Friday, December 31, 2010

The Unraveling

The point of the needle
enters the cloth
pops out again
moving the silver metal
pulling the thread
binding seam to seam
shoulder to shoulder
bodice to skirt
than down the sides
front to back.
and finally
with delicate motion
it forms a hem.
All done, finished, complete
until something grows,
or something shrinks.
There is a feeling
of unraveling
and it is all gone.

The point of the needle
is forced to begin again.


(c)Doris Gwaltney                         2008
from The Poet's Domain, Vol 23
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Thursday, December 30, 2010

She Was Who She Is

Aline, mother of friend, Barry,
died this morning in her sleep.
2:30 A.M.
He cared for her at his place
fed her, bathed her, stayed
close to the house
watched the Alzheimers grow meaner
watched her gather the small
paper bag of personals
and sit by the door
waiting to go home.
I'm Barry, he'd say, your son.
You are home, he would say.

She'd smile sweetly
and turn to her room.
Those last days
He bought her a hospital bed
to help with the pain
even when softly he lifted her
to hold off the bed sores,
a woman, who,
in eighty some years of life
was likely the first to rise.

He laughed with her
as he bathed her in the tub
splashed water and made her giggle
taking care to gentle all the private parts
just as she had done for him and her boys
when they were little guys.
At the end, surrendered,
she squeezed his hand
and thanked him.

She had nursed her husband, Fred,
through the dark days of his early death
and now had no one left to take care of.
Not even her ownself.


(c)Robert E. Young                    2008
from The Poet's Domain, Vol 24
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Bowl of Cherries


Stay with me
spellbound in laughter
believing tomorrow's miracles.
With you I take no notice
of lightning.  Really you say
only Fourth of July sparklers
with chuckles of thunder
minor considerations to the young.

Death grins but stays
on the sidelines
nothing discriminative
just keeping an eye on me.

Oh yes, that old cliche
I'm young in heart
fooling myself.


(c)Doris Baker                            2008
from The Poet's Domain, Vol 23
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA


Rachel

Her name when spoken
was always in hushed tones.
Her name was Rachel.
She was my aunt.
My mother's older sister.

My mother, six sisters, brother,
and grandmother emigrated from Russia.
Mother was four.
The year 1907.

My grandfather had come before.

At age sixteen, Rachel was put
in the crazy house.
Her name became more hushed.
Sometimes still.

At age forty, she committed suicide.

My grandmother is buried near Rachel.
It was her last wish.
She felt no one would visit her daughter
if she were alone.

My grandfather is buried on the other side of town.

When Rachel died, some wondered if
God would open the gates of Heaven to her.
Or would she have to climb hand-over-hand
on a celestial ladder--for eternity.


(c)Betty Maistelman                     2008
from The Poet's Domain, Vol 23
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Monday, December 27, 2010

Drive Ins

At drive ins
We'd not go to see
The movies,

But park
In the back row,
And abandon ourselves
To each other's pleasure

In a TR3 so small
We couldn't do
Anything serious
Over the cupped
Bucket seats and
Interfering shifter.

Later
we practiced the full
Rites of love again
And again

Learning
The habit of pleasure
For year after year,

Until we wore
Each other
Like old jackets
Molded to our curves.


(c)Dave King                 2010
from This Side of Forever
Poetica Publishing Co, Norfolk, VA

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Beloved (or: The Legend of Noah's Wife)

Instead of  "Is there a God?"                      
the question becomes:  "Will I see God?"
Peter Kreeft:  Love is Stronger than Death

Through the mildest
or wildest of mornings, through the impossible

autumn come swift, in its switch
from nasturtiums to ice, an old longing lives out

its devotion, always a wife.
In a wrinkle too ripe for her skin, in her aging:

a luminous lurker, a bright absentee, night-
fall zeroed in haste, period-fire her desire cinders into --

Ash to salt-ash, her tastebud implies,
and she washes her lips.

Where is he whom I've loved incompletely?
The long deck dips undead, blue-wake

under her ribs; the bowsprit points at risk,
while a pigeon sorts weeds on the mopped boards.

Algae-loose, touch-and-go
is her hope in their land-smell and the smell

of a hand who knolled grass at odd hours, knuckled
after the flood just to cradle

her newborns, squeezed
wisely her heart-valve, worn heart, where it flip

flopped...followed tempest and time-waste,
the red river home,

all is love, all its fishes.
Ah, the inadequate shoremud as platform to pleasure,

the inadequate boulder in blossom.
Inadequate love

for a god slipping westward, clandestine,
all done.


(c)Sofia M. Starnes               2003
from A Commerce of Moments
Pavement Saw Press, Columbus, OH

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Vision of the Future

Amid the frolic of giggling children
is an old man sequestered on a park bench,

his loneliness a linen suit, creases
crisp as creeping moan of evening.

Nannies cast suspicious stares, steer charges away
while paper-thin teens in sagging shorts

point, laugh, know age will never sink claws
into them.  Wary pigeons peck

at breadcrumbs he tosses like lost years.
My daughter, 6, spins circles in a field

of purple phlox, yellow Easter dress belling
like a tulip, strawberry hair wild, white stockings

smudged green at the knees.  Ten years from now
when I hear the creak of a windowsill betraying

a foot sneaking outside, I hope I trust the sweetness
of her heart, think of today, see her approach the bench,

a ladybug in cupped hands cracked open
for rheumy eyes filled with wonder,

spring blooming on a face
lost in winter far too long.


