ON THE MEANING OF

photoart: sharon auberle

ON THE MEANING OF

by Linda Back Mckay

This is what life does.

It wakes you in the morning

before the morning

glories open and gives you

the sound of your mother’s voice.

Life spreads itself across

the ceiling to make you think

you are penned in, but that

is just another gift. Life takes

what you thought you couldn’t live

without and gives you a heron instead.

And a dragonfly, stitching its way

through the milkweed. Life contains all

of your tears in a vessel

shaped like hands in prayer.

Life is shape, sight, sound, bone.

It whispers and sings and holds

you and you almost never feel it.

You push your way from phase to phase.

You are a horse with blinders.

You think you are pulling, but you

are being driven.

While going about your solitary life,

one hoof in front of the other,

real life is turning the stars,

like mirrors, in your direction.

~ first published in Verse Wisconsin

When asked

artwork: ralph murre

When asked

 by Albert De Genova

Tell us something about your saxophone…

Well, it’s been with me a long long time–

It is the back beat in my bones

swaggering through nights of smoke and moan

a brassy whore of musk and wine.

I’ll tell you somethin’ ‘bout my saxophone.

A voodoo spell of chants and stones,

it’s filled with grindin’-n-blues-in’ and rhyme.

And more,        it knows the crying in my bones

knows the unanswered echo of a telephone

has traveled the roads of lies and crimes.

Let me tell you ‘bout my saxophone.

Sometimes it has a mind of its own

its reedy voice don’t sound like mine,

yet it’s always ringing through my bones.

In my hands it feels like home

a curious marriage of wind and time.

I’ll tell you ‘bout my saxophone

it is the singing in my bones.

~ previously published in Back Beat, second edition (Fractal Edge Press)

Backyard Pond, Brocaded Carp

Backyard Pond, Brocaded Carp 

by Lisa J. Cihlar

My daily yard and garden tour.  I carry fish pellets to the pond.  My largest gold and black koi has died.  The local raccoon got others by feeling behind rocks and in crevasses with paws that look like tiny desiccated human hands.  He didn’t get this one.  I know because there are no half-eaten fish parts scattered in the grass.  This fish just died, old age, some fish disease that I can’t fathom. 

It floats on the surface now, half-sheltered by a water-lily leaf, almost mistaken for a flower-bud.  I scoop the body up in my hand, feel the roll of maggots under scales.  I recoil, send it back into the water and the dozen living carp of many colors come to feast on the larvae, a free-floating meteor shower.

Grant Park Jazz Gala

dragonflies swirl up, over

improvisation

~ first published in Frogpond Journal

Bennie

artwork: ralph murre

Bennie

by Don Schaeffer

Just earning a living;

I look at his hair, thin

but he owns it.

When I see how he tries to part it

my heart opens.

There is a rim of something moist

and the grease has

spread to his shirt.

I decide I can forgive him for that.

I suppose he will go home

sometime where it's dark and

solitary. He will

wash and run

his hand over his scalp and

put those precious pants

over a chair, sink onto some kind of bed

and close his eyes.

~ previously published in Tryst

SCISSOR HAPPY

photoart: ralph murre

SCISSOR HAPPY

by Bonnie T. Summers

If I were a pair of scissors, I would do whatever I wanted, even what I was not supposed to. I would not do it to be mean, only to test my strength and agility against substantive matters.  Just cut loose, for the sheer joy of it!

I would start with wires—the ones that promise instant, static-free and worldwide connection, illumination, or perfect toast—and show them who’s really in charge. 

I would carve mazes through graph paper grids, score “Fold Here” lines across Rolodex cards, and shape colored file folders into Matisse-like organic forms. I would pretend to be pinking shears, zigzagging the rows of Avery labels, then snap crayons in two with my might. 

