POEMS BY MEMBERS
HOW HOT?
A 3x3
Bev Conklin
Sweltering
is the word
for this day.
Fry eggs on
the sidewalk
if you like.
Better yet—
soft boil eggs
in the pool.
LEFTOVERS
Steven Penticuff
Every so often a book of
poetry
is, I'd have to say (and you'd better not
judge my first collection this way), so
egg-suckin', rat-parade, skunk-bottom
rotten thru n'
thru--especially
when fancy critics and other seals
clap and bark their approval so
obnoxiously--that you have to marvel
at the special knowledge that
for each
book sailing into the trash a poet
somewhere in concert with a practiced
editor kept only the shiniest pieces
for the final,
gift-to-the-world volume.
But you can only shine rusty tail pipe
so much, and a thoughtful soul asks
not in jest: just how awful were the rest?
AURORA AND THE WOODCHUCK
A pantoum and a dog
Gwen
Eisenmann
She carried a prize
to give to her owner
with love in her eyes
she was a proud donor.
To give to her owner
a woodchuck so dead
she was a proud donor
though a dog's life she led.
A woodchuck so dead
she proudly displayed
though a dog's life she led
she was never dismayed.
She proudly displayed
with love in her eyes;
she was never dismayed.
She carried a prize.
NOT ALONE
A 3 by 3
Velvet Fackeldey
say goodbye
walk away
you do it
like you've had
many years
of practice
so I won't
think you hurt
only me
162 LOSERS
Ben Nielsen
My Royals, my Royals,
You have forsaken me.
You sign duds and draft
duds--
Please stop drinking soap suds.
Oh Royals, oh Royals,
You make errors and walk men.
Hey, remember George Brett?
Stop bleeding, stop losing,
Or I will stop watching.
COME UNTO ME,
LORD
Jean Even
Ho, ho, ho, come forth unto the Lord;
Rejoice in God even with a band.
We can dance in the winds of heaven
And glorify Him; we’re marked with three sevens.
We are delivered out of Babylon
And bound for glory in Zion.
God has touched us and left us dappled.
In His eyes we are His apples.
Sing and rejoice because He dwells within us.
In the midst is our Lord God; there is no fuss.
He is the love of our lives, this Lord of Hosts.
His portion is freely given, even the Holy Ghost.
Ho, ho, ho, rejoice in God. His measure is full
To the breadth and length; He is never dull.
We walk with Him and keep His charge.
His stone and branch are very large.
EXPLAIN TO THIS SUPREME
GALACTIC
TRIBUNAL
Valerie Esker
Electric moonbeams
light our way
to fertile fields.
We move to music
from a pulsing star.
In an instant
our celestial bodies disappear
to other worlds more golden
than yours are.
Your childish rockets
alight like prey
on bended bough.
We swoop to catch them
in magnetic powered arc.
Answer to this cosmic jury now
why seven neon eons passed away
before you found the topside of
a quark.
TWO WISHES
Henrietta W. Romman
What does our God want man
to do?
Exactly what does He command?
"Let go of self." That
is so true.
What more does God want man to do?
"Come unto Me for I made you.
Trust Me my child--just hold My Hand."
What does our God want man to
do?
Exactly what does He command?
RAIN POEM
David
Van Bebber, Jr.
Maybe it’s the smell of rain.
The water falling from the sky it changes so much.
Without this smell children go hungry
And with too much the same occurs.
Buildings move and nations balance on its power.
Rain, the perfume of life.
The scent of death, coming or going.
HAIKU
Pat Durmon
How endless the field--
Queen Anne's Lace looks like
snowflakes
To spite the hot sun.
VISIT WORKSHOP FOR AN
ASSIGNMENT.
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Workshop
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A.M. ARMADILLO
Diane Auser
Stefan
We see the slow
armadillo
at the same instant,
very early, pre-sunrise,
as the dog and I walk the graveled hill.
Tony, our neighbor from Chicago,
says the only ‘dillo you see in daylight
is a rabid one--so we steer clear
of its waddling wake
as it scurries into the underbrush.
Except, it’s almost daylight,
so maybe this armadillo is only half-mad--
an armored Jekyll and hard-sided Hyde.
