THE EARLIEST MEMORY

artwork: ralph murre

     THE EARLIEST MEMORY

          by Ava Collopy

Sitting by the creek splashing water

   Playing with a litter of black silky puppies

How many I can’t remember

   As they grew I was

Not much bigger than them at two

   They were an incarnation of joy

We were too poor to keep them

My dad gated in the driveway

   With a makeshift fence

Our mother directed the happenings

   As they and my sister, brother, and I

Handed our babies to strangers

   Hoped for the best

And never knew

~ first published in The Sandy Review

Going Back

photoart: ralph murre

Going Back

by Marc J. Frazier

Can a chair hand made from poplar make me whole?

We scour for the one-of-a-kind, crafted with the visionary’s eye.  

Spirits reach out in Lick Creek, Nauvoo, New Harmony.

At dusk, we join deer drawn by trust into open fields—

no moment more vulnerable than when one stares, waiting.  

I scent out a psychic, who will know me as placeless, know me by smell.  

None materializes as we dodge bats outside our cabin, 

many versions at home in us.  

We drive deeper into summer.  Signs along dirt lanes: 

Half Day Hollow, Quarry Heart, Clover Dell.  

Time has gutted roads, our memory—that farmhouse on Inverness Road?  

I join your search for a long-ago lover’s home.  

Each looks at me like the Tarantula Arms where Blanche lured her prey.  

Between fields of corn and beans, it is easy to forget—

mind blank as the anonymous face of an Amish doll.  

In this country, now and then are the same, 

women so calm I want to lie down, sleep like a baby 

before them, sit and work something with my hands, 

eyes grazing prairie, until it and myself are perfect.

~ first published in Spoon River Poetry Review

THE ORAL TRADITION

artwork: ralph murre

THE ORAL TRADITION

 by Jefferson Carter                         

                                                                                                   

Sometimes, in conversation,

he’ll look away & say

I don’t want to talk about it.               

I respect that.  I really do

but like some nosy Homeric hero

I can feel the words piling up

behind my teeth’s barrier:

tell me, godammit!  Tell me

everything so we can be friends!                 

I like to imagine the real        

oral tradition, the lost passages

of The Iliad, those Myrmidons                                                          

all sitting around their cook fires,

gossiping, trading recipes, even

consoling one another as they

mend the horsehair plumes,

the helmets heavy in their laps.

~ previously published in Get Serious (Chax Press)

Legacy

digital re-imagining of photo by marilyn fleming

Legacy                                    

by Marilyn Fleming

by the summer solstice

only a transparent skeleton

stands amidst the fallen needles

the unexpected dying

seemed almost sudden

when there was certainty

the arborist in harness climbs up

with slow deliberate spurred steps

he pierces and tests the bark

a chain saw hangs from his waist

branches drop as the belt notches higher

stabs continue the walk up the trunk

now walking down a lop off the stub  

another cut until boots touch ground

  

left behind a heap of bones

a giant spruce toppled   

the unexpected legacy      

an expanded view of the lake

a fire pit in place of the stump

cords of stacked wood

numerous tracks and droppings   

a nocturnal gathering place

born to eternal life date unknown

cremation services held graveside

eulogies invited     bring your own beer

Aldo Leopold benches provided

~ first published in the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar

SEPARATING

cropped and digitally modified from photo found at www.70-130.com

SEPARATING

by Michael L. Newell

When you say, "I'm leaving,"

and begin to sob,

I feel a strange elation,

not for your departure,

but for your crumpled face.

I say, "Stay, stay,"

and press you tight;

I am a child squeezing

hot laundry to his face.

            *

Amputees still feel

severed limbs--

how long will my left arm

remember your weight?

~ originally published in Poetry/LA (1984)

OTHER ACTS

photo: ralph murre

OTHER ACTS

by Michael Gessner

After the carnivorous business

was completed out on the savannah

or in elegant suburban bedrooms,

after this, all this

memory forgot, forgave itself once more

as though wantonness & other acts

were sudden rends, small distortions

to say this never really occurred,

to conceal a family disagreement

so the other conversation could continue

like a pair of lovers among ruins

on a wine-colored evening

when all is agreeable & everything

said is certain.

~ first published in Wisconsin Review

  and subsequently in Beast Book (BlazeVOX)

The Bookmobile

digital art from uncredited news photo

The Bookmobile

by Mary Jo Balistreri

Every two weeks, we’d search the horizon

for a distant cloud of dust. It never failed us.

Into the dry dirt lot the bookmobile rolled toward

a long line of small bodies baking in South Dakota heat.

Finally, finally when the door to the trailer opened,

the bookmobile lady in wire-rimmed glasses appeared,

her face a text of perception. Black hair swept high on her head,

she stood in her crisp white blouse.

One by one she handed us a towel to wipe sweaty hands

before allowing us to cross her threshold.

Inside, a fan blew cool air, and we felt it a holy place

so different from our homes.

I thumbed through pages of Scarlet O’Hara, but Nancy Drew proved

more exciting in her blue roadster as did the flying flanks

of The Black Stallion and Flame, manes streaming free.

But it was Francie who changed my life.

Like the tree of heaven that sprouted between cracked cement

outside her Brooklyn tenement,

she encouraged me to push ever upward, to rise from my own dirt lot,

and to grow, grow green and alive.

~ previously published on Your Daily Poem

Just Before Sunset

artwork: ralph murre

by Eric Burke ~

Just Before Sunset

A nuthatch

walks down

our tree.

As we watch,

Mom

prepares

our supper.

~  first published in miller’s pond poetry magazine

Come Closer

digital art: ralph murre

Come Closer

by Joan Wiese Johannes

Heavy air wanders

around the corner of the barn

bends into evening

and staggers through the peonies

to meet me under the porch light

where dizzy moths flit

and midges swarm

around the naked bulb.

Tonight I wonder why

I once thought love darkens

too soon in June

when days are too long

and nights too eagerly late,

when  stems grow spindly

weak from

too much  too fast too soon.

A night-blooming blossom

luminous as the moon

reminds me of something

I should have done

~ previously appeared in Poetry Dispatch

De Colores

public sculpture in buenos aires / photoart: ralph murre

De Colores

by Angie Trudell Vasquez

Language and borders,

skin color and barriers,

love knows no lines.

Boundaries are drawn

on the shifting sands of time,

war spoils to the victors,

heartache for the people

living there.

The land remains

but the people come and go

different groups fight on foreign lands,

plow the fields, plant the crops,

clear trees for new homes.

This is one blue planet

circling around the sun.

One sun shines down on us all

makes everything grow,

crops flow with the pulse

of a million hands

who put fingertips to soil,

plant seeds, water them

with sweat from their brow,

and feed the world

with their exhale.

There are millions of bent heads

at schools, in office cubicles,

grocery stores and factories

across this vast continent.

People marching for change

seen just over the horizon,

de colores of the sky,

that signify a shift

is about to come for you and I,

and for all living in the shadows.

The time is ripe for us to take our place

at the table and say we’re here,

we have always been here,

and we are not going anywhere.

This is our home.

Change is the only constant,

the ebb and flow of tongues,

cultures, bloodlines, loves.

I believe some day

we will sing about

how it used to be

how we feared

those we loved most

would be taken away from us

walking down the street, driving.

Today we are closer,

but we’re not there yet.

We can see justice

flickering in the distance,

and what has been given

can’t be taken away so easy.

The door is open and it is time

to walk through the day of light,

to stand in the sunshine,

say, I am here, and

I want to contribute.

I believe.

I believe.

I believe.

~ first published by Woodland Pattern