I would give cloth napkins interesting edges. I’d see what I could do with Tupperware, baskets woven of natural material, frozen waffles, a ripe kiwi, a raw egg. I would cut into empty plastic milk bottles for practice, then open the refrigerator and jab low into a full one, watching to see white pools form and cascade over the glass shelves beneath.

Next I would find the needlepoint-covered piano bench and painstakingly separate foreground from background. I’d slide my blade along candle edges and scrape the wax shavings into a Ziploc bag. I’d cut through several pairs of pantyhose at once, thereby amputating the legs. I would snip squares from the seats of underpants and stars out of bra cups. I would fringe the shower curtain, skewer bars of soap and carve a Q-tip lengthwise. I’d form small spirals in bath towels so that fingers could point through. I would trim eyelashes very carefully.

I would cut the edges of hardbound books along the center spine because they’re beautiful, and the narrow space between the binding and glued pages fits me perfectly.  I’d make anatomically correct paper dolls from brown grocery bags, crosshatch the palms of mittens, and give scalloped haircuts to anyone who wants a new look. I’d double the number of family photographs by slicing them in two. I would shorten the chains that hang from the ceiling’s bare light bulb fixtures and snip bits of carpet to collect in a small glass bowl. I would divide the retractable metal tape measure at regular intervals. I’d make a diagonal incision in the toothpaste tube, rinse myself off and look around for something more. 

I would go outside to carve rosebuds horizontally and spiral-cut a watermelon still on the vine. I would engrave infinity signs into aluminum siding, crew cut the paintbrushes and bisect bicycle spokes. I would slit the inside roof of the car to see what’s between fabric and steel and, of course, explore the upholstery. As to the cables under the hood, I would use my discretion. I would open up the garden hose lengthwise, then go down the street.

I would encourage the cracks in sidewalks to continue on their way, help the elderly mow their lawns and de-foam cappuccino. I’d poke peek-a-boo holes in newspapers for rush hour, then carve X’s and O’s into the headstones of dead relatives. 

I’d shred the paper covers on the doctor’s examining table into confetti while waiting, and make sieves out of those little plastic specimen cups. I would slice condoms (unoccupied ones) at ¼” intervals, making handy rubber bands. I would cut quarters into quarters. 

I would gently coax the hands away from clocks, so we can see their faces better. I’d make Disney-like topiaries throughout city parks, filigree snowballs, wreak havoc with cans of paint and remove the bottoms from Nordstrom Anniversary Sale shopping bags. I would make vestments holey and legal briefs brief. I would trim the sails, making tall ships short. I would deckle the edges of tax returns, split a bottle of Merlot and emancipate violin strings. I would decide when the theatre curtain comes down. 

I would trim cumulus clouds away from blue sky to be repositioned at will, like Colorforms. I’d shred ribbons of highways along their dotted yellow lines. I would shape sedimentary rock into giant chess pieces. I would make the Arctic Circle oval, and create a trapezoid from a Greyhound bus windshield. I would turn sunsets into 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, then perforate the night sky so stars and planets could connect dot-to-dot. 

I would cut through red tape.  I would cut class, corners, the lights and the mustard. I would cut and not paste. I would snip the thin elastic strings that hold masks in place, penetrate hard hearts, deflate egos, and eliminate class, race and gender barriers once and for all. I would cut the umbilical cord and apron strings.  I would sever ties. And then?  Well, Venetian blinds have a certain appeal—maybe next I’ll clip the cords between the slats, bottom to top, right side first . . . just to see what would happen.

~ first published in Peninsula Pulse

Was There a Poem?

artwork: ralph murre

Was There a Poem ?

by Ralph Murre

In her dark hands that milked cows and made lace,

hands that fixed tractors and wiped tears?

A poem in the dark hands

that built houses and kept them, that worked the earth

and folded to a heaven she was sure of ?

Hands that hammered out justice and

handed out calloused caresses;

those hands that labored at the piano,

but changed flat tires with ease?

Was there a song in her dark eyes

that laughed easy, but cried hard;

eyes that saw good wherever it hid?

