Anne McWilliams ----- Two poems

REFINISHING A BOAT IN MORGAN'S GARAGE

(rebuilding a vehicle, repairing anything)

They huddle together,

dozens of squashed cans spilling

from bad bank shots around a recycle bin

full of smashed Budweiser boxes.

Urine musk rises from the gravel

between the house and RV

near the dumpster full of rotted deck wood

(or bad parts).

Their boxer sniffs the ground

and adds his scent.

The women hold cigarettes

that burn down between their fingers

while the men pass a pipe

and shatter the air with farts.

This is where,

every spare moment,

among the tools and cast off chairs,

they hold communion.

POKER FACE

she bends a straw to your lips,

props your pillows

brings warm blankets,

and after a short while she brings

another dose of pills

and takes an empty glass away.

she's neat and orderly

tired and overworked

and has seen thousands of naked men.

don't ask her out, ever.

somebody's mother or daughter

she doesn't wait for gratitude

she keeps smiling and scrubs you clean

wipes your wounds and backside

and asks if everything is ok.

she doesn't inflict bodily harm

genetics will out, and no amount of care

can make up for poor choices.

dead or dying, in flames,

frozen, drowning, train wrecks

she works in common cause to clean

care and teach with calm

eyes, serene face, steady hands.

she gives no salt for your wounds

released, rebalanced, prescribed

graves dug, again, and again

she knows it never changes.

she learns the smell of dying souls.

she knows the body contains so much blood.

she wants you to believe in the power of healing

or whatever lies you believe

to show in her face, she knows exactly

what quality of your life

is up to you.

Julie A. Dickson ----- Five poems

 

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

The Wise Man Bridge

 

I’d heard about a bridge from the time I was a girl.

I’d rarely gone to investigate the rumors people shared.

Countless travelers told tales that, while crossing, heard a voice.

They spoke of hearing a wise man who offered direction to the lost.

 

Weary travelers who came to town called it The Wise Man Bridge.

Local men scoffed and laughed; kerchiefed women whispered,

but I had always been afraid, had chosen to stay away

until the day my papa died when I felt lost and alone.

 

As I approached the bridge, I heard nothing, I stopped.

Soon there came a whisper, “Why have you not come before?”

I shuddered and stood quietly. “You know what to do.”

I nodded and a peaceful calm fell over me.

 

I thought I recognized the voice and then knew it was my own.

My voice within had spoken; the travelers had not listened.

As others before had walked upon The Wise Man Bridge,

I had been afraid to listen to my own wisdom.

 

 

 

 

Pomaceous

 

Pomaceous orbs glisten with dew

in the morning sun, succulent morsels

shine yellow-red behind translucent leaves.

 

The clusters nestled in gnarled tree forks,

weigh down slender sapling branches

awaiting the eager hands of harvest.

 

Gather them now into your basket.

Drink in their aroma, coolly crisp;

savory apple, each snap in your mouth.

 

 

I’d Never Make You Cry

 

If I was a man, I’d wear a felted hat,

walking tall down the dark street,

a knowing glance to those I meet.

 

If I was a man, I’d have my arm around your shoulder,

proud to be seen with you,

a treasure, come real and true.

 

If I was a man, I’d never make you cry.

I’d recognize your strengths and good,

revel in your worth, I would.

 

But I’m not a man, I don’t know what it’s like

to walk in your shoes

even if I could choose,

 

I’d never make you cry.

 

A Hawk

I walk the rocky foothills through scrub pine;

above me a hawk in lazy circle soars,

repeating pattern of some grand design,

Hawk spies a salmon while river’s mouth pours

o’r stones and pebbles, loose branches they flow;

tangled, catching, break free, they travel.

Held tightly in talons, his prey in tow-

Has stirred up silt among the gravel.

Echoed sound of footsteps, path traversed,

he, solitary as my stride, the hawk.

I wander through existence well-rehearsed;

tranquility must feed me as I walk.