(c)Bill Gloss               2007
from The Human Touch
San Francisco Bay Press, 
San Francisco, CA

Friday, December 24, 2010

"every Spark is numbered

On scraps, over backs
and sides of torn
squares, pinned
into fold of dress
or tucked down
pocket, delivered
in secret--
Open me carefully
Emily writes
to her sweet muse.

Dropping
task at hand, stopping
to catch the quick
appearance, quicker
retreat of vision or
image, igniting
missive after
missive in
hot assault,
full pursuit sent
burning over
snowy fields
or blazing through
New England June--

the poet's body
breaking into
fiery verb
singing to one
of similar
essence--
passion for one
sparking
passion for
all the world,
its many daily
dark or bright
amazements:

"O One I cannot love enough
O One beyond all touch:
I will then seduce
your soul, delight
your mind--my words
will surpass those of any,
each verse asking
faithfully to the last
Will you
wholly be mine,
each stanza answering
faithfully
to the last, You will

I will write yes and
yes over and
over, each line
shaping you
immortal, making you
divine, divinely Mine:
Love, Beloved, Lovely
Only One, Only World:
my slashes and syllables
stand bold, unbreakable
against any Zero
for all time."


(c)Vivian Teter               2007
from Edge by Edge
toadlily press, chappaqua, ny

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Wednesday, January 12, 1944


A homemade dance frock
with bow at center
takes center stage in your desires.
Supple and limber
you become,
as flexible as
Margo's attitude
toward you.
You, who examines
your own role in
relationships, see yourself,
sometimes the rose,
sometimes the weed.


Phyllis Johnson                    2009
from being frank with anne
Community Press, Virginia Beach, VA

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Adolescence

My daughter won't let me touch her
We used to curve together
Our bodies speaking
The language our voices could not.

Now, she has moved away
Though she sits next to me.

I can wait;
I can wait
For the embrace
That would fill me.
She will come back to me, again.

She is preparing herself to love.


(c)Sharon Weinstein            1995
from Celebrating Absences
Road Publishers, Painter, VA

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Big Barbie

It's time we had a real-life
Barbie, a doll that looks like me
and you.

One with thighs that swish
when she walks, and fat that sticks
to her hips like glue.

No make-believe cuties, eyebrows arched
just right.  No tiny twiggy dolls, nipped
tucked, everything pulled tight.

Give us a plus-size Barbie, someone round
and warm.  An ordinary female with a less
than perfect form.

We want her to look like us, with mismatched
outfits that are fraying.  Somewhere between 39,
and a senior discount, hair slowly graying.

No need for another bronzed Barbie,
wind blown hair all over her head.
Just give us a big gal with cleavage,

one who has hot flashes and night sweats.
Put a stash of dark chocolates under
Big Barbie's queen-size bed.


(c)Ann Falcone Shalaski                              
published in Skipping Stones 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Monday, December 20, 2010

Anniversary

     for Anne since before 1970


Your photograph seduced the sun, projected
on the windscreen of my car your presence,
slashed the span from here in Hampton Roads
to California as our letters had
the distance to he war in Vietnam.

Our love and dining out and working out
our differences reduced the distance from 
our youth to parenthood as traveling 
the world and settling in one place had cut
the distance from our youth to our maturity.

Although we never knew what might become,
we'd never doubted we'd mature together,
though I have no intention to grow up.
Although I may have mellowed some, 'tis you 
who've anchored our relationship with grace.

Nor time nor distance ever shall impose
between us.  We are one together; and 
when we have shed this earth-bound suit, we shall 
be one, together for eternity,
with God, and angels and the universe.




(c)pete freas          2007

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Hunting Healing Herbs on James River Banks


Remote and awkward legs weak-wobble-walk.
Dear mistress cannot swallow or sit up,
Our voyage carved thin limbs, sallowed her face--
but herbs and roots will speed recovery.
My brother questions workers about springs
where rushing water spurts a growth of cures.
Distracted colonists continue on
until a man called Laydon stops to talk.
A carpenter, he searches timber sites.
He brags of watercress with rounded lobes;
then names a wondrous tree with magic bark.
And he keeps turning, turning toward me.

Just a layer herbs between the dampened moss,
just lower head and never look at him.
This sawer calls my name and I respond
to one who tries to tease me into smiles.
I focus on his face, his twitching ears.
I stand and stare him down but have to stop
befor a strangeness that I've never seen.
Green eyes hold visions of a form and face.
No lake or mirror shine such imagery.
This man reflects a me who turns around
to grasp my brother's arm and walk away.
All night I hear his laughter--in my dreams.


* In medieval times, girls were warned never to look into a man's eyes.  If you saw your reflection in his eyes, you were destined to marry him.

Patricia Flower Vermillion          2008
from Lady's Maid
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville , VA

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Expectation

While peeling peaches
I think of my breasts swelling,
a sign of seed,
but I fear my age
like rot next to the bone
and I can't finish in time
all the peaches in the box
turning leprous with mold.
I wonder at the juice
running down my wrists,
how heaven stabs
when you are in the kitchen
on August 15,
working away at night
with sore breasts
and a sticky floor,
how a summons comes up
from the fruit,
reckless and sweet.


