Poems Page 1
On The Verge
Forsythia blazes yellow,
new green poised to open,
the wheel is still.
I can see straight through
to translucent figure of woman
striding laterally through time frame
unseen, hidden maker of skulls,
mother of muscle and sinew,
gatherer of eyes and liquid parts,
filler of empty sockets with earth,
beloved of the dead.
Her supple feet firmly planted,
with each step musky and damp
grape hyacinths open among the clumps.
Richard Trant
i can’t think what to send to your museum
everything imperfects into the same pattern
first to reconcile and end my exile
cities you can’t live in with women while
writing to other earlier women
goddesses easily rebecoming gods
your native land is the land of landmines
harsh ships that blink you brutally back home
my six broken wings will not fly to
the four corners // fledglings forever
they cool the foreign moon as the moon wanes
from time to time from a safe distance
you want me to make you a little sad
usually that’s as easy as to add
yellow towards green to field a field of blue
exact cover letter
a day without an sase bouncing
back to me is empty unreverbing
oddly since absence should tauten the drum
an acceptance jumps out like a jack in
the box and i’m up for such a surprise
i can celebrate with coke and rum
the supplying of a great lack in
my life a revelation and reprise
the short cuts to the long haul don’t add up
so one slogs and tightens up ones technique
no is so shallow and yes is so deep
consider this a bell ring or a knock
consider this as othello asks to
be remembered as just me as just you
jonathan levant
Men and Eagles
High in the solitude
Of the Himalayas
One tribe raises
Eagles and children together
In their yurts.
The youngsters are taught
To share food with eagles,
To trust each other.
When they mature
They mate with their own kind.
The eagles return with fledglings
And the cycle repeats.
An Early Departure
All our things are strewn
About the bed and breakfasts room
Where we stayed before our escape.
Young people are rehearsing a play,
Their songs are joyous, emancipating.
No one has time to serve us coffee,
We return to our room.
Arrivals move into our room
Mixing their bags with ours.
We do not show displeasure,
Cheerful singing chases us,
It is not meant for us.
No one notices our departure.
Howard Prescott
BARNSTABLE TWO YEARS AGO
reeds and marsh
grass a frozen grey.
the cat locked in one
room at Murray’s
we walked, my mother
with more energy than
she’ll have again
along route 1 to the
only restaurant.
torn branches,
litter of broken
glass we had to
yell to hear each
other over cars,
bitching, laughing
feeling sun thru
winter coats
HERE
something as mysterious
as quarks a pull like
naked charm sets in
changes the air
mysterious as what
happens in houses
where women who live
together a long time
begin to get their
period on the same
day something un
spoken runs from
pillow to pillow may
be while we sleep
like mice in the wall
forms the field of
apples and elderberry
into a sea of glazed
green reflecting
more colors than an
ordinary prism then
the birds come you
drift all day in and
out of yourself
fly until a car churns
up thru the gravel
like lights going on
at the end of a
movie
RAGE
across town he’s
ordering beaujolais
for someone different,
tired of a year of
pale chablis. When
he met her she was
barely twenty fatter
now he still is
drawn feels the
room fill with light
that twists like
cocaine. She slips
into his life like
someone on cold
vinyl car seats on
a hair pin turn.
Across town the
woman he told he’d
be back, feels
something she held
on to spin out,
Saturday sideswipes a
diesel. Under her
hair, skidmarks,
a car set on fire
Lyn Lifshin
Ojo Caliente Ablution
Smoldering sage stick scented air
cleanses spirit in cell sanctuary
Hot spring water vibrates waves
from boat-sized bathtub faucet
Erect ankles hook over hedonistic brink
And bar-like beams
filter skylight shadows on splayed legs
Unfolding a passion flower
of the Georgia O’Keefe kind
Engorged full bloom from water force
Baptisms in the name of Poseidon
Apollo and Southwest shaman
who waterwitch away worry stains
Body purified by slathered cedar soap
and cemented New Mexican mud
Cesspool of toxins drained
and mineral-rich release therapy
dry rinsed with desert sun rays
Remitting elemental energy for renewal
Ellaraine Lockie
perpetuation
anger is our heritage
Rugs, Rasht, Rage.
i Shamefully believe it to be mine alone.
but now I
hear, see, know
it also
belongs to my brother.
passed with Disgust and Sorrow
from my father.
it remains enduring:
as Oppression and Love.
a daughter of broken English
and tempestuous Anger
i learn i pray
that I will unlearn.
