Poetry | March 2023

08_Music-Books-Poetry
UFO Testimonial
I saw something in the sky last night.
I had no idea what it was.
What else could it be?
��"pMilkweed and Beech
The milkweed hung on this year, late seeds
in fluff, stuffed in pods shut tight. The beech,
as usual, held most of its leaves. Burnished
to bronze, then dulled to brown, enough surrendered
to lay bare what summer’s green had masked��"
a nest built by hornets slathering
their saliva over fibers gathered
from the hillside patch of milkweed, making
layers of gray paper to encase
their hive. When at last it came to light,
how could anyone not see what had been
there always, those creatures high in the tree
conspiring out of sight who knows how long,
milkwood and beech, standing back, standing by?
��"Jim Tilley
Tribute to Dr. WCW
say it! no jazz unless it swings
no ideas without things
leafless trees that seasons bring
doc your poems imagined everything
they rose the gray green muted day
they fell on streetlight yellow nights
hospital shadows words of clay
inner essence hidden delight
red wheelbarrows mean so much
icebox plums you shouldn’t touch
paterson n.j. decades of time
over the shoulder passing by
mind camera holds the light
say it! no poems except in flight.
��"Daniel Brown
Josette the Seer
She looked as though a thought sat on the bridge of
her nose. Her presence was only revealed through
glimpses of shadow and reflection throughout her
palace. Handsome in countenance, expressing a
semblance of long tapping contemplative fingers. A
paradox to the cosmos, her effeminate fierceness
contrasted her maternal softness. Her eyes were two
tiny globes that held many futures and saw them
like tunnel vision.
��"Jeanine Crook
Someone’s Childhood
Remember the smooth bellies of silver minnows in a bucket
Flashing their final S.O.S. before being hooked and cast across placid pools.
Remember the crawfish skirting backwards into murky depths
Desperately seeking stone shelters to escape tiny fingers.
Remember the flattened garden snake whose worst mistake
was basking too long on a winding country road.
All these creatures deserve remembering
Remember your first birthday cake,
hopefully ablaze,
one bright beacon standing straight at the center,
Beckoning a new year with one fleeting wave of flame.
Remember long bike rides to the corner store, before sunset,
when the first dim star winks into view,
And the night sky settles in to welcome you into her arms.
Remember your first kiss, an awkward embrace,
falling head first into the unknown,
Flushed face slapped with a sudden flash of freedom and exhilaration.
Those moments you can’t help but remember
Remember your first experience of death, a cloud of confusion
crippling your senses,
Everything so quiet and so loud,
cementing you in time,
until you slowly begin to creep toward the sun.
Remember being an outcast,
slipping out into the avenues of night, trying not to be seen
Groping through the dark for anything familiar,
Peering into warm windows of homes you don’t belong.
Remember trying to be strong,
coaxing a smile as fearful as a cornered cat,
Trying to remind yourself that no one would hurt you.
The things that are hard to forget
��"Angela Braselmann
Embers
covered with ashes,
thinking about tomorrow
the banked embers glow
��"Jennifer Howse
Obliquity
Love Me
not deliriously
as a single summer
would
But evenly
as the four seasons
God tilted
into rhythm
��"Ryan Brennan
Birthday March
March
March along
March along again
to 87
On the second day
in March
then
To 88
March, damn it.
MARCH.
��"Anthony G. Herles
Goya’s Dog
At first, I think us the same��"
Both uncertain before the Whirlwind,
Our whimpering sounds alike,
Our ears hanging humbled.
What do we both see
That we don’t yet understand?
Your loyalty, greater than mine
Makes you look up in earnest;
Vanity, unknown to you,
Makes me fear the gathering gale.
And then I realize��"
You are more Job than I.
You have done
All that was ever asked of you,
While I have not.
You loved your Master’s voice
While I barked and snarled��"
You waited to be received
While I scratched at the door.
And now we are both here
Trembling for different reasons
Before what comes next.
