Walking Backwards

Suddenly, sometimes when an April wind

with sweet scent of honeysuckle shoves hair

across my face, or an early sun streaks

sailor red warnings, am I then startled

to find an extra plate on our table.

Turn around!  Stop walking backwards, blindly

stumbling over yesteryears criss-cross roots.

Company thread tangled with sighing tugs.

We unraveled edges to complete shirts

soon found too short.  Joane and I bowed over

for harsh whippings, a public punishment.

Twilight born, life breath shallow, life too brief--

I held; then tightly wrapped our furled too soon.

Joane poured water, spoke him John in the name

of the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost.

We deep buried him under angry skies.

Grief comes unannounced in pale persimmon

buds, in the oval shaped raindrops that cling

to tips of willow leaves--achingly small,

incredibly lovely.  Lacking reason

I hold sorrow until I hear laughter.

Virginia, Alice, and Katherine roll

rough clay balls in afternoon pools of light.

Extra plate back on shelf, I imprison

three cygnets beneath wings for riddle songs

with promises of release in good time.

Loss once again cradles in familiar

hollows.  It hides and waits in solitude.

(c)Patricia Flower Vermillion   2008

from Lady's Maid                                  

Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA

One Drink Too Many

Another drink, this time she swears everything is okay
Another drink and she tries to tell herself
She knows who she is.

But we all know the drink is just an excuse
To dull the pain
Awakening nights, she laughs to the rhythm of her dying heart
We know the days and nights she was dying

Wishing things would change
Would one more drink be her last regret?
She tried to save herself in that one last sip
She dropped the bottle and stared straight ahead

Nothing could take the place of how happy she
Used to be
Killing the life she had one bit at a time
With one drink too many

(c)Celisa Hoskin

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

the age every girl wants to be

She stands there at age 16 and proclaims
She wrote this poem - "a long time ago"
but what she left me wanting to know was
relative to the average life expectancy
of a female fruit fly, what is the definition
of a long time

Relative to the length of the lines
in her poems her life is but
the twinkling of an eye
You see her childhood lost in tears
her metaphors wise beyond the years
she is the age every girl think she wants to be

Her age of innocence lost you see
she trusted men completely until she was betrayed
Wore her clothes rather neatly until they were frayed
by the very strong hands - she trusted

She sang in the choir with an angelic voice
and should have gone higher but soon became hoarse
singing the very secrets she sang so low
and what she left me wanting to know was
why she loves the sound of her voice
more than she loves herself

Her life is just beginning, already
her hopes for true love on a shelf
This makes her wonder - No
This makes her wanna holla and
throw up both her hands - No
it makes her wanna scream and throw
out the bath water with the man
she is tired of life already

She's given up her virtue to the boy
before they were even going steady and
God knows a baby doesn't make a man ready
for marriage;  she thinks this whole thing
is a miscarriage of justice, She dreams this
whole thing has ended in a miscarriage
But no such luck, she wakes to find herself stuck
in the reality and the finality
of an abortion, she is now officially
the age every girl thinks she wants to be

But she didn't start out this poem to end so tragically
and if she could start it all over magically
she'd write more reason than rhyme in her fantasy
she'd finally find out who she's supposed to be
And she'd write this one great poem so you can see
That getting old before your time
ain't all it's cracked up to be

It's only the age every girl thinks she wants to be

(c)Nathan M. Richardson      2006

from You Are the Subject

Spiritual Concepts Publishing, Suffolk, VA

Her Name Is Peace

She is what we all hope for, what we all pray for;
That which cannot be found without God as our true
          Commander-in-Chief.

She is the enemy of the wicked and contentious,
          Bane of the political and religious radical,
 That which war cannot restore without seeking
          its own demise.

Her essence is not defined by a circle and some lines,
          Her ideals are not served by repression and anarchy,
That which seeks to achieve the aim of peace by missing
          the mark of humanitarianism.

She is God's child...God's domain...God's gift.
          We, the lovers of Peace, eagerly await her coming.

(c)Janeann R. Hoskin

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Journey West

We walked a winding path through tall grass,
Green in the East and sweet as wind on wheat.
Sunrise behind us shimmered the blowing fields,
Softened sharp edges, hid deep ditches.
Casual as yeast and as dependable,
The prairie rose gently toward far mountains.

We were young; stroll or stride came easily.
Morning shadows slid harmless before us,
Summer afternoons ignored the threats behind.

Green became gold with hints of rose in beige,
Our path now black along the frosted foothills.
We smile a mix of rue and roses, face West,
Button our collars high and hold hands.

(c)Philomene Hood                          2003

from Ride Home Through Scented Grass

Pearl Line Press, Zuni, VA

Filling Spaces

My father read Frost and Dickinson to me, played
minuets and waltzes before school in the morning.

Standing in the doorway,
he'd motion me on as I walked backwards,

keeping him in my gaze.  Bright yellow
dress dotted with white, lifting with each wave

of my arm.  Too soon, we laid him gently
into the earth, pillowing the ground with

marigolds, murmurs of prayers.  Year after year,
I find myself planting more golden anchors, filling

spaces, piecing together what I can remember:
shimmering ribbons of sounds,

words soaring from a voice rich,
lush as new gardenias.

A young girl waiting to bloom, listening,
as I do now, for her father.

(c)Ann Falcone Salaski     2007

from World Made of Glass

San Francisco Bay Press

Su Manera De Ser

She was white as the knuckles
clutching the sharp shears.
Her hair the blackness of infinity,
a Guns and Roses tattoo undulating
across her chest to the rhythm of blades
moving through my hair.

