Marjorie Sadin -------- two poems

                           Without Fanfare

Without all the fanfare, I love you.

I hover over you like fog.

Don’t be afraid, the moon is descending.

And furthermore the mountains are turning

into witnesses.

Without further ado, I love you.

I don’t put on any airs.

The moon is descending

And you are making valleys

out of mountains, and mountains out of love.

I love you without thinking.

It’s like getting dressed in the morning.

The moon is descending

And the sound of love echoes in the valleys.

And I hover over you like a mother.

The moon is descending

and the mountains blush, the valleys are  breathless-- they witness

our love.

                         Holding the Sky

My anger bellows.

Showers pound the ground.

And then it ends.

Gone.

Why on you?

Because you’re in reach.

You flash like lightning

after my rage.

My thunder may frighten.

Not you.

You bend,

take me in your arms

the way a rainbow holds the sky.

-- Marjorie Sadin

These poems had appeared in Bewildering Times.

Sandra Noel ----- five poems

Stone and Bone

I want to become a stone

in this meandering river

large enough

to hold my place through spring floods

small enough

for a returning salmon to consider

nose me gently before struggling

a little further upstream

where she will dig into lighter gravel

a nest for her bright orange eggs

attracting the blood-colored males

already on their way to death

until both together, open-mouthed

mix eggs and seed.

And after she covers each nest

no longer able to resist

the relentless downstream current

as it carries her spent body gently

back over hard won riffled river bottom

to be the last place she rests

stone and bone together

bleached white and worn

with weather, water and time

inanimate, un-noticed, dreaming.

One molten, born in a river of fire

cooled to stillness by a river of ice.

The other, a silver sea traveler

until natal desire compels her

into sinuous red light.

(First published, Elohi Gadugi Journal, Narratives for a New World, Volume 1, 2012-2013)

Winter song 

There was a song

whistled by the thrush

learned early

and passed on to me

as I stopped by the cattail cloister

thick matted with dead stalks and leaves

of this long, dry summer.

It is the last refuge in the pond.

Golden maple and willow leaves

cover the ground leaving skeletal branches

and no place to hide but deep in the muck

if you happen to have gills

or the cattails, if you don't

but fear the heron's sharp eye

or the hawk's overhead.

The song must be of winter

the coming cold and damp

the end of abundance

and time to fly south

if you happen to have wings

or hunker down, if you don't.

Hold a Stone

Feel the smooth dense weight

in the palm of your hand

listen to the stillness--

It was once a river of sand

It was once molten lava

hardened by time or temperature

made smooth by waves and tide

into this small shape of a human heart.

Listen to the stillness--

the tic tock of our hearts, our time

is not there.

If stone has a beat

it is timed to the rhythm of the earth

in sync with the universe

and music of the stars.

Hold a leaf.

(First published, chapbook intitled, "Into the Green", 2017 by Finishing Line Press)

Heron

Prehistoric vocalizations

in the giant fir next to my window

stuttering, shape shifting, lifting

silently soaring across the mirror-black bay

a perfect crescent moon

light on the horizon

first rose, now golden

as I sit on my cushion

with altar and bowl

the first of many habits

acquired with age

to replace the passions

of my youth–only you remain

I still wake up loving you

knowing you are impossible

(knowing you are impossible!)

I sit and wait for peace to descend

for hope to expire

or rest in a tree nearby

knowing (somehow)

I will never wake to an empty heart

but stagger with the weight of you

each morning

then soar silently into the light.

(First published, chapbook intitled, "The Gypsy in my kitchen", 2015 by Finishing Line Press)

The bells

One day you came

into my life

but left on a Sunday

I know it was Sunday

because there were bells

pealing and pealing

as if to announce

your departure

you may have said goodbye

but the bells were so loud

it was all I heard

the bells saying

goodbye, goodbye

Whenever I hear them

it is what I remember

a Sunday

you leaving

the bells.

"Other" by Nathaniel Hutner (this is a repost)

Monday, March 23, 2015

"Other" ------ poem by Nathaniel Hutner

Other

You will use my madness

To give me pain – you,

Who speak in the guise of truth

And wish me ill.

Have I not pain enough

For the ten of you, or twenty?

Can you really be invulnerable?

You have given the gift of my faults.

I have already lived with them,

They know me,

And I have made them my friends.

It is as if I lived with them

On a small island and we passed

Our time shifting places.

I am now all that I have been

And shall be,

History and potentiality.

My faults cannot destroy me.

Nor my madness.

Nor you.

Nathaniel C. Hutner

First published in Chrysanthemum, Spring/Summer 1992

Sherri Levine ---- two poems

Grammar Lessons

When my students ask me how to use the future tense,

I tell them that we use “will”

for a promise or a threat.

I will always love you, for example.

And to make a plan, we use the “present continuous,”

I am divorcing him.