I feel the morning sun upon my face,

feel nurtured as within my love’s embrace.

 

 

Homeless: No Purpose

 

Drifting along a deserted sidewalk,

hearing a song from the corner café.

Passed by open door - hear strangers talk,

icy glances, their chosen whispers say.

No one looks my way, in my direction;

anonymous, continue to survive.

I walk alone, passed by- with no objection,

 

As if I have no purpose to be alive.

David Fewster ------ new poem for new year

12 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

1) Accept the fact the possibility of love

    no longer exists.

    You’re a monster.

2) Try not to laugh at folks who

    attempt to quit smoking the first

     half of the month.

3) If you’re feeling sad, remember

    the cable bill is paid thru January.

4) Savor every moment.

    The next one is going to be even worse.

5) Only talk to people

    you’ve known at least 20 years.

    When in doubt, remember

    They don’t understand you, either.

6) Tip even unattractive bartenders.

    This may turn out to be the

    Hidden Key to Heaven.

7) Don’t laugh when your friends who resolved

    to stop smoking

    Light up in front of you.

    Their shame is already great.

8) Don’t suddenly decide to

    Burn all your old papers in an effort

    To cleanse the past.

    Your friends and family will appreciate

    The chuckle when they’re sorting your shit

    After you’re dead.

9) Old court documents, however, can be thrown away

    With impunity.

10) Don’t take an exotic trip

      in an effort to reach satori,

      or move to some new city

      to try to “start afresh”

      Travel is for the young.

      Stay where the fuck you are.

      Remember how happy Dorothy was

      To get back to Kansas

      Where she died at the age of 16

      When a silo fell on her head.

11) Cry during all the commercials,

      even the ones for Depends Adult Undergarments.

      You’ve got to let it out somehow.

12) Stop all that goddamn whining.

      And start smoking.

--David Fewster

George Held -------- Adages to live by

Geo’s New Adages (monostichs)

Impute unto others what you deny in yourself.

A pinch of strychnine saves clothesline.

An addled mind is the devil’s play station.

No good weed goes unpuffed.

An ounce of projection is worth a pound of endure.

Lenny Bruce wise and Ezra Pound foolish

Simon Perchik -------- five poems

SIMON PERCHIK

10 WHITBY LANE

East Hampton, NY  11937

(631)324-2834

simon@hamptons.com

www.simonperchik.com

*

Even the colors are anxious, carried

as if its new home above ground

would skimp the way all rows use dirt

cut in two with nothing in between

–you suddenly bring it a darkness

use one hand to comfort the other

though you’ve done all this before

have no faith in mornings :clumps

that want only to forget, just lie still

holding one end close, for a long time

sorted out and unfamiliar fields

taken place to place in flowers

in ribbons, string, thread, something

feeble, tied to the dissolving Earth

by this shadow and your arms.

*

As if the paint poured across

could stave off rot, circle down

though this gate heads back

once it leaves your arms –by itself

whitening the trees already stone

certain you will come here forever

bring twigs, let them sweeten

soften on the ground you bite into

struggling to float, unable to breathe

or unfasten her skirt –your mouth

oozing the way mornings arrive

to dry, kept moist by these dead

and berries dressed as roots and grass

surrounded, filled with the taste

from her eyelids not yet flowers.

*

This rotted log yes and no

longs for the stillness

that is not wood though you

are already inside, seated

at a table, a lamp, clinging

the way all light arrives alone

except for the enormous jaws

once shoreline closing in

without water or suddenness

–you lay down a small thing

and the Earth is surrounded, fed

slowly forehead to forehead again.

*

You reach for lullabies, left over

and the slow crawl half whispers

half where your lips ache, float

the way this empty cup still wobbles

will break apart, overloaded

disguised as two steps closer and alone

then fill your arms with its darkness

seeping through, breathing out

not yet an embrace, not yet the mouth

where your fingers end, surrounded

by more and more dirt, a small room

here, there, there, not yet asleep.