Her hair caresses her face as
she sways to New Wave music
piping through Les Belles Femmes
the sole chic salon in Suffolk.
So comfortable in her painted skin -
the shocked stares of
bee-hived seniors returned
with a sly wink and smile.

Sipping her wine as we shoot the breeze,
her pencil-thin brows highlight her points.
Soy milk, yoga, and agnostic beliefs concur;
we are distinct from the conventional world.
When she bends over to reach for a brush,
she exposes the mermaid swimming up her back;
but without the slightest tug of shirt,
she cuts again.

My children giggle and point as she ruffles
their hair.  Her question uncomplicated:
"What cut do you want today?:
My oldest replies, "Like yours!  It's cool!"

"Make sure it's you and not me
that you want," her smile radiates
the confidence of all she is.
I admired how she flashes her uniqueness
For all to behold -- not smothering it inside
as my circumstances dictate I must.
How easily she wore su manera de ser.

(c)Martha Maurno

published in Skipping Stones 2005

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Silent Prayer

a cardinal
perched on the cedar
     at the edge of the woods

he is,
awakening  me
to the gift
that is this day

resting,
for a moment
in silent
prayer

speck of blood
     at the edge of the woods

i know you

(c)Lisa Malone

At the Fruit Stand

Beneath the midday heat
Within the darkened shed
The fruit monger and I
Filled my plastic bags with a kilo of this
And a kilo of that, when the radio station
Broke into a rollicking folkdance

He started it, the clapping
Arms raised high, fingers snapping,
But I soon joined in,
And together we danced around the citrus
While the music throbbed joy and power
Until the cashier snapped,
"Sa'ad!"

Youth and the party evaporated.
He resumed stacking tomatoes;
I filled my bags and left.

For a moment, though, the heat had given way
And the fruits had glowed inside,
Festival decorations
Bright as the noonday sun above.

(c)Christy Lumm                          

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Salt

Oh welcome rain
the sweat of the earth
pouring down to cool
the dust of its dust.
Sweat sprung from the
rush of the clouds,
hurry, please don't
drag us down.
Or is it tears,
grief raining down,
reminders of an
unknown sorrow?
Whether tears or sweat,
it can only be
salt from the earth.

(c)Melissa Beebe                                                        

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Katherine

You glide into the silent sun filled room,
Printed muslin dress flowing in the breeze
Azure eyes open to a vision,
A girl of seventeen jetes across slick polished wood to Brahms.
Three decades pass the dancer embracing a moment
Where all turn to entwine and sing,
Drums beat in tune, but voices rise to the clouds
Only the sound of feet as they walk halls, coughs, cries for relief
Must the dying be left to suffer alone?

Hearts sink lower singing the blues
Our feet are leaden imprints in stone through thickets
Of black-eyed susans crowding the rusted bench
That sits among twisted vines of purple wisteria
Transcending Monday, floating above pain.

Noreasters blow surges of rain, pelting against colored glass
Never cracking the carved patterns' rainbow of light
Through your gentle soul that yields
Your sail to the wind.

(c)Carolyn Sanford

published in Skipping Stones 2003

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

mother

she's a crazy lady who doesn't talk to neighbors;
fears gossip like the plague; goes to work, says nothing,
& saves it for family & explodes on them
like a computer virus with monstrous data dumps.

her lightning storms make you count off one-thousands
until thunder & mercifully, silence...for now;
under a bed, her children confront reality:
she's not omniscient - she's that crazy lady,

subject of neighbor's scornful observations,
representing invisible opposition, she is distant
as she slips into her car before sunrise, comes home
with afternoon breeze, almost never has visitors;

lives with a cat called Lucky that she walks like a dog
too quick to corner, felinely retreating behind closed doors,
keeps to herself and likes it that way, she and the cat
careful, mistrusting, letting in only a lucky few.

but if you were her child, or her brother in Ohio,
you'd know that she was one semester short of
a college degree, which was a big deal for a woman
just after the bomb and a little before Woodstock,

she wasn't idealistic, stuck between baby booms
like her children, scratching away days with
word games & solitaire, love of her life waiting
in heaven for her, trying to align the numbers

hoping to win a lottery prize large enough
to keep all those promises to herself, her children,
her cat & the few who overcame convention &
rumors to discover this woman in full.

(c)Tom S. Prunier                    2008

published in Skipping Stones Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Kissing

Greeting me after my nap
she crawled across our bed
but came up short of my lips
frustrated by stiff joints.
Aging holds her more tightly than I can.
We are the same in years,
but she's spent much more time in offices.

We are not the same in temperament.
Optimism and pessimism mingle styles;
frugality and generosity bump and turn into each other.

We focus our intellects disparately
and manifest physicality in different ways.
Our driving styles are dissimilar to say the least.
I'm intensely aroused by some political issues,
but she claims very little interest.

I've taught her something about a fair fight,
and she's taught me to bicker quietly (some of the time).
She can multitask,
but I routinely can hold contrary ideas in mind.
She can do the personal parallel of that
as she's dealt with notably loopy me
as her husband for almost a quarter century.

Arching my neck I met her lips,
and knew us blessed
not by serenity,
not by union of vision,
but by reciprocal respect
that in ignition means love.

