Mountain Barn

artwork: ralph murre

Mountain Barn

by John Flynn

The mountain barn

low, close and warm

held fast the wild horned Hereford cows

lined up to milk.

Within the mangers kittens woke

and used the shaggy, rolling heads

to hide behind and play their games.

So little of the morning’s breaking light leaked in

that chores were done by touch

and so familiar were the sounds

     (metallic when the streams of milk were

      squeezed against the pail’s wall and wooden

     when a startled cow would jerk her head

     against the smoothworn rope that held her)

that one could watch in darkness

and view dusty dreams of olden times

before and afterwards.

Milking done, a girl slid back the door

and farther out undid the wired gate

for the mudded walk to pasture.

Each wary cow would pause

and look about, wide eyed and dumb,

before she slipped her haunches

through the hole and tumbled

from the steaming shed.                        

The girl stood back and pitched a cow chip at

the last brown beast that ambled past,

shadow spotted by the trees.

~ first published by the Gilcrease Museum of Western Art

Life After Death

photoart: ralph murre

Life After Death

by Peggy Trojan

My father never gets

the hang of being dead.

He lived so long, so willingly,

he never accepts his life

is finished, done, kaput.

He appears at family gatherings,

presence comforting as wood smoke,

laughter swirling through the stories.

On trips out of town,

he grumps in the back seat,

now that he can’t call shotgun.

This afternoon, there he was

at the table by the window,

easing his back into the sun,

looking for a cup of coffee

and a cinnamon roll

~ previously published in Eye on Life Magazine

The Center, Not Holding

photoart: ralph murre

The Center, Not Holding                     

                        after re-reading Yeats' The Second Coming

by Ed Werstein

Here is what has been revealed so far:

That tide of anarchy
stemmed in its infancy

might have been preferable

to this.

The shapes of tanks and missiles

dim the sands of two deserts

with the blood of both the innocent

and the invaders,

sending even more

indignant desert birds

into flights of terror.

Here at home,

blind falconers on Wall Street

cannot control the economy,

which is only one of many things

falling apart.

Those who have convictions,

are full of the passionate

intensity of polarity.

Meanwhile, the hungry falcon

spirals out of control

in search of more prey,

its hooked beak, sharp talons

and beady eyes,

now focused firmly

on the middle class,

the center that is not holding.

Darkness drops

as the rough beast

of deep recession,
having devoured Bethlehem

and other steel towns

decades ago,

slouches on and on.

~ first published in The Blue Collar Review

AT FIFTY-FIVE

artwork: ralph murre

AT FIFTY-FIVE

by Susan Spaeth Cherry

she’s meatless,

wheatless,

a drinker of only

filtered water

and chai tea sweetened

with stevia.

T’ai chi

and meditation

can’t stop her

from running

laps on the track

of her synapses

until she’s breathless.

Gone are the years

of feeling defeatless,

of being weightless.

She’s on the wait list

for old age,

not number one

or even twenty,

but able to see

the top of the paper.

~ previously appeared in How Can You Say We Are Not Related

  (Scurfpea Publishing)

Free Fall

digital art: ralph murre

Free Fall

by David Clowers

When the branch broke

under me—recalling Icarus—

I willed myself to fly

but dropped anyway

through tangle of tree limbs

strong winds knocked down

and found

I‘m only

the latest one

to fall.

~ first published in the Peninsula Pulse

Lake George, Autumn

artwork: georgia o'keeffe

Lake George, Autumn

(Inspired by the painting by Georgia O’Keeffe)

by Cristina M.R. Norcross

Sun-burnt trees bow

and kiss the earth

like rows of praying women.

They lift their heavy heads,

leveling their gaze at the lake,

as the deep, lustrous tones of Autumn

spread like brush fire

during a dry heat wave.

Shadows play along the surface,

turning crystal clear water

into the troubled depths of sapphire blue.

The mountains stand guard –

a watchful blanket of crimson vegetation.

I wrap myself in this

scene of dark decay,

that smells of sweet licorice and smoke,

expecting to find more length

to the season.

Touches of yellow evaporate

on the tips of tree tops,

and the mellow sun fades

earlier each day.

Winter washes the palette clean,

and we wait impatiently

for buds to bloom.

~ first published in The Toronto Quarterly

Sight Lines

photo: ralph murre

          Sight Lines

            by Richard Merelman

            Whenever we get together, my sister goes on

            about the beauty of rapids, puddles, ripples.   She speaks

            of a thunderstorm that announces a rainbow

            or of a sprightly trout run behind her barn.  If a cold autumn

            kills her young sycamore, it doesn’t matter

            because the stream remains a fisherman’s paradise.