Becoming
It was not beautiful
The way I became a woman.
Willing the pain
To take my unprized innocence.
And thinking of the imbalance
of my checkbook.
The smell of cigarettes and
Intimacy lacking
Took me
Propelled me
Towards realized, actualized
Womanhood.
Afterwards:
Unable to remember my girlhood fantasies,
I had been plucked from obscurity
By Woman Hood and her false promises.
Iowan Skylines
Orion’s belt is missing
From the horizonless sky.
I have seized it
And fashioned a lovely noose
To hang my fears from.
He will come through
This man -ancient, alive-
Will not fail me now.
The extremity is boldly breathed,
Coldly conjured,
Lacking true, tangible presence.
Imbalance is stressed
Emphasized,
Underscored,
And highlighted
By the quivering leaves
That match and mirror
My unfound and unconfident voice.
Breathe, young woman.
You must take it on,
Embrace this doubt-
Lovingly, subtlety
Then quell it,
Silence it.
Until it fades back into the universe
And is adopted by another.
Dounia Sadeghi
Touching
Let me devour you
let us become endlessly
each other
give me your insecurities, you perceptions
all of your misconceptions
let me feel the things inside of you,
press yourself to me
and give me hope, faith
be unyielding, make me bend
and waver for you
here, the two of us,
moving, even if only slightly
for each other
let me take your breath
and you in turn take mine
kiss me as we open for each other
stretch to feel the poetry
behind my eyes,
and I will grasp the resilience in you soul
let us travel together
sighing in unison
as we wind and unwind
rise and fall
here in these moments
touching
Between Her Legs
I knew a girl who wanted everything
but never got it
because there was this man
between her legs
always this man
between her legs
she missed counting the stars
in the long summer nights
because this man
pushed his way
between her legs – between her legs
and she must have left
her heart with that man
because she tries to go on
to fill the empty space
where this man was
between her legs
Finding Us
you were immense
you were immense
and you have filled me
the small catch of air
that rests between us
in the moment before our lips
finally touch
is our only form of religion
there are the days
when I examine myself
and the connection of more beautiful
pieces leaves me lacking
here where I have done wrong
and here where I have hated you
mix to the procrastination
which is the sum and total of us
but you are immense
you are immense
and you found me
it seems I wonder now
and this distance I feel
is more than between us
it’s our philosophy
Nicole Provencher
IF NOT FOR THESES GRACES
Of what use the flowering
hawthorn outside my window
flurry of pink blossoms
clustered abundance at winter’s end?
Or sap-twisted pine branches
plumes of spruce needles
switching like horse tails?
Neither squirrel
hopscotching cold ground
not querulous jay
scolding from the porch railing
add to my coffers.
What price human suffering?
Can the litany of screams
every century, every continent
stop the next madness?
Then think on these mysteries:
the inflorescence of the calla lily
rising from its creamy chalice
the alabaster promise
of the quickening moon.
FERMATA
after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music
Aldous Huxley
A sweep of palomino blond hair
cascades over one eye as he bends
to the honeyed rosewood of his guitar.
Tapered fingers caress chords,
press frets, lightly flutter the vibratos
of the Ponce’ sonata
Completed pages of sheet music
drift to the floor, a Spanish shawl
wrapping itself around me.