(c)W.W. Yoder, III     2008

I Have Loved

I must go back briefly to a place I have loved
to tell you those you will efface I have loved
- Agha Shahid Ali


Backwards through memory and time and forgotten names
before heartbreaks there are spaces I have loved

When spring layers the world in yellow and open
windows leave pollen on bedding lace I have loved

In sheltered porch moments as long and sweet as iced tea
with the threat of ocean water and salty taste I have loved

With Chinese fortunes lining the mirror
I have known peace but the haste I have loved

In dark, smoky dive bars singing karaoke
with thin musicians the beat of the bass I have loved

In front of lawyers and judges, despite
the decrees I will make the case I have loved

And I have traveled back to where it all began
with you this night, this city and the chase I have loved

Please let someone tell you of my erred ways
because I cannot face those I have loved

But please don't misconstrue the time it took me
to requite even those I have misplaced I have loved

And the times I kissed and lied and said mean
words I wish I could replace with I have loved

Now just this night in this city with you
I am ready to say bound and braced I have loved

(c)Cheryl Snow White     2007

from snow white lies

Wasted

You waste your life
on alcohol and cigarettes
with nights too drunk to function.  Passed out,
oblivion finds you,
yet peace eludes--
a gray ghost
touching the edge
of your mind.  There was
the broken heart,
a childhood sweetheart,
shattering your ideal of love.
There is the career
that is not
what it promised.
There will be
the future stretching hard
and yielding and tough.  Time
had already begun
the mold of your downfall
before I had ever
known you.  Though I
never truly knew you
for I am coldly unyielding and you
are a closed steel box.  Yet
when I first knew you,
I saw a soul peeping out
that shone and fluttered
bright and radiant.  I
saw a life of promise
spreading out before you.  It
made me reach for you
in a passion
hot and quick with no
attachments, of course, 'cause
those are always bad.  That
was all a year ago.  Since then
your best friend's death-
the only one who kept you sane-
finished twisting
something joyous into something
 dark and mean and cruel,
and the addictions
that teased you
enslaved you.  Your soul
has lost the battle.  What
I wanted is now
repulsive
for you squander yourself,
shamelessly and hatefully,
with drugs and women and friends,
all of whom you are better than-
until even I,
can not hold to the image of your beauty.
Your dark hole is too much
for what was fleeting between us.
Yet still I try to tell you
why I can no longer offer
what you seek.  You
do not understand and call me
bitch and whore and traitor
because I will not join you,
because I will not offer myself
to the demon
you have become.

(c)Lisa Kendrick                          2008

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

with grace

for sueann

Past haunts our present
it can block our future or open our door
as time ticks steadily on a day becomes a week
fern laced in baby's breath forms hearts
around brass candelabras
for my nephew's wedding

too young to marry
those long ago weeks of barely enough food money or love
my brother and his girlfriend married anyway
and raised a son
taking on a world of struggle
building slowly at times reckless or desperate
and other times so wonderful that
a full moon walk in the woods becomes the most
precious of times together
the best of life

as i remember music announces

the entrance of my brother and sister-in-law
he looking debonair and handsome in his tux
and she
how can i describe how beautiful she was walking
up the aisle with grace and confidence enough
to wear a black backless gown
and later laid her head against her son's chest crying
while they danced

(c)debbie lass     2003

from gaily forward

Keith Enterprises Inc

Invisible

What do you see
when you look at me?
Do you see inside
at what I hide?
Or do you look outside
at what is tried?
The real me is in between
the hidden and seen.

(c)Edith Blake

published in Skipping Stones 2005

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

To a Girl with Downcast Eyes

Rounding the corner, I see you
Your eyes downcast
You are lost in your own reality.

A cigarette dangles in your left hand
The toe of your right shoe balances on the concrete
Long, brown hair falls down on a business suit.

No matter what the problem
I want to tell you
That this too will pass
But I can't
We are strangers.

(c)Bill Blake

published in Skipping Stones 2005

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

The River

T'is the place where he took your mother

When he was your age,

Where he smiled your same Cheshire grin

At her bright mouth, blooming

Into a miracle

Before his very eyes.

And when I see it

I know why she loved him.

And it is a miracle, I think,

As you hold out your slender hand

And ask me to

Follow you over the perilous bridge,

The decaying planks no one

Dares to walk on.

The river pulses

Beneath us

Writhing with hiccups

Tongues

Licking at the rocks.

It is such a surprise,

The murky ribbon

Nestled between shores

How it ripples and

Caresses us,

Our

Innocent white feet

Trembling naked in the water,

How it begs for more.

How I do, when you expose

The October reds and oranges

That have broken out like an

Uncontrollable

Rash.

How we want to

Scratch each other when we see

All of it--

The rushing fluid and the sunny rocks

Where you take

My picture as I leave everything

Unbuttoned,

Flat on my back

My eyes lost somewhere

Near.

And you climb out

Too far for me

Over the massive knot

Of twigs and plastic the current has

Swallowed.

But I take the moment

In my mouth anyway.

And you come

So close

To being

Wet,

But we roll up our pants

And wade through it.

(c)Corey Nixon

published in Skipping Stones 2005

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

My Favorite Addiction

I'm addicted to your smile,
like a child obsessed with Hershey's Kisses.
I want to intentionally misjudge the fire on its
bright body and fall into its brilliant peace on purpose.
It must be my favorite addiction, and I'm willing
to stage-dive into its audience and crowd-surf
into its endlessness, its weightlessness, its spacious garden.
I'm a humble follower of its music, which echoes through
me like Bobby Womack's Aint Nothin' Like the Lovin' We Got
or Luther Vandross's The Closer I Get To You
I'm addicted to your smile, and I want to cast my worries
into its protective suite, like fishermen who search
for their dreams beneath heavy moons.
If I could only croon, I would perform for its perfumed
paradise, its romantic pressure, and its sensual language.
I would love to celebrate its conviction,
but its temperature makes it hard to breathe.

