dislike, I am indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell.

Truth is the first victim of the fires of ill perception.
The match has been struck and flames spread like a wildfire in an isolated forest.
I try to embrace the sweet melancholy burns and guide them to caress the fires of my heart:
My inner anguish that turns even the robust rose I touch to the reminiscent atoms of ash.
The scars born from these foreign flames branch off throughout my once pale body,
Hiding my soul like clouds to the March sun.
The wounds of my past have reopened,
And I am watching all my insecurities leak out like a secluded spring.
The scent of blood is in the air,
And my predators are on the prowl,
Thirsty for catastrophe.
Uncertainty has engulfed my goals of bliss
As my thoughts follow these hollow catacombs,
And with terror, I believe myself lost in a world of intangible horrors.

A world in compassed with shades of blue
Where even the tiniest flaw is brought into sight,
From a haze of fluorescent light
Far more perilous than heavens gate.
I am at the mercy of wretched fate!
I never believed in ghost, until I became one.
Sitting in reflection of all the clashes that are far from done,
For I have sat idly by as daylight decayed,
I have yet to see a day without an ambiguous raid.
Helpless, I must stand, as if I am being toyed;
Destined for destruction, never to fill the void.

{Poem by Robert D. Lyons}

Kristyn Marie Taylor

2011-04-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

Cartography

I grew out of this--
brackish water, heat and oak trees.
I grew out of soybean soil,
under cotton fields beside Choctaw burial grounds.
My sweat tastes the same as my tears
and my blood, unseen, is
the color of kudzu in April.

{Poem by Kristyn Marie Taylor}

John Grey

2011-04-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

These Driven Ones

They wrote and they wrote
while ignoring the lives
they could have lived.
They ate to write. They made love to write.
They grabbed brief snatches of sleep
so they could write while awake.
What they didn’t write didn’t happen.
Who they didn’t write about
couldn’t exist.
But really all that happened was writing.
The only ones who existed were them.
They were snakes chasing some abstract tail
and every length of its body
was the stuff that poured out of them.

From birth to death,
they wrote about themselves writing.

{Poem by John Grey}

Donal Mahoney

2011-04-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

Wound in Cellophane

The older women come to coffee
with cookies wound in cellophane.
They talk of children

or their children’s children
or their garden.
Or they simply sew

and watch the young girls trickle in,
buy berry rolls and coffee,
nibble, sip, lick fingers, blow

small parachutes of smoke,
and laugh a young girl’s
world of willy-nilly.

Widower

In the miner’s shack
the vase on the dresser
squats beneath
a giant cactus
planted by hands
flinty and callused.

“When Mona was here,
this vase got roses,
and lots of water.
After she left
I gave it this cactus.
It never needs water.”

{Poetry by Donal Mahoney}

Kenneth Soares

2011-04-30T07:42:00.001-07:00

As the Mirror Shatters

As the mirror shatters, the glass falling like rain. So beautiful, So sharp. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I lose myself, as it cuts me a shower of crimson blood. I don’t notice the pain as I see you over there my perfect angel. You walk over and protect me from the rain. As I see your blood I cry, my perfect angel in pain for me. You hold me tight as I cry in your arms; you’re always there for me. I try to push you away. You’re too good for me. You deserve someone ...better, but you just hold me tighter. You say "You'll love me forever.", and I want to believe. As the rain lets up and I can see your beauty. As I look in to your face I can see the truth. We stayed there til you feel asleep. I picked you up and carried you away with me forever.

{Poem by Kenneth Soares}

Matthew Rodgers

2011-04-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

Time as a Dancer

Do not touch the rain forest
even for oil
the blood of the earth
the trapped light
makes shadows upon the walls
of butterfly skulls
and the gecko’s eyes
are like a rainbow
as the sound of rain
lulls restless souls
into escaping the darkness
but the shadows that follow
the phases of the moon
cannot be gotten rid of
and the solar flares
exploding in outer space
move through you
like wind passing
through the trees
vibrating effortlessly
as a myriad of peacocks
singing of beauty
shooting stars
remnants of past galaxies
flickering fireflies
like the pulse of time
and the heartbeat
of everyone
everything
the earth
the universe
free falling
through the sky
like a bleeding heart
that cannot be stopped
but bleeds and bleeds
letting go forever.

{Poem by Matthew Rodgers}

Bobbi Sinha-Morey

2011-04-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

The Scent Of Love

On a day when the sun
flowered above I breathed
my soul back into me and
a roseate dream beckoned
me. The scent of love
brought me the sun's
warmth even nearer.
Today I will look in front
of me when before I
looked back at where
I'd been. It's a blessing
God's light shines in my
home, and every day
I live in the present.
I leave my heart ajar
for heaven's glow.

Rhapsody Of Shadows

Tonight's lazy rhapsody
of shadows have lit upon
my block and now I am
no longer afraid to let
you see where I live.
You'll never see a flower
grow in my backyard or
by the sidewalk, but the
fine under bone of hope
is inside my home and
the tangled evening
sunlight dances in the
street. Now I've nothing
more to hide for love
heals from the inside.
Memories of living
alone are pages of
dust blown away by
a silent wind and,
on the golden edge
of my sleep, my heart
hums a song now
that you are near.

{Poetry by Bobbie Sinha-Morey}

Susan Marie Davniero

2011-04-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

A Garden Tour

A garden tour
Flowers galore
The garden gate
Floral beauty await

A flower bath
Lace the path
Bouquet beauty
Garden variety

Pansies in a row
Marigolds aglow
A sweep of peonies
Field of daises

Fragrance there
Pervades the air
Lavish greens
Poking between

Blooming find
Nature’s design
A visit today
Then, away

{Poem by Susan Marie Davniero}

Tajza Hodges

2011-04-30T07:20:00.001-07:00

I’m not swimming fast.
I hear coach whistling,
But I’m not listening.
Let’s hope I don’t get last.

It’s not over yet.
I’ve gotta win.
I sure wish I had a pair of fins.
My coach shouldn’t fret.

Ugh! Some of them are ahead of me.
I have to go faster,
Show them who’s the master!
If I win I will jump with glee.

I’m pulling ahead.
Them finishing far ahead is something I won’t allow.
I’m finished now,
But I feel near dead.

{Poem by Tajza Hodges}

Maria Arana

2011-04-30T07:08:00.000-07:00

A Place for Me

This is a nice place to be
To roam above the sand
Talk to moving crystals
Enjoy the mud

This is the place where others come for
To lean on the dune
And cry for the waters
This is a nice place
A place to catch me
To tumble over foamy coasts
And lie with shells on the sand.

Stolen Love

To claim one’s love is to take its soul
Return it now
The pain is great
Claim another and my heart will weep

{Poetry by Maria Arana}

Johnny Sale

2011-04-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

If I Should Go

What eyes may gaze, may lust and love; amaze
My soul if mine must learn to look away?
What heart may grow, may learn to thrive, to stay
If mine should die amidst a cold malaise?
But banished I reach beneath a gaze
For unremembered love that flew away.
Confined in barren homes and bleak array
I yearn for touch; what white incessant haze.