At each fermata, he holds
‘til the sound disappears holds
while the empty air reverberates
and I hold my breath, wonder
what kind of lover he would be,
this man.
When I think I can’t wait any longer,
he releases his touch. Head bowed, still
locked in the passion, he gathers himself,
inhales our applause. He rises, smiles,
holds his guitar out like an offering.
Fermata – a direction to hold the note longer than its usual length; shown by
a sign just under or over the note. In real life, it means “watch the
conductor” since he or she is the one who determines how long the note is
held.
ONE OF THE GUYS
for Brandon
Warm hours – the fire, talking of poetry,
why we seven came together this weekend.
Midnight – two of the men, old friends,
pull on parkas, decide to walk to the pond.
I, newcomer, tentative,
engage their gaze.
They invite me along.
Lights from the barn recede behind us
as we crunch through the frozen ferns
sleeping off Palomar winter.
Under ice crust our boots sink, thigh-high snow.
In silence, at pond’s edge they pass the pint.
Wild Turkey, liquid bond.
Anthracite night – moonglaze
on shadow-pleated drifts of snow.
My cheeks aflame with cold,
heat of whiskey in my throat.
This fractal moment.
Sylvia Levinson
Merge with the river
by James downs
excerpts for his recently published volume
Impression
Across the long bone
of mountain two wing
span shadows circle slowly
twice around soon follow
the bone spine of mountain
until they disappear imprint
still on my skin
Source
Words are in the river
floating up from the bottom
last attached to substantial
rocks the words bob between
waves we see glimpses
of sentences in our mind’s eye
but we don’t own the words
the river only gives them up
on loan if we cup our hands
just right and dip in just
so and catch them as they float
on past in this interim we are
allowed to jumble the words
scramble the words and delight at
sentences through sight that come upon us
in the long run words
sink back into the river until
someone else cups their hands just so
for a gifted loan the words are in
the river the river is keeper
of words and takes them
all the way back to the open sea
Submerged
At the mouth of a crying creek
as it empties into thick river a double
knobbed log submerged green flutes
of river weeds wave in the waves
two sets of weeping pines curve
over the mouth like a bower or
an entrance/exit sign beckoning you
to stay
water rolls on deep
Driven Into the Shade
by Brandon Cesmat
excerpts
Gracias, Sabás
Afternoons, I’d come in from the garden to
the kitchen and tell Sabás I was hungry.
I sat with my Grammy at the long table
where she rested her heart and practiced Spanish with Sabás.
Sabás could turn a white tortilla in an iron skillet
without burning her fingertips while it
singed brown and picked up black freckles.
I studied the tortilla’s surface as butter melted, settling its flour-dust.
Although I wished for beans or meat, Sabás gave only this calientito,
nothing more to spoil my dinner.
I don’t recall much about the salads, roasts or puddings
only those tortillas that held my afternoon hunger.
Today I look at flour tortillas as topographical maps,
brown and black hills in the white desert,
where masa harina rose into the palms that made them.
I read tortillas as circular maps that I put to my lips,
hoping to trace the ways to Sabás, Ana, Chona or Beatrice, but
the tortilla only leads the way to its edge,
not to the hands that made it,
though many California children would follow
this map to the women who raised us,
would follow from hand to mouth to memory.
First All Night
Summer's end midnight,
a boy shivers in a blanket.
The pond below the bluff
holds yesterday's heat.
A can of beans for tomorrow sits
by the cold fire-ring stones
while he huddles
frightened of brush fires
In the next valley
mother clicks off the late show
the screen goes blank, leaves
no dot in the center.
A paw snaps a stick
near the muddy bank.
Crickets count heartbeats double time.
Stars poison his eyes.
Summer's end morning
boy shivers in a blanket.
In the mist over the pond
floats yesterday's heat.
Laughter Path
If I lie down for the wheel of time
to roll over me, I am full of use;
I keep time from falling, I catch memories
and hold words as sand holds the colors of
a mandala. Everyday on the beach,
blueprints to circumvent suffering are thrown
and then withdrawn to the laughter of waves.