(c)Synnika Lofton                         2009

published in Skipping Stones, Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Oak Sideboard

Since a century ago it stands,
Majestic, elegant, its carved bonnet and high oak shelf
Opulent, gracing other homes than ours.
Glowing in gas-lit parlors with Ragtime music,
And bearing burnished silver and damask for the tables
Of men who talked of Jenny Lind and William Howard Taft.
A place to throw a bowler,
Or later on to place someone's lovely feather boa.

Victoria died, and Lowell Thomas gave the news,
Men drove the Pierce Arrow, the Stutz-Bearcat, and then the Buick.
Its storied beauty blackened, broken in dark back rooms, or in tin

sheds,

Beveled mirrors shattered,
Oak carvings became home to spider, moth, and cricket.

Today it gleams under tender light,
Golden oak restored, its wonderful gargoyle carvings clean,
Once again in lighted rooms with piano music.

I, too, was once a broken thing, unwanted, and needing much repair,
And I have been restored to joy and life, By one with love to give.

(c)Diana Strelow

Published in Skipping Stones 2003

and in Ripples

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

"ORLEANA'S" 100th Birthday Wish

Groundhog Mountain:  Floyd Co., VA:  June 22, 1937

Each morning I awake

on this mountain,

discovering the new sun

flashing its long rays

down into the valley,

showering diamonds

in the fog,

lighting up

a jeweled promised land,

just for me.

Some bright morning

I want to enter death,

sailing on a sunbeam,

wearing my best blue dress,

with my eyes wide open,

with my arms wide open

in welcome,

ready to hear

the voices

of my waiting children,

introducing me

to God.

(c)Jason Lester Atkins

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Poem #13

Hymn to the CHESAPEAKE is a book of 59 poems expressing and celebrating the life that is the Chesapeake Bay and the surrounding wetlands

Oh Mother--Dark
in this cradle of time and wounding light
I am afraid of motion--of trees, of stars, of spring,
     of flow and
fall of age of dying of joy and grief
I am afraid of the life that walks on my right hand
     side
and the death that walks just beyond the human
     eye
     on the left
I am afraid of the firelight that is ever changing
And the thrusting rocks that do not change by
     human time

Here, in the Shallows
There's a ladder and a dozen or so timbers holding
     the
          house above the bay
Directly above the timbers--a deck
          where the oyster watcher watches
          in his mittens and wool hat
          with his pipe and eyeglasses
And above the deck, watching, perches the tiny
     house with windows
          on four sides--all watching the oyster beds
          or storms fathering storms
or poaching trawlers

Here in the shallows of Curtis Creek hard to port
     off Baltimore
          harbor, lie the ghosts of barges hard and tugs, of
               sailing vessels in mirroring water
Here in the black water in the images of hull and
     bridge
          thrown skyward, here rising and falling
          in the hold and forecastle, in the memory of
               binnacle lamps
once burning, now hushed
The tide slithers unrelenting through decks of
     rotting timber

The photographer stands in a canoe in choppy sea.
Click
          ...graveyard of skeletal timber, spar and
               mizzenmast
          of hulking wreck of barge and bugeye, skiff
               and ketch
          There lies the pungy's spine
          The ribs of a barkentine that plied the coffee trade

          There sails as a ghost ship the John T. Ford
          who pitched her crew and sailed the Atlantic
               upside down
          her mast as centerboard, her keel as sail
And there lies the Priscilla, whose captain's son
     was washed overboard to drown, and then by
     sea washed aboard again

          and how the boy sleeps now
          how he sleeps pale and washed in the sunlight
          drifting through the weeds

          in the shifting remains of his father's cabin
          how he tosses, greeneyed, crabpicked and
               beckoning
          and how his mother, who died in the wreck,
                washed from him
          now sings in her sleep
          how she whistles and weaves in her rocking
               chair of wind and water
          and the children in their homes at Baltimore
               harbor
               go rushing to their windows
               whenever she sings

(c)Robert P. Arthur               1993

from Hymn to the CHESAPEAKE

Road Publishers, Painter, Virginia

Old Mother of Mothers

Old mother of mothers of mothers of more
Old being what never before has been

Old jet your way whitely too far to hear

Old pale as you turn old dumpling of hair

Old wobbler over a salt flat land

Old mother of mothers of mothers of more

Old touring the walker old shawl old stare

Push your way shopping up aisles of lawn

Old jet your way whitely too far to hear

Old light in the den whatever the hour

Old name the children's children's children

Name mother of mothers of mothers of more

Old goer old doer old chin how far

Then rest old dizzy like wash in a wind

Old jet your way whitely too far to hear

Old go your way bravely old hand on the door

Old speller in stove-dust pollen and down

Old mother of mothers of mothers of more

Old jet your way whitely too high to hear

(c)Jay Paul                              1999

from Going Home in Flood Time

the ink drop press, Painter, Virginia

Doves

A pair of mourning doves,
a woman at the sink:
how do they see
when glass divides the wild?

Unblinking, so as not to scare,
she watches them mend
with twigs and hair last year's
nest on the windowsill,
cupped like a hand.
They see her too,
as musical shade in her own light,
fluid as vines nearing spring.

She hears the woe
of God rolled in their throats,
a monk's chant,
what she knows as a creaking
when she puts away in trunks
the clothes grown small,
or a rubbing when she dries
the blue Bavarian plate
given her mother and father
at the wedding which began
the long breaking.

Washing the last fork
she feels the stab of children gone
upstairs, the father's absence,
the gray unease of twilight,
what to do with time
the fear of someone crouched in the basement
fingering the scar on his neck like a pearl
as he waits for her door to shut.
How, after that, could she ever pour tea?
How, when her father left, did she button her coat?

She will say that grace comes hard:
the sweeping of crumbs,
the dark against the pane
like an eye boring spring into
the withered, the numb, the lame.

