WHEN FOOD SCRAPS FLOOD AIR LIKE HOODED CROWS

by Mary K O’Melveny

Blackened parachutes resembling mammoth falcon wings

tumble down from sleek cargo planes beneath cloudless skies.

Together, they add up to less than all the food supplies 

which might fill up one land-bound rescue truck. Things

we thought we understood, now take us by surprise –

broken hearts turn genocidal with all that terms implies.

Blame can fall to innocents as if they pulled all the strings,

as if they still held the power to defend their land, prized

for generations, Ottoman deeds spelling out their ties

to rugged hills, olive trees, sand dunes and desert springs.

No one knows how many will survive hunger’s debased stings,

though some families are erased forever. Those who’ve died

are always undercounted when world leaders shout, spout lies

while survivors watch flour, fuel, fava beans with famished eyes.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired attorney, is the author of four poetry collections and a chapbook. Her most recent, If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird, is an album of poems, art and music. Mary’s award-winning poems have appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on international blog sites, including The New Verse News. Mary’s collection Flight Patterns was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her book Merging Star Hypotheses (2020) was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize, sponsored by The Word Works. Mary has been three-times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an active member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and her poetry appears in the Group’s two published anthologies An Apple In Her Hand and Rethinking The Ground Rules. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

ICARUS AWAITS A NEW YEAR

by Mary K O'Melveny

We’ve long been warned:

don’t fly too close, 

that sun’s too hot,

your wings will melt.

Yet here we are.

A NASA probe,

blinking distance

from spitfire flames,

solar winds, flares,

light speed heat spots

radiating

fiery dust rings.

As a new year

dawns, the Sun will

speak its first words.

Or will it sing

a scorching torch

song that sizzles,

blisters, sears, scalds?

What did we think

when we strapped on

those beeswax wings, 

leapt out as if

we knew our fate,

the sea Petral blue,

sun gold-glazed red?

Soon enough we 

will learn how far

desire can fly

before it burns,

descending like

a blazing star.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired attorney, is the author of four poetry collections and a chapbook. Her most recent, If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird, is an album of poems, art and music. Mary’s award-winning poems have appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on international blog sites, including The New Verse News. Mary’s collection Flight Patterns was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her book Merging Star Hypotheses (2020) was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize, sponsored by The Word Works. Mary has been three-times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an active member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and her poetry appears in the Group’s two published anthologies An Apple In Her Hand and Rethinking The Ground Rules. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

ELECTION 2024 GHAZAL

by Mary K O’Melveny

Vice President Kamala Harris appeared for the first time alongside her newly announced running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, introducing him on Tuesday evening at a packed rally in Philadelphia. “Thank you for bringing back the joy,” a beaming Mr. Walz turned to tell Ms. Harris after she presented him to the crowd. —The New York Times, August 6, 2024

What a long time have we been waiting for joy!
Like brassy laughter, what we really need is joy. 

Today, our air is alive, electric. A chorus
of voices can be heard in harmonies of joy. 

No one disputes that such emotion is good for us. 
What else can balance doomsday fears like joy?

Once I heard a wood thrush hidden in a porous
bush, its notes sensuous with forbidden joy. 

It’s been too long since we could bask in glorious 
sound. Listen as it rises like a songbird, joy-

 

ous with promise, ascendant with purpose, raucous

with Hope—which we now know by its other name: Joy.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired attorney, is the author of four poetry collections and a chapbook. Her most recent If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird (Jerry Jazz Musician 2024) is an album of poems, art and music. Mary’s collection Flight Patterns was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her book Merging Star Hypotheses was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize, sponsored by The Word Works. Mary has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an active member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and her poetry appears in the Group’s two published anthologies An Apple In Her Hand and Rethinking The Ground Rules. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS WERE

by Mary K O'Melveny

Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl whose escape from the Central Park Zoo and subsequent life on the loose in Manhattan captured the public’s attention, died Friday night after apparently striking a building on the Upper West Side, officials said. —The New York Times, February 23, 2024

At some point we all wanted to be Flaco.

To rise above our circumstances,

escape our confined lives,

take flight in open spaces

once known as dreams.

To perch high enough that our

imaginations cannot be captured.

To gain perspective on those details

of our former lives closer to ground

that went missing each day.

At treetop height, our diary of daily

exploits expands like open secrets,

while our fears are as useless as yesterday’s news.

Watch us in awe as shadows of our wings

recede into the far distance.

