photoart: ralph murre

Haunting

by Jude Genereaux

It could have been the wind

batten’ed ‘round the house

the brass chimes maniacally

clanging against the timbers

waking me in the hours

those wee small hours, I used to sleep;

it could have been the silent moon’s

furtive sliding through my window

branding it’s lament on your empty pillow,

knowing what haunts the little hours

                                              is you.

                        ~ first published in the Museletter

WOMANLESS TUESDAY

artwork: ralph murre

WOMANLESS TUESDAY

by Ronald Baatz

He mentioned seeing his

former lover on the street.

He said that she had appeared ruined

by time, by life's wretchedness.

He said that he had been shocked

when he looked into her eyes.

Other than this he didn't mention anyone else

in the letter, which was strange.

He was not the kind of person

who avoided heartfelt gossip.

I put the letter down on the table, but

when a breeze started playing with it

I stuck it in my shirt pocket.

It was the kind of beautiful day when

voices carried,

lovers married.

I wanted to write back immediately,

while my thoughts were still fresh.

A couple of pens and paper

were on the table.

I could smell the scented geranium

in my window.

I started my letter by saying

something about his old lover

apparently still leading the wild life,

then continued on to other matters,

my pen skating along in

a conversational tone.

I told him that there were small birds

making a fuss in the maple.

That there was a cat

sitting in the tall grass,

watching clouds turn into

flocks of doves.

That it was a Tuesday

and for me it was a

womanless

Tuesday.

~ first published in Yellow Silk

Insomnia

Insomnia

by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

Eyes squeezed shut, you watch a mangled newsreel of your life.  

The floor rumbles.  Something has unearthed the earth,

a great exhalation as if the whole world has breathed out.

The dog pricks up her ears, paces the bare floors,

her nails a metronome - click-click, click-click,

from twelve to two o’clock, when the bear 

of darkness crawls from its cave.

Drowsy, you plod to the porch,

where the dog has led you.

She stands, a statue peering out.

In the stillness you expect something 

to blast across the lawn - a coyote

with a bloody rabbit in its jaws, a burglar

with your jewelry in his burlap bag, or worse. 

Wide awake till dawn you rock in the wicker chair 

watching the black holes between the hostas and ferns.  

You can deal with a coyote or burglar, but not with your life.

~ first published in Willow Review

Lilacs

digital collage: ralph murre

Lilacs

by Susan M. Firer

Before his doctor cut into his

7^th cervical disk,

like an old Swede’s goat he clumped

climbed the black garage roof next door

thump thump to throw

down on me the lightest, most

fragrant bunches of lilacs.  I lusted

for the lilacs, the drunk

lilacs, the purple flabellum,

spodumene, sumptuous benedictional lilacs,

the Nerudian excessive lilacs.

Neruda’s desk came to him from a wave

off Isla Negra.  “Matilde! Matilde!

My desk!  My desk!” he yelled,

spotting the wood in the ocean.

Together Matilde and Neruda

“went down to the beach and sat

on the sand, waiting for a wave

to wash up the wood….”

Neruda placed the wood ocean view

in front of a window and placed

a photo of young Whitman on it &

a photo of old Whitman on it.

How Whitman loved lilacs.  You can

smell lilacs when you read Whitman.

Breathing lilacs our house falls dark

around us, drops like night clothing

days’ faces.  Convalescent hearted

lilac pilgrims cannot stop breathing

the wet dark lilac nights.

Put a bed of lilacs down

and I will meet you.  We will not sleep.

Friends all over are falling.

There are so many ways to fall.

Lilacs offer their transfusions.

In the Houghton Mifflin New

College Edition of AMERICAN HERITAGE

DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE, on page 757 (like/limb),

they show photos of the perfectly-postured

lily & the very well-behaved lily

of the valley.  What about lilacs?  I write

the editors.  What about scratch & sniff lilacs?

All over late May, lilacs like burglars

surround outbuildings,

& houses, & hospitals, & bus stops.

(On your way to your morning

bus, if you stop to pick Gabriel’s lilacs,

you will miss your bus.)

