by Dale Goodson
well, they said they found it
24 gallons in a crater
somebody could take a bath there
somebody probably will
there’s excitement
there’s dismay
water, water everywhere
but no funding
isn’t that always the case
first things first: EARTH
can’t take a step here (giant or otherwise)
without poverty or peril
(“micro loans before millions”
the bible says)
the moon isn’t going anywhere
but this planet is
we’re flush with “can-do”
crashed a satellite
into the lunar surface
created a 60 foot pit
and got a bucket of ice
does that sound like a winning formula
Dale Goodson is a writer from Seattle currently living in New York City.
___________________________________________
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
FLAILING PALIN
by Erle Kelly
The ex-Gov going rogue,
springs from the compost
of a deep political hole.
She flew in on a northern frost,
a Bull Moose, lipstick and all,
though a T.R. she is not.
They put her name on a book,
a diatribe to solidify her base:
The Birthers, Tea Partiers,
Creationers, and more of that ilk.
They salivate when she gives them a wink,
dismembers her Grand Old Party
and labels all Liberals a shade of pink.
With loud harangues
of resentment and blame
she deals out political smack
and shouts to her sheep,
“Let’s take our country back!”
She makes the talk show rounds
with Letterman, Leno, Conan and Ms. O
while the fallen in the GOP and Neo-Cons
sift through their political debris,
scratch their white-haired heads
and ask, “where did our party go?”
Erle Kelly resides in Long Beach, California, attended Cal State University Long Beach. He attends a poetry worshop conducted by Donna Hilbert, a locally renowned writer and poet.
___________________________________________
The ex-Gov going rogue,
springs from the compost
of a deep political hole.
She flew in on a northern frost,
a Bull Moose, lipstick and all,
though a T.R. she is not.
They put her name on a book,
a diatribe to solidify her base:
The Birthers, Tea Partiers,
Creationers, and more of that ilk.
They salivate when she gives them a wink,
dismembers her Grand Old Party
and labels all Liberals a shade of pink.
With loud harangues
of resentment and blame
she deals out political smack
and shouts to her sheep,
“Let’s take our country back!”
She makes the talk show rounds
with Letterman, Leno, Conan and Ms. O
while the fallen in the GOP and Neo-Cons
sift through their political debris,
scratch their white-haired heads
and ask, “where did our party go?”
Erle Kelly resides in Long Beach, California, attended Cal State University Long Beach. He attends a poetry worshop conducted by Donna Hilbert, a locally renowned writer and poet.
___________________________________________
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
AT THIS ADDRESS
by Mary Krane Derr
The No Child Left Behind Act slips in a mandate, for this time of Vietnam-plus, of four and five traumas of redeployment, for schools to fork over the contact info of all students to military recruiters, they know where you live now.
Felix is five, can’t walk, talk, swallow, or eat by mouth, 4-F if there ever was one. Fuh, fuh, fuh, fuh, he can almost tell you himself through his random plosives. Yet still, the mail bombards glossy brochures of such full-color youthful fun, who wouldn’t want (to die bloodily for Big Oil) to have that eternal hang gliding summer?
That order Felix, be an Army of One. But Felix, son of Father Zivildienst and Medicine, of Mother Urban Community Gardening, isn’t and won’t be an Army of Anything.
The troop he belongs to says & does, no distinction between “fit” and “unfit” to divide so a sundering of sacred life from sacred life, no matter how short or long. The troop he belongs to says & does, works 24/7 to suction his mouth and nose, maintains and fills his G-tube, salves the chapping of the drool zone around his mouth, soothes him while he poops out his pain, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, that’s our mission, take heart, take heart in the heart of God, do not leave this our child behind.
Felix never hang glides, doesn’t have the muscle tone, but his life is an eternal summer of fun sometimes. Like anyone’s left in robust peace. Even in wintertime, when he spies the red watercolor burst of amaryllis in the glass vase on the counter above his head, when he kicks and rustles in the nonlethal spreading wonderment of it.
Truth be told, they don’t know where he lives now.