And when they ask about the “simple past,”

He loved me a long time ago . . .

It’s not that simple, I tell them.

There’s certainly nothing perfect about the “present perfect,”

I have loved you since the day I met you.

By definition, I ask them,

Does this mean that he stopped loving me?

But loving is a “non-continuous verb,”

Loving, I tell them, is incorrect.

And for the modals?

(Though confused, I know I still have their interest)

I may, I might, I should, I could

keep going, but I won’t.

Instead, I tell them:

Love is full of tenses.

Orange Crush

I saw my man

put a dollar

in the soda machine

to buy a Coke

but the Coke didn’t come out

instead

what

came

out

was an Orange Crush.

My man was banging that machine

so hard with his fists

yelling—

Goddamn it!  Goddamn machine!

but when he got the Orange Crush

he drank it anyway.

Why?  I asked him.

Cause it’s here

and I’m thirsty

You get used to it—

You get used to a lot of things, he said.

I’ll never get used to losing you,

I told him.

But he went away, anyway.

"Grammar Lessons"  appeared in " Timberline Review Summer/Fall 2015

"Orange Crush" appeared in  Hartskill Review  Winter 2015

Poem translated and adapted from the Chinese by Hongjing Lu and Keith Holyoak

Poems I Found in My Father’s Journal

Adapted and translated into English by Hongjing Lu and Keith Holyoak.

Based on a poem in Chinese by Dong Fangyu as adapted by Li Jian.

1984—the crops are still not harvested.

Rocked in my arms at last my son’s asleep, looks so serene—

No chance tonight to go and watch the movie under stars,

My wife needs me to fix the pedal on the sewing machine.

Tomorrow I’ve got to catch my neighbor, try to borrow money—

The whole day long the kid was crying, begging for a cookie.

By day’s end sorrow bores through my cheap jacket to my heart—

Squatting beside the pond I want to rip the thing apart.

These are the words I found in my father’s journal,

Ink stains from his youth, like traces left by another.

Today I read these poems and blink my eyes—

Like a shadow at dusk, easy to miss my father.   

1994—the crops are finally harvested.

My mother left this world last year—so weary, always kind!

My son woke up, put on his new white shirt and ran to school—

He’s looking slim, but lately something’s weighing on his mind.

I’ll waft away like old banknotes smoldering in a pile,

But soon my son will stand a full-grown man, then in a while

A lovely girl will fall for him, they’ll start their family.

Just one wish, just one—let them be happier than me!

These are the words I found in my father’s journal,

Ink stains from his life, like traces left by another.

Today I read these poems and blink my eyes—

Like a shadow at dusk, easy to miss my father.   

These are the words I found in my father’s journal,

Ink stains from his life, like traces left by another.

Today I read these poems and blink my eyes—

Like a wind-tossed newspaper, easy to miss my father.               

These are the footprints left by a generation—

After the rains the traces disappear.

So many sorrows buried beneath this place!

We blink our eyes and miss who brought us here.

Three new poems by Julie A. Dickson

Touching Time

 

I’ve walked upon this earth for quite some time.

I don’t know peace nor have I tools to fight.

I have searched for words that strain to rhyme,

to ponder for a moment, seek what’s right

 

In the darkest corners, victims speak,

recall ancestral stories that were told.

Youngest seeking wisdom, future bleak,

advice from learn-ed past and not so bold.

 

To say they know all things, age will not lie.

Some mysteries of time we will not know.

I understand this truth and cease to cry

in anguish turn away and start to go.

 

A hand reached out in empathy draws mine;

I feel connection, wisdom touching time.

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, NH

---------------------------------------------------

Lost at Sea

“We both know what memories can bring – they bring diamonds and rust” ~ Joan Baez

 

 

At the full moon, I still hear your voice

filling the room, you gave me no choice.

 

Shimmered, the brilliance – pressed prism of carbon

its beauty- resilience, a rose in my garden.

 

Burst on the scene, a vagabond singer

what did it mean, you neglected to linger.

 

On half shell, an oyster, the pearl set aside,

albeit in foister, merely used as a guide.

 

Rust covers metal, its coating mistrust -

coating shine, not quite subtle, illusion of dust.

 

Left behind, lost at sea – no diamond alliance,

With never a plea – floating lonely in silence.

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, NH

---------------------------------------------------

This Path

 

I recognize this path, I’ve walked before

Song drifts on air, it’s sad; so like your voice

Along this path I sigh, recall once more

What might have been if I received a choice

 

No, I won’t cry, refuse the threat of tears

Once hand in hand with you I wandered then

Cannot re-live the pain, so many years

My broken heart reminds me who I’ve been

 

Now I remember you with honest eyes

My trust was broken, tossed like so much dirt

You plunged a blade of words wrapped in your lies

But I refuse to dwell upon the hurt

 

Alone now, and although I may complain

I might decide to walk this path again

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, NH