stillsummer
stillsummer—I go there, sometimes,
to be in its frayed green fragrances of
alones of foliage and photograph; to
be in pasts of pines whose roadreach
mays meaning of our once sought (it
seems) sadden. And
Death there frightens me so much less than
does death; for there Death has a step that
lingers your steps left in leaf-full grass; and
there Death has a voice that gasps of ghosts
gone into windlate good; and Death there
has a face that remembers your eye rise,
summerstill
—Robert C. Basner
I Swim in the Pond Now
I swim in the pond now.
I thought you should know.
Inky, cool, and still,
on a September day
that felt more like August,
I went in.
Past the damselflies,
the cattails,
a blur of minnows—
past the pond weed grazing
my legs.
I did not think of snapping turtles once,
just as you’d said.
Water reached my chin,
my ears,
and just before my eyes
I leaned back
and floated.
I thought you should know.
—Janet Coviello
Envy
There go some geese
a
string
in
sky
little bit of noise
nope loud honks following
each other south
where I’d like
going too as
winter brings cold
seeps into houses
and bones creak with it
flares up all kind of
ailments sneezing and
so forth—oh—wish
with them winging
to warmer climes!
—C. P. Masciola
Marooned
the skin crunch, then soft
flesh of an apple being sliced
the fast-moving Bow River
route 9, some kid enrobed
clutching scythe, 5pm
race to Stop and Shop
the walkway, the mesh fence
lush knolls, a freight train
the Hudson, too, nursing a bloom
the raccoon, its flattened jowl
vases of dried wildflowers, talons—
the airy ledge, a feathered skull
hateful eyes, a silent scowl
the dread, the Blood Moon
we, with love, in different rooms
marooned. Christiane with doves,
a scalpel, a pack of hounds
blank calls—utterance, facedown
pushing 80 with a subtle drowse
glacial cars, podcast farce
the Rhinebeck antiques shop
gloves, tintype, human bones
Victorian wreath of curlicues,
copper pots, scheeley hues
Cougar Canyon closing in,
tracks in blizzard, disappearing
ice creek fissures, bubbles slithering
voile swirls, skidding tires
purgatory eyes on phantom ice
a wrong turn, a pine throng
Plath, baking in the oven
Edna, bathing in the vast
April, screaming in the woods
—Sharon Fix
Depending
Been waiting 2½ hours
for my friend at
the hospital where he’s
undergoing a
cardiac catheterization.
They said
it could take two hours
or more,
depending. I’m starting
to worry
about the depending.
—Matthew J. Spireng
Redbud Tree
It’s strange to look across the street
at Ed’s house now that he is gone.
No red truck in the driveway.
No front door light on.
No longer seeing him lumber down
his front steps like an old grizzled bear
to care for his flowers, lawn, and trees.
How he’d stand with me on the street
hands in his pockets, to talk about his trips abroad,
politics, and his adventures out west.
Over time I watched him slow down, perhaps
entering the December of his life
until that one evening, the for-sale sign went up.
How quickly I thought, dusk dissolves into darkness.
Today a realtor arrived to inspect his home and yard.
I hear from neighbors there’s a new family moving in.
Two kids and a dog. The redbud tree in front
to be cut down.
—Ray Cicetti
Bobinsana by the Current
(Calliandra angustifolia)
A flowering shrub leans over mirrored waters.
Small mouths open together.
A white throat gathers threads,
and farther out red stamens comb the wind.
I taste a sweetness inside the halo,
a quiet turning that lets me approach.
Roots read silt, bead by bead,
and the river writes us both at once.
Is it the flower that opens my heart?
You answer with your filaments,
even as the water edits my words.
Your head shines as one, though it is a chorus.
At the center, a calm.
At the edges, shared breathing.
I come with hands unarmed, to listen.
If I borrow warmth, I return it as current.
If a door must open, let it be yours to keep.
Let the cyclical laws keep turning without wounding.
Let us be two reflections traveling, not talking, in the same water.
—Steven F. White
Can I caress your cheek
My hand cups beneath your chin to catch the no
It never comes
I’m in heaven
—Barbara Sheffer
Ode to the Garden
You, holding your breath
as you use the good knife to
slice into the Brandywine, Mr. Stripey, Pineapple, Black, and Early Girl tomatoes,
seeds and juices forming a slow flowing river into the reservoir
of the pitted wooden cutting board.