When moon should cease to glow on distant beds
And darkness hugs pink lady slipper’s hand,
Should Luna dim her light and opt to dream:
Reminiscence rings a golden band
Withal to lose and love is all instead
Of empty eyes, a hollow heart to scream.

Till She Gave Her Love to Me

I once loved her like nothing else
Till she gave all her love to me.
I wish that I could love myself,
I once loved her like nothing else.
I made her cry; heart on a shelf
She tried so hard to make me see,
I once loved her like nothing else
Till she gave all her love to me.

{Poetry by Johnny Sale}

Sebastian Lopez

2011-04-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

Sarah

My symbolic queen and prayer.
I love your dawning tiny feet
and lizard membrane, your
slivered sugar towers
without sparkle that take
a man’s beige hand without
soft or firm affront...

{Poem by Sebastian Lopez}

Alan Britt

2011-04-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

A Little Poem About Grief
(For Maura Gage Cavell)

Words sometimes seem inadequate in times
of grief, but poems are made of words,
and sometimes they're all we have.

You see, grief hovers above an unmarked grave
like a bleached membrane, or a filament dancing,
tilting left before losing its balance.

Exhausted, it tightens…trembling.

A voice removes its shawl of silk, wool, and salt,
and places the shawl above unmarked bones fast asleep
beneath graphite roots of moonlight digging with picks and shovels,
hoping to reach China, unless, of course,
they’re already in China,
whereupon the sun rises in the East
and sets behind a yellow mountain.

{Poem by Alan Britt}

Adam Dolewski

2011-04-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Travel

What a sight to see
A spot on the plane
One for you and one for me
All around the world we go
Stopping at different places we know
Bangkok, Bangladesh, Lima, and Rome
We visit all the best places within the bio dome.
But if you ask me where my favorite place will be
In Mile Square park with me family.

{Poem by Adam Dolewski}

Susan Marie Davniero

2011-04-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

My Mother's Songs

My Mother’s songs
Her music belongs
The lyrics known
For her to own

Writing the verses
As songs emerges
Hear, so shall be
My Mother’s melody

As we listen to
Her musical menu
Forever long
My Mother’s songs

Easter's Lily

Easter had seen
Burst of green
In garden’s room
White lily blooms

Pure as white
Point of light
To grace the way
This Easter Day

Awakens spring
Hear Angels sing
Each Easter gives
Behold, God lives

{Poem by Susan Marie Davniero}

Holly Day

2011-04-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

The Footsteps Overhead

at night
the thud of the dishwasher upstairs
sounds like voices. I crank
the baby monitor
way up, listen for monsters
in my daughter's room.

sometimes
I hear something on the back porch
behind my head
can almost see
the deranged face pressed up against the glass
hands ready to smash through
I won't turn around.

if I just pretend
everything's all right
it will be.
If I cover my ears
and close my eyes
it'll be all right.

{Poem by Holly Day}

Marlene Ann Soifer

2011-02-14T17:32:00.000-08:00

War

All of us have a gift, why waste yourself
on jealousy, jealousy breeds insanity:
All the young grab for love:
Love everyone, every human being:
"They know right from wrong"; "they know fear";
"they know doubt", so why waste a minute
"love now". Young. "Love now", why fight.

You fight for your right not to be walked over and take
what belongs to you:

"Wars", start that way "don't they": hate is insanity:
don't you see: so the young, don't wait.

Slavery

Aren't we all slaves to some extent? Working on missions within:
Don't we all feel compelled to stay steadfast to something we hold a necessary task? No matter which way you turn: we are all slaves to ourselves for reasons beyond compare:

{Poetry by Marlene Ann Soifer}

Joy Olree

2011-01-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

Where I Am Called

To go where I am called,
for where can mans time
best be spent except in
the presence of God.

Pictures of my World

Took a picture of a book
to read its’ words when
I am gone.

Took a picture of a brook
to feel its’ wet when I am
dry.

Took a picture of the wind
to feel its’ air when I can't
breathe.

Took a picture of the earth
to see my home when I am
lost.

Took a picture of the sky
to remember where my
parents are.

Took a picture of myself
so I would know who I am.

Took a picture of my camera
so when it breaks I'll have
its’ memories.

{Poetry by Joy Olree}

Susan Marie Davniero

2011-01-30T10:26:00.000-08:00

Snowflakes Place

Winter’s gift
Floating adrift
Snowflakes flight
No two alike

Winter time
Supreme design
Clouds snowflakes fall
If flakes come at all

Winter’s beauty
Crystal symmetry
Snowflakes around
Kissing the ground

Winter’s fall from grace
Pardon snowflakes place
An ice beauty before
Melts into nothing more

{Poem by Susan Marie Davniero}

Peter Lattu

2011-01-30T10:20:00.000-08:00

The Wild Braid: A Review

The Wild Braid by Stanley Kunitz with Genine Lentine reflects on poetry and gardening. The book arose from a series of conversations between Kunitz and Lentine between 2002 and 2004. Musing on gardening and poetry, Kunitz looked back on a century of doing both:

… the garden is a metaphor for the poems you write in a lifetime and give to the world in the hope that these poems you have lived through will be equivalent to the flower that takes root in the soil and becomes a part of the landscape. If you’re lucky, that happens with some of the poems you create, while others pass the way of so many plants you let into the garden, or grow from seed: they emerge and give pleasure for a season and then vanish.

The dozen poems included in The Wild Braid have taken root in our literary landscape.

Kunitz explains that writing poetry taps into the unconscious, “the wilderness” of which he said “its beasts are not within our control”. Other writers have seen creativity as like a beast emerging from the wilderness. The poet Gary Snyder wrote that his poems came from things lurking in the darkness at the edge of his campfire. The writer Stephen King said that his stories came from creatures in the shadows at the edge of his garden. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in “Inversnaid”: “Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.” Kunitz says of Hopkins: “… that’s exactly what he was saying. When people say they are moved by a poem they are saying they have been in touch with the untouchable.” Out of this wilderness of the unconscious come poems and they “seem to have no maker at all”.

While poems may come from the wilderness of the mind, Kunitz finds a lot of similarity between poems and gardens. Stanzas are like terraces, “letting our mind rest before moving on”. Revisiting a garden or a poem leads to new perspectives with different colorations. To Kunitz, a poem has a sense of secrecy like a flower about to unfold: “So much of the power of a poem is in what it doesn’t say as much as in what it does say.” He finds that poems are “muddied by too much explanation, too much exposure.”

For all the similarities, Kunitz enumerates ways a new poem differs from a garden:

Thinking of a new season in the garden feels different from imagining a new poem. The garden has achieved its form, it doesn’t have to be new each year. What it has to do is grow. You’re not going to uproot the entire garden and start all over. The poem is always a new creation and aspires to a transcendence that is beyond telling at the moment when you’re working on it. You know that you are moving into an area you’ve never explored before and there is the great difference.

