A closing

photo by rose mary boehm

A closing

by Rose Mary Boehm

On the other side of you

there is a no place,

where silences build

bridges across hidden waters,

where Pirandello’s actors

are searching for a stage,

lost for a script.

Concrete begets concrete,

and the heart can no longer

accommodate love, or perhaps

it just dies,

gently,

of negligence.

~ first published in Ann Arbor Review

At Bus Stops on Thanksgiving Day

artwork: ralph murre

At Bus Stops on Thanksgiving Day

by Donal Mahoney

Before dawn, people

who work on Thanksgiving Day 

wait in the wind for a bus

to arrive or maybe not.

It's too cold to talk 

so the people stand

like minutemen and plan

a revolution that would shock 

nice families who drive by later,

children tucked in scarves

and mittens, laughing

all the way to Nana's house 

for turkey, gravy, stuffing

and later in the day

a ballerina of whipped cream

twirling on pumpkin pie.

Thanksgiving is the day

America asks for seconds

and sorts its servers

from the served.

~ first published in Eye on Life Magazine

The Connoisseur of Canoes

artwork: ralph murre

The Connoisseur of Canoes 

by Jimmy Pappas

Nursing a drink in my right

hand, I enter the boathouse

and wonder how long I can

pretend to be sipping the few

drops I have left. The group

forms a circle shoulder to

shoulder in my peripheral

vision. Occasionally, someone

glances my way and turns

back quickly to avoid eye

contact, while I stop at a boat

and touch the varnish with

one finger from my left hand.

I pretend to be a connoisseur

of canoes, an aficionado of

aquatic vehicles, all the while

wishing the ice in my glass

would melt faster so I could

take another sip. Until it does,

I stare at my reflection and

wonder if people had it wrong

about Narcissus, that he

didn’t fall in love with

himself, just out of love

with the rest of the world.

~ previously published in Atticus Review

Seeing Mountains

photo: sharon auberle

by M.J. Iuppa

Seeing Mountains

in shades of amber, an ecology of ash

& aspens, their expansive reach to a cloud

chasing sky casts a spell  over me . . .

                                              

 I look up into heights I rarely perceive

from a farm whose land was once smoothed

by the press of a glacier’s hand.

                                                      And so, I slide

into the pool of my shadow & sit there quietly

waiting for the windless explosion of monarch

wings or a thousand  leaves  tumbling like loose

coins tossed into autumn’s sunlight to take

 my breath away.

~ first published in Blue Heron Review

THE CHARACTER OF HATS

artwork: ralph murre

THE CHARACTER OF HATS

by Michael L. Newell

A hat properly aged

releases the fisherman

cast inside a steel worker,

the dancer shimmering

in an accountant's figures,

the sailor deep

inside a coal miner,

the woodsman wandering

in a priest.

            *****

A hat aged properly,

stiffness mellowed into character,

smells of salt water

brine pickling skin, rain

streaming through Douglas Fir, firewood

kindling friendships, pipes

lit from embers

warming conversation, contains

sun, earth, tree, fire, rain, and moon.

~ first published in Bellowing Ark

Water Sign

artwork: ralph murre

Water Sign

by Margaret Hasse

Two-year-old Charlie loves water,

loves the force of water 

in gutters, pipes, the second hose

bought to keep peace between brothers

who spray tomatoes with the intensity

of fire fighters at a five alarm fire,

loves the sources of water:

faucet, penis, rain, spit.

He longs like a pilgrim for wet places

where his worship is

complete submersion:

bathtub, swim pool, lake.

To praise water,

he secludes himself in the bathroom.

Ascending a stepping stool to the sink,

he opens valves to an endless rush

of new pressure in copper pipes.

So much water, why not share it?

Give it away until it seeps

through the floorboards,

showers into the kitchen,

fills the bowls on the table,

flows on the heads

of his amazed mother and brother

who do not immediately recognize

that grace might descend like this –

inconveniently –

from a complete enthusiast

who needs to be forgiven

for being generous

with whatever he loves.

~ previously published in Milk and Tides (Nodin Press)

So, This is What Living Means

artwork:ralph murre

So, This is What Living Means

by Angela Consolo Mankiewicz

What a relief, to finally know

what living means:

an extra skate key

stashed under a garbage can,

on the right side of the stoop.

Years ago, I tried to ponder all

the great questions.  I read Nietzsche

and Dostoyevsky and fell in love

with a bulge-eyed Frenchman.

I tried to do what was expected

of a working class kid in a state college:

think, read, talk the big questions;

prove your mother right.

But I was a fake.  Friends read N and D too,

and understood them.  They were impressed

by my love for the bulge-eyed Frenchman,

my facile quotes delivered with meaningful

pauses.  They didn't know I yawned through N

and read D because he told a good story.

Marriage and a real job distracted, just in time.

I had things to do and need not ponder

what living means.  I stopped reading N

and fell out of love.  But kept D by my bedside.

Later on, with divorce behind me and poetry on my mind,

I watched my cat play with a terrified lizard;

I looked at rain; I choked on hot winds scorching

my tomato plants and began to ponder again,

but nothing happened.

I read N again and the bulge-eyed Frenchman, but I

didn't fall in love.

I understood better this time, but I was still

shaky on details and settled down with D

to forget myself.

"Why" is a good word, a solid word that can

occupy a lifetime.  But an answer to why isn't meaning.

"Is" is a good word too.  Something of substance.

Like an extra skate key stashed under a garbage can,

on the right side of the stoop, just in case,

just in time.

~ originally published on AmherstWriters.org