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POEMS
BY MEMBERS:
SPECTERS OF LONELINESS
Velvet Fackeldey
My bones ache
from loneliness.
My heart cries in abandonment.
I sob in the night
with no comfort.
The days and the months and the years
pyramid to a
pinnacle of pain.
I think I can't go on like this
with no respite
from my hell.
But once again the dawn brings hope
that today will be
different,
today will be better.
The hope is a lie,
and another
dark night sucks me in
where I must battle once more
the thief of my
sanity.
The days and nights are a haunted carousel
that never stops.
WORD SPAGHETTI
Valerie Esker
gold medallions
one million melons
nine mealy lemons
(no Emile Zolas)
. . . yellow onions
gladiolas
laden gondolas
gray violas
running grunions
grungy bunions
great Gorgonzolas
moldy scallions
so-o-o-o-o-o . . .
coda:
gold medallions
(repeat)
gold medallions
RAKING THE
LEAVES
Andrea Cloud
“Mommy, why are there leaves?”
the young boy asked while
raking
them into rough piles.
“Because there are trees,”
she replied. “You see, when the
leaves
die, they drop to the ground.”
“Mommy, why are there trees?”
he asked, confused even
more
seriously about his surroundings.
“So we can breathe,”
she answered. “The trees give us
oxygen that
nourishes our bodies.”
“Mommy, why do we breathe?”
the boy persisted to question his
mother,
not aware of his nagging behavior.
“So we can live,”
she stated. Her patience with the
situation was
starting to slip.
“Mommy, why do we live?”
he asked without thinking,
still
continuing his chores.
The mother was dumbfounded,
but paused for a minute before finally
replying,
“So we can rake the leaves.”
PURE BEEF
Mark Tappmeyer
Poetry is pure
beef
Made from forty cows
Boiled days and hours
To an
essence.
Over low flame
Red flanks, rumps,
Broad shoulders,
kidneys
Surrender their musk
To a herd history in broth.
One
thick drop
Maddens the tongue.
Pure beef--
That's
poetry!
I WALK
AMONG THE HILLS
Judy Young
I walk among the hills to know
the spring
And breathe in hawthorn's breath its sweet bouquet.
I
feel the sun's warmth to my shoulders cling
And leave its dappled spots
along my way.
The redbud
splashes color through the wood
And promises are made with newborn
green
That hazes distant hillsides with its hood,
Protecting all
that lies within this scene.
The winter season
lends its solemn moods
When dailiness becomes an endless chore;
The
barrenness in tones of gray intrudes
To make me feel that there is
little more.
But when the
breezes of the spring arrive,
I walk among the hills and feel
alive.
DEPENDENT
Pat Laster
Oh, SS check, I pray you're not delayed:
My tacky plastic surgeon
must be paid.
A lightning surge left television dead
(With
Sega gone, the grandkids stay away).
My cataract removal looms
ahead,
And new cell phone expenses came today.
My tacky plastic
surgeon must be paid,
So SS check, I pray you're not
delayed.
WALK THE BEAT
Gwen
Eisenmann
Walking early on a country road,
I wonder where in
poetry the beat
has gone that used to measure metric feet
as now I
step in rhythm with a mode
of morning. Everything's in motion:
shine
on leaves, shadows moving underneath
tall trees, bumblebees, a
cloud, my breath--
all this in measure, all a pulse, a sign
of
Earth's sweet respirations. Poetry
but speaks the words to tunes
already there.
We even listen with a certain ear
anticipating what
the phrase will be
that satisfies a longing in the heart's
primeval
beat, a poet's counterpart.
RHYMING WYOMING
Wesley Willis
I am a cowboy
Riding these plains that I love
With herds I
deploy.
Just me and my horse,
I ride across the great range--
Wyoming, of
course.
Stories tell the past
of cowboys, Indians, and
Wyoming's green
grass.
Sandy trails, wind-blown,
once rumbled with buffaloes'
low
guttural groan.
Swifter than gazelles,
antelopes of Wyoming
wandered distant
trails.
For thousands of years
this land was Indians' home--
they lost it
in tears.
The coyotes call
throughout this beautiful land,
the fairest of
all.
The bald eagles glide
over sunset-reddened buttes
with confident
pride.
Indians still talk
of mountain ranges and plains
their ancestors
walked.
Cowboys, too, still sing
melodies in their hearts of
loving
Wyoming. |
HUMMINGBIRDS LEAVING
Bev
Conklin
Flashing, flitting gem of green
with ruby at your
throat,
it's not an emerald I see
in your lovely shiny coat.
