Marjorie Sadin ----- Three poems

Published by Bewildering Stories

I Miss Stars

I miss the stars

And the salt of the ocean.

I miss the whinnying of horses

And the smell of pine trees.

I miss you.

And your scent like the mulch of the earth.

I miss mamma’s granola.

And the sound of the guitar.

I miss cotton fields

And August in Savannah.

I miss sparks from a fire

And steaks grilled with corn.

I miss childhood.

Was there ever one?
I miss innocence

Cloaked in words.

I miss parades

And peace rallies.

I miss promises

And pacts between pals.

I miss the stars

Orion, the Crab Nebula, the Big Dipper.

I miss long nights

And waking to touch.

         

Poem of the month Subsync Press Nov. 2016, The Trove March 2017

How to Live With What You Have

Throw out torn socks.

Save scratch paper.

Meet friends for coffee.

Make love on the creaky bed.

Pick up the dog’s shit.

Hand wash dishes.

Watch TV without cable.

Use a cell phone without texting.

Use the metro instead of driving.

Travel light.

Let the dicey heavens win the lottery.

Die penniless writing poetry

Go nowhere.

And always be near.

Published by Eunoia Press

Coffee and Ice Cream 

                

We greet the morning,

coffee and ice cream for breakfast.

The stream flows east toward the river.

The eddies from the stream are like shaving cream.

I dip my feet in the stream.

I kiss your cheeks.

When the sun sets its red curtains,

I am overcome.

I follow you to the shadow of the moon

where there is no light.

Sierra Golden ----- two poems

Legend

Sitka, AK

Porky wrote a pamphlet for the cruise ships

about an island populated with pink flamingos.

He explained how each year a special flock comes north

because a rare hydrothermal vent ten meters west of the island

spews hot water and chemosynthetic archaea,

creating the ideal climate for the brine shrimp flamingos eat.

Not much bigger than the Murray Pacific parking lot,

the island’s rocky shore and Sitka Spruce are the only place

in Alaska that a flamingo will land.

This rare flock has recently diminished to five or six,

one or two hanging upside down, but they used to number fifty

or sixty and be pink as Porky’s gums when he smiled,

hanging plastic flamingo bodies from trees.

Once, flying in a friend’s old Beaver, Porky dropped

a batch of tires on top of Mount Edgecumbe,

came back on foot to light a bonfire and stamp April Fools

on the volcano’s snowy cone. The Coast Guard didn’t know

it was a false alarm until they flew over the dome in a chopper.

These days I suppose Porky would go to jail for a prank like that.

Otters eat thirty percent of their body weight each day

because they have no blubber for insulation. People say

Porky ate his whole weight in pranks each day

to warm his tobacco-stained whiskers and curled toes.

He had no old lady for insulation and the winters here

bite like a wet dog. And the dark, it isn’t even lit by stars.

I keep dreaming of Porky, wishing death wasn’t so chronic

a condition, wishing he’d come back and make me,

teeth shining in the night, smile big as a gibbous moon.

Last Season

When my hands curl and cramp,

stiff and wracked as cracked kelp,

I’ve been sweeping this seine

into careful heaps for too long

and when I sleep palms pressed flat,

protecting fragile tendons, flex of the wrist,

I dream my fingers bloom with lichens,

stems and caps pooled with freshwater.

What is it to stay? To know dirt?

I want to watch roots cast shadows

in the dark, to watch how light spreads

like an emerald wake under a maple in sun.