(c)Suzanne (Clark) Rhodes                    1999
from What A Light Thing, This Stone
Sows Ear Press, Abingdon, VA

Friday, December 17, 2010

Inertia

You wake in my arms.
I am the gray wool
of dawn,
the dream that lingers
as you rise
sinking
from my weight.

All day
I am thick
walls or air,
mud
that sucks at your feet,
dried seeds
rattling in your head.

How you fight me,
lugging uphill
sacks of wet sand
as I steal
your breath.

At night
I am the cool earth
and the quiet stars

Rest in my arms.


Jane Ellen Glasser                              1991
published in The Poet's Domain, vol 3
Road Publishers, Fairfax Station, VA

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Solidarity Mission

She spoke no Hebrew nor
knew the city's history while

riding secretly in a tourist
bus around Jerusalem's streets

recently quieted by a suicide
bomber at Ben Yehuda market

taking pictures of walls coated
with memorial plaques, mementos

that can be looked at in the
safety of home in Virginia,

like a foreigner so deeply immersed
in exile she can no longer relate nor

enter into the unsettling rapids
of terror, daily resonating the past.


(c)Michal Mahgerefteh          2009
from In My Bustan
Poetica Publishing Co, Norfolk, VA

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Bedroom Clock

Reads 2 a.m.
Red digital lines
of today.

The day closed,
still as a locked church
before even the stained glass

has come to life;
shut against the sunlight
and the news that will

break into my life, a thief
who steals my time
measured out

in pieces.
They make no sound,
except to breathe,

intake of air so silent
my lungs hurt to stay quiet,
and then, rise only by degrees,

inches that cannot be heard
for fear the news will be bad,
and the alarm will sound.


(c)Nancy Powell                2007
from How Far Is Ordinary
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Thoughts of the First Apple Tree

(It is highly likely that this view of the fruit comes from a medieval
pun: the Latin for "evil" is malum and the Latin for "apple" is malus.
--Paul Edwards)

The lonely first apple tree of all time
          [grew from seed?--too hard a question]
          [maybe from another species' seed--apple trees
          are sluts--everyone knows that]

had a decision: where should I stash my seeds?
Should I stick 'em in my fruit
or shoot 'em from my leaves?
          [apple trees appear from 8000 BC
          in the Tien Shan mountains of eastern Kazakhstan]
          [the apple invented gravity--everyone knows that]
I'll stick 'em deep down in my core!
Why?  Protection from predators?
Or bribery of the very same
squirrels, horses and monkeymen
so the devious tree's seeds would be branched
          [with free fertilizer] around the world?
Damn slut apple trees [always naked] keeping
doctors away with a big scoop
of Cool Whip liqueur and a porn flick
of Ron Jeremy with Granny Smith.
The "first" apple tree of all time took Eve down
          ["translated"] into English in 1382
has a bad rep because she was sweet and thoughtful
and just wanted to be loved.


(c)Daniel Pravda                              2011
from A Bird in the Hand Is a Dumb Bird
Poetica Publishing Co, Norfolk, VA

Monday, December 13, 2010

Grandmother's Funeral

How the casket gleams
At this shiny funeral
In full sun

With your small laughs
With the birds who know your name

Above the morning pall, you fly
Beyond this tree
Of relatives who assemble here

A burst of sun drives the rain
From the atmosphere

It's high time, Grandmother
To hear your sparrow's tongue

In the afternoon
You rustle the flowers of my plate.

I spy your eye in my napkin ring

With your small laughs
With the birds who know your name

Your wings sweep past the parlor door
And dust the air between
Soul and brain
What better fate than yours
To be clean adroitly

Grandmother, my dreams are made of less and less
They simplify...with time

Then evening rushes darkly
About the sky and farm
Lighting lamps and in the barn

Hurrying ghostly horses

With your small laughs
With the birds who know your name

The chords of sleep make music
...of creaking wheels and slapping reins

Who would ever shoo you?
The scarecrow wears a beaming face
And swears that joy lies in the haunting
-- with your small laughs
-- with the birds who who know your name

And for you, old Wren
That's true, as rain.


(c)Robert P. Arthur                         2006
from Vijas War and Other Poems
San Francisco Bay Press
San Francisco, CA

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Monarchs

I don't want to know
The mysteries of Monarchs
Clothed in rainbow raiments
Ready for flight to a winter sojourn as
Cool winds of autumn whisper invitation.

There are those who say
Circadian rhythms stir them to flight
I prefer to ignore scientific research
And would rather believe
A lover awaits in Mexico.