Poems live in a wilderness beyond the garden.

The Wild Braid is an enchanting book: beautiful photographs, fine poems, and lucid conversations. Stanley Kunitz and Genine Lentine distill Kunitz’s century of gardening and writing into a short book full of insight into both.

{Essay by Peter Lattu}

Patrick T. Randolph

2011-01-30T10:13:00.000-08:00

motherhood

Robin’s beak—
Fat earthworm,
Euphoric chirps!

secrets

Childhood voice
peeks out from
Memory’s eyes.

a study in linguistics

Winter stars
are Night’s verbs
in Sky language.

{Breath Poems by Patrick T. Randolph}

Kalifornia

2011-01-30T10:08:00.001-08:00

Evil Ways

When I first met you I was obsessed
Your face, your body and the way that you dressed
You smiled and laughed and gave me stolen candy
You take what you want and use who is handy
A wink and a smile in your catholic school dress
You take their existence and accept nothing less
A boy or a girl whichever you choose
They fall prey to your beauty and that’s when they lose
Their mind, their soul nothing is wasted
I love your stolen candy it’s the best I’ve ever tasted

{Poem by Kalifornia}

Ray Gallucci

2011-01-30T10:04:00.000-08:00

Water Drop

In icy cold of empty space,
It hitched a ride on comet's face,
Accelerating toward a star
Of recent birth, from distance far.

As sun of color yellow grew
In field of vision, met with two
Enormous spheres of frigid gas
That slightly altered comet's path.

Whereas before would swing around
The virgin star, now comet found
What was a clear path forward blocked
By cooling sphere of molten rock.

The impact spewed infernal heat
That vaporized it so completely.
But despite this extra speed,
From planet's pull could not be freed.

And so became a resident
Of cooling planet permanent.
With other zillions of its kind
Condensed into a watery rind.

Our planet's oceans may be older
Than whatever magma smolders
From beneath the ancient crust
Recycling iron back to rust.

I find myself in Ocean City
Strolling through the wavelets pretty,
Knowing that the ancient surf's
Touched every shore since planet's birth.

Expanding to enormous size,
Our dying sun will oceans fry,
Returning vapors where they came
In search of where new stars may flame.

{Poem by Ray Gallucci}

Stephanie Kaylor

2011-01-30T09:58:00.001-08:00

Under an Old Apple Tree

In the field next to the orchard
a black stallion grazed upon the
lanky blades of grass while a white
mare tread softly around in circles
until he met her eye.

I turned my head and smiled,
resting against the gnarled
tree trunk while my daughter
floated along with the bees
through the golden light, filling
her basket as she picked an apple
from every tree,

fears I once had about my skin
seeing too much of the sun
evaporating into the pungent air
of life turned ripe, now seeing
that beauty is not something
you drape upon a powdered body,

but a feeling you can watch
under an old apple tree.

{Poem by Stephanie Kaylor}

John Grey

2011-01-30T09:41:00.000-08:00

Cure-All

Another letter from you,
full of medical advice.
You write to my ailments,
not to me.
I’m beginning to think
it’s my headaches you miss,
the allergies, the cough.
You lived with them, not with me.
Your companion was the throb
behind my forehead,
the sneezing fits,
the cigarette hack of one
who never smoked.
I’m sure you only pretend
to want them cured
with your new—age remedies,
your lists of pharmaceutical web sites.
If I got better,
you’d be killing your own memories.
A clean bill of health for me
is five years stolen from your life.
You end your letter with the usual
“Love you.”
That’ s another cure that you
don’t really wish for me.

{Poem by John Grey}

A. J. Chilson

2011-01-30T09:33:00.000-08:00

In Memoriam, for “Dandy Don” Meredith, 1938-2010

He used to sing “Turn out the lights, the party’s over,”
when the Monday night game neared its conclusion,
and it was time for all of us to head off to bed,
knowing we would get to hear that song once again.

The voice, though, has since become silent,
now drained in the memory of those who heard him.
The man known as “Dandy Don” has drifted off
into the sunset, where football stories continue
to be shared as though it had happened yesterday.

{Poem by A.J. Chilson}

Peter Lattu

2011-01-30T09:30:00.001-08:00

the tree

gaily adorned
lights winking bright
amidst the black
midwinter night
until
stripped bare
and looking
forlorn
its passage
marks
a season gone
as time
passes on

{Poem by Peter Lattu}

Nathan Nobbe

2011-01-30T09:22:00.000-08:00

Changing Beds

Being happy is a scary thought.
It means leaving behind an old friend,
An old friend named unhappiness.
We have shared so much time with him,
Have always found a sense of security
In the familiarity of his embrace.
To step out with happiness,
We have only allowed this at short intervals
Before feeling like an unfaithful lover
And running back to the comfort of his bed.
To wake up happy?
Oh my, this would be a bit like standing
At the edge of a cliff.
At the edge of a cliff with no confidence
In a sense of balance to be able
To remain there.
Ah yes, to remain wrapped in the snug
Blankets in the dark bed of unhappiness.
Much easier to do.
But why then complain of the plight,
To blame unhappiness for the comfort we feel.
We have chosen again his company through fear.
Goodbye we must say. Goodbye we must say.
And never, never look back.

{Poem by Nathan Nobbe}

Eliot Tracz

2011-01-30T08:58:00.000-08:00

Picking Up The Pieces

We are left to wonder “Why?”
What could I have said, or
What could I have done?

How do we pick up the pieces
And try to make a whole, when
Everything that’s lost, was everything we had?

How a neighbors voice in the hall
During another sleepless night, is not
You coming home or calling to say “Hello.”

These questions have no answers,
The walls stare back in silence, and I am left alone-
To begin picking up the pieces.

{Poem by Eliot Tracz}

Anne Malin Ringwalt

2011-01-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

Wanderer's Ghazal

Deface the meaning of your hands
lie lost in the sand, dig with someone else's hands.

Don't pity lost meaning when nothing tangible relates
my words plead you to rename your fate's hands.

Lost in Florence or Nice; a European coastline
find the architecture of stone, crumble in your hands.

In Moscow I sit on a broken chair
strung to the ceiling, I use the spindle, sew a quilt on your hands.

For Anne is said to be graceful and Malin clever
your farce disposition is not the meaning of your hands.

