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Footfall by L. Dante Kirby
Silent carpet, deep and rich
Dancing footfalls over which
Woodland nymph, fairy and faun
Merrily sing until the dawn.
Silent carpet, deep and brown
Larger footsteps smaller drown
Morning mists, shrouded light
See no traces of last night.
© L. Dante Kirby
Four Tanka by Janet Lynn Davis(Tanka – A Japanese poem consisting of five lines, the first and third of which have five syllables and the others seven)
my next home
built among lean pines . . .
thinner
and thinner the desire
to make a name for myself
first published in Tanka Splendor Awards, 2007
squinting,
I imagine it . . .
our rustic home
sprouting up
through winter ryegrass
first published in Landfall: Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka, 2007
radio tuned
to Texas country,
its lonesome cowboys—
my nondescript accent
briefly switches to twang
first published in red lights, June 2012
is it dust
she tries to wipe away
with that small cloth?
how her feet shuffle
through a world we can’t see
first published in A Hundred Gourds, 1:4, Sept. 2012
see more of Janet’s tanka and poetry at: http://twigsandstones-poems.blogspot.com
an unfinished song
by Allen Cappuccilli
The nights are colder and the days grow long
as I’m left to reflect upon this unfinished song…
Bursts of frustration and painful regret
trying fiercely to become an unpayable debt…
Free falling within a dark vacuum of doubt
Embraced in a struggle for survival to live without…
It makes no sense the things that meant the most
haunt you in the night like a long lost ghost…
With this never ending pain, grief & despair
I still have this closed eye vision of golden hair…
the lingering scent and the soft touch of lace
I can trace every curve, every single line on that face…
A clever soliloquy and a quick witted rhyme
couldn’t possibly repair this breach in our time…
Filled with so much passion and such great heart
only to have fear and doubt tear it apart…
Why can’t we find our way through space and time?
walking side by side on our fine lines…
Is it too much to ask, given all that has past?
As we stare back at the bits and pieces of shattered dreams of glass…
I refuse to give in to it, i won’t budge, not today!
maybe tonight when i am cold, alone and given to sway…
Pinned to our hopes and all of our dreams
I guess nothing ever is as it really seems…
And in the end I cherish, remember and so deeply long
to forever gaze upon this unfinished song……..
Awoke
by Rick Weber
Who was that little boy that awoke
and explored the Universe in the space
of Bucks County.
Smells and textures of American heartland
30 miles wide and light years long
embraced by family rooted in Celtic highlands
to guide but not interfere
with one so small but long in journeys
across the stars.
To walk in one’s own foot prints
50 years apart and yet seeing
with the eyes of childhood
the wonder of self existing
in 2 worlds simultaneously.
Empty pastures filled with sun colored dreams
of summers yet to come
while old men stand brown skinned
in anticipation of winter’s solstice.
This child holds his wrinkled hand
to his brow to gaze once again
at horizons now overgrown with
Love’s passage.
Mother I
by Susan Frey
Today my mother started to cry, concentric red rings around her sunken tired eyes.
Yesterday she said time means nothing to her, though she wears a wristwatch, extra large face and springy band, to bed each night.
She wakes in the afternoon and says good morning.
Today she said that life was funny because the strange and unpredictable things that happen.
We talked about cousin Charlie’s three rats that are buried in the backyard.
Each little gravestone reads “To my beloved rat,” followed by their name Snookums, Gilda and Rosie.
Tomorrow I will arrive at my mother’s house.
There will be checks to write and people to contact so that the end of my mother’s life is trouble free.
After everyone has come and gone there is a quiet, as if a newborn has arrived.
I feel transported to a more peaceful place.
I peek in on her every few minutes to see if she is awake so we can talk.
Mother listens to me fiddle Tennessee Waltz, she smiles and sings the chorus.
Like a toddler, small, pale pudenda wrapped in diapers and cleaned with baby wipes.
Taking only a few small steps now; potty training is going poorly.
Unlike a child there is no will to live and no energy for life.
