One Hundred Miles North
Two hours and ten minutes by coach,
one hundred miles north of Manhattan,
en route to visit Saugerties via Kingston.
I take in highways, distant mountains,
shifting towns, step at length into
the flowing Catskill foothills.
The still-naked early orchards,
the seeming silence of silo farms,
the why of abandoned homesteads.
Rivers rise and fall. Picked up,
I arrive in Saugerties by the Esopus.
Business shingles, not neon, welcome me.
Under the cure of a blue sky, all things
here sweetly different: doggie bowls
at The Partition, pickle juice after bourbon.
Poets sitting at portables, typing
haiku for anyone who asks.
I even write my own:
On the sidewalk today
in the shade of a shoe store
writing poetry with soul
I savor the Jane Street Art Center,
Emerge Gallery, spend hours
at Inquiring Minds and Our Books.
Marvel at the abundance of benches
in the village, and the friends remembered
on small plaques on its lampposts.
A cop walks his beat, smiling.
BLM activists assemble in peace.
I sit, am still, take it all in.
—Patrick Hammer, Jr.
Spring Arrives In Five Senses
fresh green salad
tart lemon zest dressing
yellow Forsythia
a morning hug
the aura of her perfume
lingered all day
beaks break
through warm blue shells
ancient songs are born
the oar
splintered and dry
cuts through chilly water
seeds
explode with color
before you realize
—Daniel Brown
Fire isn’t Red, It’s Iridescent
I watched a car as it burst into flames
on 84 going toward Beacon.
I watched it end as fast as it began;
The corridor of headlights glistening.
In the presence of a flight
to another life
from the driver’s side,
I saw a rainbow in the night.
—Deirdre Alpert
The Method of Mountain Trees
Stone no barrier to growth,
tree roots snake into solid rock,
finding cracks to access what they need:
wet soil and the blood of planets.
They hold the stone
the way hands hold onto a cliff,
which is what I am doing right now.
Holding on. How much longer
must it be like this? How much longer
must I be cheek-to-cheek
with this rock face,
cold lover,
feet seeking something solid to stand on?
I feel her five billion years of indifference
and wonder what, ultimately, is the point.
Then I remember the miracle of trees
growing on mountains,
or how weeds sprout from highway roadsides,
and I find, once again, a way
to climb up off the edge.
—Richard Smyth
I Want
to tell you about the other House.
where my fingers can dance through
your
Thick
curls
long fingers
sweet mouth
I could play them like harps– reverberating notes of linen or heavy cream.
where I could read out loud to you and the air moves through the minds of plants and the sounds that frogs make.
I listen for whale sounds.
Deep, mournful, and longing–
like what sounds my chest would make if I reached in with my hands and found the spot that felt things.
—Kayla Noble
Lover’s Awbaed
Parting is such painful sorrow
What’s sweet is your soft sleepy smile
Yes, I know we’ll see each other tomorrow
But twenty-four hours proves too long a while
Lush from last night’s dew drops: shiver to alarmed air
Petal plucked limbs flutter from fae flowered bed
My Aurora, than in these precious moments you’re never more fair
Without our sappy Saphic mornings, I’d rather be dead
But alas, duties summon us beyond kiss-sealed doors
Ghouls pound and shout: full-force of unfun tensions
Necessary self-necromancy: phantom touches haunt me more
I can’t fault the world for wanting your affections
—Madelyn Crews
Commonality
When scraping away at dead leaves blanketing forest floors
one finds newts
When scraping away daily towards some human condition
one finds theology
There is much commonality, here.
Winter never settled on permanent polar zones
Spring is some fling always leaving
The sun melts our summer again
Autumn in a graveyard, alive, misleading.
There is much commonality, all year.
—Steve Grogan
Gmail
“Once you grab your stuff
We are going to become strangers,
You will never see or talk to me again.”
The algorithm suggests my responses—
“Okay, I will”
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean?”
—Shelby Lintel
I Watch Him Play The Piano
With marionette hands,
he strikes the keys.
The action hidden; the felted
hammers strike my chest.
The music rack, a skeleton;
he plays from memory.
And they become one,
a horse pawing the ground.
I see the whites of stallion eyes;
the pupils, accidentals.
The tempo changes, dove wings
and grackles stir my heart.
Like a gang of kids who scatter
when the cops arrive, I watch, breath bated.
The furor subsides.
No witness protection program for me!
I’ll take the stand.
Your Honor, there was no crime. Just
harmony.
The piano startles under my friend’s touch
like a newborn foal
akimbo. Again, the Prelude grows,
becomes stable.
My friend spurs on his baby grand.
Steinway holds the shiny black
curved lid mane upright.
On the fall board, his hands reign,
and I’m right beside him,
although across the room,
riding side saddle.
I watch knowingly, listen knowingly
although I’m no musician.
My hands ache to take to my dapple gray,
the laptop keyboard where I compose myself.
—Dawn Marar
The Wound
Because
we are through
and no one
is to blame
there is a hole
in my throat
that once held
laughter.
—Susan Liev Taylor
The Map Man
He could read all kinds of topographic maps,
and spoke at least five languages.
He dressed well, if a little behind the times,
and his hands were smooth, his voice lilting,
and his shoes as polished as a general’s.
He didn’t laugh loudly, preferring a polite chuckle.
And was no drinker, save for the occasional glass of port.
What he did for a living was mostly rumors.
Some said he was a nuclear scientist.
Others figured him for a spy.
But he gave no indication of either.
Except, from time to time, he’d been seen
doing what looked like lip-reading
a conversation across the room.
He lived alone in one of the new townhouses.
No one ever saw him with a woman,
just the occasional male friend
in a fancy wine bar.
The maps would be spread out on the table.
And someone once overheard
what sounded like German or even French,
as he pointed at various brown contours,
bright blue lakes and rivers.
Maybe he’s planning an invasion,
was one old guy’s suggestion.
He was a local mystery,
one desperately needed,
for knowing everybody else’s business
could only take a person’s boredom so far.
Folks would stop and stare
when they saw him out and about.
If not for him,
they never would have wondered.
—John Grey
Truth Takes A Mental Health Day
Truth started dressing differently, cut off all of its own hair
And walked in, announcing it was buying a drink for everyone.
It looked different, laughed differently and held its cigarette strangely.
This is now where truth lies,
In the badly lit mess of a dive bar,
Angry at being restrained by strangers from hurting itself.
—Alec Gourley (Algo)
Sonnet
He was sick a long time
hoping quickly to recover
but that did not happen
sadly he discovered.
The cause was unknown
but people speculated
that it was because he
was not vaccinated.
But some say that’s nonsense
and not at all related
and that he had what he had
from women whom he dated.
People look but no one sees
the real cause of his disease.
—Roger Whitson
Paper Planes Make Great Poetry
shoots across a sky a hundred tiny papers form the shooting stars I wish upon at night. A hundred tiny letters fill a page, maybe two. Fold it up for fun, stare at it but only for a few. Throw it out and watch the story you had written fly up to the moon. All these paper planes one belongs to you. So next time you scribble down some words, Fold up your paper and throw it to the moon because for some reason paper planes make great poetry.
—Bella Barbera
This article appears in June 2022.
