In our March poetry pages, we published the poem G*psyGap. In hindsight, this was a mistake. The term G*psy is considered a racial slur by a large percentage of Roma people and neither I nor Chronogram want, in any way, to perpetuate any racial stereotype. My sincere apology for being ignorant and insensitive on this issue.
—Phillip X Levine
Money
Money. Some say useless
Some say useful. I say OK.
But it can be both. Why do we
Pay with it? Can’t we just
Use paper? It’s the same thing.
Well, don’t ask me. I’m just
The one writing this poem.
It works sometimes, but not
Always. So, think before you
Use it. Be wise. Now, before
I’m done writing, a question:
If money rained from the sky,
Would you take as much as
You can? I don’t know. That’s
All. Now, do you say useless?
Or useful? Answer, but remember,
I’m just writing this poem.
—Uma Manon Bardfield (9 years old)
Now That It Is Safe to Go Outside
The contractors both my neighbors hired
may try to talk at me and what to do
then? Play normal? I have spent these solitary
days cataloguing the cotton candy no one
knows inside me. I try to get the gunk out
but it is sticky! Gigantic pink globules!
Therapy says all is okay in moderation–
or is that a nutritional idiom? Look,
loneliness drives toxicity to confession.
I polluted air around me for years and now
you want me to open my door to the world?
—James Croal Jackson
Tornado, High Falls
From the sound, it might have been a train
coming if a train came there riding the sky
like rails trains follow. While a canal
once went through the center of the hamlet,
no trains did, and this sound was coming straight
for them in a sky dark as smoke black with
burning oil. They thought it odd until they
remembered stories of the sound tornadoes
make, when they rushed to the basement to wait.
The storm passed. The sky cleared. The next day
they saw online the video someone posted
of the funnel cloud forming, no sound.
—Matthew J. Spireng
Almost Six Is a Good Age
With growing gusto
The budding thespian
Enters stage emulating
A magical nanny or frozen princess.
Polished poses and perfect pitch
Convey confidence and expert mimicry
To her adoring audience
Followed by bows and applause.
Then she dashes off to design
Lego legacies, blanket forts or farms,
Gourmet cafes, or illustrated books—
All with mastery and mirth.
Once observer, now reborn
As swimmer, biker, hiker,
And jungle gym enthusiast
With new goals each day.
She knows who she is
And proves it proudly
By reading or signing
Her name in script.
—Jane Harries
Fork misplaced.
In the shanty hut of memory
I put down my things. Prepare tea,
a bowl of grain. Arrange my space
into same order. Kitchen. Bedroom.
Bathroom. Den. A small room for secrets.
My desk skewing east. Bed aligned.
Shoes missing. Fork misplaced.
—Mike Jurkovic
A Jog in Georgia
On that day, he went for a jog
Around a neighborhood in Brunswick
He was an athlete, played football
Makes sense to see him running
Ahmaud made his way through
What looked to be a nice area
Shaded by a tunnel of
Bright green leaves that
Embraced the bend of the road
But then followed a couple of white men
Pulled in front of him in their
Big white pickup
With the old man in the bed
And his kid behind the wheel
The son steps out
To aim his shotgun at the young man
In what they called a “citizen’s arrest”
Of a young black man jogging
And Ahmaud fought
He ran towards the son
POP
He fought with and pushed the son
POP
He reached to push his gun away
POP
Then he stumbled
And fell where he took his
Last breath.
And the blood remains on the hands
Of not only those two men
But of this white america
And all who refuse to relieve
Black Americans
Of this society who rejects them,
Of these chains that bind them,
And of these men that kill them.
—Jackson Fedro
Derek Chauvin’s American Knee
is the bullet that killed Trayvon Martin
is the chokehold that killed Eric Garner
is the bullet that killed Fred Hampton
is the bullet that killed Medgar Evers
is the slaughter at Attica
is the bomb dropped on the Move building
is the bomb in the Birmingham church
is the Tulsa Massacre
is the Tuskeegee study
is the lynching noose
is the slave catcher’s manacles
is the slave master’s whip
—Ingrid Blaufarb Hughes
Hair
I swallowed one of
your hairs
Yesterday
It’s still stuck
In my throat
Along with my shame
Come close
While I tie the red bandana
Around your beautiful neck
—Riggs Aloha
Economics 101
I suppose I’ve always looked like
someone who would buy a bridge.