- Ms Tree by Sarah Curtiss
see more of Sarah’s art at graceartgroup.com
10:22 by Guest Poet Lori Garcia
10:22. sleep sits
dangling his feet
on my windowsill,
toes dipping in the lake of dreams,
but not quite ready to plunge in.
I wish he would. It’s hot here,
and the water looks cool and murky.
I could lose myself in that lake.
Instead I sit up with him, waiting for answers
that don’t come.
The silence greets me
like a vacant doorway.
He is gone entirely.
There is no sensation…
not sadness, or regret, or hope. Especially not hope.
He has left without a backward glance. And so I wait in the void,
try to imagine sleep
and wonder what possible joy
could come after this.
My Best Shoes
by guest poet Teresa White
You gave them away.
I remember how you liked
to take in strays,
had “hostel” advertised
on student bulletin boards.
You’d lavish them with gifts,
these strangers at your inn.
You loved the role.
How could you?
I was only gone a week.
You thought I wouldn’t mind.
My shoes fit the girl just fine.
Mother, I dream you directing
traffic, your Winston a tiny baton.
You had everything but the whistle.
I’d salute you if I could
but the years got you before me.
Who, really, did you think you were?
Your own children shied away from you.
Bless the strangers who loved you.
Bless them again.
Charlotte Cheng’s poem below earned 1st place for structured poetry at the 2012 San Mateo County Fair. She also took 1st place for her Graphic Novel “Attack of the Space Chickens.” Coincidentally we met her a few months ago when she came in to buy a ukulele from my husband! See more of Charlotte’s work at: http://www.charlotteillustrations.com/
My Moments in Madness
My moments in madness
Are cutting and deep,
Are fleeting and hungry
Too frantic for sleep.
They force me to savor
Each step that I take
For soon without warning
The beasts may awake
To tear through the threadings,
In carless restraint
The plans I have woven
With blood sweat and paint.
Then worn, spent, and breathless
The beasts hunker down
To prey in the corner
Until the next round
I now know the tickings
Of mines underneath
My moments in madness
Are blessings, unsheathed.
- Courtesy Carmen Leon
by guest poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850-1919
A word of introduction (from Maurine Killough): My husband owns a small violin shop and a woman came to sell a violin that had been sitting in her garage. The violin, with intricate pearl inlay and artfully carved scroll, is over 100 years old. Inside the violin case we found this short poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, glued to the rosin compartment. Ella Wheeler Wilcox was a spiritualist and animal rights advocate with deep convictions. Ella also,, coincidentally, wrote a poetry book entitled Maurine in 1882 which I bought about 15 years ago. With great admiration of her and the presence of synchronicity I present to you Resolve:
Build on resolve, and not upon regret
The structure of thy future.
Do not grope
Among the shadows of old sins, but let
Thine own soul’s light shine on the path of hope
And dissipate the darkness.
Waste no tears
Upon the blotted record of lost years,
But turn the leaf, and smile, oh, smile, to see
The fair white pages that remain to thee.
“It is said that every word whispered into the air starts vibrations which will quiver on and on forever in space. The same is true also of influences which go out from our lives in the commonest days–they will go on forever.”
- Ella Wheeler for publication of “Maurine”
Introducing guest poet Yvonne Cannon, author of When This You See
Excavating the Oldest Flute
In the nine-thousand-year-old garden
of artifacts, a bone bed yields
each day’s treasure to insistent
picks and brushes. After years
of probing striated sediment,
extracting Stone Age
teeth and fish scales,
workers harvest three dozen
bone flutes. What’s left
of them is hard
and brown
and mottled, softer
sponge and marrow
gone. Thirty
are fragments.
Five are riddled
with cracks. Carved
from a crane’s wing bone,
one is whole.
Archaeologists take turns
holding it, blow
into its mouthpiece,
finger its eight hollowed
tone holes. Thin, reedy notes
wave like long-stalked bamboo,
a wind-like susurrus, the linear
song serpentine as contours
of terraced rice fields. At Jiahu,
in the Yellow River valley,
stone fish leap, stone cranes fly.
This is the bone that sings.