Up here, we listen to wind symphonies,

sway to syncopated beats of rain drops

on balcony ledges, fire escapes, water towers.

We watch sunsets morph from marigold to auburn to mauve

Aloft, we leap, linger like Nijinsky.

Some said survival was sketchy.

Wild creatures face too many obstacles –

best to keep them caged for longer life.

But they forgot about the thrill of open skies.

How memories expand when airborne.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her poetry collections include Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum (Kelsay Books) and Merging Star Hypotheses (Finishing Line Press).

WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN FISH FORGET?

by Mary K O’Melveny

This summer, Florida’s ocean water temperatures exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A recent scientific study revealed that rising water temperatures can cause crucial memory loss to damsel fish and other reef-dwelling species. The fish in the study who were subjected to temperatures as high as F 89.6 did not fare well, failing “to find shelter, recognize their neighbors or find food easily.” —The New York Times, August 23, 2023
Credit.Credit...Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild, via Getty Images]Credit...Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild, via Getty Images] The New York Times August 23, 2023

As Fahrenheit rose, some damsel fish forgot 
where to find their food sources. With each degree,
memories shifted far away. First to go: 
 
finding a meal. Next was fear. Who posed a threat. 
Where danger lay. Which reefs might safely hide 
them, what might portend trouble in sargassum 
 
seas or bubble upward in their pathways 
turning marbles of algae into floating 
spectral groupers or snappers. As memory
 
fluttered away like flotsam, reef fish failed 
to thrive, survive. Each day’s heightened heat seared
off some tiny thought, some echo 
 
that time had taught, some souvenir of before.
Yesterday’s cache of jeweled thoughts scattered
now into a vast void. Who can ever 
 
truly know what is lost as heat sears, scalds?
As oceans warm, equal risk befalls both 
predators and prey. Who will remain alive 
 
as seas simmer and pale coral reefs blanch
white as brides? Will these warmed fish discard scales
of azure, sapphire, magenta, or wispy 
 
tails of sunshine yellow, peachy orange?
Will they recall where eggs were laid or where 
sharks stayed hidden as reefs shrank? What tales
 
will they recount as awareness shapeshifts, 
then fades away like images in an infinity 
mirror? As they spin through steamy waters,
 
adrift in the present tense, our questions
float along beside them. Will we have a future?
What flashbacks will follow Fukishima?

Mary K O’Melveny, a retired labor rights lawyer, lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York. Mary’s award-winning poetry has appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on national and international blog sites, including The New Verse News. Mary’s much-praised fourth book of poetry Flight Patterns was published by Kelsay Books in August 2023. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Mary was a finalist in the 2023 Poetry Competition sponsored by Slippery Elm Literary Journal. She is also a co-author of two anthologies of writing by The Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group, including Rethinking The Ground Rules (Mediacs Books 2022). 

SWINGING ON WINGS OF FLAME

by Mary K O’Melveny

There's a house somewhere I know where the fire's burnin'

All night long… 

And even though the wind may now be howlin'

The stars are bright and they push me on and on

—“Half Moon Rising” (Yonder Mountain String Band)

  

We keep exploring outer space for answers.

Out there, we learn that black holes make sounds

of music as they swallow everything

around them. Celestial destruction

to the tune of string band melodies, as if

the Osborne Brothers or the Red Clay Ramblers

had booked a cosmic venue where eager stars

do-si-do around dark matter’s edges.

 

Sit still and you will hear creation’s story

spelled out with mandolins, fiddles, five-string

banjos. On Earth we are orchestrating our

own demise. Everything has turned extreme.

Our hottest week just past will not be last.

The burning air tastes like barbeque.

Put an ear to ground, hear it singe, smolder,

sear from simmering smog and haze.

 

Far better to harmonize and tap our feet

as Earth’s axis shifts and we wobble, weave

like drunken sparrows. Saharan sands might

land in Kansas while floodwaters choke New

Jersey highways and algal blooms poke out

from Florida’s rivers. Grab a good seat

at our cosmic amphitheater where smoke

rises from the speed of guitar picking.

