08_Music-Books-Poetry
they say you learn something new every day
but i’m also forgetting old things every day
i think i’m falling behind
��”pFresh Socks
The socks that mother bought me didn’t fit,
I had to walk to school in ice cold snow.
Both the sun and snow were whispering to me…
“I feel bad for you.”
School was hard without socks
And when I got home, it was even worse
I stepped on a Lego.
That night I had bad dreams.
In the morning right in front of me were good fresh socks, that fit!
The rest of the day was easy as pie,
Until I stepped in the mud.
��”Hugh Sullivan (8 years old)
Writing the Storm
Two walls are windows, and inside
we write. Outside, the storm, the whiplash
tail of a tropical depression, drives rain,
horizontal, across green roofs, across the slope
of Broadway where cars creep with lights
on in this afternoon dimmed by dense clouds.
Beyond the flailing trees, the Hudson fades
in mist. We know it’s there, bucking moored
boats and scudding whitecaps toward shore.
My students crane their necks, look out.
Some see destruction. Some see fear.
Some see the rain-black street, the Key
Bank sign that’s swaying back and forth,
as if, one says, it’s waving. Lights
go out. My hand keeps writing what
I see, or now, do not, and when they flicker
on again, the brief electric shock
of being trapped inside this building sputters
from our bodies. On our pages, words,
unsteady, drive to meet the dark.
��”Mary Makofske
Floating Vowels
these pillows are old.
nothing will fluff them up.
but you roll over and touch
me and I can imagine why
bishops pray to saints
and with barely a pause in
kissing we spell l-o-v-e letter
by letter, a catchy rhyme
in our heads, and as always
we laugh at the marvelous
mess we make out of
the sheets; our signature
sex fortifies the sun, the day
mood, the floating vowels
of our caring conversation.
��”Cary B. Ziter
Sound Characteristics of the Violin
Don’t tell me
that you’re shaking, that you’re crying.
I don’t want to hear you scream when you see a spider,
I don’t want to know you’re frightened, upset, that you can’t catch your breath. That you have PTSD. Because you were abused as a child. You’re not a child now.
I don’t want to know that you’re sweating. It revolts me.
Full, lively, singing, eloquent,
My father would have drawled, “I’m not your cryyyyying towel.”
My handsome, lady-killer uncle would have patted his pockets, his basso voice dropping deeper and filling with laughter, “Wherrrre did I put it? I’m looking for the world’s tiniest violin.”
vibrant, clear, glassy, flute-like, shrill, brilliant,
What are we looking for? Swapping back and forth how we’ve been battered, injured, neglected, assaulted, molested.
Who had it worst?
When we get there? Does someone win?
round, pure, muffled, solemn, sobbing,
I’m the reverse of the fairy tale cooking pot that eternally refills.
The more you fill me with the horrors of your life the emptier I get.
So you can put them all back in.
But this is part of who I am, you say. I want people to see me and know me for who I am.
As if, you fool:
anyone can even stand to see or to know anyone else.
as if your sob stories ignite an angelic flare that will draw people like moths to leave, as they burn,
their powder of compassion all over you,
and this Fairy Dust
will lift you up like Tinker Bell.
As if that would fix you.
You don’t get to have any of this fixed.
wafting, soft, sweet, merry, dancing, veiled.
I have my own life in the tower spinning this straw.
Don’t tell me your problems.
Don’t tell me.
��”Judith A. Karpova
Mountain
His purple skin cracked into
black.
His fallen hope was never
swept off the floor.
His cries were swallowed
and transformed into
black coals.
He was now stuck in a
mountain
unable to move.
Maybe one day his tears will
boil his heart
and the mountain
will breathe.
I burn coal in the basement.
I know it’s illegal
but it is all I have
of him
now.
��”Martha Williams
Donatello’s David
Across the Bargello’s grand gallery
he stands, contrapposto posed,
a slim boy’s ebonized body,
a break in the floral garlands of art��”
the museum’s classical order of arches.
The hat of Thrice-Majestic Hermes
on him shows that he is a Florentine.