If I could cross an opal
with a milky green of jade,
then turn
them into feathers,
I think I'd have it made.
No, that's not quite it--
the color's still too light.
The tip of
each tiny quill
needs some malachite.
I'm going to miss you, little one,
when your leave for warmer
climes.
Maybe soon I'll follow, trading
palms for snow-clad
pines.
If I do, I'll look for you,
my feisty little
flyer,
wondering how you made that trip
and never seemed to
tire.
TA EMA SPLANCHNA
Todd Sukany
The apple falls not
far from the tree
His sound is soft and supple
Seldom seen at
razor's rim
A trove of treasures entombed
A lock may limit forbearing floods
Till time will worth reveal
Release your wealth--Yahweh's likeness
Golden heart in a silver
frame
BISHOP HILL, ILLINOIS, c. 1850
Tania
Gray
If I had lived in Bishop Hill
Utopia of Reformed Swedes,
I’d had
loved the camaraderie
But hate the regimented drill.
You had to work, and it was hard.
I might have been a dairy
maid
Or planted corn just like a serf.
There was no time to be a
bard.
Some said all should be celibate,
But cradles multiplied, and
rooms
To hold more rocking chairs and beds.
They had a house to
“batch” in, but
It was the smallest on the square.
The pews in church were hard, and
all
The women sat together, ditto men.
There was no carpet, walls
were bare.
‘Twas economics brought them down.
That, and murder, cholera, and
greed,
And railroads and free enterprise.
The colony became a town.
Now Bishop Hill is one boutique
Of candles, herbs, and
pottery.
The tower clock is broken, still.
Descendants give stray
folks a peek.
They manufactured every need
And prospered, built Victorian
homes.
Of course they conquered cholera.
But still, alas, they have
the greed.
BLOWING OUT
THE PIPELINE BLUES
Jean Even
I wish things would
just settle down
Allowing dust to blow out of town,
Sending chaff
sailing in the wind
While I burn chokeweeds to a singe.
Blowing out the pipeline blues,
Cruising down pot-hole
avenues,
Falling in and going slow,
Sinking down from life's blows.
Bailing out of troublesome woes
Won't take me down to toe jam rows.
Humdrumming for pity's sake hurts
While drowning in a craft full
of jerks.
Rolling out of tumbling weeds,
Landing on my knobby
knees,
Crawling along and dreaming of seeds,
Sunshine is warm--I'll
drink some tea.
Wishing things would settle down,
Going slower in our urban towns,
Taking time to grow some flowers
In a plot where stinkweeds sour.
Bailing out and blowing horns,
Cruising along in harmony drone,
No longer blue in sunshine hours,
I'm filling pot holes with wild
flowers.
MATRIARCH
Phyllis Moutray
Steely octogenarian--
though vision and hearing
impaired--
still family critic and
champion.
INVASION BY CLUTTER
Harding Stedler
The silence does not seem
half-bad in the absence of your
clutter.
Gradually, I reclaim space
once filled with
plunder,
rooms in which I could not walk,
piled
garage-sale-high
with stuff you'll one day sell.
How I dealt with clutter
was to close the doors
and shrink my
living space.
My house became your house
because I did not want
a
confrontation
while you were rising
from the ashes.
You needed
badly to discover
for yourself the disarray
you brought upon my
structured world.
In your new life,
you have no one else
to answer to,
and I
will never know
the extent of
clutter in your space.
IRISH SAGE
Tom Padgett
The waif beside me on the Dublin train
stared out the dirty window,
lost in thought.
The man across from us began to eat.
I got the
candy from my carry-on
and offered some to Paul, who took a
piece,
then two, then three--and talked from that time on.
This seasoned ten-year-old reached in his sack
for crisps to share:
“I’ve been two weeks gone from
me home. The second week seemed like a
moonth,
I missed me family so. Thair’s five of oos,
ploos mum and
da. Whair I have bin, thair’s twelve--
I thought I’d never git me tairn
to wash.”
A puppy learning dog-like ways, this lad
expanded with the knowledge
he had gained:
“Me ooncle--whair I bin--he says to me,
‘Thair’s
minny good min tairn out bad whin bills
air due.’ He fixes cairs, and
they don’t allus pay.
‘You have to watch, our Paul,’ he says to me.”
“You changing trains in Dooblin? Well, you need
to watch them taxi
min. Me fadder woons
in Liverpool was overchairged. ‘Do I
look
stoopid?’ he joost said, and paid his fare--
no moor. You lairn a
boonch away from home!”
Then three of us--much smarter dogs--detrained. |