Author's notes: Please learn more about the militarization of No Child Left Behind. Zivildienst: Conscientious objectors in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can perform this community service instead of compulsory time in the military.
___________________________________________
Mary Krane Derr is a writer, musician, multi-issue nonviolence activist, and fourth generation South Side Chicagoan. Most recently her poetry has appeared in a collection for International Day of Climate Action; Canary: Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis, and Kritya's tribute to Polish Diaspora poets.
___________________________________________
For Felix Fritz Pytel (2001-2007)
The No Child Left Behind Act slips in a mandate, for this time of Vietnam-plus, of four and five traumas of redeployment, for schools to fork over the contact info of all students to military recruiters, they know where you live now.
Felix is five, can’t walk, talk, swallow, or eat by mouth, 4-F if there ever was one. Fuh, fuh, fuh, fuh, he can almost tell you himself through his random plosives. Yet still, the mail bombards glossy brochures of such full-color youthful fun, who wouldn’t want (to die bloodily for Big Oil) to have that eternal hang gliding summer?
That order Felix, be an Army of One. But Felix, son of Father Zivildienst and Medicine, of Mother Urban Community Gardening, isn’t and won’t be an Army of Anything.
The troop he belongs to says & does, no distinction between “fit” and “unfit” to divide so a sundering of sacred life from sacred life, no matter how short or long. The troop he belongs to says & does, works 24/7 to suction his mouth and nose, maintains and fills his G-tube, salves the chapping of the drool zone around his mouth, soothes him while he poops out his pain, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, that’s our mission, take heart, take heart in the heart of God, do not leave this our child behind.
Felix never hang glides, doesn’t have the muscle tone, but his life is an eternal summer of fun sometimes. Like anyone’s left in robust peace. Even in wintertime, when he spies the red watercolor burst of amaryllis in the glass vase on the counter above his head, when he kicks and rustles in the nonlethal spreading wonderment of it.
Truth be told, they don’t know where he lives now.
Author's notes: Please learn more about the militarization of No Child Left Behind. Zivildienst: Conscientious objectors in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can perform this community service instead of compulsory time in the military.
___________________________________________
Mary Krane Derr is a writer, musician, multi-issue nonviolence activist, and fourth generation South Side Chicagoan. Most recently her poetry has appeared in a collection for International Day of Climate Action; Canary: Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis, and Kritya's tribute to Polish Diaspora poets.
___________________________________________
Monday, November 16, 2009
A IS FOR ASTHMA
by Scott T. Starbuck
“Corporations spend $2 billion each year targeted specifically on the young, intending to lure them into a life of unthinking consumption. [ . . . .] Young people on average can recognize over 1000 corporate logos but only a handful of plants and animals native to their places.”
Our goal was not to save the forest
and animals we knew
but to give them more time
so we jacked up pickups
and stole the wheels,
turned a tractor upside down
in the creek,
moved survey markers
around already-built homes.
We were nine so we painted our faces
like warriors and, at the end,
when “developers” destroyed our valley
we were still whole enough
to sit on a hill and cry.
Scott T. Starbuck's newest poems are at poetryfish.com; his new chapbook, The Warrior Poems, was one of six finalists of over five hundred entries at the 2009 Pudding House Poetry Chapbook Competition, and will soon be published by Pudding House. His creative nonfiction essay, "Another Short Ode to Kurt Cobain in the Time of Decay of the American Empire," is forthcoming in issue 11: "Life in a Time of Contraction" at drunkenboat.com.
___________________________________________
“Corporations spend $2 billion each year targeted specifically on the young, intending to lure them into a life of unthinking consumption. [ . . . .] Young people on average can recognize over 1000 corporate logos but only a handful of plants and animals native to their places.”
-- David W. Orr
in Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations
in Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations
Our goal was not to save the forest
and animals we knew
but to give them more time
so we jacked up pickups
and stole the wheels,
turned a tractor upside down
in the creek,
moved survey markers
around already-built homes.
We were nine so we painted our faces
like warriors and, at the end,
when “developers” destroyed our valley
we were still whole enough
to sit on a hill and cry.