- Raised by Wolves, Courtesy William Solis
I discovered this poet on the sidewalk of Frenchman Street in New Orleans with his vintage typewriter and a sign that read “Poet for Hire.” Below is my purchase.
DA LISCENCI
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
black girls fly the hanging gardens of
their flesh
from the folding chairs of porchside reverie
Young children scream and cry
in the
streets–as the ghetto strobe light
of the NOPD
punctuates the grinding scrape
of that one lazing wheel
on the baby carriage
their sister pushes the groceries home in
from the corner store
as chickens scream their random
cock a doodle doos
in ecstatic freedom
from beneath abandoned doorways
of houses
Meanwhile, crusty punks wold
their extremely high tall bikes
as others ride into view
balancing tubas on their marching band hands
Squatters croon ecstatic cries of Billy Holiday
lyrics
In vintage dresses
(torn and filthy)
from faces beatified
through tattoos
In the neighborhood
all things breathe their story….
–by Heath, poetry corner
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Is to be stripped naked to the heart,
Forcing surrender of wall and façade
Exposing vulnerabilities to the beloved.
A frightful process often
Aborted in bewilderment
Bringing retreat back inside ourselves
An illusion of safety,
Afraid to be naked,
Afraid to be loved.
copyright Renee Rojas 2002
Let us join in body and spirit and
Travel to destinations unknown, yet known,
That sacred place that is all our own,
Where our spirits dance as one
And our souls weld deeper connection.
It is here harmony is orchestrated with our Creator.
In this rapture our love transcends our beings
And bursts forth in glorious energy.
copyright Renee Rojas 2002
“Let us create religion,
As a means of worshipping our intellect.
Let us exalt ourselves higher than God
Let us write ‘It is written’
The incessant rules that will rape the soul.
Let us separate race,
We’ll trample with war,
Fleece man of his gold,
Make slaves of the free,
Assault the young,
Force women submit.
We’ll call it surrender,
A yielding of will.”
“Oh man, look what you have become.
What good is your religion?”
copyright Renee Rojas 2002
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I am ecstatic to introduce artist and poet extraordinaire, Milo Martin. His latest book Utopian Nihilist is a deep, moving and creative ride. A must read. See his website at: milomartin.tripod.com. Below, a poem from Utopian Nihilist.
She Said Simile
She said it’s like falling asleep in the snow
like your bathwater growing slowly cold
She said it’s like holding scissors against the soft part of your inner arm
like watching a medieval barn decay
She said it’s like following an ambulance deep into the suburbs
like kneeling alone in a cathedral listening to candles
She said it’s like putting your coat on getting ready to leave
like witnessing the run of the litter struggle for a teat
She said it’s like being so young before the war
like learning not to talk to people you shouldn’t
She said it’s like combing the hair of a balding man
like coming home to find your goldfish on the floor
She said it’s like tripping in a three-legged picnic race
like having to phone information for your own number
She said it’s like dead leaves folding under the mud and the broken blass
like climbing seven flights of stairs to a soiree gone bad
She said it’s like waking up and not knowing where you are sometimes
like not owning a ticket for where you want to go
She said it’s like deer who’ve lost their footing in the forest inferno
like geese blown off course by the merciless winter wind
She said it’s like your axle coming unhinged around a tight corner
like singing for your supper to the Ethiopian night
She said it’s like, it’s like a simile without a correspondening image
like a DeMaupassant story with the last page torn out
She said it’s like blowing smoke rings with our eyes closed
like rings of smoke slipping through the seals of your eyes
She said it’s like finishing your last cigarette
and putting it out on the floor with your foots
She said it’s like, she said it’s like,
she said it’s like That…
- NIK729, by Milo Martin
I am just blown away by local musician Anita Sandwina of Spark & Whisper. Below are her lyrics to a a soulful song from her CD Three at Last which is just….so good. I hope you will take a listen and even support the band by buying a CD or going to one of their shows. Listen to the song here: Grandma’s Song
Grandma’s Song by Anita Sandwina
My grandma she’s an Indian