(c)Beverley Isaksen        2007
from I'm Not Leaving Yet
her chapbook

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Common Language

Silk with strength of steel
Bamboo swaying in the wind
Pliant bodies that must bend
Eyes behind shuttered veils

Quiet eyes that own the world
Inner fortress never scaled
One common language all
The daily lives of woman


(c)Anne Darrison                         
from Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Friday, December 10, 2010

Harbors

for Joanne

We reach them as a cat reaches, rolled
as long as it can stretch and yawning.  We want
the air--by which we mean the resonance
of the slat and breeze and any mammal leaping
too far away to hear--want that great space
against our pores.  Windows?  Want them open.
Clothes:  off.  Do we think film lurks everywhere
we have skin?  Photograph that one, we say,
and that, that.  It's possible in a village
laughing with gulls to forget the way we walked
or pedaled and gasp toward a laugh of our own
that, as often as we turn, we'll never
account for the long choosing that's kept us.
Remember the old man selling pastry
and fudge, the one who'd climbed the steeple
and seen the destroyer erupt, the U-boat
surface?  He had that to tell, sprinting the sand
and street of oyster shell, and still had,
counting the coins and bills back to us.  One day
we'll riffle through our common purse for who
knows what to hand as change when someone asks.


(c)Jay Paul                    1999
from Going Home in Flood Time
The Ink Drop Press, Painter, VA

Thursday, December 9, 2010

If I Could Stretch a Dream

For a moment
I believed I could
stretch a dream
from surreal beginning
to surreal end.

She is a Montreal
midnight, bright,
exotic, with eyes
the color of a high-
way constellation

we pass inhaling
Canadian haze.
I touch her flesh
with my mental
fingertips hoping

to cross ancestries,
an African-Chinese bop
for the ages, a celestial
pulse vibrating beneath
our skins with

expansive, feathery
wings.  I smell her
reluctance, a feminine
defense mechanism
for sun-worshippers,

rebels with heaven's
residue on their
lips, and Genesis
in their hands.


(c)Synnika Lofton
from The Burden and the Gift, Vol 3

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

DMV Diary

she sat on her stool, a throne
for the queen of DMV window E3
waiting to hear the petitions
of the pitiful peasants
soon to be granted an audience

he sat in a bucket seat, a holding cell
for a prisoner of the bureaucracy
waiting to present his
probation papers
for approval
he was number 11

she hated her job, a dead end
9 to 5 boring routine
that provided a living
while draining away the days
of her life, youknowwhatImean

he hated this chore, an infringement
on his liberty, stealing his time
even if just a few hours

as they both waited
the electric sign above
window E3 flashed the number 11
a mechanical female voice
announced: "Now serving number eleven
at window E three"

Responding to the voice, he jumped
to his feet, his eyes searching
for window E3, thinking
that the word "serving"
was a nauseating euphemism

barely awake despite
recent drug infusions from
coffee and cigarettes she
watched him walk hesitantly
toward her window, he
must be number 11

the "good morning" greeting
that he was able to manufacture
almost sounded sincere, which
in was not,
and it was not a good
morning for either of them

she responded with an accusatory
"May I help you?"
he could smell the distaste
on her breath for the irritation
standing before her

he lost his registration
and needed a new copy
what an idiot she thought
displaying her superior knowledge
of DMV forms she told him he had
not filled in section C of DMV 4017
filled it in for him, directed him to the cashier
now she was puffed
on her own petty power

with that feeling you get
after confession and five Hail Mary's
be approached the line at the cashier's window
while a mechanical female voice said
"Now serving number fifteen at window E three"


(c)Frank Kozusko                                   2010
from The Man in the Moon has no Testicles
Poetica Publishing Co, Norfolk, VA

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Miscarriage

We'd been trying for months
when one night, we heard
what sounded like a baby,
its cries sharpening outside.
Our neighbors had gathered
in the backyard and stared
high into one of the trees
where a young raccoon clung
to a branch bending slowly.
There were holes in the trunk
where its mother had nested,
and this one, no bigger than
your hand, it seemed, flashed
its eyes in fear when spotlight
ricocheted through leaves.
I think about this animal's
face, how it was taken away
from the tree boarded up
now, its mother long gone.
I take comfort in forgetting
the details and hold our son.


(c)Jon Pineda            2004
from Birthmark          
Southern Illinois University Press
Carbondale, IL

Monday, December 6, 2010

After Awhile

for Haumea

And wasn't the wind     wet like April,
late April -- rain blown from the bell
of a blue clarinet.

And Her hair!  The dark
guitar of it     and later, the long legs
of sunlight uncrossed,

but unseen.  Such instruments!

So many mad edges made into music:

Her arms open     like a storm.
If I didn't want so much
so much, why would i ever

say anything?  My heart takes cover
on two wheels: Her slow walk slow enough

to see by.  My mouth harps
and harps, but what

language     is this:  dumb notes
in a dumb key.  I flame
and I fizzle.


Why am I so sickly and tame?
Even now, Her hips play the world.
Bring my voice!  I should praise.

like a sax.  I should stage
the essential noise --

as if any minute I could die
and the days would forget me.

And won't they?
Isn't it just     a matter of time
till somebody stutters S-
S-Seibles     is dead.

I'm already dead.

My life looks for itself in the windows.

And what will I do after awhile?
10,000 years with all these
almost-words still tied in my throat.

Her hair.  The strum-drunken tongue of my heart.
Always Her eyes: always
so undarkably dark.



(c)Tim Seibles              2004
from Buffalo Head Solos
Cleveland State University Poetry Center
Cleveland, OH

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Trousseau

At my first wedding, I was the central
witness:  days before, they killed

three goats and singed their flesh
under the guava trees.  Knives

dipped in rum sheared closer
to the spongy membranes later diced

with vinegar and shallots,
served warm, nearly raw.