CHARACTER VS. CHARACTERISTICS
Phyllis Moutray
Ambivalence and
procrastination,
my inheritance,
will be mine forever more
until I cross to another shore
Shall I bequeath them
to my adored heirs
so they remember me
ambivalently--and late?
NOW ARRIVES THE NIGHT
A Shakespearean
sonnet with an
acknowledgement to Robert Browing
Tania Gray
It isn’t visible from my front porch:
the geese fly south and later back again,
at night the firefly signals with his torch,
by day the cardinal holds his domain--
it looks like life’s proceeding normally.
But somewhere else the glaciers have shrunk,
the oceans have warmed up a whole degree,
the polar bears can scarcely find a hunk
of seal, and in Brazil they slash and burn.
The owner of the house across the street
cut down a maple tree. It was the turn
that tipped the scale to our complete defeat.
The snail is on his thorn but not for long,
for Pippa roams our town without a song.
SUMMER
Laurence Thomas
Lhude sing
at last anticipated summer
time of sojourn and sunburn
lewdly pursuing bikini and short
necessary cash to realize
pipe and winter dreams
of well earned vacations.
Sing too
reuniting families, summer camp
a backyard barbecue with
unwelcomed mosquitoes
and neighbors, chances to retreat
down dusty byways
with multitudes of others
escaping cities’ heat.
Sing
ball parks, picnic sites, fair grounds
for illegitimate wishes
of expeditiously turning to
the normalcy of autumn.
Sing cuccu!.
SOVEREIGNTY?
Mark Tappmeyer
“And everyone went to his own
town to register.” Luke 2: 1
For Bethlehem’s birth
where hay served as sheets
an empire was forced
to take to the streets:
Marcus left Naples
along the causeway;
Hector found Troas
by foot in a day;
Ajax to Athens
as Caesar had said,
but old grumps in Malta
refused to leave bed.
NO GRAVE
Judy
Young
There will be no grave for
me
Under a forgotten cedar tree
For someone to find a hundred years hence
With vines camouflaging the fence
That surrounds where my remains would be.
There will be no grave for
me,
No mound of earth for someone to see
As he walks through the woods some summer day
Espying my stone along the way
From amongst the growth of a century.
There will be no grave for
me,
No etching of who I used to be
Scratched on a stone marker, which rains and snows
Have worn down so it no longer shows,
That someone must rub to help him see.
There will be no grave for
me,
Nothing of what was my destiny
For as my ashes to the winds are tossed,
My individuality will be lost,
And I’ll become part of all that’s around me.
FOR WANT OF MEDALS
Harding Stedler
As pale as whey,
old men with rattly bones
approach the finish line.
They gasp for air
amid silent prayers
to see the race complete.
Their wobbly legs,
like antique chairs,
are too unsafe to use.
Yet they forge on,
year after year,
mile after mile
with tears that drizzle
down their face
like raindrops descending
glass.
I ponder what drives them
in the cold of March
when bare tree limbs
shudder in the teens.
TWO STORIES, SAME
PAPER, SAME DAY
After Mike Masterson
Pat
Laster
I - One man
exults over
the birth of a third child;
dad of a soldier mourns the death
of his.
II - In our
human contacts,
it always boils down to
a lifelong string of hellos and
goodbyes.
MONDAY
A prose poem
Tom Padgett
He rose decisively to greet the week. The mirror
reflected his flaws and his not-bads. To the latter he grinned
hello, then grimaced toward the parchment map face that documented miles
along the well-worn highway he had traveled. Carefully, he
engineered some road construction. Perhaps, he thought, the time had
come for some more gracious metaphors. How about a chocolate-chip
cookie where specks and chunks increase the value? To prove his
selflessness, he tidied up the bed a bit, leaving just enough
disarray for her to straighten and feel superior. Then the eagle
spruced its plumage, arrogantly preening as it quit the crag that
bore the nest. It was committed to flight. Or because he liked
alliteration, the lordly lion left his lair. He closed the door with
force. Regretfully, he marred his image of disciplined control when
he got back out of his car to go after his keys, and then another
time to get his glasses.
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