The saline of saltwater and blood.
I remember selling plasma,
my cool red cells flowing back into the vein,
the temperature of my strange self
on the path through my heart
To Billy Collins’ Critics: It’s Complicated
Facile,
that’s what
critics say
but maybe the words
were not written
for those who seek
to lay bare
what ain’t there.
Just maybe
they were written
for those who seek
to validate
what is.
Maybe
there was no
justification
for blowing smoke.
Ahhhh……
the irony of
simplicity
The splendor of it.
That is,
if there is
any such thing.
Marlene Brooks Brannon
Mule Ride
My mule Suzanne promenades to close to an abyss
On Bright Angel Trail I clung to my saddle unable to look
My mule retraced a clearing in The South Rim
Wandered on the edge of a plateau
A wedding cake of stone layers on layers of eternity into a narrow path
I’m on a mule shaking
Don’t look down- Don’t look up- Don’t look around
Cliff on cliff we descended balanced on the edge of a petrified seas
Hanging on a mule that just pissed on me
My right leg wet warm dirty
My mule tearing up dirt on a shelf above Earth
Hope my mule won’t bray or lose her footing
I’m scared as a cat in water and the mule on the trail in front of me
Is passing gas with every step she takes
I whiff mule with every stride
My mule just took a crap
My butt’s sore- My legs stretched into an arch
I want to lie on the floor
Go Suzanne Go-
At the top I dismounted
Look The Grand Canyon.
Mother Earth’s Ore
Under raw skin bleeds rust
Sheathing ferrous caul cavity
Cradled in earths’ molten core
Marvel at nature’s mineral metamorphosis
We dug it up
Molded into a thing of beauty
Symbols of empire
Statues of adoration
Weapons of war
Only humans can smelt an ore.
Zen Garden
Simmering sands
Silver serenity
Structured Samurai sea
Vincent J. Tomeo
Forsythia blazes yellow,
new green poised to open,
the wheel is still.
I can see straight through
to translucent figure of woman
striding laterally through time frame
unseen, hidden maker of skulls,
mother of muscle and sinew,
gatherer of eyes and liquid parts,
filler of empty sockets with earth,
beloved of the dead.
Her supple feet firmly planted,
with each step musky and damp
grape hyacinths open among the clumps.
Richard Trant
i can’t think what to send to your museum
everything imperfects into the same pattern
first to reconcile and end my exile
cities you can’t live in with women while
writing to other earlier women
goddesses easily rebecoming gods
your native land is the land of landmines
harsh ships that blink you brutally back home
my six broken wings will not fly to
the four corners // fledglings forever
they cool the foreign moon as the moon wanes
from time to time from a safe distance
you want me to make you a little sad
usually that’s as easy as to add
yellow towards green to field a field of blue
exact cover letter
a day without an sase bouncing
back to me is empty unreverbing
oddly since absence should tauten the drum
an acceptance jumps out like a jack in
the box and i’m up for such a surprise
i can celebrate with coke and rum
the supplying of a great lack in
my life a revelation and reprise
the short cuts to the long haul don’t add up
so one slogs and tightens up ones technique
no is so shallow and yes is so deep
consider this a bell ring or a knock
consider this as othello asks to
be remembered as just me as just you
jonathan levant
Men and Eagles
High in the solitude
Of the Himalayas
One tribe raises
Eagles and children together
In their yurts.
The youngsters are taught
To share food with eagles,
To trust each other.
When they mature
They mate with their own kind.
The eagles return with fledglings
And the cycle repeats.
An Early Departure
All our things are strewn
About the bed and breakfasts room
Where we stayed before our escape.
Young people are rehearsing a play,
Their songs are joyous, emancipating.
No one has time to serve us coffee,
We return to our room.
Arrivals move into our room
Mixing their bags with ours.
