BLOOD MOON BIRTHDAY WISH

by Marjorie Tesser

On the seventh of September, the earth 

will impose itself between moon and sun

and the eclipsed moon will blush red, 

color of love and rage. It’s the anniversary 

of my long-ago birth. Of late I’m less 

than sanguine about aging. Ghosted 

by family and friends—deaths, drugs, 

dementia, dogma—my circle has waned 

to a thinner crescent. I’m not immune, 

myself at summer’s end not yet red, 

but no longer vibrant green; wan, faded. 

Back in spring my sap loved to rise, roots 

to branch-tips aspiring. Now I lay low. 

Keep mum. Abide, 

 

though our home-space tumbles 

toward burn, wreck and ruin bought 

with others’ blood. Words like “liberty”

mean something different. it’s almost 

enough to shock one silent, numb one 

to the beauties we still, for now, 

number our blessings. Blood Moon 

is said to augur transformation, 

a flushing away to make room for change. 

In this red tide, may we stay afloat, unmute, 

sow songs of praise and rage, words vivid 

as rubies. May our hues distill, deepen—

cerise to crimson, vermilion to claret,

cabernet, rufous, russet—articulate

full spectrum against falling.

Marjorie Tesser’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Whale Road Review, Cutleaf, SWWIM, The New Verse News, and others. She is the author of poetry chapbooks The Important Thing Is, (Firewheel Chapbook Award Winner), and The Magic Feather (FLP). Her poem “April” won the 2019 John B. Santoianni Award from the Academy of American Poets. She has co-edited three anthologies and is editor-in-chief of MER-Mom Egg Review. 

I AND THOU, CHATGPT

by Barbara Simmons

Shutterstock AI-generated image in response to “trapped in darkness” line created by ChatGPT 

Can you write poetry?
                Free verse or form?
A sonnet on aging?
                Sure, here’s one that rhymes~
the words that show your golden hue
can stay aglow, even with wrinkles
that start to show.
 
Your words come quickly, resonate, too,
reminding me that aging carries its grace
I’m glad my sonnet resonates with you, I’m glad
I’ve helped express your thoughts. Anything else you’d like to have me write about?
 
Loneliness abounds in this post COVID world, 
so would you write a poem helping me to deal
with it?
 
I try to fill the void with noise,
But it echoes back with disdain,
I try to find joy in simple things,
But it feels like a never-ending strain
I fear my loneliness smothers
And I’ll be trapped in this darkness, enthralled
But then I remind myself
That I am not alone in this fight
 
Again, my thanks, dear ChatGPT, 
you seem to understand humanity’s plight,
so now I ask you for more help:
how to write about a marriage’s ending?
Would you? For my son?
 
Farewell, my dear, we part
Our love was true, but now it’s dark
The memories we shared the vows we spoke
Will linger forever, a permanent cloak.
 
I understand the lines, though not all ring true, 
the breaking bringing darkness of its own
to what had been the marriage’s light.
 
My poem was one perspective on letting go,
and may not resonate with all.
Let me add this is a process, not always easy,
important to focus on good memories, moments
of happiness, learning from past ones to be able 
to move forward. 
Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.
 
I know my generative pre-trained transformer, ChatGPT,
generates human responses in its tool-trained ways, but
for that moment, I feel a virtual hug, feel someone
in this universe of merged moments cares, 
a universe responding when my own world’s cursor 
frequently is still.
 

Barbara Simmons, a Bostonian and Californian, says both coasts inspire her. An alumna of Wellesley and Johns Hopkins’ Writing Seminars, and a retired educator, she savors life, envisions, celebrates, and understands with words.  Some publications: Boston Accent, The New Verse News, Soul-Lit, Capsule Stories 2022: Swimming, and her book, Offertories: Exclamations and Disequilibriums.

A POEM FOR UKRAINE

by David James

“Writing My Heart Out,” a painting by Gladiola Sotomayor.

I want to write a poem that will lick

 

your heart clean,

that will make you forget every nightmare,

 

every cut and scrape, every syllable of bad news you’ve ever heard,

a poem that will close your eyes and let you dream

 

of another life, perfect in its arc, where

all things, dead or alive, bow to your smile,

 

all clouds move to your breath, birds and desires and wishes

land on your forearm when you call them.

 

I want to write a poem to send all sadness into exile,

to fit all pain and despair onto one gaudy blue dish

 

that you can toss outside and ignore,

a poem so quiet you never hear it

 

come into your life, sit on your couch, sleep in your bed,

never hear its small footsteps on the floor.

This poem, which must be written under a moonlit

sky with eleven stars and one dog barking in town,

 

will end the world as we know it. No more death

or hunger or war. No more aging or sickness or weeping.

 

No more walking with your feet on the ground.

David James’ most recent book is Alive in Your Skin While You Still Own It.

THIS IS YOUR WEEKEND BRIEFING

by Chris Reed

Sunday, November 15, 2020

My mother napped yesterday,

while I finished Swann’s Way.

Her water retention is down,

and we hear that someone

is unlocking the secrets of aging.

There are no words for the US 

reaching eleven million cases

of coronavirus this morning,

although the eucharistic minister 

wore a mask when she delivered

the host earlier.

The bird feeders were filled today

and promptly visited by a finch

and a red-bellied woodpecker.

Currently we are recording 

the Giants-Eagles game, in which

Daniel Jones and the Giants are

getting downfield, as constriction

threatens a transfer of power,

school reopenings and life itself.

I search for an artificial wreath. 

We have some breaking news—

a stag is walking past the window,

and we are making the call

that he is at least four years old. 

My mother sees him and reaches

for the word that means him,

although we still have no word

on reality out of the White House.

The Giants won this one.  Enjoy

what remains of your weekend.

Although relatively new to poetry writing, during the pandemic and sheltering in place with his post-stroke mother,  reading and writing poetry have become Chris Reed’s go-to survival activities.  Attending a zoom weekly poetry workshop has also been a gift and helped sustain sanity.

THE BROKEN CLOCK

by Bill Meissner

Though the black hour and minute hands
are stuck, motionless,
the second hand keeps circling and circling
the clock on our wall.

It reminds me of the older couple I saw once—
the man standing outside in the flowerbed,
the woman inside—placing their hands on
opposite sides of a large picture window.
I marveled at the way their arms moved together
in a graceful circling.

The second hand chases and
chases itself, as if it believes it
could catch up with itself.

I believed that couple was
slowly waving to each other, or
doing some kind of playful, synchronized
dance of love.  Until I realized their hands held stained cloths;
they were merely cleaning the streaked glass.

In fall, we lose an hour, like a key
slid behind a dresser, then,
six months later, like a missing sock found under the bed, we
gain one.  Each season we feel ourselves
become younger, then
older, then younger again.
And we can’t help but wonder:  how long can the foggy cells inside our body
keep cleaning their tiny windows?

This spring, after resetting our new clock,
you and I lift our hands toward each other,
gently press our palms together,
circle them around and
around, around and
around, keeping the dance going
as we polish the space between us.

Writer/teacher Bill Meissner is the author of eight books of fiction and poetry, including a recent poetry collection, The Mapmaker’s Dream (Finishing Line Press). His novel Spirits in the Grass (University of Notre Dame Press) won the Midwest Book Award.  He lives with his wife Christine in Minnesota where he resets his clocks two (or more) times per year.