            During droughts, the brook becomes a rivulet connected

            to Lake Oneida, where she and her husband spend

            the summer months.  My sister welcomes

            thaws as water scrawls, calls a drop of water

            courageous for opening an ice dam to light. 

            She refers to hot springs as vapor prayers, to runnels

            as infant waterfalls, and to a month of drizzle      

            as an April shower. Water-soaked Communion wafers

            she describes as doubly holy.  Lovely enough stuff,

            while a few yards from my cabin on this slough of the Hudson

            silt and slime and sludge congeal into a beige paste

            that settles behind abandoned backwater shacks.

            Last week I wrote my sister about the snapping turtle I found

            upside-down at the edge of a jetty, claws gnawed, stomach

            gutted by hovering buzzards.  The odor of the swamp

            across the road causes my eyes to water.  Marsh grass

            strangles lily pads that used to float on the surface.

            Three miles north, the river unfolds into a pastel fan.  But here

            the channel narrows, slackens, spawns a greasy sheen.

            Every Easter I vow to visit a pastor.  Always, a sheath

            of fog sets down, like a swarm of black flies.

            I could drive through the darkness to Mass,

            though, as I tell my sister, I never go.  When she asks me why,

            I remember the bloated carp in the shallows.  It’s the things I see, I say.

             ~  first published in Verse Wisconsin                       

Rendezvous

artwork: ralph murre

Rendezvous

by Julie C. Eger

My poem strolls in at midnight

like Humphrey Bogart,

tosses his coat and hat on my bed.

I pull back the curtain,

glance out at the lighted drive.

He’s backed in – front end

aimed at the highway.

His plan – a quick get-away.

But for now I lie

down beside him,

and because I am

a methodical woman

and alluring –

I undress him slowly,

one layer at a time

to reveal his hidden intent

and he stays,

this time better than the last –

His tie is on the floor now.

He’s gone – down the highway

I suppose

I am satisfied

he came at all

~ first appeared on Poetry Dispatch

My Epic

photo: ralph murre

My Epic

by Don Schaeffer

Like the beginning of a big

movie, the field of the eye

spans the earth, quickly

narrowing into a city

and street.

From the sweep of the planet,

it devolves into

a stage set.

We take

this entire house

and wear it down

to one crowded

corner.

~ first published in The Argotist Online

FADE TO BLACK

photo: ralph murre

FADE TO BLACK

by Linda Back McKay

As clotted clouds

crowd the sky

dry grass rasps

against fence posts.

The creek is scoured

with rocks.

How they hold

themselves fiercely

against landscaped

yards where

shards of daisies

stay innocent,

where summer

air sluices with

the sibilance of

grasshoppers,

katydids and peepers.

All the world

must die. Only

rocks remain

unscathed by human

folly until

an unseen hand

brings down

the window shade.

~ first published in The Next Best Thing (Nodin Press)

Offspring of Sedition

digital art: ralph murre

Offspring of Sedition

 by Jan Oskar Hansen

In narrow streets between factories that

had never been adorned by paint, as though

out of grey walls they came, silent children

of a different and darker world.

Don’t speak to them, my brother said, they are

foreigners and enemies of the country, a by-

product of a lost army and treasonous women

who are outcasts forever.     

Where the street widened to a square, near

The clear blue, unpolluted sea, there was

sunlight and the unspeakable children slunk

back into damp walls not to be seen again.

~ previously published in Cracks in the Mirror (cyberwit)

Trees at the Somme

photoart: sharon auberle

 

Trees at the Somme

by Alice D’Alessio

 

What you notice first

is a landscape without presence,

motion or sound: a flat field,

a column of trees.

The red-brown soil buries

the cries of dying soldiers,

the blood and piss, the threads

of shredded fabric, buttons

and matted hair.  The soil

that someone tills each spring –

carving parallel scars in a sterile field

too full of cordite for anything to grow.

Time's merciful silting thickens.

Only a small brown hut

memorializes this place

and the trees, stark witnesses,

scarred by stray bullets lodged in their flesh.

If they could speak

to those who come in awe

to those too young to know;

could answer, what was it like?

Just once, would someone listen?

Or must we go on tilling poison soil

planting fields of sorrow.