(c)Suzanne Underwood Rhodes           1999

from What A Light Thing, This Stone

Sow's Ear Press, Abingdon, VA

Recitation of the Fatiha for the Dead

"The poet guards the conscience of society--
no; you're wrong:  she stands lonely on that
hillock observing the pastures."

- Marilyn Chin, from "Summer Sonatina"

Oh the fates that awaited me in other times
and places:  China, murdered at birth; Africa,
circumcised; India, burned on my husband's

pyre.  Blazing within me a fire that will not be
extinguished--ignited the day I realized my
life could not be distinguished from theirs.

Living now among thorny acacia bushes, camel
herds, Arabian red foxes, I feed white-cheeked
bulbuls and palm doves on my patio.  Some nights

I dream of snow.  Mornings the local newscaster
announces the latest death toll figures--women,
children--from suicide bombings, insurgency attacks

next door.  So close yet secure, untouched it seems
by their sorrows.  We all go about our business--
what else can we do?  Iraq's tragedy light years

away--another planet.  Attempting at times to
teach my students how to fight for women's
rights, peace and justice, most days and nights

I mutely stand lonely on a desert dune
observing shifting sands, impending doom,
reciting the fatiha for the dead.

(c)Diana Woodcock          2007                      

from Mandala from Foothills Publishing, 2009

first published in Litchfield Review, 2007 and

Other Voices International Project, Sept 2007

Wedding Day, 1938

Kristallnacht

Torn, tattered - a rag of silk
A memory in each thread
Touched lovingly, longingly
Trying to forget the dread
Recalling only the song full
Of joy from the nightingale
Lul-ly...lul-lay.

The gentle night exploded
Harsh sounds pounding
Laced with command...
Leave now, move on, rounding
The corner, keep close and stand
Here...be quiet.
Lul-ly...lul-lay.

Her beautiful dress, soiled,
It was what she wore
The rest of her young life,
Until it was stripped from her...
All but the scrap she held
In her hand till the last
lul-ly...lul-lay.

Now, no joyful song of nightingale,
Nothing more to celebrate -
Only the wind that bears the soul
Of a young bride on her wedding day
Who lies now in the arms of her lover
As he gently releases the rag of silk
Lul-ly...lul-lay.

(c)Beverley Isaksen         2007

from I'm Not Leaving Yet

Note: this is the third in a set of five

poems collectively titled "A Bag of Rags"

Observatory

Beloit College, 1996

Best place on Earth for a ninth birthday party,
a round building where we look into the sky!
Big domed roof like a basketball,
winding stairs lead up to a circular balcony
around a giant telescope--we're in heaven.
Look through the lens at Saturn's rings,
then we're spaceships orbiting the hall,
girls fly round right, boys fly round left!!
Turn out the lights and sparklers
become comets in our hands,
now let's line up like the planets,
you be Pluto, I'll be Venus!
Tang to drink, like the astronauts,
cookies shaped like crescent moons,
maps of galaxies that we can touch,
and in glass cases, chunks of stars.

(c)M. Lee Alexander

from Observatory

Finishing Line Press 2007

I'd Like To Be A Bird Again

This morning a baby black-capped chickadee in the garage
fluffed and outraged.

Suddenly     the smell of summer     took    me
back     to when we were the wind     running on bare feet
across the yard
to the fenceline
dragging our ankles through purple bloom-laden crownvetch
stirred up honeybees     took flight
to the edge of Eades' farm
fingers sticky with milkweed     pod popping for the silk inside.
There were so many more butterflies then.
We were tiger swallowtails.
And we were barn owls     we were small mice nibbling
     last year's fallen field corn.
We were dragonflies     with eyes like jewels.
We were lightning bugs     glowing off to each other
     through the night.
We were cows     wading up to our bellies
     in thick brown water.
We were blue gill swimming round our legs.

We were savages of the moment
unschooled and fearless.
We were downy black-capped chickadees
circling away     up     into open sky.

(c)Amanda Hart Cravotta               2009

published in Skipping Stones Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

This Is How Our Love Will Be

I'm never sure just where you are in this settling house--too big now,
too big now, too hollow for two.  We share less often our destinations;

our wants

direct us to different rooms; and once there we'll imagine no need

to renew our vows.  You'll think of me as you rearrange your

signature

bouquet--rosemary and zinnias; I'll fall into your nana's chair and
open a book of your poems--fanning its pages, stopping for dog-ears.

As August rain thrums our windows, we'll meet up in the mud room,
tryst in the tick-tink of laundered buttons and snaps--always,
there are things to be ironed and put away--while someone on the

radio sings"

This is how our love will be.

(c)Allen M. Weber                                    

published in Skipping Stones 2007

and in Lock Raven Review

Fawn and Doe

It was summertime, Jamestown, 1980
I stood among the trees with cousin Adrienne
I was sixteen and full of nervous excitement
About the year to come, Senior year

Adrienne and I walked the path the colonists walked
And then I saw two of what Keats would call "a joy forever"
So beautiful, the spotted fawn and doe
So beautiful, I cried because I knew
That I would never again be little

The years have passed and the fawn and doe
Are etched into my memory as happy thoughts
They remind me that I survived growing up
Into womanhood, full of dreams and ambition
With beautiful memories that break any fall

(c)Anne Catherine Braxton     2010

Bosnia - I Don't Know You

I lean my face into the scent
and it fills my head, drawing
me into the curling soft petal
of this flower on my table.

Today is Tuesday, and my world
fills with the smells
of rose perfume.  It is hard to

tell myself that the open hole
I see on the T.V. news is filled
with the stench of hundreds of bodies.