The laughter and the clink of bottles
rose with the smoke and found

me in my hiding place.  I wished
to sleep, never to return to this place

where I had voted yes to my own
undoing.  But on the bed they'd lain

the trousseau as though it were another
body:  veil and knotted rope of roses,

sheath of silk and tulle, waterfall
of orchids.  Even I could fall

in love with such an absent
face.  Framed in white, was it what

I kissed, as though it played
no part in this conspiracy?


(c)Luisa A. Igloria          2005
from Trill & Mordent
WordTech Editions, Cincinnati, OH

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Opposite One Another

After 15 years of shared bed
rooms, I needed space.
I needed a 3x3 foot square, concrete
with distinctly carved lines
and no breaks
or cracks along the edges.
Definition of my boundaries
always gives me the heads up
on how far I can go.

She and I came from different places
but found ourselves at the corner
of Core and 21st
like we were magnets pulled there.
She needed the space to learn to live
outside herself, finally.
I needed the space because
I had never had any to call my own

And we would scream to each other
filling back alleys
with our high school frustrations
echoing down train tracks
about the boys that done us wrong
'til the water rose at the Hague inlet
pushed back as if our voices were lunar
movements requiring the shift,
the rising and falling of water.

Her dad was in the military too.
Different branch than my own but
the experience was the same.
Her family stayed together.
And she was smart in that she-was-so-smart-and-beautiful
I-can't-stand-to-look-at-her kind of way.
So you had to love her.
She never minded
that her sidewalk square was missing
a corner to moss.
I came from a broken home full
of love and hope.  My ambitions
a neon sign above my head
"Last Hope!"  I resented being
the youngest, always doing
right what others had done wrong.
I need to yell this to the world,
still
from a stage, from the corner,
from the place no-one knows inside me.

Nine years have passed since those
corner therapy sessions with Kara.
We still met when she's in town
filling our nights with dancing
and beer to quiet our frustrations.
I find us, more often than not, sharing
long goodbyes in parking lots and on street corners
trying to reclaim the spaces opposite one another
where we knew who we were.


(c)cheryl  snow white
from her chapbook, snow white lies

Friday, December 3, 2010

Flying With Icarus (Remembering Anne Sexton)

          Sing with me
A song of memory
For our beautiful "Annie,"
Jingling her golden bracelets
And checking her lipstick,
While calmly floating on
An un-moored rocking raft
In a placid Sea
          of "Prozac":
Composing well crafted lines
Of beauty in "Bedlam,"
While waiting for her cue,
Waiting for the casting call
          of darkness:
Saving enough toxic pills
To step upon the stage,
She does not hear
Her defiant closing lines:
They are driven with
          blood red ink
Onto the white pages
Into which she sinks.


(c)Jason Lester Atkins
published in Skipping Stones 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Pocket Dictionary

Wife, Webster says,
is woman joined to man,
stuck like a sluttish Siamese twin
to a suit
who moves freely through the world
as if this body were not dragging
like tin cans behind him.

She makes a pretty jangle
on his wrist,
hangs unnoticeably
in the kitchen, a slow simmer seeping
from the hot stove.

He touches her with potholders
and the smolder of love,
a married man, yes, husbanding
his libido for later,
other whores
to score in the dark where
spouses do not slip in
to the room where
secrets are born like babies.

The secret is this:
He is free, a solo seagull stealing
a ride from the wind, a good time.
Not arbitrarily welded to the
wife, old lady, nagging shrew
who once wooed him into
wanting to stand
not next to
but only slightly in front of her,
who promised to have and to hold
or at least roll between his fingers
once in a while like a smooth
brown pebble in his pocket.


(c)Corey Nixon                         
published in Skipping Stones 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Mother and Daughter

Donning your dread-locked hair
And multi-punctured ears,
You look more like someone
Out of Rolling Stone magazine
Than my baby girl of seventeen.

A Bob Marley T-shirt
And hip-hugging jeans.
You're swaying around the kitchen
While I attempt "Catch the Wind"
On my guitar.

Yeah!  We're both keeping the beat.

Your macrame necklace
Bounces on your chest
As my Dollar Tree readers
Balance midway down my nose.

The same, but different,
That's you and me.

Confirming the old saying:
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."


(c)Patti Fay Schmitt                         
published in Skipping Stones 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Who Is She?

Her face is familiar,
Her voice is too.
I think she's someone I once knew.

Memories fade or are buried deep,
In dreams of wake and sleep.
Do I recognize her eyes of blue?
I think she's someone I once knew.

It's in the heart some memories live,
With all the joy and pain they give.
Her hair is blonde, with grays a few.
I think she's someone I once knew.

The years bring change, but at what cost?
Should love renew or should love be lost?
Are memories real?  What is true?
I think she's someone I once knew

Now tears clear the haze from my mind.
Oh memories, how can you be so unkind?
For now it is the truth you tell:
I think she's someone I once knew.


(c)Frank Kosusko                         
published in Skipping Stones 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Monday, November 29, 2010

Honey That's You

You're cute,
You're dashing,
But oh, so exasperating,
You're the manly man
               With dark looks and a strong jaw,
You're the one-night fling
               Not the forever and ever kind of thing,
Yet here you are
               And the latter is what you offer.