��"Kemp Battle
Under the Weather
if I told you, we both know
you would not understand
doubt shaves your cheeks, nicks
and the cut oozes dismissal
I can weather your silence
scrub my own sentences
restrain my raw blatant need
my wild tongue wanting speech
but there you are, scouting for clouds,
edges blurred, muted by imminent rain.
��"Rachel R. Baum
In the Valley
I walk north where garlic mustard grows
with heart-shaped leaves,
clusters of tiny white stars.
Their slender stalks border the trail
into the woods
past a brook where the deer drink.
Back in Manhattan
they nod to me
on my solitary walks
along the river,
reminding me of the path
to your house.
I flow like the Hudson,
Mahicantuck in the Lenape tongue,
river that moves in both directions.
��"Joanne Grumet
Wisdom
For years,
I only see how messy
you clutter the curb
and drain.
Today, I watch how you
bid goodbye to the sprig,
waltz with gentle breeze,
make a turn,
head high,
shoulders back,
perfect your posture,
rise and fall,
glide to land
and rest.
��"Livingston Rossmoor
Not Tired Anymore
In the biblical sense this place is old and very tired
But where can a country go and rest when it is tired?
In the desert time means night and day
As if the hours in between were asleep and very tired
No one catches a face in a mirror without looking for it
Love will make a prisoner of that face when it is tired
So many ways to separate so many ways to be apart
But gaze at the sun long enough and all is one. I’m tired
There was a man who walked everywhere with his dog
Till someone said sit for a while, your dog must be very tired
Nothing that comes will not at some point go
Keep yourself ready Jim for soon you will not be tired anymore
��"Jim Savio
Ghost Signs
I look up, study the ghost
signs high on buildings
from another era everywhere
here in Saugerties, not announcing
but whispering now of its past.
Sad enough for these old Victorians
some doors and windows blemishes
now that they have been bricked up
or rudely cemented over.
Still these archaic ads remain
visible though fading, out of focus,
hardly ever catching any attention.
Who hankers for Bull Durham
tobacco now?
Ghosts calling: Dr JH Reed, 1890;
W Porter; Abbott’s; Van Buskirk’s
Drugstore, 1895. No one is buying.
O to have walked through London’s,
bought that 5c Owl cigar, roamed
through FL Russell’s Plant No. 2,
touched the Rose Leaf and Black Book.
Creeping ivy will soon consume
many of these ghost signs, even those
rooftop messages wiped out long ago,
painted over in white, chipping on red walls.
��"Patrick Hammer, Jr.
Sweet Clarity
…so….
My dear
Sweet Clarity
If
you ever feel
That quiver of hesitancy
Or impending regret
If
you ever feel
your needs
are far from met
Please
Don’t you ever
No never
forget
To call on me
I’ll be standing here
In Surety
For my dear sweet
Clarity
If
you ever feel
You’re on the ramp
To a highway of regret
Slow down
Back up
And no no no
Don’t you ever forget
To call on me
Sweet Clarity
Ever and always
will I be
standing here
In certain surety
(Awaiting��"if necessary��"eternally)
For my goddess
My muse
For my dear
Sweet Clarity
��"C. J. Penemue
My Brother’s Lover Is My Brother, Too
I hold him and he trembles
He shakes us both
I think, “This is the fragile heart my brother dies for?”
But he begins to cry, and I die a little too.
��"Demetri Kissel
Once upon a time I swallowed a wail.
It made its home in my chest, curled up between my lungs and slept.
If it stirred I would rock it.
If it yawned I shushed.
Years went by like that, quelling it back to sleep.
Then one day it was wide awake, standing up and rattling my rib cage, stomping
my diaphragm, pounding my heart. I took a deep breath and in one exhale forced
it out. Its vibrations hit the air and exploded like fireworks.
After the last of the fizzles, quiet.
And now there’s all this space.
��"Leah S. Brickley
Purpose
Lost, no one to turn to
for I didn’t know how.
You were there, blank,
awaiting a blanched heart.
A little spittle stain
on pulp wood grain,
ink’s long mane
in cursive.
��"Kristen Henderson