Scott T. Starbuck's newest poems are at poetryfish.com; his new chapbook, The Warrior Poems, was one of six finalists of over five hundred entries at the 2009 Pudding House Poetry Chapbook Competition, and will soon be published by Pudding House. His creative nonfiction essay, "Another Short Ode to Kurt Cobain in the Time of Decay of the American Empire," is forthcoming in issue 11: "Life in a Time of Contraction" at drunkenboat.com.
___________________________________________
Friday, November 13, 2009
THE SHORT SELL
by Del Doughty
The guy who lives across the street
has got chapped hands and got sore feet.
Works all day for the D.O.T.
then pulls second shift at a factory.
It’s hard to get a good job in this town
so most folks hold three shit ones down.
My neighbor’s daughter, she waits tables.
Buys a full tank of gas when she’s able.
Ivy Tech, three more semesters—
it’s the cut in her aid that really tests her.
Her mother works as a legal secretary
for the firm of Curly, Moe, and Larry.
Just up the street there’s a mortgage broker.
He sees his job as a game of poker.
It doesn’t matter if he makes bad bets
when working-class folks will fade his debts.
If we played like that, we’d go straight to jail,
but his institution’s too big to fail.
All this talk about socialist specters!
While you fret about it, he’ll vivisect you:
he’ll take your chips and “loan” them to a friend,
who sells ‘em high then buys ‘em back again
when the price has dropped, ‘cause that’s what matters.
Someone else’s loss makes his wallet fatter.
Tonight at church, there’s a big fish fry
and afterwards, some coffee and pie.
My neighbors will go because it’s a good deal:
all you can eat for six bucks a meal.
Everybody there’s gonna get their fill
and the proceeds will pay someone’s doctor bills.
Then back at home, they’ll put up their feet,
sit on the couch and watch TV—
a reality show on their twelve-inch screen.
I hope it’s one that they haven’t seen.
Del Doughty has published two award-winning books of haiku, The Sound of Breathing (Saki Press, 2000) and Flow (Red Moon Press, 2004). He teaches English at Huntington University.
___________________________________________
The guy who lives across the street
has got chapped hands and got sore feet.
Works all day for the D.O.T.
then pulls second shift at a factory.
It’s hard to get a good job in this town
so most folks hold three shit ones down.
My neighbor’s daughter, she waits tables.
Buys a full tank of gas when she’s able.
Ivy Tech, three more semesters—
it’s the cut in her aid that really tests her.
Her mother works as a legal secretary
for the firm of Curly, Moe, and Larry.
Just up the street there’s a mortgage broker.
He sees his job as a game of poker.
It doesn’t matter if he makes bad bets
when working-class folks will fade his debts.
If we played like that, we’d go straight to jail,
but his institution’s too big to fail.
All this talk about socialist specters!
While you fret about it, he’ll vivisect you:
he’ll take your chips and “loan” them to a friend,
who sells ‘em high then buys ‘em back again
when the price has dropped, ‘cause that’s what matters.
Someone else’s loss makes his wallet fatter.
Tonight at church, there’s a big fish fry
and afterwards, some coffee and pie.
My neighbors will go because it’s a good deal:
all you can eat for six bucks a meal.
Everybody there’s gonna get their fill
and the proceeds will pay someone’s doctor bills.
Then back at home, they’ll put up their feet,
sit on the couch and watch TV—
a reality show on their twelve-inch screen.
I hope it’s one that they haven’t seen.
Del Doughty has published two award-winning books of haiku, The Sound of Breathing (Saki Press, 2000) and Flow (Red Moon Press, 2004). He teaches English at Huntington University.
___________________________________________
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
MY INTERPRETATION OF AN EXECUTION
by Andrew Hilbert
defiant to the bitter end
toe tapping as the injections
went in
there were no final words.
he appeared "stoic"
so the reporter says
but she did mention his toe
tapping
something i do when nervous
perhaps
he was nervous about what
happens next
perhaps
there was remorse behind his
quietly defiant eyes
perhaps
there was not.
Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
___________________________________________
defiant to the bitter end
toe tapping as the injections
went in
there were no final words.
he appeared "stoic"
so the reporter says
but she did mention his toe
tapping
something i do when nervous
perhaps
he was nervous about what
happens next
perhaps
there was remorse behind his
quietly defiant eyes
perhaps
there was not.
Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
___________________________________________
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
FALLING
by CB Follett
Business has no apex.
On the curve of fortune,
all pinnacles are hindsight.
You don't know you've been there
until you hit the slippery downside
of the curve and look back up.
Success is a house of cards.
Layer on layer, each depending
on the other to hold taut.
Default one and the floors may come
tumblin' down.
Borrow, leverage, guarantee,
All paper courage.
We know our apex, seeing it
high now, above us. Back there.
Its shrinking pinpoint gleams in yesterday.
The cards are tumbling, turning
into torrents of water
from the cracked spillway. Rushing
down upon us. Sweeping
us away with the trunks and branches
of our possessions and hopes
taken in the flood,
in the lost footage of the torrent.
Winner of the 2001 National Poetry Book Award from Salmon Run Press, CB Follett has had poems published by Ploughshares, Alligator Juniper, Calyx, Americas Review, Peregrine, The Cumberland Review, Rain City Review, Ambit (England), The MacGuffin, Snowy Egret, Birmingham Poetry Review, New Letters Review, Psychological Perspectives, Without Halos, The Iowa Woman, Heaven Bone, Green Fuse, Black Bear Review, among others. She has been in many anthologies; received contest honors in the Billee Murray Denny, New Letters Prize, the Ann Stanford Prize, the Glimmer Train Poetry Contest and several contests from Poetry Society of America, among others. Five poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize plus three nominations as an individual poet. The most recent of her four collections of poetry is And Freddie Was My Darling, 2009. CB Follett is publisher/editor of Arctos Press, including the anthology, GRRRRR, A Collection of Poems About Bears; she was publisher and co-editor of RUNES, A Review of Poetry, 2001-to 2008.
___________________________________________
Business has no apex.
On the curve of fortune,
all pinnacles are hindsight.
You don't know you've been there
until you hit the slippery downside
of the curve and look back up.
Success is a house of cards.
Layer on layer, each depending
on the other to hold taut.
Default one and the floors may come
tumblin' down.
Borrow, leverage, guarantee,
All paper courage.
We know our apex, seeing it
high now, above us. Back there.
Its shrinking pinpoint gleams in yesterday.
The cards are tumbling, turning
into torrents of water
from the cracked spillway. Rushing
down upon us. Sweeping
us away with the trunks and branches
of our possessions and hopes
taken in the flood,
in the lost footage of the torrent.
Winner of the 2001 National Poetry Book Award from Salmon Run Press, CB Follett has had poems published by Ploughshares, Alligator Juniper, Calyx, Americas Review, Peregrine, The Cumberland Review, Rain City Review, Ambit (England), The MacGuffin, Snowy Egret, Birmingham Poetry Review, New Letters Review, Psychological Perspectives, Without Halos, The Iowa Woman, Heaven Bone, Green Fuse, Black Bear Review, among others. She has been in many anthologies; received contest honors in the Billee Murray Denny, New Letters Prize, the Ann Stanford Prize, the Glimmer Train Poetry Contest and several contests from Poetry Society of America, among others. Five poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize plus three nominations as an individual poet. The most recent of her four collections of poetry is And Freddie Was My Darling, 2009. CB Follett is publisher/editor of Arctos Press, including the anthology, GRRRRR, A Collection of Poems About Bears; she was publisher and co-editor of RUNES, A Review of Poetry, 2001-to 2008.
___________________________________________
Monday, November 09, 2009
STAR GAZERS
by David Feela
I hope those three college friends
had only stars in their hearts
when the jeep they were driving
slipped from the road
over the embankment and into
its grave of pond water.
The next day the search plane
spotted the white jeep shining
from below the surface, as if death
could light a beacon, or the stars
fastened to Orion’s belt might
burn brighter with their last breaths.