 

If you listen closely, you can hear some scat,

nonce, argot. Go with the flow. Flat Foot Floogie,

Tutti Fruiti. Explosions of fervor, fury

unleashed by gas ripples in galaxy

clusters. Who can say this fate will not be

ours as well? One hopes we won’t be around

by then. For now, we can dance as glissandos

of sound drift from the heart of the Milky Way.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

LIKE A HURRICANE

by Mary K O’Melveny

She blew in like a Hurricane

A river deep    A mountain high

 

She ditched Ike   Took over the mike

Blew our minds   Broke our hearts

 

Tina Turner knew first hand 

What love’s got to do with it

 

She told us what we needed

Knew what we wanted

 

Tina stamped her feet   Released her hips  

Danced like unleashed wind

 

She defied age   Demanded respect

Broke the rules   Exposed the fools

 

Tina wore Stiletto heels   Spangled dresses

Split sexy skirts    Spiky blonde hair

 

She even taught Mick Jagger

How to dance   swivel   shake

 

Tina shouted loud   Made us proud

Said we’d better be good to her

 

She will keep on like a Hurricane   

Turning    Burning   Churning  

 

Tina was our Queen of Rock ‘n Roll 

Simply the best   Better than all the rest

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

TOURING THE GALAXIES WITH JEFF BECK

by Mary K O’Melveny

A Fender Stratocaster

rides like a space ship

follow those sounds 

around the room

up up up  past the ceiling 

over the roof

way past tree lines

above ragged craggy peaks

beats blues  bolero  buzz

crying to the moon

everything reverberates

as we rise like astronauts

soaring past everyone

Les Paul  Hendrix  Clapton  

as we fly high  higher

wah wah wah wah

 

chords climb  croon  caress

slide  sweep sing sigh 

slow  slip  soar 

rumble  race  rave

we follow the stars 

as they glow silver gold

platinum  plutonium  

pandemonium

we jump through nebulas  

stratospheres

galaxies  bend  shapeshift

 everything we ever knew

lies behind us

as we watch light bend

wah wah wah wah

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF EXODUS?

by Mary K O'Melveny 

Illegal Jewish settlers yesterday attacked Palestinians and prevented them from working on their land in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, in the southern Occupied West Bank. Fouad Al-Amour, coordinator of the Protection and Steadfastness Committees in Masafer Yatta, said in a press statement that a number of settlers attacked farmers from the Abu Qbeita family, preventing them from cultivating their land in El-Saifer area in Masafer Yatta, and destroyed the seeds prepared for cultivation. The settlers were protected by the Israeli occupation army, Al-Amour added. Masafer Yatta is a community of 12 Palestinian villages located in the city of Yatta south of Hebron. Its residents have been suffering from the threat of forced displacement for decades due to the establishment of scores of illegal settlements, outposts and military training zones by Israeli occupation forces. —Middle East Monitor, December 29, 2022

Before I fall asleep each night,

I stare up at my curvaceous ceiling,

darkened by age, pock-marked

by stone, spider webs, jagged roots.

 

Each “room” is bordered by rock slabs,

boulders, dirt mounds. My clay cook

pots sit behind me. To the right, my sleep

ledge is softened by keffiyehs, quilts.

 

I have swept one center section

almost flat. An aid worker found us

a wooden table with two crooked

shelves. My prayer rug is folded there.

 

In that corner to the left, a brass box

still holds my yellowed deed to this land.

Tanks have bulldozed my three homes.

Now my sheep graze overhead.

 

These crooked steps, long smoothed by water,

footfalls, wind downward from their pen.

That slim cord dangling above provides

just enough light to read Fadwa Tuqan.

 

Like me, most of my neighbors have burrowed

beneath West bank hillsides we once owned.

Above ground, apricots, almonds, olives

thrive, as they have since Ottoman times.

 

Jurists who know nothing of our narratives

have ruled that we must evacuate, as if

we were as nomadic as our grazing flocks.

They name us trespassers, transients.

 

The army says our villages are best

suited as live-fire training grounds.

No one wants neighbors who remember

every whisper of their past lives.

I still have the dented bronzed key

to our ancestral dwelling place.

In chilled night air, I am warmed

by memory’s refracted light. 

Author’s note: A recent ruling by Israel's Supreme Court will allow the military to clear a rural West Bank area known as Masafer Yatta for use as a live-fire military training ground. This will mean expulsion of 1,200 residents of thirteen Palestinian villages in the region, in violation of international law. Many say their families have lived in the region for generations and that some families have already been forced to move into caves, leaving their ancestral homes behind. This poem imagines a conversation with one of those villagers now living beneath the ground. 

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

FOR EVERY LOST SOUL, A CANDLE

by Mary K O'Melveny

Glowing Christmas candle in frosted home window, photograph by Thomas Baker —Fine Art America

For every lost soul, a candle

in the window spills its light

into dusky night. Darkening air

softens with hope’s holiday

aromas—sage, balsam, fir, spruce.