*

It’s never dry –another gust

though this elevator is carried

the way you count backward

for hours and the door flies open

lets in a sea half hillside

half rising through the floor

–you walk in to sleep, begin

with the sound sand makes

when scattered for footprints

still following the silence

between 10, then 0, pressed

against your face –tides

are used to this, start out

to forgive, then lay down

as emptiness and a home.

Andrena Zawinski ------- Three Haibun

Singing Bird Haibun

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, 

and the grass grows by itself.” Basho

It is not a steely-eyed egret nor heft of pelican but just a singing bird that catches my fancy 

from a balcony perched across from pines lining the marina. Here I make watch of another 

shifting sky, distant buoy sounding swells in the bay, common robin chiming in on the wind.

resting in my palm 

it might pulse at the heart line

practice its pitch

But this bird makes its roost in the forked trunk, where branches droop heavy with cones. 

Like this robin, I try to perfect a voice in the intimate language of birds, call back at it, 

parroting the rise and fall of its wistful warbling, practicing the melodic whistling.

the robin carols

in a cathedral of pine

all feather and trill

Everything readies for something - above, wide wings of dark crows fan the horizon. Below, 

a ray steers clear of a row. A dog splashes into the water, his boy crying for a lost oar. 

Twilight settles on tapping riggings and masts, breeze in the tinny chimes, spring in the song.

the clouds feathering

disappear into sunset

the bird still singing

"Singing Bird" received Tiferet Journal's  1st Place Award in their Carriage House Contest.

 Last Gifts 

 (Haibun for Keiko)

  The truth is not always beautiful, 

  nor beautiful words the truth. 

  Lao Tzu

She is soon to board the plane for Osaka, and you try to avoid farewells. 

She is returning, after thirty years, to her childhood home to nurse 

the ailing mother--oya koko, filial piety, she reminds with a stern stare. 

Later you will learn the return is really for her own care, these her own 

last days. 

You lop off the American Beauty blooms, plop them into the seamless 

goldfish bowl she brings on her last visit. There is also the single teacup 

whose lip, she says, is delicate as a woman’s kiss. Dressed the way you have

 never seen her before--blue kimono under haori stitched in silver apple blossoms, 

phoenix fan in the pocket--she slips out of the coat, carefully folds and smooths it, 

places it ceremoniously into your outstretched arms.

The roses remain for a time, then spent, wilting petals drop down onto the 

furoshiki square she once wrapped around large bowls of salmon and seaweed

in sweet rice--its slender cranes winging the edges toward some unseen distance. 

The rose scent lingers even as the sight of her begins to dim.

heavens darkening 

a red winged blackbird

blazes skyward like a sword

Nocturnal Haibun

I will think it a pity that you have no way to remember tonight’s play of light, 

when you name was written in green by your beautiful lantern on a girl’s breast.--Kawabata

dancing on night air

luminaries of the dark

in concerts of light

Caravaggio powdered his paint with their iridescence.

In Frost’s garden, they were real stars to fill the skies.

Children contain their flickering dance in Mason jars, 

smear the emerald brilliance around fingers and wrists.

They are Cherokee torches turning dark into starry nights, 

Japanese hotaru of passionate love, Chinese hing hoy 

souls of the dead.

sparks of fireflies 

ignite the night’s shimmering

nocturnal courtship 

Mary Lou Nielsen ----- poem sequence

Poems from a Previous Me – 1968

(Thoughts on the War in Vietnam)     Mary Lou Nielsen

I.

Dylan Thomas Breathes Again

Summertime swishes on a bank of dew,

Leaves shiver and quake,

waterfowls live long in a sea of time,

while fishes swim in love.

Tenderness breathes soft with

lips moist and feathery,

the burning tongue, the shivering love,

the desert foam of ages

and the lamp-quick laughter of a demon

beckon to all.

Only windy time now stalks the gardens

of the limitless night sky,

blue and stilled by the emptiness of cold.