David Feela's work has appeared in regional and national publications. He is a contributing editor and columnist for Inside/Outside Southwest and for The Four Corners Press. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas, is now available.
___________________________________________
“Investigators believe the Dickinson State students
were on a stargazing trip Sunday and likely drove
into the water in the darkness.” (Associated Press)
were on a stargazing trip Sunday and likely drove
into the water in the darkness.” (Associated Press)
I hope those three college friends
had only stars in their hearts
when the jeep they were driving
slipped from the road
over the embankment and into
its grave of pond water.
The next day the search plane
spotted the white jeep shining
from below the surface, as if death
could light a beacon, or the stars
fastened to Orion’s belt might
burn brighter with their last breaths.
David Feela's work has appeared in regional and national publications. He is a contributing editor and columnist for Inside/Outside Southwest and for The Four Corners Press. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas, is now available.
___________________________________________
Saturday, November 07, 2009
PANDEMIC
by Jon Wesick
Thanks to the guy
who coughed pork virus
over every commuter in the train car.
Thanks for the fatigue and body aches
for days spend shivering under thick blankets.
Thanks for the depth charges of nausea
and emergency runs to the toilet.
Thanks to the mother
who brought her feverish child to the theater.
Thanks for gallons of mucous, thick, green fondue
for the throat scraped raw and bleeding
by a cough that rattled like hundreds of BBs in a crankcase.
Thanks for the doctor’s bill, and a thousand dollars
of lost wages.
Thanks to you who made this possible.
How can I ever repay you?
Jon Wesick has a Ph.D. in physics, has practiced Buddhism for over twenty years, and has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. His chapbooks have won honorable mentions twice in the San Diego Book Awards.
___________________________________________
Thanks to the guy
who coughed pork virus
over every commuter in the train car.
Thanks for the fatigue and body aches
for days spend shivering under thick blankets.
Thanks for the depth charges of nausea
and emergency runs to the toilet.
Thanks to the mother
who brought her feverish child to the theater.
Thanks for gallons of mucous, thick, green fondue
for the throat scraped raw and bleeding
by a cough that rattled like hundreds of BBs in a crankcase.
Thanks for the doctor’s bill, and a thousand dollars
of lost wages.
Thanks to you who made this possible.
How can I ever repay you?
Jon Wesick has a Ph.D. in physics, has practiced Buddhism for over twenty years, and has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. His chapbooks have won honorable mentions twice in the San Diego Book Awards.
___________________________________________
Friday, November 06, 2009
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH . . .
by George Held
I wish I could feel the outrage this news
Ought to bring like a punch in the nose,
Eyes watering, blood flowing,
Pain sickening . . .
But I’m just a comatose patient
Lying on a gurney after being battered
By tests and probes and meds; like
A liberal after one year of Obama-lala,
One year of watching the great Oz
Pull the rug out from promises of change
We can believe in, like bringing home
The troops, offering healthcare to all . . .
You know the list, and you know the cast,
Chosen from auditions by Summers,
Geithner, and other Bushites—that’s “shite”
The way the Brits say “shit.”
Hey, that vaccine’s a private matter, as the news
Says, and the US worships private deals
The way it bows down to private property
And its owners, who own the government.
So, know your place, Proles: If you want
A flu shot or treatment for a gun shot,
Get on line at the clinic or the ER,
And don’t mess with The Man
At JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs;
He don’ wanna hear your bellyaches.
Hell, he don’ know you exist . . . so when
Your fever hits 104, take an aspirin
And don’t call anyone for help; your life
Ain’t worth a banker’s fart.
George Held has collected many of his New Verse News poems in The News Today.
_______________________________
I wish I could feel the outrage this news
Ought to bring like a punch in the nose,
Eyes watering, blood flowing,
Pain sickening . . .
But I’m just a comatose patient
Lying on a gurney after being battered
By tests and probes and meds; like
A liberal after one year of Obama-lala,
One year of watching the great Oz
Pull the rug out from promises of change
We can believe in, like bringing home
The troops, offering healthcare to all . . .