Forgive me, but I can't help
               But look at you askance,
The dark, dashing guy
               Interested in a lasting romance?
I'm not naive or a fool
               So pardon me, while I giggle and snort,
There's such a thing as too good to be true
               And honey, that's you.


(c)Clara Van Eck                         
published in Skipping Stones 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Size Zero Beauty

Soft, plump
voluptuous woman
embraced by the breeze,
by the breath
of my warm face on
the old photograph.

Comfortably leaning
on her thickness and strength,
resolute against the fabric
and the amorous air which
caresses her ample shape.

Forgotten mother
of misbegotten children
borne in sickness and despair,
emaciated models
sustained by Diet Cokes
and curious looks
that prelude the inevitable stares.

Diminished bodies
and souls.  Frail
frames of discontent
staring blankly as from
the Second World War,
walking awkwardly
from their gas chamber
to the lifeless lights
of the runway floor.

Starving in magazines,
in destitute dreams,
not people, but hangers
for clothes (and souls)
wasting away
on size-zero beauty.


(c)David Lucas                                           
published in Skipping Stones, 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Man in the Box

His face appears
old, white, weathered and cruel
his lips are pursed
his eyes stare straight ahead
show everything
tell the story of his life
the crimes and more
the emotion
pure hatred
the knowledge sends a chill
makes me stop in my tracks
stop long enough
to see the tiny face next to mine
my daughter's tiny hands
play with the strings on my shoes
and then she turns her head
her bright eyes catch a glimpse
of the killer on display
and her lips form a smile
the same smile she gave
the old lady in the store this morning
and it is then
I realize
the knowledge that sends a chill
has not found her yet.


(c)Ruth Lewis                             
published in Skipping Stones 2007
Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Friday, November 26, 2010

Persistent Yearning

Grandma Rachel, a Holocaust survivor,
got a job in the 50s at Chicago's
Ida Crown Hebrew Academy
as the cafeteria's cashier,
yearning for the company of
rabbis-teachers, and their students
consuming verses of Torah.
She so missed the learned and
little ones who used to surround
her in Poland, continuing in the
New World to be faithfully
nourished by their spirit.


(c)Rabbi Israel Zoberman                  2008
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 24
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Out of Nowhere

Seemingly out of nowhere
I suddenly began greeting
All whom I encountered with
"Hello, Darlin!"
Puzzled, I reflected on why
This might be happening
When, out of nowhere,
I was zapped with an epiphany!
Oh, my God!
Those were the last two words
She said to me
As she began the next leg
In her spiritual journey home.
So, I began repeating them daily
In the hopes that
Out of nowhere
She would appear to me in a dream
As she had once before,
Or perhaps in the gentle caress
Of an evening breeze
Or the kiss of the sun
Upon my face
Or by the wonder
On a young child's face
As he witnessed the birth
Of a butterfly or tadpole.
She was sweetness personified;
The honey in a honeycomb.
Her cup always overflowed
Whenever she smiled,
Said a kind word,
Gave a comforting hug,
Or an intimate embrace.
So, seemingly out of nowhere,
Mommy,
I hope you hear me when I say,
"Hello, Darlin!"


(c)Mary Martin                                  2008
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 24
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Rain Moon

Wan, wispy moon,
shredded with ragged leaves--
the coming rain
could not shade the earth
with more obscurity
than that now untouched
by your pale presence.

No Pied Piper to the stars are you,
no pervader of dreamless sleep.
Your unmoving, unheralded ascendancy
dissolves into darkness,
masking the indulgent countenance
that once encouraged lovers,
leaving relief from sterile stillness
to come only with the silent rain.


(c)Shirley Nesbit Sellers                          2008
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 24
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Don't Make Her Cry

When I was young it was fun
to find the bed gently rocking,
waking me in the middle of the night.
Little quakes occurred regularly
in the continuing collision
of the Pacific and continental plates.
Often the walls, joists, or rafters
or our house would complain:
groaning, snapping, or banging
in the uninvited movement.

I liked earthquakes until age
twenty-six.  While eating
lunch at my drafting board
I heard a loud rumble, then the
ancient brick walls of my
building began to move,
shake, and groan as plaster
rained down from above.
Terrified, trembling, crouching
under my drafting board I felt
the floor rising, falling, shaking
as the building groaned, banged,
and screamed for its life.

I cried, "Remember, God,
I am Ruth Kelly's baby boy.
Have mercy on her.
Don't make her cry!"


(c)Robert L. Kelly                          2008
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 24
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Time Traveling

They say gazing at stars
is like time traveling,
light reaching our eyes
from distant nebulae
that may, by now, no longer
exist.  The radiance
they emit navigates
an ocean of space
over millions of years,
showing up on Earth to
play a part in our cosmic show,
one point in a constellation's
connect-the-dot pattern or
a bright and solitary pinprick
in the universe's
velveteen fabric.

That's how it is
when I look in your
face; instead of
blots and wrinkles
earned from a life
well spent, the image
I see comes to me from
years ago.  I gaze
back in time
at a person who
saw the future,
convinced me
to be deeper than
superficial swagger,
captured my heart,
still holds it
in her hands.