{Poem by Anne Malin Ringwalt}

Susan Marie Davniero

2010-11-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

No Greater Wealth

There is no greater wealth found
Than in the silence peaceful sound
When taking your own life’s path
Absent of false worship on behalf
Of wealth, materialism and greed
There can be no lesser creed
Seek to measure real life’s worth
By way of peace and love on earth
Aim to live a life to share
Giving your love, help and care
Help a neighbor and volunteer
Needy people are always near
Extend a helping hand
Make it your life’s plan
In the end it will make sense
Life is more than dollars and sense

{Poem by Susan Marie Davniero}

Leatha Carter Virostko

2010-11-18T19:12:00.000-08:00

Under the Agate Moon

I met a shadow-man on the road
under the agate moon

he slipped through my fingers
like a watery make-of-mind
following my every move

though sleep should have reigned
at this hour
we were alert as owls

a ribbon of tar stretched out to the east
the direction in which we were headed
though I seemed more anxious than
the reluctant shadow-man

a lonely car drove past
moving slowly
then stopping
with steam billowing

I thought we had become fellows
if not friends but
as the beetle ingested me
I found myself alone

looking through the rearview window
the shadow-man disappeared
into the night

while my new friend the driver said
"onward and upward"
we drove away into the night
under the agate moon

{Poem by Leatha Carter Virostko}

Sonja Kosler

2010-11-18T19:06:00.000-08:00

Feet

My feet feel weathered boards
as I walk to the end of the dock
where I will sit under the perfect half moon.

My legs sway in lazy arcs
while toes blend lunar light
adrift in the drowsy midnight lake.

Secure in this liquid world
I watch as a solitary loon
dips and dives into the water.

I wonder about this loon.
How does she occupy her time?
Does she have a plan?
Is her life closer to the beginning or the end?

I lift callused feet from the water
observe the drips as minutes from a clock
ticking toward the tomorrow
I see arriving ever too soon.

{Poetry by Sonja Kosler)

Roger Cowin

2010-11-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

Fall

A cadre of crows plot against the scarecrow
keeping his faithful vigil over the farmer’s field.
He only moves when the wind blows.
Today the air is still.

The crisp, golden days of autumn
erupt into a pageant of splendid color.

Trees don their gaudiest clothes,
and bright yellow school busses reappear,
even the cerulean sky is streaked
with hints of violet, amber and orange.
Umber cornfields stretch out forever,
awaiting the harvest.

Winter

Winter descends quickly
and overstays its welcome
casting its icy net
over the desolate earth,
a beautiful and deadly web.

By February, the nomad in us
longs for the tropical climes
of the deep south.
We breathe the agitated air,
grow restless and sad.

{Poems by Roger Cowin}

Peter Lattu

2010-11-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

divorce

snow falling
in Crystal City
harsh highrise
covered
in cold snow
she said
divorce
he froze
in the winter night
all warmth
crushed
in the cold

{Poem by Peter Lattu}

Gregory Liffick

2010-11-18T18:47:00.000-08:00

Amen

The elder
of the
inner city
church
prays on
his knees,
still numb
from years
of manual
labor.
The ache
in his
bones
adds
weight
to his pleas.
He raises
a finger
like David
on the
Sistine
ceiling,
hoping
to dial
the Almighty's
number.

{Poem by Gregory Liffick}

Amye Nicole Bird

2010-11-18T18:39:00.000-08:00

Love's Long Hours

If the love of my life has all been for naught
And all of myself I've just given in vein,
If I've truely not been my lovers one love,
Then all I've done is tossed about
In an endless, desperate fight,
Through an ever darkened, blinded plight.

For we've blown through weathered, blackend skies,
Fought the rivers rapid, turbulent cries,
We've seen the days of anguished, frightened eyes,
And still we melt in the embers of fires empassioned might.
Years of empty, years of plenty,
Years of giving all and all the more.

If loves long hours have all been for naught
And all of this heart I've just given in vein,
If I've not truely felt my lovers true love,
Then this very life has been lived out in doubt,
Unknowing, unlearning and having no clue
Of what true love is all about.

{Poem by Amye Nicole Bird}

Matt Catania

2010-11-18T18:36:00.000-08:00

Follow Me Down the Well

Follow it down the topple well
wish the haze away
eyes are dreary, liquid, unclearly
a human fog
dim lights dismay.

Eyes grow dreary, deep, dark
dim lights dismay
Eye can see in the dark
clear precise, sharp
is the way

Eye can see in the dark
only one way
is the way
only one way
is my way

Only one thing can be said
Eye can see it
I can’t say it
I don’t know how.

{Poem by Matt Catania}

Peter Lattu

2010-10-11T09:56:00.001-07:00

Halloween 2

jackalopes
along the wall
trophy heads
hung high
a basket full of skulls
and a chest full of masks
black spiders
creeping in the ivy
crows flapping around
pumpkin heads
here and there
and a skeleton
flying up
front and center
all in the Virginia Florist window

{Poem by Peter Lattu}

Keith Wesley Combs

2010-10-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

his story.

crying
he takes
another drink
and begins
to tell me
a story
of love lost.
a love
that he sacrificed
with liquor
and hatred.
a love
forgotten
in her mind
but one
that tortures him
still.

{Poem by Keith Wesley Combs}

Kaci Mason

2010-10-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

Echoes

Conflict
Resolved without tears
Without feeling
Without remorse

Followed
By shock
And then unnatural
Laughter

It builds
And shrieks
Across the world
But we are deaf

The laughter
Is obscene
Harsh
And true

It echoes
And we are deaf

{Poem by Kaci Mason}

Jovan Burgess

2010-10-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Understanding

In any relationship whether with someone of a different
race or the same the name of the game is understanding.
What is expected of me is also expected of you,
so we can make this a dream come true.
There is a two way street in order to meet
each others expectations, hopes, and aspirations.
It's me for you and you for me,
in order for the understanding to be

{Jovan Burgess}

Scott Alexander Jones

2010-10-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

from “elsewhere”

That finger on your temple is the barrel / of my raygun— / / That wretched dull resonance / / breaching walls where windows once were, here / at the end of all things / / tells us nothing / / we haven/t already been told / / regarding nightjars— / / That eyelid slit of light / beneath the bathroom door at the end of the hallway / / yellow & yellowish & yellowing / as deciduous leaves / / come winter / / says one of us remains / awake at this androgynous hour / / lighting candles meant to conjure azaleas. / Call it evening despite / / our blue proximity to morning— / / Blue as your tattered peacoat I always mistook for black— / Choose any definition / / of blackout: / / A scarlet pulsing of stoplights / or the scar in my abdomen from the failed / / appendectomy of a cyclone / / fence— / / And if I am sleeping thru the lullabies of a summer / storm, you are screaming / / an arsenal of auburn / / cellos into hiding— / / Your lipstick desperately flamingo. / Soundlessly agape as Civil War daguerreotypes. / / We have arrived / / at the scene of the film where the first bullets hail down— / All sound cuts out— / / Your larynx / / banished brailleward / / by explosions in the sky. / Toward the more taciturn outskirts of: / / anywhere but here— / / The nowheres / / we/ll no longer witness together— / Scouring burnt lexicons in search of the perfect word for: / / murmurs of wind / / caught in a vacant stairwell—

{Excerpt by Scott Alexander Jones}

Maxwell Mednick

2010-10-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Double Dragon

My aunt calls me
from Las Vegas to say

my grandmother’s
estate is cleared for sale
but don’t hold your breath

she owed money all over town
there won’t be anything
left for us—

After a short pause
I read her my new poem.