Oh, the things it’s seen before this.
Swirling your “better” olive oil like an emotional chemist,
leaving oily fingerprints on the old dark walnut pepper grinder that
sat on my parent’s kitchen table next to the paper napkins.
Shredding the bright green and plum basil, and
then the pungent oregano.
Rubbing the coarse Himalayan pink salt slowly between your thumb and pointer fingers,
a moving mudra,
as the grains tumble into the teakwood bowl,
It’s like a slow seduction.
Watching with reservation, and stories in your eyes,
a faint shadow of a simmering smile,
as I take
the first bite.
—Karen Storms
Marriage as a Pair of Wind Turbines
The last time I stayed at this garden inn without a garden
and peered out over the harbor, the three-armed windmills
in the distance were dancing, as they are today, all six
glinting in the sun, a pair close together and another
farther away, with two singles in between, perhaps trying
to get together but too firmly rooted in their separate ways.
The pairs remind me of marriage—when things are good,
a slow dance, the arms of one in a pair rotating almost
synchronously with the arms of the other as if they were
holding each other tight, but then drifting apart as each
responds a little differently to a shifting wind. Wind
keeps the marriage vibrant, each windmill coming to
a dead stop when there is a near-dead calm. When it
changes direction, the arms reorient themselves, the long
blades of one pair perhaps not seeing it the same way as
those in the other pair, each windmill needing to do its own
thing. When the wind picks up, all is good again, a slow
arm-against-arm, hand-in-hand dance possible once more.
—Jim Tilley
Not Your Stomach Growling, Just My 7th Speech Impediment and Staten Island Accent
If I were a ventriloquist I’d throw
my voice across to the spot
just below your navel
and sing Caruso, Bocelli,
Pavarotti.
—Alyssa Almanza
The Dauphin of the Farmers’ Market
Perhaps the boy is too lost
in the effort it takes
to sullenly finger
each pain aux raisins
in the baker’s display
to hear his mother’s request:
“Dear, will you please
step away?”
By the fourth or fifth try
she has his attention
and a pile
of poked pastries
to purchase.
He finally responds,
“I do not want to
step away,”
and idly destroys
one last croissant.
—Chris Bottomley
Apotropaic
(I hear East Coasters once pressed oyster shells into the mortar around door frames to ward off evil)
I sleep in a grey stone house
with ivory walls of alabaster.
Outside, the elements scrape, breaking
against black rock, bone and sand.
But inside, in here, my innermost
sanctum is soft and pearly smooth;
warmed by hot, salty tears,
purified by smoke and flame.
Polished staircases spiral up and
down as familiar creatures climb, cozying
into secret recesses, crannies and corners,
conjuring friendly shadows, sounds
only I know.
I paint the front door blood red, bright
against the cold, the damp, the darkness:
a sign of life in the dead of winter,
a beacon in the heaving storm.
—Jenna Ferguson
A Conversation with a Clown
Soutine
Chaim Soutine
your landscapes bend and lean
ten thousand
different colors
brush and layer every scene
Am I seeing you
through wavy glass
in a window wet with rain
or did you paint
between the time
things stop and start again?
—Ronald Bath
The Question
She asked me a question,
regarding something
no one else had noticed,
she noticed, and when
no one else asked
about it, she asked.
She was different—
she listened, even when
she didn’t want to,
and most of the time
she kept the answers
I gave her to herself,
because she didn’t yet
know how I might react
to her views.
But who am I? Just
a lonely man wandering
the streets of one town,
then the next, always
looking for something
I cannot name.
And when we kiss
she holds my face
lightly, carefully
in her hands as if
she thinks I might
disappear again.
—Richard R. Binkele
On My Own
There’s a heartbeat
in the hole
of a rolling stone…
There’s a loud cry
in the silence
of a dry white bone…
I want to shout
it all out,
but I can only moan…
My beautiful thoughts
they have
long since flown…
It blows my mind
just how much
my mind is blown…
There is really
nothing left
for me to atone…
Everything here
is strictly
on loan…
All I can do
is write down
a new poem.
—Bob Grawi