Its flame offers a mirror into a forest’s

beating heart, warming deep woods

where easy pathways have slipped

past sight, obscured by doubt, loss.

Its flickered patterns soothe us

as we glance inside into a world

beyond our reach. We want to see

our own reflections there, as if we

had struck the match, poured a glass

of claret, turned on seasonal carols,

smiled at loved ones gathered fireside.

Not the other side where time fells us.

Where its passage startles us anew

as memories sparkle, seduce us

for an instant before they waiver,

then devolve to our collective umbra.

Author's Note: As of November 27, 2022, there have been over 617 mass shootings in the United States and more than 40,000 people have died of gun-related deaths. www.gunviolencearchive.org 

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

IN MEMORY OF ALBERT WOODFOX

by Mary K O'Melveny

Albert Woodfox, who is thought to have been held in solitary confinement longer than any individual in US history, having survived 43 years in a 6ft x 9ft cell in one of America’s most brutal prisons, has died aged 75. Woodfox’s death was made public on [August 4]… Woodfox was a member of the so-called “Angola Three”—prisoners who were wrongfully convicted of the 1972 murder of a prison guard, Brent Miller, in Louisiana state penitentiary. The prison was built on the site of a former slave plantation and was commonly known as Angola, after the country from which most of the plantation’s enslaved people had been transported. —The Guardian, August 4, 2022. Photo: Albert Woodfox after his release from prison in 2016. —Credit Brian Tarnowski, The New York Times, August 5, 2022

Some say we are alone throughout our life.

Others say loneliness is just a state of mind.

One’s search for inner peace is filled with strife

on our best days. Imagine doing it alone, confined

for forty-three years in a closet-sized prison cell

where one must confront inner demons, serious

fears, failures of will, spirit. He traveled through hell,

emerged home, freed by wisdom. Like Odysseus.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

A MONARCH BUTTERFLY POSES SOME QUESTIONS

by Mary K O'Melveny

Do you remember the noise of my wings?

A lace veil as it flirts with a summer breeze.

A blade of grass as it shakes off morning dew.

 

In Mexico, a million of us sound like waterfalls.

At rest, we cling to tree limbs like gold, onyx,

ivory jewelry that has been hidden from thieves.

 

We fly high above sleeping migrants everywhere,

whose hopes pirouette in zephyrs and exospheres

as they dream of flight patterns to safety.

 

Do you recall the first time you saw one of us?

How you were awed by our delicate wings, how

we landed like a first kiss on a purple cone flower? 

 

How you imagined what it would be like to float,

unfettered, without apology? Without accountability?

How it takes so little to ignite imagination’s fiery call.

 

Our journeys from your garden to jungle sanctuaries

span generations. Some days the ground is littered

with bodies that resemble coins from Spanish galleons.

 

I have been airborne for 2,500 miles. I have traversed

obstacles my ancestors never knew: poisoned fields,

droughts, drones and planes, wildfires, clearcut forests.

 

Still, think of that moment of lift, when air currents

lick your skin as a lover might. Always optimists,

we remain your ardent guides to Elysian Fields.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

CLOUD COVER

by Mary K O’Melveny

At first, there was just a single cloud.

It wasn’t even very large. One might 

have missed it altogether. Like a cataract.

But it grew bigger, began to darken.

Before long, it had multiplied into

several cloud patches. Each shifted

to a different corner of the sky,

staked out a position. Refused to

move. Dared other clouds to approach 

at their peril. The once-azure sky

vanished. Instead, shadows loomed

overhead like prehistoric birds of prey. 

At first, we did not worry. We knew

shadows needed some light to survive. 

But the shade expanded. Umbras were

everywhere. People queried What can we do?

Thoughts were exchanged. Silhouettes

were measured. Statistics recorded. Talks

faltered, flailed, failed. Prayers met silence.

Candles were lit. Flashlight sales grew.

Batteries grew scarce. Campfires flickered

throughout day and night. Their smoke made

it harder to breathe or see. Night vision goggles

were issued to all eligible households.

 

Soon, the sky was so thickened that memories

were numbed.  Books picturing seacoasts,

flowers, forests sold out. Libraries had

waiting lists for stories of people whose lives

were bathed in sunshine. We struggled to

recall days at ocean’s edge, feet splayed

in wheat-colored sand, a beloved’s hand

dappled with light. Sunburned shoulders

from garden parties and protest marches

soon paled to ghostly reveries. Last to fade

was a vision of a playground filled with

children, sneakers aglow with sparkling lights.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.