We do not show displeasure,
Cheerful singing chases us,
It is not meant for us.
No one notices our departure.
Howard Prescott
BARNSTABLE TWO YEARS AGO
reeds and marsh
grass a frozen grey.
the cat locked in one
room at Murray’s
we walked, my mother
with more energy than
she’ll have again
along route 1 to the
only restaurant.
torn branches,
litter of broken
glass we had to
yell to hear each
other over cars,
bitching, laughing
feeling sun thru
winter coats
HERE
something as mysterious
as quarks a pull like
naked charm sets in
changes the air
mysterious as what
happens in houses
where women who live
together a long time
begin to get their
period on the same
day something un
spoken runs from
pillow to pillow may
be while we sleep
like mice in the wall
forms the field of
apples and elderberry
into a sea of glazed
green reflecting
more colors than an
ordinary prism then
the birds come you
drift all day in and
out of yourself
fly until a car churns
up thru the gravel
like lights going on
at the end of a
movie
RAGE
across town he’s
ordering beaujolais
for someone different,
tired of a year of
pale chablis. When
he met her she was
barely twenty fatter
now he still is
drawn feels the
room fill with light
that twists like
cocaine. She slips
into his life like
someone on cold
vinyl car seats on
a hair pin turn.
Across town the
woman he told he’d
be back, feels
something she held
on to spin out,
Saturday sideswipes a
diesel. Under her
hair, skidmarks,
a car set on fire
Lyn Lifshin
Ojo Caliente Ablution
Smoldering sage stick scented air
cleanses spirit in cell sanctuary
Hot spring water vibrates waves
from boat-sized bathtub faucet
Erect ankles hook over hedonistic brink
And bar-like beams
filter skylight shadows on splayed legs
Unfolding a passion flower
of the Georgia O’Keefe kind
Engorged full bloom from water force
Baptisms in the name of Poseidon
Apollo and Southwest shaman
who waterwitch away worry stains
Body purified by slathered cedar soap
and cemented New Mexican mud
Cesspool of toxins drained
and mineral-rich release therapy
dry rinsed with desert sun rays
Remitting elemental energy for renewal
Ellaraine Lockie
perpetuation
anger is our heritage
Rugs, Rasht, Rage.
i Shamefully believe it to be mine alone.
but now I
hear, see, know
it also
belongs to my brother.
passed with Disgust and Sorrow
from my father.
it remains enduring:
as Oppression and Love.
a daughter of broken English
and tempestuous Anger
i learn i pray
that I will unlearn.
Becoming
It was not beautiful
The way I became a woman.
Willing the pain
To take my unprized innocence.
And thinking of the imbalance
of my checkbook.
The smell of cigarettes and
Intimacy lacking
Took me
Propelled me
Towards realized, actualized
Womanhood.
Afterwards:
Unable to remember my girlhood fantasies,
I had been plucked from obscurity
By Woman Hood and her false promises.
Iowan Skylines
Orion’s belt is missing
From the horizonless sky.
I have seized it
And fashioned a lovely noose
To hang my fears from.
He will come through
This man -ancient, alive-
Will not fail me now.
The extremity is boldly breathed,
Coldly conjured,
Lacking true, tangible presence.
Imbalance is stressed
Emphasized,
Underscored,
And highlighted
By the quivering leaves
That match and mirror
My unfound and unconfident voice.
Breathe, young woman.
You must take it on,
Embrace this doubt-
Lovingly, subtlety
Then quell it,
Silence it.
Until it fades back into the universe
And is adopted by another.