You know the list, and you know the cast,
Chosen from auditions by Summers,
Geithner, and other Bushites—that’s “shite”
The way the Brits say “shit.”
Hey, that vaccine’s a private matter, as the news
Says, and the US worships private deals
The way it bows down to private property
And its owners, who own the government.
So, know your place, Proles: If you want
A flu shot or treatment for a gun shot,
Get on line at the clinic or the ER,
And don’t mess with The Man
At JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs;
He don’ wanna hear your bellyaches.
Hell, he don’ know you exist . . . so when
Your fever hits 104, take an aspirin
And don’t call anyone for help; your life
Ain’t worth a banker’s fart.
George Held has collected many of his New Verse News poems in The News Today.
_______________________________
Thursday, November 05, 2009
ABOUT THE EKE-ONOMY STOOPID
Poem by Charles Frederickson; Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote
The dynamic duo of always toptimistic upstARTs, Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote edit AvantGardeTimes.com, an eclectic cosmopolitan poeartry quarterly EZine.
___________________________________________
&Now
Worthless vanity put on hold
Diversified self of worldly goods
Immeasurable bad habits thrown in
Eking out barely living existence
Less is More usually Least
No account checkbook iffy balance
Seesaw fulcrum bottomless darkling holes
Voids taking up valuable space
&Then
Fake marble mortar speckled pestle
Reset after hollow bones pummeled
Infestments swallowed then spit out
American Excess credit limit surpassed
Dimly lit past retrieved from
Abandoned dreams leftover trash discards
Fleshless corpse no longer alive
Greed dead not yet buried
&Again
Future gains outweighed by losses
Groundless accusations Destiny in limbo
No forwarding address SWAK letter
Insufficient postage Return to Sender
Moonless night held by mirror
Long since reflection not shown
Anima caught between jagged cracks
Pitch black nostalgia tackling lunacy
Worthless vanity put on hold
Diversified self of worldly goods
Immeasurable bad habits thrown in
Eking out barely living existence
Less is More usually Least
No account checkbook iffy balance
Seesaw fulcrum bottomless darkling holes
Voids taking up valuable space
&Then
Fake marble mortar speckled pestle
Reset after hollow bones pummeled
Infestments swallowed then spit out
American Excess credit limit surpassed
Dimly lit past retrieved from
Abandoned dreams leftover trash discards
Fleshless corpse no longer alive
Greed dead not yet buried
&Again
Future gains outweighed by losses
Groundless accusations Destiny in limbo
No forwarding address SWAK letter
Insufficient postage Return to Sender
Moonless night held by mirror
Long since reflection not shown
Anima caught between jagged cracks
Pitch black nostalgia tackling lunacy
The dynamic duo of always toptimistic upstARTs, Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote edit AvantGardeTimes.com, an eclectic cosmopolitan poeartry quarterly EZine.
___________________________________________
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
FUN GAMES
by Andrew Hilbert
russia,
today i guess,
simulated
a nuclear attack
on poland
oh,
it was really
no big deal
you know,
it's for
just in case
we ever want
to bomb the shit
out of you
we know best
how to do it
nothing too much
to worry about
Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
___________________________________________
russia,
today i guess,
simulated
a nuclear attack
on poland
oh,
it was really
no big deal
you know,
it's for
just in case
we ever want
to bomb the shit
out of you
we know best
how to do it
nothing too much
to worry about
Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
___________________________________________
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
A PIECE OF THE WALL
by Meredith Escudier
Like a chip off the old block,
a splinter from its mother ship,
a shred of exploded concrete
found on the ground.
Stilled in grey dullness,
compact in craggy roughness,
just one of many to crash down
and resound.
Checkpoint Charlie was your gate.
You watched and lay in wait
while desperate souls sought escape
in suitcases, car trunks, hot air balloons…
Some got caught.
But on a festive night in ’89
you cracked up and went flying,
exploding in shards, miscellaneous missiles
shooting off crazy in the cold night air.
Brigit, my Berliner friend,
was there. So was the world,
beholding the unfolding.
So she brought you to me
as a grey chunk of memory,
a nothing, a lackluster thing on my shelf.
