Calm with Age
I know you are not who you used to be,
But I do not yet know who you are now.
The geese crowd the yard leading down to the lake
and you make a joke that is not exactly funny,
but I laugh because you’re my father
and I want to believe that, these days, you’re good.
I’m not sure. I keep my distance
and stay away so I can’t see the bad parts of you.
They must be there, though.
It’s hard to accept that you have changed
because I resent that it came so late.
I want a time machine that brings me to 1997
so I can take you by the shoulders
and shake you, violently,
tell you, “it’s okay.
You won’t always be this way.
But be different now, please. Be different now.”
—M. J. Greener
The day is going somewhere noticeably
The day flies somewhere, noticeably,
cool evenings refresh the body,
the final weeks of August will be selected
we have another military summer,
autumn is peeking into cities and villages.
Sometimes the fog plays in the mornings,
and he joyfully greets the tiny rains,
and the land is empty,
harvest relics replenish the barn.
And as if you breathe every day,
and as if you hear, see and chew,
youth meanwhile is in a hurry.
Unfortunately, you will not catch up to her.
—Vyacheslav Konoval
August 29, 2020
the love of animals only goes so far both ways
ear against the pink wall the neighbors pounding
such is the morning a sock full of rocks sharp
my feet they make me taller I am my own
construction with love of animals my FitBit
vibrates to remind me of my heart on rainy
isolated Saturdays you used to sit across from me
eating macaroni after the bookstore our Wednesday
ritual attempts to meet each other partially
you in my arms against the washing machine
the cycles shifted silently all seasons
could have passed sooner than they did
—James Croal Jackson
Fire Tower
We know this mountain route from your running
days, not so long ago, and as I steer
us up the hairpin turn, I marvel at
your gray-haired men, training so hard.
The fire tower is hidden by the trees,
the ruts in the access road too deep,
so we have only our memories
of the open, zigzag steps, a test I
passed by silence and Mom by grit.
We roll down the other side, gravel
popping like a pine campfire, past cabins
that we recognize as your widower’s
quiet, wilderness dream we’re both relieved
you thought better of. I think about
the half-walled box, roof perched like a cap
on top, an ocean of green all around,
and the hope of spotting a far-off plume.
At the dam, benched near buttery sand,
you tell me about driving there, swimming
young and free to the opposite shore,
until rules and ropes brought that to an end,
which reminds me that I read somewhere
some official removed the bottom stairs
to discourage lookout volunteers like us.
I don’t regret what we gave up. Today
we travel low, down in, reminded we
were once ourselves, surrounded by the evidence.
—William Keller
Less
When my old buddy smiles
at me
I can see through the gauze
of booze
the boy he was
still there
just less.
—Ryan Brennan
Country Road
The old red
barn
peels and slouches
tilting
as it departs
winter
settling into it’s
birthplace
pulsing spring green
hillside.
—Daniel Brown
Don’t Blink
In the blink of its eye
cat pounces on mouse
swats, snubs, bats
—odd amusement.
Ancient feline impulses
snap the neck;
dead treasure lays at my feet.
In the
blink of
his eye
my lover won’t come home.
He chose the quiet car;
he will be struck first
train on car, neck snapped
twisted steel and fire.
No one to warm my feet.
In the blink
of an eye
my child is a man.
Tense chords define his neck,
Rock stares across silences until
rage and weeping snaps us to our feet.
In the blink of
my eye
there is a toddler howling
another suckling attached to
daughter-momma with puffy aching feet.
Blink and
I will twist my neck
over my shoulder to look away.
Chemical infusions, fire and ice, endless drip, drip.
At my feet lie memories.
—Amy Caponetto Galloway
Born Again
Once a week these days…maybe every other
We tumble and tangle
Awash in a pleasure, quietly packing its bags
Then sleep the deep sleep, the “little death”
But every other night we are born again
With legs intertwined
Your breath on my neck
My hand on your hills
There is no expectation
Or longing
Nothing more miraculous
More filled with light
Than warm skin touching warm skin
In the dark
—Jim Savio
The Green Chevy
I was sixteen, he was twenty-one.
