Madelyn Camrud

Tipton Poetry Journal – Fall 2020

Norway, Left Behind

Madelyn Camrud

Weathered fence posts lean in the wind. Everything washed clean under cold aluminum skies. Trees grow from seed washed up. Try to imagine the love story: Grandmother crossed the ocean, seasick; came up from the ship’s belly, danced on the deck with an uncle; he pumped their arms up and down—shoes click-clacked to the rhythm of a fiddle. When the music stopped she leaned over the rail and let it go. That’s when Norway fell into the ocean—that’s where she left it and you know the ocean is deep.

Baptismal Dream

MadelynCamrud

I’m the one who from the church balcony dumps buckets of water— possibly on purpose but I appear to mean no harm. I’m the one who anoints the heads of others and they’ve no idea where the water comes from; no one knows why they get wet, no one likes it; and I’m not the one to tell them. I’d be so difficult to forgive. From the church I know best, the choir loft where I sing and sit through sermons I don’t like I spoil things for people underneath. Have to say it gives me some degree of satisfaction. Sometimes I dump what I can on my best friend—even on the man I care about; and especially on the heads of people in the front pew, cranking their necks to look at us in the choir as if they believe we lord our high position over them.

Madelyn Camrud has lived all but nine months of her life in North Dakota. She completed her formal education in English and Visual art at the University of North Dakota. She received a Master’s degree in English with emphasis on creative writing in 1990. Having published three collections of poetry and a chapbook, she is nearing completion of a fourth collection entitled On The Way to Moon Island.

Tipton Poetry Journal – Fall 2020

Prozac Speaks

Lukpata Lomba

I Some men go to bed with pebbles; some men stuff pebbles in their words, mix lime and salt to make rain.

Listen: if grief is all you flaunt with bones and muscles, drop it at my feet.

II Throw your thick face at the newbies, ricochet in the room to make rain, roll on the foam to please the spirits. O squirm! If you’d ever known grief, you’d love me more than you do.

III Who dare question the strength of my euphemisms? O dare! Who dare tie down the souls I set free? Sucks to their warnings about abuse! Sucks to your science, I’m science. You’d love me more than you do.

IV I want to cry out against this world for sin against creation—some turn 70 at 23, grow wrinkles at 18! I speak holiness, I speak peace!

V Take the red off your limpid eyes, watch the birds flapping their wings. I speak doses! To hell with their warnings about effects! You’d love me more.

VI Some schlep off with fire proclaimed by my lovers— what is side effect but an effect of healing! Sucks to their fire and medical trifles; they who love me love me in secret places.

Lukpata Lomba is a Nigerian poet with work previously published in Jacar Press's One, South Florida Poetry Journal, Squawk Back Journal and elsewhere.