Yet 20 years on, the power’s still there
and I startle at this souvenir,
the bitter now dear.
Meredith Escudier’s non-fiction work has appeared in various literary magazines, anthologies, the International Herald Tribune "Meanwhile" column and as an ongoing column in a monthly based in the south of France. She has just started submitting poetry, which is a genre that suits her more and more.
___________________________________________
Like a chip off the old block,
a splinter from its mother ship,
a shred of exploded concrete
found on the ground.
Stilled in grey dullness,
compact in craggy roughness,
just one of many to crash down
and resound.
Checkpoint Charlie was your gate.
You watched and lay in wait
while desperate souls sought escape
in suitcases, car trunks, hot air balloons…
Some got caught.
But on a festive night in ’89
you cracked up and went flying,
exploding in shards, miscellaneous missiles
shooting off crazy in the cold night air.
Brigit, my Berliner friend,
was there. So was the world,
beholding the unfolding.
So she brought you to me
as a grey chunk of memory,
a nothing, a lackluster thing on my shelf.
Yet 20 years on, the power’s still there
and I startle at this souvenir,
the bitter now dear.
Meredith Escudier’s non-fiction work has appeared in various literary magazines, anthologies, the International Herald Tribune "Meanwhile" column and as an ongoing column in a monthly based in the south of France. She has just started submitting poetry, which is a genre that suits her more and more.
___________________________________________
Monday, November 02, 2009
WHEN FOG INVADES CLEVELAND
by Mary C. O'Malley
Consider how well fog becomes Cleveland,
how it hides the houses stripped of humans,
haunted buildings without windows, and
ghosts falling through cracks in factory roofs.
Consider fog ghosts when they moan
over diamond ruined dreams while layers of
soft water cloak the lost Irish Banshee who
groans over the trapped souls of Lake Erie.
Consider how in the past; fog hid dead hacks in
our lake- Pinkerton men who searched for stewards
hidden in the night, sailors who failed to heed
the sandbars and sudden winds.
Consider the old orange crib where laborers
underneath suffocated and died
and there, Garret Morgan trying to use his
new gas mask no one believed would work.
Consider how we older ones miss the foghorn
calling sounds of warning blaring through West Park,
Buckeye, and the lake. And oh, to have had
that warning before our corrupt sandbar years of silence.
Fog can
become frost,
become rime
frozen without
upward movement
but a
cold sense
of time
But sometimes
on warm
July nights,
you can
see fireflies
dance twirl
in patches
of low
white mist,
where when
green life
still blesses
the last
of Cleveland’s
frozen lilies.
Mary C. O'Malley has been published in both print and online. Her latest work, published by The International Centre for Women's Playwrights, is a dramatic monologue.
___________________________________________
“Consider how the lilies of the field; grow. They do not work.”
Matthew 6: 28
Matthew 6: 28
Consider how well fog becomes Cleveland,
how it hides the houses stripped of humans,
haunted buildings without windows, and
ghosts falling through cracks in factory roofs.
Consider fog ghosts when they moan
over diamond ruined dreams while layers of
soft water cloak the lost Irish Banshee who
groans over the trapped souls of Lake Erie.
Consider how in the past; fog hid dead hacks in
our lake- Pinkerton men who searched for stewards
hidden in the night, sailors who failed to heed
the sandbars and sudden winds.
Consider the old orange crib where laborers
underneath suffocated and died
and there, Garret Morgan trying to use his
new gas mask no one believed would work.
Consider how we older ones miss the foghorn
calling sounds of warning blaring through West Park,
Buckeye, and the lake. And oh, to have had
that warning before our corrupt sandbar years of silence.
Fog can
become frost,
become rime
frozen without
upward movement
but a
cold sense
of time
But sometimes
on warm
July nights,
you can
see fireflies
dance twirl
in patches
of low
white mist,
where when
green life
still blesses
the last
of Cleveland’s
frozen lilies.
Mary C. O'Malley has been published in both print and online. Her latest work, published by The International Centre for Women's Playwrights, is a dramatic monologue.
___________________________________________
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