~ first published in A Blessing of Trees (Cross + Roads Press)

At the Oriental Theater . . .

artwork: ralph murre

 At the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee

 by Stephen Anderson

Something tells me that the little man

in striped short sleeves and a Sears’ tie

could really cut loose with a wild, wailing

boogie-woogie on that awesome Kimball concert organ

on stage down at the Oriental Theater,

instead of the take-me-out-to-the-ballgame/true-blue

schmaltz he is probably told to play before the previews

come on.  Not that there’s anything patently wrong

with his standard repertoire, but that magnificent organ

has got to be capable of so much more, as I’m sure the man is.

Watching him play, I can imagine him suddenly exploding

into a Ray Charles or, hell, even a Jerry Lee Lewis rocking rendition

in which he shakes the sleepy, popcorn-eating, soda swilling place

up a bit, maybe even bringing those exotic moldings and fixtures to life

before the main feature sparkles from the screen.

And so, every time I’m sitting there waiting for the big screen fare,

I’ll imagine how nice it would be if he could, just once,

snap out of the corral he’s in, out of all that has been constrained inside,

and make hulk-like all that stuff barely breathing there.

                                                                 

~ previously published in Fox Cry Review

Drought

photo: ralph murre

Drought

by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

When I was a child, a greenhouse seemed exotic--

poinsettias peering out at snow.

Easter lilies white as wedding gowns.

glass mysterious with the breath of plants.

Now, we all live in one,

the sun a giant gro-light,

the air a maze of halogen.

No pounding on the glass will set us free.

Someday from the lemur-eyes of gas masks,

we will see faint outlines of our ghosts --

lisping breath of proboscis-hoses.

Stunted corn will be plowed under

for wheat fields that do not germinate.

Shriveled leaves will blanket the ground

white as drifts of snow

that once held the prints of angels.

Sleds will hang on museum walls,

children's ice skates rest behind glass.

If science concocts a giant mirror, pale antidote

to deflect sun, will it crack like a glacier?

Children, ask grandpa, when you gather at his knee,

to tell you about when there were birds

who rode on air you couldn't see.

~ previously published in Earth First!

FOR DANCING

photo: ralph murre

FOR DANCING

by Bruce Taylor

Trembling in sympathy

unstroked by the bow

not the string played but

the string next to it

not music but what

in music makes us

wish we were dancing

in the present arms

of not forgotten lovers

whose sweep and purl

as midnight disappears

whose glide like that

lightly out of control

breathlessly unaware of

ability and will

whose reach of flesh

under fabric whose wanton

body of a beautiful youth

ever eager in our arms.

~ first appeared in The Wisconsin Academy Review

SANCTUARY

photo: sharon auberle

SANCTUARY

by Sharon Auberle

Tell me it’s coincidence

my watch stopped here

in this timeless place

a place where deer speak

a silent language

and you understand

where a trail of lady slippers

leads through the woods

to a stranger, who speaks

of emerald dragonflies

and your hands shimmer

with light and you dance

with yourself, in a dream

a place where great banks of lilacs

scent the air and a bowl of beans

tastes fine as caviar

where night rain comes

softly in, bearing sleep

in her arms, tell me

this is coincidence

and I will send you on your way.

You do not belong here.

~ first published in Lilipoh

VANISHED AWAY COMPLETELY

collage: daniel abdal-hayy moore

VANISHED AWAY COMPLETELY

by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

I always feel it could all just evaporate away at

any moment that it’s on the

verge of evaporating right this minute that

some parts of it are already going and I’m left

with nothing or next to nothing

were it not for the divine adhesive

That I’m on the verge of losing it all and any

ability to capture it or typify it or even just

sing limp songs to it in my fashion with all their

stampeding horses and heart-pulses throughout them

golden or not a few forlorn lamentations or

jubilations

And then look around at a scarce and

barren place with some bent figures in the

distance combing through the debris perhaps to

complete the post-holocaustal picture

but even in its minute particulars life is

but a dream merrily merrily we row our

boat down and the breath of

death angels on our cheeks gives them that

peach flush

There’s an abyss between us and what we see

Ghostly ships are coming into harbor

great sails are unfurling and it’s actually

more universe about to vanish in smoke

As their prows become visible they’re already

evaporating

And yet the earnest sincerity of good-hearted people

suggests a kind of permanence

A thing which is already disembodied and

subtle in nature

has more solid endurance and reality and

fills up the abyss with something more than

fantastic zoo animals

ibexes dik-diks creatures with

curlicue horns and beady eyes

Soul-stuff actually is of the permanent universe

while everything else is already half-gone

sliding like a paper-thin 2-dimensional kind of

magical slide sideways into

non-being so that what we experience all the time is already

mostly gone and in the

next moment has

vanished away completely

~ previously published in Blood Songs (The Ecstatic Exchange)