Eyes that struggled in darkness

to read the verses and read them again

until she saw light in the words?

A song in the dark eyes that bid me welcome,

the colorless eyes that I bid good-bye?

Was there a portrait in her dark face?

- first published in Crude Red Boat (Cross + Roads Press)

Four Seasons

artwork: william marr

FOUR SEASONS

 by William Marr

Spring

such commotion

it can only be

first love

I don’t recall ever seeing

so fresh a green

Summer

to say that your smile

lights up the whole garden

is of course an exaggeration

but I did indeed see

a flower bloom

at your approach

Autumn

when his wife and children

comb and find a gray hair

on his head

he can detect in their exclamations

an insuppressible joy

of the gleaners

Winter

the colder the day is

the brighter the furnace burns

there is no energy crisis

in our hearts

~ first published in Autumn Window ( Arbor Hill Press)

Stilt Walking the Upper Peninsula

photo: ralph murre

Stilt Walking the Upper Peninsula

by Gillian Nevers

By the time I thought to wake you, the stilt walker,

black rain pants billowing in the wind, was behind us. 

His lumbering figure receding in the rearview mirror, his

day-glow yellow knapsack disappearing into the west.

It felt like a good omen for the trip east—this lanky boy,

grappling with gravity along the shoulder of a highway.

So much so, it made magical sense that a deer would stare

at me from the side view mirror, until the interior went dark and

a blur of brown passed over the windshield.  The thud, then tear of

hoof etching furrows into the roof ringing in my ears—Oh,

please God, let it be dead.

You walked to where the deer lay and stood, as if in prayer,

a black silhouette back-lit by semis barreling through

the morning fog, before dragging it off the shoulder and rolling it

into the ditch.

Sheets of rain slashed across the road, slowed us, rattled

our nerves, all the way to Montréal.  We missed our exit. 

Took the next one. Relieved to be off the labyrinth of merging

lanes and ramps, found our way to the center, to our shabby hotel.

If our room had been in the French hotel across the street, if

the sun had shone, if you had read the street map.  If we had not

wandered for hours, arriving at the Marché Jean-Talon too early,

the Jardin Botanique, too late.  If the Mexican restaurant beneath

our room had closed at midnight.  If rain had not followed us

to Vermont, chased us through New York, swept us back …

We drove in silence, the rhythm of windshield wipers a metronome

keeping time with our thoughts.  At night, in each anonymous motel,

we talked about the deer, as if it were a child we failed to protect.  Maybe

it was only stunned.  Maybe after we drove off, it struggled to its feet,

ran into the woods.  “Maybe,” you said, “the deer was no more real

than that stilt-walking kid you say you saw.”

About an hour out from Ludington, the rain stopped.  Still,

I couldn’t shake the damp, stood on the deck watching

the ferry’s wake, wanting the sun’s heat.  You came, stood

beside me and read from the Detroit Free Press, “Stilt-walker

says trek has shown him Michiganders at their best.”  Neil Sauter,

a Blissfield resident, with mild cerebral palsy, completed

his 800-mile trek across Michigan.

Blissfield.     Maybe, we should go there some day.

~ previously published in Verse Wisconsin

ALL AFTERNOON

ALL AFTERNOON

by Robert W. King

The snow, the barber said, would make it hard

at the graveside later that afternoon,

that far away, streets already blurring.

I’d be the last, he’d close the shop, he’d take

the camera, the family not together for—

he didn’t know how long.

As my hair got trimmed, I thought I’d think

all afternoon of the cemetery,

the mourners arrived over dangerous         

beautiful roads, some final photograph,

an open tent arched over an open grave.

Instead, I saw the look of the dark shop

closed, its spiral of red and white, the ribbon

of blood curling under our skin,

stopped in its continual returning.