The butt end of a burning star lights the sky,

and the gilt-edged fox guards her young

on the silhouette of doom.

II.

Revelation

Would I, could I, remember truth's eyes

in a vociferous calm resting clear,

Then would I meekly throw to God a piece of

rouletting Jesus asking, Saviour, Saviour,

Wherefore art thou but only dead in a

cheap onslought of vigor,

Chanting rhymes in ogling solitude,

Beating with lung worms cancerous spells

onto unknown gates.

Forgive us for forgetting time's trueness as we do

Forgetting the reality of pain's slanting turgid river,

Flooding onto unknown banks – dying, dying

As soon as moments show clearly the

calcification of our slime.

III.

Conviction

I will know because only then will I go

To London Town – and break the battering bridge and send it away,

E'er I remember how it once uplifted many kingly days

and burned to the ground thrice o'er.

And I will build a sea of dreams

To swim in madly, whereas the world turns just as mad

And I will build to you the monument of day

And the miracle of night

And show you songs not sung

And you shall tell me of your heaven that you made so mad

What a hasty job that breaks just as hastily

In the fidgeting calm of silence you will see me as I truly am,

And you of the virtuous thorn shall bring me down.

IV

March Blowing in May

Blow winds, you scare me with your whispering car rush,

Your lights which you uncover when the trees bend low –

Low, ye winds, lower yourself to me.

My breath is of thy heart –

Blow, winds, in tornadoes and festoons,

Harlequin swirls of whispering gods nod to passers-by.

We must remember now

In the dawn of early summer,

After the new spring has passed,

Birds no longer twitter and chirp

But are lulled to sleep

In deep, dense jungles of gloating earth.

Three poems ------ Sigrun Susan Lane

                                                        

The Botanist

From the bus, she bird-walked

the narrow parking strips,

green Edens of wildness,

bent to pick the plants---

stalk, root and flowers

to be pressed between wax,

to be named from Ada Georgia’s Manual of Weeds.

Each specimen labeled, its seed splayed.

She gathered the unwanted,

the uninvited adventurers,

the wanderers, windswept weeds

from overgrown parking strips.

She called them by their common names

and by their Latinate, meadow butter cup, Ranuculus acris,

common chickweed, Stellaria media,

yarrow, Achillea Millefolium,

and mother’s heart, capsella Bursa-pastoris

which grows everywhere.

The pages she gathered

in black notebooks which grew fat

with weeds as she wandered farther

afield and returned triumphant,

her face flushed, her hat askew,

a clutch of bane in her hands.

She found them beautiful,

as she found beauty

in the uninvited and unexpected,

like the errant husband

everyone said should go

but stayed, like the five

children that filled

her noisy messy rooms.

                                                        Sigrun Susan

Crash

A logging crew got there first,

found the crumbled wreck.

They left in the pilot’s seat the body

of my father with his broken head,

behind him, my mother

with her last words whispered.

They lifted out the living man

and the living woman,

put them on solid ground,

relayed back for help

for survivors, ambulances

out of Port Angeles.

They heard this machine,

death roaring out of the sky,

destroying all before it---

trees toppled, limbs shirred

and scattered, then the crash---

wings torn off the plane,  

the plane half buried and smoking---

twisted metal wreckage.

This crew had seen bad luck,

a man pinned by a fallen snag,

a choke-chain unset,

a fall from a tree climb, but this—

That night driving home one logger

saw a vision of a plane hurtling down

at him, another dreamed he was the pilot,

another dreamed of falling over and over.

The hurt had cut its way into them,

as it did into tree bark, left it’s scars.

For what they witnessed at the site,

for what they saved,

for what they could not save,

for what they salvaged

and brought out,

Bless them.

Cathedral

I would rise and go there

to see the place

that swallowed them,

where their spirits entered.

Somewhere on that mountain side

stand witnesses- fir, cedar,

hemlock, among salal,

sword fern, gorse and granite.

I would go on foot to find them,

cut my way up through the brush,

listen for the silence

they found that final day.