Dounia Sadeghi
Touching
Let me devour you
let us become endlessly
each other
give me your insecurities, you perceptions
all of your misconceptions
let me feel the things inside of you,
press yourself to me
and give me hope, faith
be unyielding, make me bend
and waver for you
here, the two of us,
moving, even if only slightly
for each other
let me take your breath
and you in turn take mine
kiss me as we open for each other
stretch to feel the poetry
behind my eyes,
and I will grasp the resilience in you soul
let us travel together
sighing in unison
as we wind and unwind
rise and fall
here in these moments
touching
Between Her Legs
I knew a girl who wanted everything
but never got it
because there was this man
between her legs
always this man
between her legs
she missed counting the stars
in the long summer nights
because this man
pushed his way
between her legs – between her legs
and she must have left
her heart with that man
because she tries to go on
to fill the empty space
where this man was
between her legs
Finding Us
you were immense
you were immense
and you have filled me
the small catch of air
that rests between us
in the moment before our lips
finally touch
is our only form of religion
there are the days
when I examine myself
and the connection of more beautiful
pieces leaves me lacking
here where I have done wrong
and here where I have hated you
mix to the procrastination
which is the sum and total of us
but you are immense
you are immense
and you found me
it seems I wonder now
and this distance I feel
is more than between us
it’s our philosophy
Nicole Provencher
IF NOT FOR THESES GRACES
Of what use the flowering
hawthorn outside my window
flurry of pink blossoms
clustered abundance at winter’s end?
Or sap-twisted pine branches
plumes of spruce needles
switching like horse tails?
Neither squirrel
hopscotching cold ground
not querulous jay
scolding from the porch railing
add to my coffers.
What price human suffering?
Can the litany of screams
every century, every continent
stop the next madness?
Then think on these mysteries:
the inflorescence of the calla lily
rising from its creamy chalice
the alabaster promise
of the quickening moon.
FERMATA
after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music
Aldous Huxley
A sweep of palomino blond hair
cascades over one eye as he bends
to the honeyed rosewood of his guitar.
Tapered fingers caress chords,
press frets, lightly flutter the vibratos
of the Ponce’ sonata
Completed pages of sheet music
drift to the floor, a Spanish shawl
wrapping itself around me.
At each fermata, he holds
‘til the sound disappears holds
while the empty air reverberates
and I hold my breath, wonder
what kind of lover he would be,
this man.
When I think I can’t wait any longer,
he releases his touch. Head bowed, still
locked in the passion, he gathers himself,
inhales our applause. He rises, smiles,
holds his guitar out like an offering.
Fermata – a direction to hold the note longer than its usual length; shown by
a sign just under or over the note. In real life, it means “watch the
conductor” since he or she is the one who determines how long the note is
held.
ONE OF THE GUYS
for Brandon
Warm hours – the fire, talking of poetry,
why we seven came together this weekend.
Midnight – two of the men, old friends,
pull on parkas, decide to walk to the pond.
I, newcomer, tentative,
engage their gaze.
They invite me along.
Lights from the barn recede behind us
as we crunch through the frozen ferns
sleeping off Palomar winter.
Under ice crust our boots sink, thigh-high snow.
In silence, at pond’s edge they pass the pint.
Wild Turkey, liquid bond.
Anthracite night – moonglaze
on shadow-pleated drifts of snow.
My cheeks aflame with cold,
heat of whiskey in my throat.
This fractal moment.
Sylvia Levinson
Merge with the river
by James downs
excerpts for his recently published volume
Impression
Across the long bone
of mountain two wing
span shadows circle slowly
twice around soon follow
the bone spine of mountain
until they disappear imprint
still on my skin
Source
Words are in the river
floating up from the bottom
last attached to substantial
rocks the words bob between
waves we see glimpses
of sentences in our mind’s eye
but we don’t own the words
the river only gives them up
on loan if we cup our hands
just right and dip in just
so and catch them as they float
on past in this interim we are
allowed to jumble the words
scramble the words and delight at
sentences through sight that come upon us
in the long run words
sink back into the river until
someone else cups their hands just so
for a gifted loan the words are in
the river the river is keeper
of words and takes them
all the way back to the open sea
Submerged
At the mouth of a crying creek
as it empties into thick river a double
knobbed log submerged green flutes
of river weeds wave in the waves
two sets of weeping pines curve
over the mouth like a bower or
an entrance/exit sign beckoning you
to stay
water rolls on deep
Driven Into the Shade
by Brandon Cesmat
excerpts
Gracias, Sabás
Afternoons, I’d come in from the garden to
the kitchen and tell Sabás I was hungry.