She says she doesn’t get
one word of it.

I tell her it’s about a nutsack
with wings wearing green
night vision goggles and eating pizza.

She says still doesn’t get it—
That I just repeat the same things over
and over, only in slightly

different ways.

{Poem by Maxwell Mednick}

Dale B. Craven

2010-10-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

Salvaged by Poetry

Salvaged by poetry
Living for the moment of inspiration
That comes after a bout with divine intoxication
What we seem born to do
And I know the feeling comes to you
That by writing our words,we change
A little piece of our world
And we are left feeling purged
And are able to understand the abstract
The meaning of the odd things we do
It is the ruin of the losing streak in my mind
That I was only playing to win

{Poem by Dale B.Craven}

Frank S. LeRose

2010-10-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Abandoned Ethereal

With great spears
and enchantments
from the Eighth Sphere,
the Firmament;
soon to be known

as angels came-

having given in,
temptation was brought
into them;
by the glowing hair
and bright halos
of woman thus,
a greater descent began.

Nth Lament

Sadly caused
to lose,
to be,
unforgivingly trod upon
to the last
bent and bowed,
flowerbed
is this-
torn
and sickly mother:
Earth.

{Poetry by Frank S. LeRose}

Peter Lattu

2010-10-11T08:44:00.001-07:00

Harlem Stomp!
A Review

Among histories of the period, Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance by Laban Carrick Hill is one of the best. Hill sets the background to the Renaissance: the Great Migration, World War I, and the rise of black consciousness. There are short, incisive, vignettes of literary life, music and dance, theater including musicals, and visual arts. A chapter traces the history of Harlem itself as an urban mecca drawing African-Americans from around the United States. It was an exciting time to be there.

Hill excels in putting the Harlem Renaissance into its social context. Because so many talented African-Americans were right there in Harlem in the 1920’s, Charles S. Johnson, editor of Opportunity, could throw a party with the whole literary world there, black and white, to introduce “the New Negro”. The Civic Club Dinner brought the publishers and editors of New York City together with the new African- American writers. Out of this dinner came a special issue of Survey Graphic featuring many of these new writers. From the Survey Graphic feature came the anthology The New Negro edited by Alain Locke. All of this was made possible by the proximity of people in New York City and Harlem.

This knack for putting things into context shows up in other ways. Other surveys of the period state that Claude McKay’s poem “If We Must Die” was a landmark work signaling the rise of black consciousness and the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. None of the other surveys, however, explain why it was a landmark. Hill places that poem in the midst of the bloody race riots of 1919, called “the Red Summer” by James Weldon Johnson. McKay’s poem struck a note of defiance in difficult times and was published widely in the African-American press across the country. Here Hill has made clear what other surveys only hint at.

Harlem Stomp! abounds in apt anecdotes. With the Depression killing his literary career, the poet Countee Cullen returned to teaching French in high school in Manhattan. One of his students was James Baldwin, who interviewed Cullen for the school newspaper. Thus the torch was passed to another generation of black writers.

Such deft touches fill Harlem Stomp!. It includes a rich literary survey through select quotes. The stunning and inviting graphic design enhances the period artwork, illustrations and photographs. The Harlem Renaissance closed with the stock market crash of 1929 and the end of Prohibition. Willie “the Lion” Smith quipped: “It was legal liquor that did to Harlem what scarcer tips and shuttered warehouses had failed to do.” Harlem became an urban ghetto with nearly fifty percent unemployment. If they could, the artists left for teaching jobs elsewhere. Otherwise, they foundered in poverty. The Renaissance was over.

{Written by Peter Lattu}

Christopher Honey

2010-10-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

Pontiac Sunbird, 1994

my old car was inhabited
by insects
small cockroaches
I liked to call my friends
but they weren’t really
we didn’t even talk
they stayed in the back seat
and I lived in the front seat
by the radio
and the speedometer
while they whispered in the back
and ran from bright lights
screaming in small voices

{Poem by Christopher Honey}

Arthur Winfield Knight

2010-10-11T08:32:00.001-07:00

Happy Hour

We’d go into the bar every afternoon at four when Happy Hour began. The bartender would put on CNN when he saw us come in, then he’d pour half a carafe of Chardonnay, bring us two glasses and another one filled with ice because Kit liked her wine to be cold. The oak-handled beer spigots and the wine bottles chilled on ice made a kind of poem in the blue lights strung above the bar.

The bartender always wore a black Stetson because he was bald, although Ned was only in his thirties. He also wore a black vest over a white shirt and black Justin Roper boots because that was what the real cowboys wore. He’d ridden bulls for a living before he got the job as a bartender.

Sometimes, when it was very cold out, Kit and I would take our glasses into the lounge and sit before the stone fireplace that went from the floor to the ceiling. It was very warm in there and the TVs weren’t as loud as the ones in the bar, unless there was a game on.

Sometimes older ladies with blue hair were in the lounge, sitting around the tables, playing cards. The ladies were all very serious about it so they almost never talked to each other, but you could hear the cards sliding across the tables when they were dealt and the logs burning in the fireplace.

There were times when a quiet bar late in the afternoon was nearly perfect.

{Written by Arthur Winfield Knight}

Steve Garrett

2010-10-11T08:17:00.001-07:00

Ancient Portal

Pay attention! From the womb, I formed you,
Black hair, red skin, blue eyes.
Ancient portal, full of grace, speak.
O my people, full of fear,
You hide in the earth.
Tend to your fires.
Do not let your hearts grow cold.
The rocks will not crush you.
GOD is real.

{Poem by Steve Garrett}

Peter Lattu

2010-10-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

Name Dropping with Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia’s book Break Blow Burn about forty-three of the greatest poems in the English language certainly elicits questions about her choice. I am not going to dip into the long past history of poetry from the sixteenth to the late nineteenth century. Even there, one wonders about her omissions and balance. I am going to look exclusively at the moderns.

Modern poetry starts with Walt Whitman and Paglia includes Whitman. That’s a good choice. The great-grandfather of contemporary poetry should be in a collection of the greatest.

Paglia, a Dickinson scholar, has chosen three of Emily Dickinson’s poems to round out the nineteenth century. Three Dickinsons seem to be too many. She could have chosen something by Alfred Lord Tennyson, A.E. Housman, or Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Then we turn to the early twentieth century. She picked two poems each by Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams and William Butler Yeats and three poems by Theodore Roethke. Why so much by so few? Certainly one could choose a Robert Frost or two: “Mending Wall”; “The Road Not Taken”; or “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. Perhaps one could include Sandberg’s “Fog” or Masefield’s “Sea Fever”. Why no T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound? Maybe choose a poem by Robinson Jeffers, W. H. Auden, Archibald MacLeish, or Langston Hughes. Surely there was better verse written in the early twentieth century than some of her choices.