How, I ask myself, am I supposed
to feel, if I cannot smell
the rotting flesh, if no one

connected to me dies in this
civil war an ocean away?
Empathy and compassion become

companion words for the T.Ve.
coverage of mass deaths,
while I sit drinking red wine.

(c)Nancy Powell               2007

from How Far Is Ordinary

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Wednesday, June 24, 1942

This poem from Phyllis' book is a collection of poetic interpretations based on the noted diary entries from Anne Frank's Diary


The dentist drilled teeth,
the government drilled rules.
Trams, a forbidden luxury,
aware of a stolen bike,
you had long walks and a long face.
Longing always for new friends,
then, a new face
handsome and sixteen,
wanted to come along.
You said "Yes."
Who needs trams anyway?

(c)Phyllis Johnson          2008

from being frank with anne

Community Press, Virginia Beach, VA

Alzheimer's

The flight departs
A little late, and the
Enveloping darkness
Of the winter nightfall
Descends and the plane
Lifts up and up and up.

At programmed intervals
Lights flash on the wings-
The staccato of the wands
On the wing's fin, first, then
The rose-colored throb,
Leaving its afterglow
On the leading edge of the wing-
Like a semaphore we can't read,
Undecipherable, but steady,
Reassuring as a heartbeat.

Below, the jeweled lights of
What passes for civilization-
Or only our collective longing
To pierce the descending dark-
Lie out of touch, out of reach,
But beautiful to look at,
Satisfying, bringing to mind
Images like snapshots in an album...

...her face among a sea of
          schoolmates...
...Tchaikovsky, the piano concerto,
          always music with her face...
...Sweet rich vanilla ice cream,
          melting from the dasher
          on hot Tennessee Saturdays...
...the marketplace in Jakarta
          and the hot peppers...
...the little girl with long hair,
          her hands in the stream...
...the boy painting his shoes...
...Tiananmen Square and the students...

It's all down there, coded
In those random, lightstrewnPatterns of memory.

After a time, the gray wing
Becomes an opaque lagoon
Between the moving airship
And the jeweled homeland,
Distant, familiar,
Unreachable now,
Beyond control,
Irrevocable.

Still, you know what
The jeweled lights mean.
You're still connected...
Even when we can't see you,
Even when you don't hear us,
We are all traveling on,
Destination oblivion,
And the lights are still there.

(c)Anne Meek                                            

published in Skipping Stones 2004

and in Ripples

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Beauty of the West: California Dreaming

This poem is presented both in German and in English.  Dr Lubich composed it first in his native German, then free-translated it himself.  Therefor I present it in a "continuous parallel" sequence German first, followed by the English copy.

"Wer in die Fremde will wandern,
 der muss mit der Liebsten gehen"

"Heimweh", Joseph von Eichendorff

"If you want to travel far away,
you must go with your beloved..."

"Longing for Home", Joesph von Eichendorff

Schoene Fremde:  California Dreaming

Kennst du das Land der westlichen Weiten,
wo Gold und Meer verlockend rauschen,
das Land der unbegrenzten Moeglichkeiten,
wo Traeume ferner Zukunft lauschen,

im Fruehling bunt die Wuesten bluehen,
der Sommerwind durch Tamarisken weht
und alte Mythen herrlich neu erzaehlt,
dorthin, Geliebte, lass uns ziehen.

Beauty of the West

Do you know the land of the Far West,
its rhapsodies of gold and blue,
the land of boundless possibilities
where all our future dreams come true?!

Where desserts bloom in springtime reveries
and summer's zephyr breezes gently blow,
where tamarisks whisper of mythic memories,
my love, that's where we need to go.


Camino del Cielo:  In den Bergen von Santa Barbara


"Die Dinge singen hoer ich so gern...",
der bluehenden Huegel mittelmeerische Lieder,
doch noch lieber lausch ich im Sommerwehen
dem Sirenengesang deiner lichtdunklen Glieder,

deiner schattigen Quelle seligem Seufzen
vom ewigen Stirb und ewigen Werde,
vom Rausch der himmlischen Schoepfung
aus dem Urgrund der Mutter Erde.


Camino del Cielo:  In the Mountains of Santa Barbara

Oh how I love the melodies
of rolling hills and timeless spaces,
but even more I long to listen
to the siren song of your embraces,

welling up from the depths to the sparkling skies,
we feel the rise and rush of creation,
we hear Mother Earth, her sighs and cries
of death and eternal reincarnation.

(c)Dr Frederick A. Lubich

Blood

I am awash on a bitter shore
Where blood drips from a forest of ghosts
And it is mine.

Starving, I eat a worm of wood,
Tasting like honey.  It burns
Fiery darts into my belly
And Sears my soul with
Something like hope.

And I know that I had
Allowed the killing of my heart,
But living with half a heart
was better than
Dying with a whole one
(and the church said, "amen")

I shake my fist at the stars
"Where were you when
I was sweating great drops of
Blood in my garden"
They had tried to stay awake
But they could not.

And the nightbird comes to carry
Away my remains,
But as he flies, he becomes
A stork carrying
A heart.

(c)Wendie Donahue

published in Skipping Stones 2005

and in Ripples

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Esters

Oil of cloves, oil of ginger-
root skimmed from droppings
of fat melted in the gullet of a wok:
as you say, like dissolves like:  the elixirs
and compounds of a chemistry escaping
as vapors married in the pestle's mouth.

I think of the way light, like other volatile
substances, will enter the pores and flower
there:  a trail of ethers, migrant injuries,
sifted powders whose essences are gathered
in fragrant knots and thrown into the fire.