All my life, I’ve bought the bridge,
and I still don’t own one.
—Cliff Henderson
Wet Painting
A hook on the back
You need a ring on the wall
Then hang it to dry
—Ze’ev Willy Neumann
Untitled
The story of a sensitive soul
Chapter 1
Ouch
The end
—Jana Mondello
Local News
I have nothing to talk about except the birds,
the usual crew that visits the feeder every day—
so today’s 7 am news—
The thieving squirrel, aggressive starlings,
sparrows and juncos, house finches and goldfinches
are here again for the seeds, the suet.
But oh my, will you look at that—
a large woodpecker, bright red head,
beak long and elegant.
—Joanne Grumet
Newburgh, 1782
The autumn air breeze
paves the path
that winters whispers
will soon freeze.
—Michael Montali
Corset
Tight like a hanging noose,
it constricts, narrows, binds me;
restrictive rivers flow to eyelets,
quickly threaded as blood letting—
holding me firm:
suffocating slowly,
by infinitesimal degrees—
catching breath, barely noticing.
Etiquette is laced
through ivory loopholes,
stitching decorum into veins—
channeling expectation
in blanched hands
where servants pull with force
as I cling to bed pillars,
trying not to topple
like a splintered spinning top.
Each whale bone etches nooks
forming cavities of me—
I’m hollowing like a bird’s bones:
light, but tethered, grounded
as a falconer’s eagle.
I prance on glued fingertips.
I fly only on circuited routes,
promenade stifling ballrooms;
Victorian parks—
tiring of monochrome scenery:
my future spins past, hazy-slow,
blinkered like a cuckold.
Courtiers knock, deliver flowers—
await my corseted tread;
the corset tightens as it thrusts
my innards closer—
creating a desired hourglass figure.
I’m a living ornament
with porcelain heels,
click-clacking to performed timing.
Or am I a mermaid in a jar?
Barely buoyant.
My iridescent colors bleed
down prison walls,
streaking transparency
with a held flag of surrender—
slightly tainted, like me,
adding a multi-hued rebellion
like trickling blood…
from Parisian guillotines.
Marriage knocks loudly,
while my corset weeps
satiating the held bones
that crush, crunch my ribs.
This time it’s tighter,
sucking me in like a vacuum
creating cavernous holes –
like an unseeded fruit.
I stand, coerced to say “I do”
while whale bones knit
a smaller waist,
holding me together
like shapeless pottery.
I’m a shattered mosaic
with rogue symmetries—
dissonant, kinked patterns.
He looks into my eyes
as my corset sighs,
exhaling sorrow
in plentiful gasps.
I hear transitory whispers
as the bones web,
concealing a locked
(corseted) heart.
—Emma Wells
A Nightingale Doesn’t Belong in the Hudson Valley
I am afraid I will never again hear you sing.
A nightingale doesn’t belong in the Hudson Valley
and I have seen other birds with clipped wings.
Your whistling aria reminds me of Being
Alive. We are what happens when two galaxies
collide. I am grateful for hearing you sing.
I know the grief that letting-go brings,
but a nightingale will die in captivity
rather than live with broken wings.
If I fall and break my arm, I’ll wear a sling.
Some things are unavoidable, like gravity,
but for now I just want to hear you sing.
I feel time’s grip around us tightening.
The Phantom whispers under the melody,
freely given, I say this with mended wing
I love you, so I know this will sting—
But nightingales don’t belong in the Hudson Valley.
Though I may never again hear you sing,
I’ll never have to see you with clipped wings.
—Addison Jeffries
Granny
The great grooves of a life long-lived burrow deeper when she smiles.
She smiles at childhood memories chasing
the mountains of West Virginia.
West Virginia where she first learned to make
her famous white gravy and biscuits.
White gravy—a family favorite—
would gather her children and their children.
Their children the joyful beasts that kept
the glint in her eye.
The glint in her eye first placed there by
her loving husband, the carpenter.
Her carpenter, their children and their children,
all of her memories the foundation of the great grooves.
The great grooves of a life long-lived that burrow deeper no more
—Amberae Miller
This article appears in June 2021.