I sat with my Grammy at the long table
where she rested her heart and practiced Spanish with Sabás.
Sabás could turn a white tortilla in an iron skillet
without burning her fingertips while it
singed brown and picked up black freckles.
I studied the tortilla’s surface as butter melted, settling its flour-dust.
Although I wished for beans or meat, Sabás gave only this calientito,
nothing more to spoil my dinner.
I don’t recall much about the salads, roasts or puddings
only those tortillas that held my afternoon hunger.
Today I look at flour tortillas as topographical maps,
brown and black hills in the white desert,
where masa harina rose into the palms that made them.
I read tortillas as circular maps that I put to my lips,
hoping to trace the ways to Sabás, Ana, Chona or Beatrice, but
the tortilla only leads the way to its edge,
not to the hands that made it,
though many California children would follow
this map to the women who raised us,
would follow from hand to mouth to memory.
First All Night
Summer's end midnight,
a boy shivers in a blanket.
The pond below the bluff
holds yesterday's heat.
A can of beans for tomorrow sits
by the cold fire-ring stones
while he huddles
frightened of brush fires
In the next valley
mother clicks off the late show
the screen goes blank, leaves
no dot in the center.
A paw snaps a stick
near the muddy bank.
Crickets count heartbeats double time.
Stars poison his eyes.
Summer's end morning
boy shivers in a blanket.
In the mist over the pond
floats yesterday's heat.
Laughter Path
If I lie down for the wheel of time
to roll over me, I am full of use;
I keep time from falling, I catch memories
and hold words as sand holds the colors of
a mandala. Everyday on the beach,
blueprints to circumvent suffering are thrown
and then withdrawn to the laughter of waves.
The saline of saltwater and blood.
I remember selling plasma,
my cool red cells flowing back into the vein,
the temperature of my strange self
on the path through my heart
To Billy Collins’ Critics: It’s Complicated
Facile,
that’s what
critics say
but maybe the words
were not written
for those who seek
to lay bare
what ain’t there.
Just maybe
they were written
for those who seek
to validate
what is.
Maybe
there was no
justification
for blowing smoke.
Ahhhh……
the irony of
simplicity
The splendor of it.
That is,
if there is
any such thing.
Marlene Brooks Brannon
Mule Ride
My mule Suzanne promenades to close to an abyss
On Bright Angel Trail I clung to my saddle unable to look
My mule retraced a clearing in The South Rim
Wandered on the edge of a plateau
A wedding cake of stone layers on layers of eternity into a narrow path
I’m on a mule shaking
Don’t look down- Don’t look up- Don’t look around
Cliff on cliff we descended balanced on the edge of a petrified seas
Hanging on a mule that just pissed on me
My right leg wet warm dirty
My mule tearing up dirt on a shelf above Earth
Hope my mule won’t bray or lose her footing
I’m scared as a cat in water and the mule on the trail in front of me
Is passing gas with every step she takes
I whiff mule with every stride
My mule just took a crap
My butt’s sore- My legs stretched into an arch
I want to lie on the floor
Go Suzanne Go-
At the top I dismounted
Look The Grand Canyon.
Mother Earth’s Ore
Under raw skin bleeds rust
Sheathing ferrous caul cavity
Cradled in earths’ molten core
Marvel at nature’s mineral metamorphosis
We dug it up
Molded into a thing of beauty
Symbols of empire
Statues of adoration
Weapons of war
Only humans can smelt an ore.
Zen Garden
Simmering sands
Silver serenity
Structured Samurai sea
Vincent J. Tomeo