His summer job was selling
hot dogs and hamburgers from a truck
parked on the edge of the beach.
I wore an orange and yellow bikini
he had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.
We tripped down the dunes
held hands by a driftwood fire,
sparks flying into the night sky.
He and his brother sang Beach Boys
songs in perfect harmony.
I rolled a bottle of cold beer
on my cheeks, drank it down.
He handed me another.
Sand scratched my sunburned legs.
His mouth tasted of salt and beer.
On the way back to town, the sea
pounding in my ears, I stuck my head
out the window and puked all over
his green Chevy.
He made me clean it up the next day
as he watched, a smile spread
across his face like a leftover eaten
watermelon rind.
—Christine Penney
Trickster
AI,
you’ve caught my eye.
I hear you’re special
and real advanced.
You can compose anything:
a poem, a fiction.
Quicker than I can
collect my thoughts and pen.
Some say you’re death
to real school essays, non-fiction.
Some say you’ll save lives too,
but I keep hearing you’re a trickster:
You add fabrications, lies
to others’ work you cut and paste.
AI, you’ve caught my eye.
I worry you’ll catch my tongue.
—Patrick Hammer, Jr.
What It Could Be
to feel joy like my daughter’s
when she climbs stairs
or runs into the next room
to keep me from putting on her socks
says, What it could be? when she notices
any number of sounds I wouldn’t—
a plane’s distant howl
motorcycle sputter—
or sees a plastic bag stuck in a tree.
Her work this afternoon—
move river rocks from the milk crate
Dada is storing them in
one by one. Line them up
in a raised bed of dirt.
In a few months the same plot
might hold baby eggplants
we will have to tell her
not to pick. Yet.
Last summer she captured one,
cradled it in her arms and spoke to it
like her own baby or pet
all afternoon. When it browned
in the fridge I couldn’t let her see.
She picked another and did the same.
Where did she learn this care?
All her eggs inside her
at birth. Already a mother.
—Rebecca Keith
Maudlin Poem
one by one
we fall
who’s next
whose turn
is it
we stand looking around
in trepidation
is it me
will i go
before
oh i just ordered
those party hats
the noisemakers
the birthday cake
(you know the one from Banana Moon)
please go on and celebrate
even if it’s my turn
to fall
—Jo Galante
Thunderstorm
The first strike was so sudden, and so close
We all jumped in our chairs.
The lights flickered, just like in a horror film,
So we turned them off
And sat for the rest of the meal in the dark
With our faces pressed against the glass—
A line of spectators
Gasping and cheering at every successive bolt.
Awed,
Over and over
Each time the world was briefly exposed
As a negative of itself.
Impressed, each and every time
The darkness was peeled for an instant back
By a unique crack of relentless line and light.
It happens like that sometimes.
You’re sitting there, being who you are,
With your specific contradictions,
Your slight distractions,
Your vague concerns.
And then a storm comes and reminds you:
Put down your fork!
Turn around!
Bring your hands and your eyes as close as you can
To the pane that separates you.
Never mind the fingerprints!
Never mind your manners!
When illumination comes, unexpectedly.
It’s best to push all the plates aside,
And simply be rapt.
—Dana Iova-Koga
Resurrection Haiku
My body—covered
with a grand dark blue tattoo
spelling out your name—
lay in a coma
on the beach where I proposed—
long since abandoned
a resurrection—
waiting for us all in time—
awakens me now
—Liam Watt
Watching the Soaring Hawks,
While Waiting for my Son’s Arrival at
PBI Airport’s Cell Phone Parking lot on 2/24/24
The sky is full of hungry birds,
The ground is full of hungry worms,
Me? I got the day off.
—Bob Grawi
This article appears in April 2024.