Lilacs heal lovers’

quarrels, and I swear they floated

the ship from Singapore

anchored outside our Memorial

Day lake breakwater,

making the huge ship look

like a ghost ship,

floating on lilac water.  You

already know a lot about a girl

if you see her carrying a sprig of lilacs,

if she tucks a sprig in her hair,

if she bathes in an evening tub

full of lilacs and water.

Night commendatory lilacs brush

the windows with lavender stars

of fragrance.  Dirigibles

of lilacs cover us beautifully

as a garden’s bell cloche.

I raise my lilac scratched arms

for the mammogram lady.

She arranges my breasts on her

just spray cleaned plastic plate

like cut flowers.  I believe in evening

she might be giving a formal dinner.

So much is conjecture,

subjective, history.

In the Downer Theatre yellow-starred,

emerald-green-tiled ticket booth,

the ticket seller sits like a fortune

teller.  She has put a wavy-script sign

in her window.  It reads: HOLD ON

TO YOUR MONEY OR IT WILL BLOW AWAY.

It should read: LILACS ARE ALWAYS

LOVELY.  They sign pleasure (On our

dark, night living

room floor, he surrounds me with lilacs

& whispers, “Now you mustn’t move).

Tulips & pumpkins trip me.

I feel misplaced as poodles

in Lake Michigan.  Poodles in Lake Michigan!

My mother told me I was mailed to earth

in an envelope of lilacs,

there is not one reason to disbelieve her.

In lilac days, my mouth full

of ripe, yellow starfruit,

I swallow and listen to the already almost

lilium & tomatoes & delphiniums &

the always too brief flowering lilacs.

In the dark I sneak

out on the soft, moon shine yarrow-

yellow-caterpillar like seed softened

sidewalks.  I stand pelted by soft

green maple seed wings that helix fall

wind whip to earth.  (In sunlight

the children will split & wear

on their noses the same winged seeds.)

I stand in the ample

lilacs, the only flower with enough

fragrance to convert everyone

in the city to crime.

Dorothy visited the Emerald City.  Yearly

I surrender myself to the unrestrained

wash rabble lilacs,

the windy caravan of lilacs,

the narcoleptic steambath

invitation of lilacs.

                        ~ first published in The Iowa Review

Tai Chi in 4 Movements

digital manipulation (ralph murre) of garment embroidery (artist unknown)

Tai Chi in 4 Movements

by Jackie Langetieg

I.  The Beginning

The teacher wears black and white,

light in opposition to dark--the symbol

for yin and yang.  Unknowingly

over half the group does, too,

I don’t feel as fat as I dreaded.

The warm-up is just camouflaged exercise,

but the sparkling day bribes me to enjoy it.

My hibernated muscles stretch stubbornly

I’m awkward--an elephant trying to be a jaguar.

II. The Form

My body tries to forget itself

return to the rhythm of nature.

I walk heavy, like a bear,

filled with bear power.

My chest is a box, my spine a string of pearls

connected to the universe.  I shift my weight

to the left foot, my right arm lifts on the kiss

of a breeze--weight

an anachronism of no weight.

Practice anything, she says in today’s farewell--

even if it’s wrong.  Next time you’ll have something

to correct. 

She didn’t check my form, touch my leg.

Am I already perfect?

Or has she deferred to the old bear instead--

left it to its lost causes.

III.  The Practice

I am in the barefoot dark--I step out cautiously

turning my right foot, stepping strongly on my left heel

settling into my balance.

I loosen my belly’s tension, turn my head,

pulling it past stiff neck muscles

rigid prisoners of my clenched jaw.

Just when foot is firm and body balanced--

the lean in to the wind thrilling as an untried lover--

a new direction is demanded.

Practice.  I don’t know where my balance

will meet my movement. Practice.

Start again in the familiar footfall,

turning,

leaning out,

feeling the sweet soul-kiss of new space made mine.

IV.  Animal Frolics

Resting deer, walking deer

press

fall back

turn

swing arm--not able to think like a deer

because I’m watching the teacher.

I close my eyes and become the deer,

drift through dark

                          rest

                                pull back

                                        listen for danger

                                                 press forward.

The pond wears its cool scent--

I walk on small boned hooves toward marsh grass,

ears up, tongue on the roof of my mouth,

jaw relaxed.