Leaves that wilt and yield their sting of salt
and lace to the waiting tongue, shoots
of the pliant bamboo.  Summons of taste,
the welt inflicted by the star anise.  I sing
about the throat, the nightingale's house
that rings and chimes to spite
what it has witnessed.  The tongue
is not the only bed where speech
lies and is taken, resides.  Released,
it flies away and builds nests of feathers
plucked raw from the breast, lines it
with the red hulls encasing annatto seeds
and their inky rattle.

                    One day I sat on a rock
regarding water, an island in the distance
whose mountains were serrated edges:
a kitchen knife laid flat on its back, mussel
shell forced open, the blue and orange
sheen of its torn lips.  The waves brought me
a blowfish, limp as discarded rubbers that often
litter the beach:  all poison bleached out of it,
unless the skin harbors secrets long past death
the way sandalwood prayer beads embrace scent
and wrap the wrist, so that even in darkness
the soul might be led.

I turn my face to the wall, thinking of cells
and their intricate etymology, the way a spore
blooms and stipples my ceilings with maps
that fade before they can be completed.  If I could
distill their mystery in flasks of ruby and saffron
and learn their sacrament or science, I might find
a way to string this body of beaten elements--this
calculus of restless bones that dream continually
of rising, caroling their frank catalogue of ardent
forms and alloys from their discolored, yeasty bed.

(c)Luisa Igloria          2005

from Trill & Mordent

WorldTech Editions

Cincinnati, OH

To the Violin (6)

Note:  This is the last in a series of six sequential poems by Jack Callan of Norfolk, written upon viewing a television feature highlighting a Spanish woman's dream of becoming a matador, and who has become successful in the Spanish bullring.  Over the next five days, the remaining poems will appear in sequence.

The bull's horns

     are like

the carpenter's hammer, or

some old guy shavin'

          in the mirror.

Best of luck matador

They stab the bull

     before you arrive

they cheat like liars

The bull is just

     trying to be brave

So you stab him

          some more

(c)Jack Callan          2010

To the Violin (5)

Note:  This is the fiifth in a series of six sequential poems by Jack Callan of Norfolk, written upon viewing a television feature highlighting a Spanish woman's dream of becoming a matador, and who has become successful in the Spanish bullring.  Over the next five days, the remaining poems will appear in sequence.

Who would paint my death,

paint my stance before the horns,

maybe blue   with kind eyes.  Maybe

I would be naked

till I stabbed down so hard

your back severed, and I had won.

Only then would I look at you

you, maybe the god

     that I worship

the god I control

piercing your spine

till I am god

then I paint your soul.

(c)Jack Callan          2010

To the Violin (4)

Note:  This is the fourth in a series of six sequential poems by Jack Callan of Norfolk, written upon viewing a television feature highlighting a Spanish woman's dream of becoming a matador, and who has become successful in the Spanish bullring.  Over the next five days, the remaining poems will appear in sequence.

The energy of the bull

   is between the horns,

even still the knife.

   The crowd roots for the knife,

they like it with blood.

La matador would like it

     as a candle

and she afterward

   as a poster

she as hero

   who carries her temple

within her

   in worship to some

thick hide of tattoos

   that hide the scars

that hide it all

   in muscle

all in all

   she does nothing else

(c)Jack Callan          2010

To the Violin (3)

Note:  This is the third in a series of six sequential poems by Jack Callan of Norfolk, written upon viewing a television feature highlighting a Spanish woman's dream of becoming a matador, and who has become successful in the Spanish bullring.  Over the next five days, the remaining poems will appear in sequence.

I have strong arms

and fold

     a dainty shirt.

The bull

     has been provoked,

hopefully,

     to kill me.

Maybe I

     will be buried

in this open land,

     maybe not.

a candle

   can be lit

          anywhere.

(c)Jack Callan          2010        

To the Violin (2)

Note:  This is the second in a series of six sequential poems by Jack Callan of Norfolk, written upon viewing a television feature highlighting a Spanish woman's dream of becoming a matador, and who has become successful in the Spanish bullring.  Over the next five days, the remaining poems will appear in sequence.

My mother threw me beneath the bull

           to see if I could escape.

She had bread and salad for dinner

           when I returned.

I was filthy,

alive

so very hungry.

Not handsome

           no one would want me.

The bull was frightening

           it didn't seem fair.

Over and over I jumped the fence

           again and again I returned.

My hat was trampled

           gone forever

but I always came back

           even without rank

I am special.

What is a hat?

The bull is born to die in the ring

           sometimes the matador.

It's never even.

Never.

(c)Jack Callan          2010

To the Violin (1)

Note:  This is the first in a series of six sequential poems by Jack Callan of Norfolk, written upon viewing a television feature highlighting a Spanish woman's dream of becoming a matador, and who has become successful in the Spanish bullring.  Over the next five days, the remaining poems will appear in sequence.

Before the music
the matador dresses
to the violin,
an elegant stretching
to prelude the horns.

This bull has sand
     in his nose
wanting to gore
     and trample (her).

The birds will peck
     at the remains.

You, my dear, must pivot
and follow the horns
past your body
past your soul

the dirt of his nose
is the dirt under your fingernail.

You escape to Spain
breaking your mother's bond

the bull is waiting
   as you float by.

(c)Jack Callan          2010

Squished

I'm in the middle
again.

Only
this time
it's my mother
who is eighty
and my daughter
who is seventeen.

I keep looking up
I keep looking down

If I'm kind to my mother
will my daughter be kind to me?

If I show my daughter
that I ask for what I want
will she do it
when she needs to?

One sister was five years older
One sister was five years younger

I cannot remember my older sister

ever speaking to me

though once

she taught me how to whistle.

I loved my younger sister

the way I wanted

to be loved

though once

I left her alone

on the bed

in the middle

and she rolled off.