Like a cloak of invisibility
he flaunts his nudity, and lowers
his eyelids slowly and smiles.
His hands are clutching murderous weapons.
The giant’s own heavy sword
that severed his helmeted head
rests in a delicate hand at the hilt.
This is no swordsman’s grasp.
In the sinister hand, attached at his side,
he cradles a deadly stone, his thumb
molded against the flared hip,
balancing the half-hidden rock
like a plaything of intifada.
Did the old warrior watch
this youth, stripped down to greaves
for armor, roll smooth stones
cupped in his hand, until one shot
from the whirling sling, bringing death?
This is no Judean shepherd.
These soft fingers never combed
the twisted wool of desert sheep.
Instead, this is the artist’s dream
of lyric death��”beauty inviting
the outreached fingers to feel,
as of scar tissue, this skin.
��”Royal Rhodes
Faith
What are the options-east-west-up-down?
Find a spot and spin around,
Keep faith that you will be found.
Take me to the auction,
Start the bidding low,
the mirror has shown,
a pale face and dimming glow.
��”Tara Nachimson
UFO Directions
May the potholes disappear
from the road before you,
chipmunks salute,
and birds perch on your shoulders.
Let fish leap from rivers
to whisper your name,
UFOs land
and aliens ask where you are.
��”John BlandlySpeaking for Myself
I’m not cool,
I’m old.
I flank two
Centuries from
The axis of one
To the tilt
Of the next.
Where do I
Go to get
Some heat,
A little flower
Frond for me,
I’m not old,
I’m cool at
My fingers, I keep
Them covered while I sleep.
I’m not cold,
I’m cool, the
Heart beat strumming
The days of
Sun’s heart
Until everything
Is cold.
I’m not cool,
I’m old.
��”Marilyn Lucas BlahoZero Poem
The wind swirls in the ear
Of the child’s song
Hickory Dickory Dock
Slides into the raging sea
We plaster the walls
With the sweat of contagion
We wiggle our toes
To prove they are still there
We tumble into a speechless void
Where nothing glistens
Or holds the light
Whispering half vowels
Into the slipperiness of the night
Where everything is flung
Like a query turned upside down
Like an appeal spun into cotton candy
Like a truth rubbed into incineration
By the masked raiders of the night
Tumbling into the lair of infinity
Where nothing congeals
And the day implodes
And seconds crumble into zero
And I watch your sleeping face
And remember simpler years
When the morning light
Entered into the room
With a spring in its step
And a glory hallelujah
Welcoming the world in
With a smile as wide
As a Cheshire cat
Meowing up at the moon
��”Bruce Weber
mUSe
I hold us inside of me because
you
are
my
mUSe
��”lokal_yokelIncapable of Advancing Any Sign
it’s rather the to-be-found
we’ve awakened to
for nearly a million
mornings��”
the velvet house plant,
the form of our hands
never quite explained��”
it’s like that, I suppose:
each revelation just
out-of-sight, hid behind
some unbearable light.
��”r. s. mason
No Eggs Today
Down the hill each morning
and up the hill each night��”��”
the sun in my eyes both coming and going,
I see your sign
at the end of the driveway
that says, “No Eggs Today”
Try as I might to spy your hens,
in the moment it takes to pass by,
I never see so much as a feather.
Yet, I cling to the hope
your sign implies,
that one day I will see a different sign.
This sign will say, “Eggs Today.”
and I will turn into your driveway
to purchase a dozen.
We will chat about your hens.
I will ask if you have given them names
(as did my friend Paul, who was so fond of his “girls.”)
Until, one night, a raccoon chewed into their henhouse,
(or jimmied the lock, for they are said to be quite clever)
and killed them all.
Paul said (I hadn’t known)
the raccoon didn’t do it to eat the hens.
He only wanted the corn in their crops.
I hope that is not the reason why
you have no hens,
and therefore, no eggs.
I hope it is only, that you have retired from the egg game,
and left your sign up as a reminder to passersby
that you can’t always get what you want.
��”Frank Wright
This article appears in April 2023.