Each cool Tai Chi morning

of these storm-surrounded days remains perfect.

My garlic and brewers yeast discourage lazy mosquitoes.

Perhaps another night I’ll become a mosquito,

bite the deer, take her heart into my own,

and fly through the woods bending and pawing the earth.

~ first published by The Wisconsin Academy for Science, Arts, and Letters

POEM FOR THE DEPARTED

artwork: ralph murre

POEM FOR THE DEPARTED

by Michael Koehler

I want to write

a death poem,

for no one in particular.

I won’t say how you died.

And I can’t speak  for

the others left behind.

It’s almost certain

your death wasn’t fair,

was years too soon.

Unable to make a quilt

from your shirt, or braid your hair

into a vase of flowers,

or cast your dear face

in whitest porcelain

to hang on the wall,

please allow me these small words,

flower petals, really, no more,

for no other reason than

you know I need to write them.

~ previously published in Red Boots (Little Eagle Press)

Waste

photo: ralph murre

Waste

by Donna Hilbert

To change the water, I pluck

last week’s tulips from their vase,

but the turbans unhinge in my hands,

orange cups upend in the sink,

with underside bands

of stem-colored green revealed.

A still life subject, I think:

tulips in their disrepair.

My love is a painter. Daily I tell him,

paintings are everywhere

but poems, my dear, are rare.

I am not a painter,

so I drop the old petals into a sack

with over-ripe cheese, uneaten fruit

and down the back stairs I march

the whole tableau to the trash.

~ first published in Tears in the Fence

At a Jazz Bar in Denver . . .

photo: ralph murre

At a Jazz Bar in Denver with My Son

and His Friends, I Learn Something New

by Mary Jo Balistreri

I sit and listen in the midst

of my son’s crowd, speak

a bouncy banter.

We kill time

with the Simpsons before

David plays jazz.

In jeans and casual jackets,

we drink Coors,

check the wind-tossed sky,

the flash of lightning, hoping

in spite of the weather, a crowd

will pour through the door.

After a while, I hear a shift

of tone, a carefulness

I hadn’t noticed before.

In a conversation of augmented fifths

and ninths, the friends address me

in safe thirds. I listen more carefully.

Where is the cutting edge,

the forward motion? We converse

in C major, squarely metered.

I sit back stunned. The lack

of dissonance strikes a new chord.

When did Youth leave me and move on?

I adjust my position on the barstool,

lean into her absence, wonder

how I never saw her go.

                                   

~ first published in the San Pedro River Review

Sonnet for a Long Winter

photoart: sharon auberle

Sonnet for a Long Winter

by Christine Swanberg

The long winter procrastinates this year

like a difficult decision. To stay

or leave? The voice is not so crystal clear.

Is it a groove or rut we must obey

when all our senses stick like ice dams clogged

with winter inertia within our veins?

O, if only our minds could be de-fogged.

O, if only we could release the chains

that bind us to a life lived under par.

See how the crocus finally fights through soil

hard and cold? Such icy courage goes far

and yet comes so naturally without toil.

Perhaps the answer lies in staying still,

flowing with the force, let come what will.

~ first published in the Rock River Times

I Wanted To Grow Up

cover photo: stephan mazurek

I Wanted To Grow Up

by Lisa Vihos

I wanted to grow up to be a poet.

The burly, mountain-man kind of poet

with a thick beard and a wild look in my eye.

I would wear torn jeans and flannel shirts

with sleeves rolled up over thermal underwear.

I would not be a drunkard.

Every morning, I would rise before the sun

and make a pot of coffee, then, to work.

When words failed me, I’d split wood, take a bath.

Now and then, I would journey to small colleges

up and down the coast, reading and teaching

on dappled sunlit afternoons in ancient classrooms

that smell of dust and youth; the brawls of academia

unable to mar my poet’s wings. I’d be a paragon

of dedication to my craft.

I would revel in the great and small, the misfit

and the misbegotten. I would sift through words

like jelly beans, roll them across my tongue

and place them ever so gently in your ear

where they might work their way down into

your solar plexus, taking hold of your digestion.

My rugged good looks would light my way

and without knowing how, I’d generally end my day

with someone’s legs wrapped around my back.