I could not look before

at the place where the plane fell,

nosed its way to earth to rest,

wings torn from its dragonfly body.

I will not see scars on the trees-

by now the forest has claimed

and covered all. 

The undergrowth filled in---

chokeberry, brambles, fern. 

Wounds healed over, bark

thickened, but scars are deep

and burn under the skin.

But they’re not here.  Restless spirits,

they wait at the crest of the mountain,

or near the river’s mouth

where the stones are polished smooth,

and berries are sweet in the sun,

where the salmon run and the catch is good.

  

Three Poems ------ Maura Gage Cavell

She Dreams Awake While He's Working

                            

She walks on the railroad ties

whispering his name, whispering his name.

So in love and cut through with pain,

her boot heels drifting along the lines

of man made rails and fallen leaves.

He works so hard his body's burning,

yet holds a sense of purpose in his eyes.

All night he's awake in production,

pushing past exhaustion, making it happen.

Steadily, he meets every responsibility.

She walks far out into the rain,

jumps away from the tracks when she sees

the moon-shaped light of a train.

She walks near the water, whispering his name,

the man of her dreams lingering in her heart.

He comes in from working, tired and beat,

gets clean and eats, falls into the trance of sleep,

too brief, much too brief.  Coffee, cigarette, work boots--

all in the dark before the work begins again.

The strenuous pattern of his week--muscles tight, fatigued.

When he's back home, she reaches for him,

rubs his shoulders, neck, and back

until he melts into a trance,

released from time, place, and circumstance.

relaxed and falling back as he whispers her name.

Blue Buildings

In a cold, empty alleyway

he stands directionless,

snow falling around him.

Somewhere across town a woman

thinks of him, sits by firelight

wondering if he is safe and warm.

Blue buildings loom around him,

block out all but a patchy sky.

The moon glows yellow in a square frame.

Lantern lights glow like false stars;

he looks up as if to find answers.

Wrought iron balconies loom overhead.

In a blue building across town a woman

longs for him, wishes he might return

from the shadows of night.

Somewhere lost between blue buildings,

his boot heels echo through the streets.

He finds himself among light and shadow

                                               at her door.

Your Life Like the Waters

Passes through All

My friend, your life

is a tapestry of love

threaded through

the waves of rushing

waters under your boat

as you fish.

My friend, your life

is chiming through the heavens

and touches all who know you

with the beauty of artwork

and a sound of waves that go out

from where you are and return.

My friend, your life

rings throughout the horizon

like a beautiful bell or

a song of love.  I see your

light upon the landscape.

You're the sun; the stars.

My friend, your life

has been calm and peaceful.

The love I have for you

waves out towards you,

holds you like a sun ray

and let's you be free.

--Maura Gage Cavell

Alison Mandaville ----- two poems

Anne the Fig

Damn. Is lonely. Is oldest

and only one. Is alive. And

others is half. Alive. Clotted

with love. And blood. What

doesn’t kill you, weakens. Who —

don’t ask the doctor. How. Long.

Brother: In Bed. Wondering:

Is this my last nerve? Is this

vein just POP? Is the cells

circulating? Or not anymore.

Unicycling. One leg working.

One groin netted against

the gravity. Thinner and thin:

red is still the biggest color they

won’t let you wear in Fresno.

Central

I have been so drunk

my heart is frantic for you,

frantic I say. Like the stars

in Fresno, seen, pollution

and all. Biked at two: twenty

am after maybe just one two

many but not quite enough

of anyone because they know

each other and you don’t. Oh

this is harder at forty-nine

than it was at thirty and Van

Ness waits in the dark like

camping, or a park shuttered

against the human. Budgets

and houses and street lights

wait for no man and one woman

stands at that corner, taco pop-

up behind her at an angle, football-

ing teens’ street throws, like con-

stricted trampolines, the edges of light

absolute: my dear I wish you

were here and I wish you liked

the funny way people always find

a living at the dirt side of nowhere.