Poetry

Wildfire

These mornings I wake with an alarm bell in my throat, wild

with dread. Two thousand miles away, the sky turns orange

and then black with smoke. When my mother calls to tell me

the ranchers set all their fifty horses free along the highway, police cars

ushering their frightened shapes across the lanes through the dark mouth

of the canyon, away from the flames I am in my kitchen in New York

holding in my hands an egg I am afraid to break

and afraid to set back down. I hold it as though the rain

depends on it.

—Kate Levin

Deer in the Yard

I once heard someone say they’re nothing but giant rats with hooves. He has a point. They’re pests all right. They eat practically everything, including what the gardening books say they don’t. And there’s no denying that they’re hazards on the roads. I see them everywhere, especially now in the middle of autumn, their dead bodies contorted every which way. But look at this one. Look at how she looks at me. Look at how she stands there. Look at how she holds her ground. Look at how the right foreleg starts to move, then stops moving. Look at how she wants to take one step forward, one step toward me, but doesn’t. This is my ground, she says. Look at how I hold it.

—JR Solonche

The Beauty of Resilience

My son once found A cherry tomato plant Growing out of the cracks Of a sidewalk at the Local chain department store He thought it was The most beautiful thing Like what I see When I look at him

—Jason Gabari

Today Only One Face (11/3/2020)

What happens if all rumors are true. Don’t ask me where it comes from. It is in the smell of morning air.

In the silence, conscience speaks out. Something in the throat. Line after line, are they in the same boat?

Many voices: howls, murmurs, whispers. Many colors: white, black, yellow, brown... Many ages: young, old, very old.

Many faces, and each person wears many of them. Today, only the same year-long worn-out face; Like hat, dust laden, rugged trace of washing, like shoe, uneven bottom, cushion depressed, suffocated, air is gone. Like pant, seams split, thread disappears. Like glove, fingers poking out of holes. Like old clothes, like that everyday jacket, color faded. Like old zipper, out of half step. Like hair, decide to bid farewell and you wish the good-bye hug will last longer. Like saggy sock. Like beaten-down brush of toothbrush. Like mirror, always numerous spots. Like that very old car, maybe next year.

Many voices, many colors, many ages, many faces.

It has been a long journey. Today, only one face.

—Livingston Rossmoor

Low Level Prophet

I’m not even a low-level bargain basement prophet. I can’t see into the future at all. The best I can do is look at a calendar.

Okay, how about the past? I can see into the past a little bit. I can see it clearly every time I watch TV especially, re-runs.

It’s the present I’m having problems with. What is happening now, that’s what I can’t explain.

—John Blandly

It Is Better To Be Angry

people make me angry but it is better to be angry at people than to rail at clouds or at gods isn’t it because if a man sees your anger he might regret what he did that brought your anger on next time he won’t do that thing whereas a cloud goes on about its business indifferent to your emotions gods, I’m told really, really care what you think of them whether you—at the most basic—even believe in their existence whether you—and this seems to be the demand—love them praise them surrender yourself to them and don’t ever fucking get angry with them because otherwise or else you know it’s you who’ll regret it right? so it’s better to be angry at people this logic goes than to be angry at gods or at clouds

–Glenn Ingersoll

Dream On

Suddenly, in the middle of the night— to be Clutched like a Pen, and hear the Celestial Voices Sweetly Singing through your Nerves— with such Richness and Splendor, as could never be truly represented in any Earthly Form… and then, To slowly Awaken as this Vision is Dissolving, and to know full well that— The Greatest Foolishness of all would be trying to write it down…

—Bob Grawi

This Season

the metal is cold so cold it burns it turns the skin red brings upon that dry scale one more season I tell myself this is the last one but here we are the last one

Seeing You Makes Me Happy

I want to reach through the screen and hug you. To squeeze you and kiss you and tell you I love you. I see you on the screen and hear you through the speaker. But it’s not the same.

You run around with laughter and sing out loud. I see you at the table doing homework and I’m so proud. You ask me questions and I answer. But it’s not the same.

Every morning I awake with the thought of you. Every night I fall asleep with the thought of you. Every day I can’t wait to see you on that screen and hear you through that speaker. But it’s not the same.

The saving grace is that I know you are safe. You are loved by those who love you most. And cared for by those that care the most. That thought quiets my sadness and softens my heart.

I wait for the day I can see you and hug you. To tell you how much I love you. And to thank and hold the ones that took such good care of you. Seeing you makes me happy.

—Michael Hargrove

The Changing Season

For My Mother Winter trees resting bare and emaciated against a white sheltering moon

Alone on your pillow generations you mothered gather

Feed and toilet keep you warm In your house reduced to one room

In the next room a tv distant baby laughter kitchen pots rattle you remember

You and starving birds somehow know the changing season god’s indifference

Is waxing like a hunger cold almost reachable your fingers fragile broken twigs.

—Daniel Brown

Words

words are curls like ferns and fiddleheads associations with dues of usage and intent abused by font and fragile meaning more or less when inked by tongues or pen

taste the truth for example and watch the rain make quick work of paper plans recombining metamolecules into paintings of permeable ink blots for the discriminatingly insane

to say nothing of tone music hijacking a notebook the symbols mage-ing on the page spellcheck casting: {nonouns univerbs adobjectives punktuation}

diabracadabraid

the question being the end— full stop or ellipsis

— David Clark Perry

Overlook

Sometimes, moving up the mountain alone, I stop and listen to the wind in the tops of the trees. It doesn’t reach me, here, on my sweaty face But that hand up there pushing makes the taller pines Groan with the stretch of their wooden weight. On the head of Mount Overlook and combed by the breeze— That’s what height is for, some perks of grandeur And the celebrated view, though it’s really nothing more Than a hill compared to an Everest or an Alp.

The first time was different, I was a boy And accorded the walk its monumental terms: A Mountain. A Day. I might’ve used the word summit Had I known it then. Yet even as I’ve grown, Mount Overlook remains as big as when I was shown the way up by much longer legs. All the legends—oracles, visions, knowledge apprehended And handed down—I’ve realized, in hiking up here So many times, why they’re still around.

At the right age a secret is attaining wisdom And to me one was given, a reward On entry into the elevated order: The location of a spring very near the top. My uncle brought me to the spot, parting briar tangles As we went. Just yards off the trail but well hidden, There’s a cold little pool that spills quietly Into lush, sloping grass. I seized on that fountain Intuitively. An oak leaf swam over rusting summers.

I’ve seen far greater heights that held out nothing in return, And here I am, back on the mountain with its spring Like a barely heard whisper. I make a cup of my hands.

—Patrick Walsh

Things

Things hide… Behind doors, Under shelves, Between couch pillows…

But worst of all, In plain sight!

Alas, the brain when under strain Goes ever so gently Down the drain.

—James Lichtenberg

Evrythng

i am everything all of the time except when you are on my mind and everything is your eyes your skin your love

oh how now everything is a disintegration loop

i see a ladybug and crumble

—Randy C. A. Grimshaw