~ first published in Green Hills Literary Lantern

. . . Friends and Other Strangers

October 11, Noon:   Friends and Other Strangers

by Angela Consolo Mankiewicz

           

            Instead of plaster, massive plates of glass

            pretend to be a wall; they pass me by,

            bouncing autumn sun off my eyes, playing

            back a too-familiar image:  Me.  Here.

            It isn't right, a hospital you see through;

            a hospital you see through has no shame.

            I need my wall. 

            Not loving friends.

            I learned the rules of waiting lightyears past;

            I pass GO everytime, on every roll, without repeating:

            I'm ok, honest.

            They're driving in by now, they can't be stopped -

            damn them - why did I say Come?

                        In case.  In case of what?  In case the shaman's

                        tools, gleaming in a stranger's hands, slip.

            That's what they think.  But that bet's safe,

            riding smug and easy on veteran skill,

            making the 1st cut for biopsy 2,

            the one they don't know about, the one

            that counts, the one that says:  Ok - Continue, or,

            Sorry - too late, after all - Close him up.

            I should have heard by now,

            before they find a place to park, flounder

            through 6 tiers of lobbies, sight me

            among my peers.

            What's wrong with them?  Don't they know civility demands

            that screams be secret?  Don't they know

            I can't be touched today?  I can't

            be seen today?

                        Why not?  What could they see?

                        Me.  Alone.  Like them.

                        They'll reach for me, they'll

                        think their words are more than

                        poundings in my head.

            I take a walk and have a cigarette.

            I look at windows, hold a magazine.

            They said they'd be here, twelve o'clock, they said.

            What time is it?  It's 12:05.  They're late.

~ first published in Sensations

STARLINGS

artwork: ralph murre

STARLINGS                                                        

by John Flynn

You have to come

to an accommodation

with the starlings.

There are so many of them.

They take over a yard

like convicts too long confined,

and are without grace.

Purposeful, persistent.     

Not too pushy. But

enough to get by.

In wintertime

on the coldest days

they hunch on the top

of chimneys, beaks to

the feathery smoke,

to stay warm.

They accommodate us

and survive by our smoke.

They survive by our smoke.

They persist.

Not with starlings

is black white

or lies the truth.

They are the truth,

the starlings.

Looked down upon,

derided for their gaucherie.

Less is less.

More is more.

Accommodate.

Persist.

~ first published in Minneapolis Observer Quarterly

Graffiti in Tunisia . . .

photoart, detail: sharon auberle

Graffiti in Tunisia: Merci Facebook

                    

by Marilyn Peretti

When his fruit cart was confiscated

he lit himself in gasoline,

police deprived him of a living,

no chance for work in Sidi Bouzid.

When he lit himself in gasoline:

Mohammed Bouazizi became the martyr,

no chance for work in Sidi Bouzid,

as in all towns, even Tunis.

Mohammed Bouazizi became the martyr,

sending flames through Arab lands,

through all towns, even Tunis—

their despot fled across the sands

sending flames through Arab lands.

By Facebook, word spread of liberation,

urging despots to flee across the sands

in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Yemen.

By Facebook, word spread of liberation,

tyrants had deprived them of a living

in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Yemen,

ignited when his cart was confiscated.

~ first published in Current

WORK & PRAYER

WORK & PRAYER

by Bruce Taylor

Yesterday after chapel, Modestes    

who sometimes wakes me by

singing the Veni Creator Spiritus

very loudly in his sleep

took me to the barnyard

for the blessing of the animals.

As this month’s rectory second‑servant,

I had to go to say my prayers

and then put out the soup

but first the shy calves in the calf pen,

then the indifferent sheep.

The chickens we could not catch

we blessed on the wing.

The rabbits stood still

for our censer and incense

but shivered when we dropped

the holy‑water on them.

Even the devils, Modestes says,                                                                               

deserve God, so we chased

a few apostate ducks through                     

the ragged fence he’ll have me

mending the next day, or the next.