Paglia’s selections among contemporary poets raise question. There is nothing by Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Grace Paley, Robert Haas… Maryland poet Linda Pastan merits inclusion. Among poems by African-American writers, Nikki Giovanni’s “Knoxville, Tennessee” and Rita Dove’s “Ripont” would be far better choices than the strident “Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead” by Wanda Coleman.

She also picks one song as a poem, “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell. That opens a door to the wide range of outstanding songwriters. One could just as easily choose songs by Jim Morrison, Carole King, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Brian Wilson, The Beatles, or Paul Simon, among many possibilities.

Paglia is bold to try to select the best poems in English. Her choices in modern poetry are suspect, but then wouldn’t any choices be second-guessed? We are all Monday morning quarterbacks. Her book promotes thought and discussion. That is good.

{Written by Peter Lattu}

Jon Mathewson

2010-10-11T08:08:00.001-07:00

Natural Cycles

So, I’m sitting on sagging lumber, hoping to not
get stuck by the random rusty nail, thinking about
all those great poets who received inspiration from ruins -
Wordsworth & Tintern Abbey, Frost & the forty cellar holes,

The never abandoned lines, look upon me and
Despair, from ashes comes renewal, and find myself
Totally unmoved by those sentiments.
What to do after making the best
Of what is still around? Rage to what purpose?

Slow decline numbs some, confuses others.
I sit on a shore land grabbers actively seek, where
Boats once stayed in the winter. I think of the hard
Labor needed to bring the materials here, and then construct
This large boathouse, and the shame of the waste through disuse.

There is no more need for this boathouse, just as there
Is no more need for the pained expressions of loss when
Nature retrieves. Moose forage nearby, I hear the call of
The loon. The land grabbers and their
bulldozers blast and bumble over the hill.

{Jon Mathewson}

Kim Johnson

2010-10-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

Pulse of Pain

Is like a bad headache
period cramps
realizing that which you love
doesn’t love you back
is something which creeps
up on you very slowly
but can hit at the most
inopportune time.

Love

Love
Hate
Indifference

Unrequited love?
what is the opposite of that?

{Poetry by Kim Johnson}

Roger G. Singer

2010-10-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

Abandoned Shadows

A weaving of willow branches brushed
evening into song. The sun pressed the
last of color through scattered thin
clouds.
From her chair on the porch she lifted
A crescent smile at me, cold like
autumn moon light, pressing back
my august warm hands, stopping my
steps.
She laughed. Her cheeks lifted at
my weakness, mocking my wants
and needs into abandoned shadows,
buried deep under her name.

{Poem by Roger G. Singer}

Christina Cole

2010-08-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Growth Spurt

After one summer,
the little ballerina,
grows out of all her clothes,
and her lifelong dream too.
How sad it is to be
past your prime
at the age of fourteen.

{Poem by Christina Cole}

New Book by Luke Armstrong

2010-08-05T16:30:00.001-07:00

iPoems for the Dolphins to Click Home About is a book of poetry and fun having nothing to do with dolphins. It is for poetry lovers and haters. A richly eccentric book, it delves into themes at the heart of it all: love, loss, and how to kidnap your neighbor´s cat using a lunch box. The book´s 50 poems prove that poetry can be fun and at the same time meaningful and beautiful. These are not the poems your grandma read. These are the poems she wished she had read. iPoem´s verses reveal simple, accessible truths to intrepid readers. "We want to be constantly shown and to constantly show higher vantage points," one line echoes and then answers, "We want magic carpets to carry us under shimmering stars / above everyone else´s lives, where tough questions instead / of being answered are set aside for higher simplicity." iPoems unassumingly achieves this higher simplicity. Its naked truths dig deeply, while its lyrical lines resonate richly. Instead of following the tired modes of poetry´s past, it gives its wistful readers a new verse for the new world.

iPoems for the Dolphins to Click Home About is available for purchase at Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/iPoems-Dolphins-Click-Home-About/dp/1451555865/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281048366&sr=8-1)

Susan Marie Davniero

2010-08-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

Words of Peace

One day
The peaceful way
In a world of sin
Peace starts within
Peace is a must
Help and care
Love to share
No war or wrath
The peaceful path
One day
I pray
War will cease
Let there be peace
And let it begin
With the peace within

{Poem by Susan Marie Davniero}

Kathryn Warrender

2010-08-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

Dance in the Rain

Let’s dance in the rain,
And feel the cool tears
Of the Earth
Cleanse our bodies,
Softly, roughly, sweetly.
Listen to the melodic pattern,
As we hold each other close.
Listen, just listen.
Nature whispers
When her mother cries.
So faintly, so gently,
My skin prickles
As your heat
Penetrates me heart.
Your breath, like fire,
Burning with the desire of your lips.
So close,
I lean in to kiss you,
To unite as one
Beneath the darkened sky.

Sorrow and Guilt

To rekindle the life back within us,
Can I do it?
With the damage done,
What can I do to repent?
Though I do not believe in God,
I feel like I committed a deadly sin.
I want to heal the fatal wounds,
Mend them with hope and love.
Is there some way
For us to forget the past?
I want to be happy again,
Those blissful moments
Are lost to the wind,
Like the leaves in autumn.
Oh, sweet gentle boy,
Can we ever recover
From the memories of battle?
The devastation of war is brutal,
And I cannot help
But feel shame.
I want to move on,
Hold your hand in mine
And live freely,
But why does my heart
Continue to bleed sorrow and guilt?

{Poetry by Kathryn Warrender}

Ron Koppelberger

2010-08-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

A Saying Told

Secure, halfway between calm and quiet dreams, within the
Melancholy of nourishments undone, required by the sacrifice
Of amused touch and express angels in matched
Pairs of presence, a saying told by the years
And the breath of a humble alliance, raved, retrieved, disturbed
And put under the amends of a lasting peace, a riot untold
By the sweet caress of a quiet eyed sun, a desire taught by
The dust of an ancient song.

{Poem by Ron Koppelberger}

K.D. Iredale

2010-08-05T15:14:00.001-07:00

What the Night Holds in Store

A cloak-and-dagger
Hang at the door.
Desire Hush!
Your passion I implore
And you take my soul
To have and to hold.

{Poem by K.D. Iredale}

Peter Lattu

2010-08-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

From Both Sides Now: A Review

From Both Sides Now, edited by Phillip Murray, features “the poetry of the Vietnam War and its aftermath”, written by poets who lived through the war. As its title proclaims, this is an anthology of poems by GI’s, Viet Cong, North Vietnamese Army, Vietnamese civilians, boat people, veterans and even peace demonstrators in the USA. One relives the Vietnam War from all sides.

The anthology records the brutality of the American campaign against the Vietnamese, no matter whether combatant or noncombatant. American bombing and the use of napalm and Agent Orange wrought havoc indiscriminately. My Lai was not an isolated incident. Memory, however, can be selective, remembering only our misdeeds. Elliot Richman, in “A Poison Tree”, starkly describes the butchery of “seven guys from the 7th Cav” by the Viet Cong. The war was waged savagely by both sides.