(c)Sharon Weinstein

from Celebrating Absences

Road Publishers, Painter, VA

Soundtrack

The entire Sondheim catalog
committed to memory, she's part mimic
part prima donna, knows
what sad ballad works
when the world slips her another
Mickey Mouse man
all squeaky clean and white-gloved.

She's gotten biblical with a few bad boys,
loved and left a little out of whack
and when she loses track of herself
every so often, she always vows
next time will be better.

When she spots a shooting star,
hay truck or genuine red-head
she makes plaintive, sincere wishes,
glances across every crowded room
for improbable strangers
believing happy endings are made
for girls like her, peach and turquoise
bridesmaid dresses filling up their closets.

She yearns to audition
for the better part-
after all, she can cry on a dime,
     -stop-
on a nickel.

Her bag may be Dolce and Gabbana
but the goods are pure Walmart.
Humming Delta Dawn, she taps her foot,
hopes to find the promised man.

It's likely her mansion in the sky
will turn out to be only a double-wide,
but in a real nice part of town.

(c)Shann Palmer     2009

from Dashboard Fire

FlashPaperPublications, Richmond, VA

Going Home - 1949

The train puffs into the station,
exhaling with a long sigh,
like an old man reluctantly expiring.
Steam settles down, surrounding
mother, brother and me.

Through vapor, I look into mother's face,
her chin quivers.  We climb aboard,
emotionally unprepared for a trip
we do not want to take.

The porter, his uniform dark as midnight,
checks our tickets--we're on our way
to Mama Sally's farm, where I was born.

My mother says father is in a special compartment
of the train.  I wonder where that may be.
I don't ask questions, afraid of the answer.

Mother has told us that my father
will lie in Mama Sally's parlor.
"It's the country way, she says,
so friends may call at their leisure."

I see Mama Sally at her churn,
churning productively 'til butter comes to the top,
removing it, shaping it into a butter mound,
with deft fingers delicately forming a design
on top.

I am remembering the long hall that stretched
from front door to back, the hall
that my young brother waxed with lard,
much to my mother's chagrin.

Then troubled thoughts tumble,
not soothed by synchronized rhythm
of turning wheels on the tracks
beneath.

Will this train ride ever be over?
How will we comfort Mama Sally,
when we are not comforted?
How will we stand in the parlor
with father lying still as stone?
Will mother ever stop crying?

(c)Laniere Gresham                     2000

published in Skipping Stones Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Bookends to Eternity

Holding me up in the now
Stands my mother before me
Facing the past,
My daughter after me
Facing the future,
Continuous line of being,
History and hope.

(c)Beverly Outlaw

published in Skipping Stones Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Blue

you see my mother was a blue light
cold and warm all at once

if I could paint the mind or tint thoughts,
would a library be a rainbow and why is
the bar that I wander into so sadly
monochromatic and me hungry to be
overwhelmed by the touch of color

waiting, burning quietly red and
sometimes growing just a shade
beyond dark

you see it was this feeling, this feeling
that came every day, a feeling that...I
felt every day, the feeling that surrounds

ice

the feeling that was only a suggestion in a young boy that
happened every day until...until it became the part...the part
in a man that surrounds

ice

that part has brought me to this strange place, perched on the
edge of a forgotten star of white ice, I climb into my dark and
lonely room, I stand at the clear window and see everything
else...

I know the kind of man I am...I have become the man who
fell in love with
everything else
the sweet taste of wine
mixed in blood
heated tones
staring eyes
the art of smooth arms
rosewater and legs
the music world
inside a woman's soul

I am the artist captured by the hues of expressed passion
in the picture, trapped so wonderfully by freedom

but of course my mother was a blue light...

(c)Patrick Carr

published in Skipping Stones Vol VI

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Ritual

My mother swore nights
were her betes noires.
Putting the beast to sleep
with pills, she sacrificed
a theater of dreams.

Before she died
at sixty-three she was bitter,
hard as the rock she left me.
There is no pity in a heart-
shaped diamond.

Father liked things light-
a sunny day at Jones Beach.
He never read a word I wrote.
Too messy--my inside stuff
leaking out like menstrual blood.

When fortune frowned,
he shed his past three times.
Wives and work came easy.
At eighty-two he was
a wax figure of himself.

I didn't weep at their funerals.
I'll keep unburying them
in poems until I'm free.

(c)Jane Ellen Glasser

published in Skipping Stones 2007

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

She Makes Me A Man

She makes me a man
with a turn of her head, the toss of her hair,
the touch of her hand.
While she smiles and hides her true feelings.
She makes me a Man
when I hear her good news, how her day has gone bad
all the intimate details.
I listen and wonder how this could still happen to me.
Like when we lie together in light.
If I could pick the words of this poem off the page
and place them into my mouth
they would be soft, sticky and sweet,
like she becomes when we reach that place
where I make her a woman,
shaking and screaming at last.
When she stays with me throughout the day.
I remember why I believe
in the power of one single thing
indifferent to the whims of the world, beliefs and opinions.
she makes me a Man sitting right where we are on the floor
with purely a simple embrace.

(c)Gregg Libbey

published in Skipping Stones 2004

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA

Princess and the Pea

The damned princess and the pea
haunts my bed
burrowing beneath my sheets
making sleep improbable
every change of position
rediscovers the pea
this unbidden fantasy
kept at bay for several days
has found itself a resting place
holding me hostage in the night
I grump
surrender
reach for a drink
reach for a cigarette

reach for the fantasy

reach for you

with both hands.

I could you know.

(c)Donna M. Campbell

published in Skipping Stones 2004

Mindworm Press, Chesapeake, VA