But my loneliness would be deep

and wide as the ocean. No lover’s croon

could ever keep me still or match the call

of the Sirens waiting for me on the rocks.

Me, chained to my mast, drenched in their song,

words dripping from me like sweat.

~ first appeared in A Brief History of Mail (Pebblebrook Press)

1950

artwork: ralph murre

1950

by Bruce Dethlefsen

at night

my mother bathed me in a white tub

scrubbed me with white soap

rubbed me in a white towel

hugged and plugged me

into pajamas and the white sheets

an act so kind

so common

it barely happened

~ first published in Hodge Podge Poetry

Reclining Woman

photo: patricia wellingham-jones

Reclining Woman       

by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Like a river siren

washed off her boulder,

spun through white water,

flung up on shore, she rests

against the bridge abutment.

Her legs stretch out on gravel,

weeds bend over her torso,

arms seem to droop at her side,

her head lolls in sleep.

From my deck across the stream

she’s a reclining woman.

Up close, flotsam and jetsam

from last winter’s flood.

~ first published in Rattlesnake Review

To the Artist of the Unsigned Painting

unsigned painting: artist unknown

To the Artist of the Unsigned Painting

by Donna K. Pflueger

Why didn’t you counsel the drunken fence

before it stumbled along to escape this weary frame?

Or mend the livestock pen and fill it

with full-bellied goats?  Your farmhouse is dying

as planks of rough-hewn wood splinter, 

age to thirsty gray while blooms of crab apple trees

feed on the roof, smother windows and block

the pallid light from a sky that has given up

its clouds.  Not one coneflower shivers

in the breeze to spread its seed; no child’s

playful step imprints upon the bluestem grass.

You plant after-thoughts of a life in stern soil:

father, son, farmhand, their faces hiding

behind wide-brimmed hats as they slouch

their shoulders.  You leave their feet unseen

like shackled roots of a past that cannot be freed.

Ah, but the woman with broad brown cheekbones,

hair the hue of wisdom, her legs spread wide

beneath a long skirt. She sits upon a bench and watches

as you drape a blue shawl over her shoulders,

and with your final brushstroke,

you grace her with a smile.

~ first published in Mobius, The Poetry Magazine

TRAPPED

digital negative: extreme detail -  street art, buenos aires

TRAPPED

by Cathryn Cofell

You talk too much, your voice consumes the night.

It’s not your metaphors I want to have extended,

it’s your long legs on, over, around me like atoms,

it’s your work-stained hands igniting my atoms,

writing and re-writing the lines of my extended

body, not this language of the haunted and the night.

Your mouth has more important things to stir:

tongue me a haiku, tend me like a spring tree,

kiss me here and here to quiver, to burst.

Feel it?  I am a magnolia bud about to burst,

I am the ripe musk of a magnolia tree:

dig at my roots and all my branches will stir.

Enough with the words. Enough with the half names.

Don’t you know how wrong it is to call out other

loves in the dark naked clasp of my arms? This, yes,

is what brought us here—the patter, the meter, yes,

the recoil, but set them free outside now, another

prey wants ambush, begs you to pray my name.

~ previously published in The Wisconsin Academy Review

A farewell . . .

photoart: ralph murre, from a photo by bobbie krinsky

Norbert ~

If, once again, you must lead us where we will surely follow; Via con Dios, Amigo. Gracias por todo.  My English is not good enough to express what I feel.  I resort to a language I do not speak.  You understand.     ~ Ralph  

. . .

This morning, our friend, Norbert Blei, left us to wander in another realm.  Sunnier, maybe.  He was our teacher, our compadre, our conscience sometimes.  He was the thorn in our side.  He was the salve for our wounds.  He was our encyclopedia.  And he wrote.  Oh, Jesus, he wrote.  He published some of us, read us, read to us.  He told me I was a poet, and I believed him.

Norb caught the 8:18 train this morning.  Jude was there, on that cold platform, to see him off.

My deepest sympathy to his children and to all who loved him.

Fare thee well, Norbert.     ~ RM

(Note: for those unfamiliar with the man, I suggest beginning your acquaintance by looking him up on Wikipedia)