~ first published in Cumberland Review

An Immodest Proposal

artwork: ralph murre

An Immodest Proposal

by Martha Kaplan

Let us now fire all immigrants

Too many work to prepare the food we eat

To slaughter the meat

To truck the meat to market

To harvest in the fields from dark to dark

Too many slave in conditions we choose not to see

Let us now fire them all

And feed ourselves the sludge and slime that we create

Let us free the rivers that we have dammed until no

Rivers flow below our borders

Too many work for wages far below our own

Or none, to build our ticky-tack houses from sun to sun

Our skyscrapers high on desert floors

To trim our elegant trees, or clean our floors, bent

Knees before our un-flushed latrines

Too many kiss and hug, and feed and comfort,

Our offspring in schools too dear for them to afford,

And let us fire all those who have finished soldiering

For us in all our foreign wars

Let us now fire all immigrants

Let us also send back those children of immigrants

Born here among us, though citizens, they clearly do not

Belong, their languages too melodic to the ear,

Their food too varied, too unlike the meatloaf of cows

Raised on evil corn, the night-Trojan horse,

Eater of prairie soil, let us send back all who come

Without influence and power to this blood soil,

These high mountains, our ocean shores, and let us

Extend this principle of exclusion

To all the generations of those who have come

from outside these borders,

To those whose children ate the trees

extending from sea to sea,

And blew away the twelve feet deep soil, the work

of millennia,

And who sing of purple mountains beautiful

And golden waves of grass as if the few

Hundred years of residency despoiling this place

grants them grace

Send them back across the seas,

Give back the land to those here first,

Those these newcomers call “new,” and I too

Will wave from the boat sending me back

To the killing fields of Europe

~ first published in Mobius, The Poetry Magazine

a visit to the museo del prado

artwork: norman j. olson

a visit to the museo del prado

 by Norman J. Olson

I saw an El Greco man

in the museum today, dangling

gangling

arms… 

I saw pictures of flying

gods swarming like all the monkeys

of Oz…  pictures of

conquistadors

in gilt frames

on guilty walls…  genocidal nazis, yes, but

for all of that tough sons of bitches,

in gray painted grieves reflecting

specks of

16^th Century light…  imagine that light

hopping like a rabbit down mullioned halls,

vaulting

through vast webs

of empty and black painted space…

a woman with a face like a seashell

closed a shutter to keep the evening sun from touching

the wall…  imagine…

I heard a voice crying out

in English…  too loud

in

the echoing galleries…  cursing…

I hoped it was not my voice…

I hoped it was not my bloody hands

tearing at the gray painted

shackles

of light

and time…

~ first published in Ascent Aspirations

Had I stayed home . . .

photoart: ralph murre

Had I stayed home and married

by Wilda Morris

Had I stayed home and married

that girl in San Francisco

I would not have known

the kingly feel of perching

on the lead camel in a caravan

crossing rolling grasslands

of Mongolia, the hissing sand

across the high dunes of the Ordos,

cresting like waves and breaking,

the hazy smoke of dung fires

at daybreak, the sight of women

dipping water from the creek,

the storyteller with his tales                                                             

of princes, dragons, demons

punctuated by the ping

of a tuning fork.

Had I stayed home and married

that girl in San Francisco

I would not have wakened on a houseboat,

the Yangtze in flood tearing it

from the levee where we’d moored,

not rescued frightened peasants,

nor had to push clawing hands

from the side when the boat

was already too full.

Had I stayed home and married

that girl in San Francisco

I would not have stood

before the Dragon Throne

in the Forbidden City

when Pu-Yi was declared Emperor

again, nor had to escape

General Li by donning golden robes

and joining a procession of monks.

Had I stayed home and married

that girl in San Francisco

I would not have caravanned

into an April blizzard, lost

my snow goggles, had my sight

ruined.  But oh, sure as my name

is Fred Meyer Schroder,

what I had already seen and done

gave me a lifetime of tales to tell

that girl in San Francisco

when I did go home to marry her.

~ first published in Prairie Light Review