My grandma sees ghosts in her kitchen
She talks to the animals the squirrel and the deer
Tells us her story while she feed the chickens
She don’t know the old songs
She don’t know the coyote’s face
She don’t know the old traditions
She don’t know the old ways
My grandma she’s an Indian
She got Cherokee and Comanche kin
Worked all day beneath the southern sun
Worse than being black there was Indian
Oh grandma! I wanted to be wed to your land
To stand inside of your tradition,
To be held in its hands
My culture gives me plastic for my bed
My culture gives me too many worries for my head
My culture tells me, oh that god is in the sky
My culture tells me I won’t see him till I die
My grandma she’s an Indian
My grandma she’s got white kin
She don’t remember the day of her birth
She don’t remember what she’s worth
Your stagger makes a great ballet
The jukebox skips out as you sway
We’re seasoned locally, oblivion’s alright with me
But I’m dancing on the edge
Here and Now
Now and Then
Now and Then
My peanuts scatter as I slip onto the ground
I shout to the barkeep: Hey, drop another round
My girlfriend says to me you gotta stop livin on your knees
But I’m dancing on the edge
Here and Now
Now and Then
Now and Then
The noon sun wakes me up
I’m starting in again
It’s a new day to kick start life
the bars open at ten
And the boys go bang bang
Now the girls go bang bang
bang bang baby you’re dead
There’s clouds in my head
making tears come out my eyes
As the world turns beneath my feet
as my life’s set on spin dry
I don’t know whose dream is which
but this waking up can be a bitch
But I’m dancing on the edge
Here and Now
Now and Then
Now and Then
Turn back the page to your yesterdays
Cowboys were on the tube
Dancehall girls dressed in lace and pearls
Big-horned cattle in the noonday sun
Oh, what a time we had back then
Dancing in our underwear and staying up past ten
And the boys go bang bang
Now the world goes bang bang
Bang bang baby you’re dead
What an honor to feature three poems by Guest Poet Teresa White , whose poetry I just adore! She is a prolific writer and more than 300 poems published in print and online. She has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was a 2008 Pulitzer contender for her book Gardenias for a Beast.
Please write and let me know your comments. I hope you will enjoy her poetry as much as I do.
On the Tarmac
by Teresa White
Your plane touches down.
Much has gone unsaid between us.
The lark was high in the singing tree
when last we spoke.
All we have in common
is our fractured childhood:
Father gone for years at a time,
Mother ruling with her polished nails.
I was always the “good” girl
while you snuck the keys
to Mother’s car for yet another
joy ride, got fake I.D.
so you could go to bars
with your overage boyfriends.
We love each other,
we hate each other,
that is the way of sisterhood.
Let this visit be different—
I want to be your friend.
I promise I won’t talk about our past
for the years go, they go.
Mountain Climbing
by Teresa White
small enough to
make a giant of my hand
light enough to mail
with a few postage stamps
these kittens
scale the long smooth face
of my leg, ankle to calf
& pitch camp on the treacherous
plateau of my knee
the blue half-moons of my eyes
pulse over them
they try to climb the tangled
ropes of my hair
chestnut tendrils damp & fair
their tiny breath
is white
in this cold steep air.
St. Vinnies
by Teresa White
Old baby cribs sit here and there
peeling paint in the open air,
rusty throw-a-ways beyond repair.
The Betty Crocker silverware
bought with coupons saved for years
rattles in an open bin
while I pause and rifle through them.
Royal blue Noxema jars
remind me of my teenage years.
They catch the light while
MotherMarytall and bright
guards the entrance on my right.
Oh, I am mighty cautious
under her plaster eye.
Who knows how long those dresses there
will gather dust in this open air?
Hand-me-downs are handed over,
a pretty dress for just a dollar.
St. Vincentin your legacy
I wonder if you’d foreseen
this pitiful secondhand cemetery–
Things we kill
but never bury.
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 24, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Rosemary Swade
I really enjoyed your poems. They are like snap shots of life. Thank you
April 7, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Julia
A number of times in recent months I tried to connect with your page. I was unable to do so. Were you off line? The message kept saying the page4 I was looking for did not exist. Julia