America’s young paid a high price in Vietnam. In “Midnight at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial”, W. D. Ehrhart chronicles the rite of passage back then:

Fifty-eight thousand American dead,
average age nineteen years, six months.
Get a driver’s license,
graduate from high school,
die.

These young men never had a chance to live because of a war of dubious value. The survivors paid a high price too. In “Peer Group”, Bill Shields observes that Vietnam vets have “the highest rate/ of alcoholism & drug abuse & divorce/ & mental illness & suicide” of any group of Americans. Again in “Miles of Bones” Shields notes the disconcerting fact that “the number of Vietnam/ veteran suicides… equals the names on the Wall”.
This poetry damns America for not doing enough for the survivors.

Poetry strips experience down to its essential kernel of truth. From Both Sides Now is a history through poetry of the war told with an emotional veracity that news stories and history books do not touch with their chronicling of events.

{Written by Peter Lattu, May 2010}

Henry Sosnowski

2010-08-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

Reno Rain

Burrowing into bliss
two lovers
God’s children
aboard a downy raft
of pillows, comforter
soft flannel sheets
hearing only
hearts pulsing
in time
with rooftop
raindrops
two lovers
praying this
never stops
knowing this
fleeting moment
this heat
these tandem
heartbeats are
as precious
as rare
as Reno rain.

{Poem by Henry Sosnowski}

Gregory Liffick

2010-08-05T14:55:00.000-07:00

Religion

Making
saints
of weak
impulses.
Seeing
in every
deadly sin
necessary
miracles
for canon-
ization
of self-
indulgence.
Building
a teetering
church
on a
crumbling,
unsteady
rock.

Immemorial

The bones
of old
contention
poke up
through
lasting
battle-
grounds.
We trip
over
the
skeletons
of past
wars
of hearts
and minds.

{Poetry by Gregory Liffick}

Martyn-Phelips de Burgh

2010-07-24T17:48:00.000-07:00

Perigrinari

I glide through bright reflective doors
And feel at one with your soul.
I flit through misty valleys,
Hissing with streams and thunderous lightning,
And imbibe the mead of forestial illumination.
Re-entering the room of sensation,
Our bodies simmer with humming pleasures. Intention
Anchors me to the night and pleasant chatter
Shutters out the visions, as we settle into somnolence.

{Poem by Martyn-Phelips de Burgh}

Gregory Liffick

2010-07-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

Earthbound

Fancy flies
but
crashes
upon landing.
Unrealistic
wings
take off,
but lack
the
engineering
for coming
back to
earth.
The
momentary
rush
gives lift,
but passes
and all
falls
down.

Denial

In the
habit of
putting
cart
before horse.
Insures
not getting
anywhere
soon.
Not
longing
for the
travel
involved
with the
pursuit of
happiness.
What doesn't
come
at once,
do without.

{Poetry by Gregory Liffick}

Anne Britting Oleson

2010-07-24T17:38:00.000-07:00

Sheet Music

First cornet, Irish reel, key of C,
arranged for military band.
Marked presto, ten measures rest to start.

Anyway, story of her whole life:
presto, quick; rest—just wait.
Valve oil time while listening,

discovering how the song plays on out,
pausing so she can join in later,
and not be too far wrong, since to play

trumpet is to be too obvious
for her own good really—anyone's:
a missed note is twice as wrong

when it is twice as loud.

{Poem by Anne Britting Oleson}

Cassandra V. Murphy

2010-07-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

Changing Tides

Your face, so soft
Feels like silky cloth
Beneath my skin-
But your eyes look dim
As they search the room quite lost,
Tossing pupils up and down
To look around these bedroom walls.
Your smile falls, your laughter pauses.
You feel trapped, and I feel like a used mat
That you carelessly stepped on.
In my dreams I call to the birds
And whisper words about escape
From this growing hate
That is spreading in between us.

{Poem by Cassandra V. Murphy}

Joy Olree

2010-07-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Faithful Rose

Planted on a hill,
Watered and feed,
Left to grow,
Warmed by the sun,
Caressed by the wind,
Frozen by the cold,
Weathered by time,
Colored by the God,
Of all that would see,
The beauty of creation,
Faithful and strong,
Rose for love,
Friendship or death,
Rose for whatever,
Is needed at the time,
Year after year,
Sure as the sun sets,
And the moon rises,
The faithful rose,
Will rise once more,
It’s beauty for all to see

{Poem by Joy Olree}

K.D. Iredale

2010-07-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

Predator Craving My Heart

You pursued me, unrelentingly,
Day and night-
Enticed me
To unexplored territory.
Until I caught the jungle fever.
Delirious,
The disease spread swiftly,
Until a piece of my heart
Was tattooed onto yours.

{Poem by K. D. Iredale}

Maryann Spikes

2010-07-05T13:36:00.001-07:00

Sword and Sacrifice (Haiku)

Sword and sacrifice:
made in the essence of God--
treat others as self.

There is no true good?
Good is a construct of will?
Ever take offense?

Love others as self:
no construct, no evolved good--
eternal essence.

Accept nothing less:
constructs do not obligate--
only love fulfills.

Goodness will always
withstand the fire of reason
and love, resonate.

Not even God willed
goodness into becoming
but IS that goodness.

The highest truth is
discovered, not created:
love your enemy.

Love is not love if
there is no demonstration--
Sword and Sacrifice.

{Poem by Maryann Spikes}

Jeanne Fiedler

2010-07-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Dusk

Sparrows ...strolling...kissing
Take flight! Take flight!
The Earth is trembling
Distress is lurking
Fly...Fly... Away
Your soft brown silhouettes
on the delicate hazel
shadows of the branches
hiding from the sun...
How beautifully you fit
in the stillness of love
Your tawny wings from above
Up and away..away and away
You've gone without a sound

{Poem by Jeanne Fiedler}

Peter Lattu

2010-07-05T13:27:00.001-07:00

a review on Claiming the Spirit Within
edited by Marilyn Sewell

Claiming the Spirit Within: a Sourcebook of Women’s Poetry, edited by Marilyn Sewell, is a trove of contemporary poetry. Fossicking here will turn up gold and gems, Pulitzer winners and poets laureate. Marilyn Sewell parades forth some of the best: Sharon Olds, Lucille Clifton, Jane Kenyon, Erica Jong, Rita Dove, Denise Levertov, Anne Sexton, Jane Hirshfield, Molly Peacock, Mary Oliver, Maxine Kumin, Margaret Atwood, Nikki Giovanni, May Swenson, Louise Gluck, Linda Pastan, Muriel Rukeyser, and others.