(c)Bill Glose                               2008
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 24
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Airborne

I rode my two-wheeler down Summit Avenue
Past the sissy girls.
Mother covered her eyes,
Father nibbled his moustache.
I urged my steed into the air with a passionate
Squeeze on the pedals,
And I was flying, head thrown back,
Laughing into the sizzling blue sky.

I did not ever have to come down.
Not if I didn't want to.


(c)Laura J. Bobrow                          2008
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 24
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Sarah Swifthawk

Sara Swifthawk in faded brown moccasins
walks three miles to Oljato trading post
--Place of the Moonlight Water.
The frost is heavy the cold bites,
her turquoise and silver jewelry is to be pawned for food.
Sara Swift hawk, jet hair sprinkled with white,
face a network of wrinkles, needs food more than fuel.

The trader smiles kindly as he gives her
canned peaches and beans.
Sara walks home slowly.
She builds a fire of pinon logs,
puts on a kettle of beans to cook,
then settles down in a warm blanket.

Sara Swifthawk passes into a dream world
bright with desert flowers that lift the heart and spirit.
When she was young, she herded sheep in canyons and mesas.
She danced the squaw dance with young men who gave her money.
She rode her palomino pony to sings where she was allowed to chant.
Sam Begay, Sara's husband, married into her clan of many waters.
She gave birth to three children; all of whom
have left the reservation.
Sam Begay died some years ago of the hanta virus sickness.
Now, Sara Swifthawk lives by herself.
She gathers yucca with which to wash her hair.
She weaves colorful rugs to sell.
The harshness of winter has surrounded her.
Sara Swifthawk is too weak to gather more wood.
Sara now in her dream, rides her pony across an arroyo.
She hears the desert owl, small and lively in his cactus nest.
The cold wraps around her,
She is spirited away.


(c)Elizabeth Urquhart                   2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

While Dancing

An ekphrastic interpretation of Pierre-Auguste
Renoir's A Dance in the Country (1841-1919)

She wears a broad smile
One hand rests on her partner's shoulder
The other holds his hand and a fancy fan
A red bonnet tied under her chin
Adorned in a flowery flowing
Bustled evening gown
With ruffled bottom
Her dark bearded partner's
Profiled nose leans in
To breathe in aromas
Of her perfumed flaming red hair
Is she smiling because of her partner
Or flirting with someone else's dance partner


Barbara Drucker Smith                    2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Falling Back Into Life

Happy late in life,
they're not afraid to let the quiet in
or mix living with dying.

There's hushed talk of what they'll find
on the other side, who will be there
to lift them over the threshold.

That it's best to give everything away now,
her demitasse cups, his silver pocket watch.
How little it all comes to.

Patiently arranging pansies in clay pots,
beneath clouds shaped like blossoms
bursting into the unknown,

they fall back into life again, edge
the garden path with simple stones.
Knowing, little else matters except

this familiar ground of home,
and the end that they see
so clearly.


(c)Ann Falcone Shalaski                             2005
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Underwater Ballet

The sea cocoon
born of raindrops,
of rushing rivers,
caresses the land.
God's other world.

Not always
in harmony with its silent depths
but beautiful in
its secret dissonance.

A world of rainbow-dipped
creatures
performing an
underwater ballet
in ever-moving liquid motion.
A jete
pas de bourree
pas de deux
God's
underwater ballet

Known
but to those who
break through
earth's watery cocoon
to reach its noiseless depths.


(c)Betty Maistelman                    2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Starlight

I stand still and watch
as the high bridge lights compete
with the twilight stars.
Now, with Father Moon,
each challenges its siblings in a sparkle race.
In vain, Mother Cloud blankets
her children for bed.
They just laugh and glow.


(c)Shirley Nesbit Sellers                         2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Secret Funds

It's not time to go
But already
My substance
Is melting
And trickling down
The highway
West,
Sniffing
Like money
On the trail of a Swiss bank,
          A proper place
For quiet accumulation
While my resources ripen
Until the time is right.
          Then they'll find
My exoskeleton, an empty
Skin of Lycra Spandex,
Along with dust and dog hair
Upon the kitchen floor.


(c)Anne Meek                    2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

The Last Room

Here I am, Love, left behind
In this old house you loved and had so briefly.
You are close enough to touch today,
Alone in this old house with paint and plaster;
This is the last room, cleared away.
Square feet with me is still disaster,
And not a chance I've figured right.
If you were here, math would not matter;
You would look up, your eyes alight,
And grin at me, perched on this ladder.
You would be seventy and nine.
I can't imagine your quick body
Even so frail as it became
Before the end when death was kind:
A sleep within a sleep and no awaking.
Or did you, as I long to think, arise,
Delighted and surprised, as light was breaking
And come to kiss me, sleeping, one last time?
That would be sweetness undiminished;
But I have walls to caulk and prime
and this last room in your last dream
To finish.