There are some wonderful poems centered around cooking. Rhona McAdam, in “The Boston School of Cooking Cookbook” reflects on her mother’s cookbook, now in her own hands. McAdam sees the food stains, “the faded trail of silverfish”, the marginalia, and “a lifetime’s preparation vanished/ into our waiting mouths”. In “Retrospect in the Kitchen”, Maxine Kumin comes to grips with a death over a “boiling pot/ of cloves, cinnamon, sugar” and plums. Lin Max, in “The Piemaker”, hopes to have little girls in order to show them how it takes time “to get past wanting to quit” in order to make pies. Barbara Presnell learns about life and death with her mother, grandmother, aunt and herself while they all “snap heads from beans” and “unthread their sides” in “In the Kitchen We String Beans”. The kitchen is a great place to learn life’s lessons.

Some of Jane Kenyon’s best are here: “Yard Sale” reflects on generations as the “family’s belongings lie on the lawn”. “Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School” shows how punishment can harden a heart against authority and change a child’s life in an instant. “Back from the City” charts a trip to New York City with its art and fine food that results in a startling epiphany about homelessness.

Laura Apol notes in “Woman of Light” that “lost poems are poems lost forever”. Marilyn Sewell’s collection brings us wonderful poems so that they are not lost but are here before us ready to read.

{Review by Peter Lattu}

Marissa Carney

2010-07-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Untitled

surely not your first
even second
or third
choice

but as water follows the
moon,
there i'll be on your shore

as the willow will always
weep,
i'll gather its tears to water your roots

i threaded the needle to mend your wounds
but you sewed them to mine,
yourself to me...

so as thunder is guaranteed
after the lightning streak,
so are you
held protected
under the eaves of my
heart

{Poetry by Marissa Carney}

Patrick T. Randolph

2010-07-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

Tiny Child Pretending to Sleep

A whisper,
Mother’s kiss—
giggles explode.

Theater on the River

Turtle’s eyes
Observe clouds—
Water dancers!

The Voice

Breath poems—
in her ear—
Goosebumps build skin!

{Poetry by Patrick T. Randolph}

Greg Chandler

2010-06-12T06:58:00.001-07:00

Fall From Grace

The glass ceiling got tougher
The leap to the top got longer
Nothing you can say can help you
Nothing you can do can save you

You decided to stick it out
Even while riding a cloud of doubt
You wouldn’t let them ruin the ride
You wouldn’t let them kill the ride

While relaxing in the king’s chair
You wanted to rule in a way that’s fair
You never thought it would be hard
Even though they said it would be hard

They protested against your soul
Before you started to dig your hole
You never realized the danger your in
Who knew the danger was within

Your rise to the top crowned you
Your fall from grace defeated you
Now there’s no where to go
Now no one cares where go

{Poem by Greg Chandler}

Daniel G. Snethen

2010-06-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

Dichotomy

The scorpion stung
as the Dalai Lama prayed.
This was their nature.

No Wood to Burn

Lungs burning cold
with frozen breathlessness.
Bodies, of all ages,
frostbitten and worn,
huddle beneath tattered star quilts,
hugging one another
and their wormy mongrels.
Seeking warmth,
wearing a mask of icy death.

{Poetry by Daniel G. Snethen}

Peter Lattu

2010-06-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

the beach

served up
on a tray:
two Adirondack chairs
painted green
looking out
at the ocean
tide rolling in
waves lapping the shore
sandpipers
scuttling along
the tide line
their tracks
washed away
by the waves
all under blue skies
with white clouds
sailing by
the beach
served up
on a tray
made in Italy
for you and me

{Poem by Peter Lattu}

Jim Brearton

2010-06-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

Markets Will Crash

Markets will crash.
Children will still go to the beach.
A summer day will always be warm.
His words will mean the same thing.
If I saw you sleeping
I still would not know
what you were dreaming.
Young ladies still pretty
and boys fresh
without speaking.
Leaves will shake and
smoke will rise up a chimney.
Ice is where we once swam.
Someone's heart
will be torn
and hurt as badly.
You know you're a part
of all that will be.
Eyes on the past
trip us now
just like before.
We lunge to go further.
The same things we see
but cannot touch
are closer.
Always a new word to learn,
and something we've done
that needs to be
forgiven.
Catch me if you can.

Party Like It's $19.99

A long time ago
lost in the mists of history
was the twentieth century.

We have nothing to do now.
I'm down to writing the Official Guy Manual.
Here are the chapters:
1 mowing lawn
2 watching girls
3 shoveling snow
4 getting hair cut
5 watching TV
6 drinking
7 sports
8 cars
9 stupid love stories

The longest chapter is the last.
Most guys never heard of love
until it hits them like an 18 wheeler
and they are reduced to
the intelligence of an opossum
wondering what went wrong
and what to do next.
There are no screen passes for this--
no cover three zones
or easy questions like:
Move the infield in?
Bunt? Steal a base?
Guys don't know what to do.

{Poetry by Jim Brearton}

Vicki Collins

2010-06-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

Simple Answer

Painting, John Cleaveland, 1988
Short Story, “Barn Burning” William Faulkner

Burning his enemies’ barns is a balm
for his vindictive soul. With no formal
schooling, money, or valuable possessions,
Abner Snopes works in tenebrosity, relying
on a dented oil can and wooden matchsticks
for the power and respect he seeks. Like the
Prince of Darkness, he plants small sparks
that grow toward total destruction. The long,
yellow stripe down his back mirrors the tall
peaks of flame lighting the sky as he scuttles
from his maleficent handiwork and latest victim.
Bound by years of sharecropping indentureship,
hiding in the woods, and moving his family
from one shanty to another, he yearns
for some semblance of control. He possesses
no internal fire. For a bitter, complex man,
it is a simple answer: barn burning is a decision
he makes without heat.

{Poem by Vicki Collins}

Natalie Jeanne Champagne

2010-06-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

Man and Wife

The division between
The man and woman
Was so great

The divide so wide

That whenever he bent to kiss
Her lips
It was then he would miss

The woman
Once young
Flowered
Empowered
Now pushed him away
If he touched the wrong way

And the man growing angry
Would turn red in the face
Dangle his hands
Near her pretty white face

It was then that the woman
Once full of great pride
Walked away from the man
Who once made her bride

Artists

Artist’s are makers
And
Artist’s are takers
We are those
Who fear discourse;
Sitting at our desks
Placid pen in hand
Talking with keys
Often fallen on our knees

We walk in circles
Right left, right left
Stalking with our words
Letting go with each curve

We work for what we deserve
Naturally, unnerved
Artist’s we detest
The words that are left
Loose on lined paper

Is nothing left?

It’s always a disease
Always sweet reprieve
When we connect
When we reflect.

{Poetry by Natalie Jeanne Champagne}

Michelle M. Moat

2010-06-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

A Battle of Epic Proportions

My hiatus
Taken in a green room
My heart won
In a cold war

He points the gun
At fear
No trigger is pulled
But meaning is found

A moment of ice
Turns

My face meets
His undying expression
As I melt in the sun
I call Inevitability

{Poem by Michelle M. Moat}