(c)Bea DuRette                    2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Choose Something Like a Star

When the heart needs
something to hold on to--
an anchor to cling to--
a safe place to regain peace--
I'd like to choose a star
as Frost advises,
but I find them, first of all,
too far away.
I'd rather something to look at,
feel, hold, or touch--
you can't always see the stars--
undoubtedly human frailty
on my part.
I sought advice and was told
to speak to trees.
Out loud.
Okay.
I've done worse.
I found three trees,
planted in a triangle.
I stood in the middle
and spoke my heart.
They said I was the first person
to speak to them.
They took my tale and carried it home.

They are black locust I found,
the bark of which is used
herbally as a cathartic;
metaphorically--letting go.

The city has decided
to down these trees
to make the street wider.

Maybe a star . . .


(c)Patricia Adler               2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Snow Storm

By the time I reach
the apple tree
on the far side of the field

the sparse, lazy snow
has grown thick and fast
on a shifting wind blowing it
in wide, blinding swirls

that turn me around until
I don't know which way
to head for home and cling
fearfully to the old, arthritic tree
so serenely anchored there.

Of course, the tree doesn't count time, afraid
of being caught with night coming on.
Of course, it doesn't worry about being lost--
it's already home--

but there's comfort in the way
it allows the storm to unfold,

the way it stands by me, our edges blurred
with those of fences and posts, foxes and crows,

in the storm's smoky whiteness and falling snow,
its tissue-thin wings whispering and humming
like a buzz of electric voices
hidden in wires on telephone poles.


(c)Sunday Abbott                         2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

February Moon

Lo!  The ice pale February moon
scarves of clouds across her face
serene, round glides across the sky

She admires her progress in the lake
cold, motionless, a shining mirror
reflecting back her light, betraying

Two lovers in the shadows


(c)Anne Darrison               2009
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Ave Maria

Scent of sweet
impatience, the melon
husk holds August

in its pulp;
          Hail Mary
          full of grace.

The Summer sores,
once close to festering,
now flower thickly,

freely where they
wept; the grove and
graveyard bear

similar swells.
Full are the tombs,
fuller the womb,

the ovum opening'
to strange gust
in the middle of its

breath.
We fail
to understand,
          Hail Mary,
          Mother of God.

All we recall
is ripeness, long
awaited in the stalls,

plum, peach,
or apricot still firm
against our thumb.
          Pray, pray for us
          now and in the 
          hour

Wait, it is not yet
time.


(c)Sofia F. Starnes               2001
from A Commerce of Moments
Pavement Saw Press, Columbus, OH

The Ripening

I was in my gold skin
you in your tan,
and we danced
over housetops
across parking lots
dangled our feet from
neon signs while raindrops fell
into our mouths
like fake jewels
from Second Ave
and everywhere you filled me
with miracle.

Like a new
Artemis,
we chased winds
to fields beyond Hoboken
that greened beneath our feet
and we harvested
each other.


(c)Virginia O'Keefe                    2005
published in Poet's Domain, Vol 22
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

I Rejoice in Being What I Am

How long did it take me to rejoice
in being what I am?  For twenty-two
years, I'd been looking, searching
for that elusive being who
I felt was there, but I couldn't
quite get a hold of it--or them.
I tried when my children were in school,
I hid it in dresser drawers, beneath
bras, slips, and panty hose.  When
they were gone, when housework
almost got me down, I'd take it out,
scrutinize it, and put it back, gently.
Now, there is no need for that;
My time is in my hands alone.
I can sit, dream, and write
to my heart's content.  I have
found wheat I looked for:
I Rejoice In Being What I Am.


(c)Marvel N. Mustard                    2005
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 22
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Who's Rejoicing?

Nobody's rejoicing in his being what he is
Mean old man, always has been,
Younger, he was meaner still,
What gives him the right
To be so ornery and cantankerous?
She ought to know,
'Been with him all these years.
Did they ever have a really nice day?
Alone, maybe, but not together.
How can they stay in the same house?
Miserable with, miserable without,
S'pose she understands him.
And maybe in those earlier years
When they were very young,
They did love each other
And shared their dreams,.
He is what he is . . .
And she is still holding on.


(c)Beverley Isaksen          2005
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 22
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

My Own Skin

Give me bittersweet dark chocolate to sink my
teeth into,
the soft strains of Paganini,
the wriggling ruff of a devoted collie,
a stack of novels with lines so well crafted
I'm swept away by a literary tsunami,
and I will never want to die,
or think I have already died
and departed
to a blissful afterlife

and then
give me your hand
and I'll remember
who I am.


(c)Terry Cox-Joseph          2005
published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 22
Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

Saturday, November 20, 2010

The Moon Is Everything Tonight


The moon
is everything
tonight    not the
lamp shining
on the page
not the TV's blue glare.
The moon
white lady
rides the night
like a woman
astride a black stallion.
She peers at herself
in the pond
and the bullfrogs flood
her light with thrum
and twang.
We stand
under the dark sky--
her brilliance floods
our vision  seeps into
our blood.  Her silver
flows through our bones
and our tongues taste
swelling tide.




(c)Serena Fusek          2010

Red Moon



The moon
is everything tonight.
Red and swollen
it crawls up
the east
looms over houses
and the strip mall.
It overwhelms the sky
swallows the stars.
Red as Kali's rubies
it climbs through the trees
gleaming cold fire
in bare branches
and--like the wolf
with blood on its muzzle--
begins to follow me
down the lonely street.





(c)Serena Fusek          2010