Breathing Poetry

Written by Anne Bryant-Hamon
She lives in Florida, USA
Her blog HERE

Originally published in 2River View (Fall 1999)

To Vincent

I wish he could have seen the fields of Spain,
the massive blocks of sunflowers,
their pug-nosed faces upturned toward the sunset;
more than enough to paint past thirty-seven's gate.
Have you seen yellow ochre past a tender age,
its vintage kept by shaded, airtight glass
beyond the pale of early learning years,
still wet enough to draw the latter rains?
In Holland there are colors known to few
where pails of silver poured the milk and lime.
I saw them once and never left behind the taste
of umber's golden sunburn on my tongue.
I wonder if he listened to his peers,
which paintings that we'll never chance to view,
forever buried under yellowed graves,
and if, perhaps, the best were left undone?

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Anne Bryant-Hamon, Poetry

Written by A.E. Stallings
She lives in Athens, Greece
Her website HERE

Published in her first collection, Archaic Smile,
University of Evansville Press, 1999.

Fishing

The two of them stood in the middle water,
The current slipping away, quick and cold,
The sun slow at his zenith, sweating gold,
Once, in some sullen summer of father and daughter.
Maybe he regretted he had brought her—
She'd rather have been elsewhere, her look told—
Perhaps a year ago, but now too old.
Still, she remembered lessons he had taught her:
To cast towards shadows, where the sunlight fails
And fishes shelter in the undergrowth.
And when the unseen strikes, how all else pales
Beside the bright-dark struggle, the rainbow wroth,
Life and death weighed in the shining scales,
The invisible line pulled taut that links them both.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: A.E. Stallings, Poetry

Written by Tom Sheehan
He lives in Saugus, Massachusetts, USA
His website HERE
Interviews HERE and HERE

Originally published in The 2River View, 5.4
(Summer 2001)

The Lilac Run

For twelve years the lilac
sat still. Each spring I
waited for lavender odors

to uproot the air, carve
a name across an evening,
break subtle barriers.

The last bloom was yours.
When you shook it loose
in the kitchen, wet it,

the square room softened
and wore wings only lilacs
enfranchise. You died too soon.

Purple hosannas leaped today,
up sang the lilac choir
from the twelve year silences.

All night your voice
sounds like perfume
escaping the flask,

sits thick as gun-
powder near wounds
hardly worth healing.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Poetry, Tom Sheehan

Written by Therese Broderick
She lives in Albany, New York, USA
Her site: Small Returns

Originally posted on Every Photo Tells A Story
for the image prompt shown here

Operation Smile

Child, because I sent my pledge
to some torn patch of the globe--
Cambodia, Morocco, Honduras--
you can now smile for the first time
at your mother's deep brown eyes,
or chew the banana she peels for you,
or learn how to say another word, tongue
meeting the new roof of your mouth.
The word for "love" or "tasty" or
"more." More hugs, more bananas.
And when you are no longer a child,
when you are healed enough to
recite your village's oldest words,
smile when you come to that story's
tragic ending. Mend whatever you can
of our clefted world. Smile often
for the sake of disconsolate poets.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Poetry, Therese Broderick

Written by Arlene Ang
She lives in Spinea, Italy
Her website: Arlene Ang

(Originally published in Creations Magazine,
Vol. 18, Issue 3, June/July 2004)

Blood Oranges in Spring

Like Botero's women,
plump with dimples --
an orotund sunset gathering.
My eyes grow accustomed
to windows, observing
fruit fall on grass.
Since the slip downstairs,
my wrinkled ankle has bloated
to sanguinello beauty.
The hired gardener comes daily
to tend my flowers, a stillborn
loneliness on his lapel.
Twice now, he has left two
ripe-red orbs on the porch bench
like a humbling confession of love.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Arlene Ang, Poetry

Written by Kathryn Kirkpatrick
She lives in Boone, North Carolina, USA

(Originally published by The Cortland Review, May 2007, Issue 35)

When she left

you went into the barn
to open windows,
release house wrens
trapped in the eaves,
and they rose to the top
branches of the buckeye
while you stood below,
rooted, facing what was left
of the day, until finally
they flew beyond memory
into dusk and you went in
to sleep so drenched by dreams
you did not want to wake.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Poetry

Written by Gordon Mason
He was born in Fife, Scotland, and now divides
his writing time between Scotland and Spain.
His blog: Catapult To Mars

(Originally published in Snakeskin)

Blue

Blue passion flower, anvil
for butterflies delivered
by a soft yellow-dressed afternoon.

I think of the amethyst cross
between her breasts,
coffee in small rococo cups

and wood smoke that braids
her hair a fragrance of olive.
Her hands speak

like keepers of my old dreams.
Let the bad winds blow, they say,
they will never open scars.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Gordon Mason, Poetry

Written by Ben Howard
He lives in Alfred, New York, USA
His website: One Time, One Meeting

(Originally published by Cortland Review, No. 6, February 1999)

Old News

Those little increments
of grief: how silently

they travel in the blood
of mourners, bearing news

that makes no headlines, wears
no byline, yet remains

for years, for generations,
persisting as it must

in vein and artery,
lung and bone. And when

its broadcast comes, its blast
is loosed into the heart,

how sudden it appears
and how remote, as though

its presence there were foreign,
its virulence unknown.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Ben Howard, Poetry

Written by Susan Stewart
(From Red Rover, University of Chicago Press, 2008.)

the fox

Did we live lightly then?
Twice we’ve seen the fox,
the flash
of red that leaps
the weeds and brush, an after-
image gray,

then blank, then gone
delight cannot be sought
or pleasure thought
or joy re-caught
but twice we saw the fox, not once,
and knew his fear of us

Step in time, love, step in time,
live inside the morning
twice we saw the fox, not once,
and knew his fear of us

Posted with consent from with the writer.

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Featuring: Poetry, Susan Stewart

Written by Karen Nowviskie
She lives in West Virginia, USA
Her blog: Keeping Secrets

O, Danny Boy

We climbed the rocks above the gorge
to have your party as you wanted.

The evening sun shone from the ancient
river like a fire encased in steel.

The air, sweet and cold, rang little
breath clouds as we sang your Irish song.

Anna, swaying as she sang, held to you as you
had held to her when she was still your child.

You didn’t mind the clinging; you seemed
in no great rush to go your way alone.

When finally it was time for you to leave, you faltered,
torn between falling back with us and flying free.

Just then, the wind picked up the tune, the trees
piped out your name, and we in silence watched

as you embraced the sky.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Karen Nowviskie, Poetry

Written by Sarah Copeland
She lives in Gabriola Island, Canada
Her blog: Questions in Black and White
And, 2009 in Pictures

Burial Song *Hum soft my night angel*

Take my hand and lead me on
as you sing this burial song

'oh hum soft my night angel
lifting your eyes to a horizon
bathed in caramel

oh hum soft my night angel
lowering your blood stained bones
into an earthen swaddle

oh hum soft my night angel
as the flies fill your ears,
you are deaf but don't be doubtful

oh hum soft my night angel
the shadows they laugh with grief
miming your journey dismal

oh hum soft my night angel
in the sky somewhere between the stars
there is a space for you my angel

oh hum soft my night angel
as this song comes to an end
and your body begins to shrivel

oh hum soft my night angel
lifting your eyes to a cover of mud
that stray feet will trample

oh hum soft my night angel
so as not to frighten the ignorant;
hum soft my night angel.'

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Poetry, Sarah Copeland

Written by Emily Anderson
She lives in Columbus, Ohio, USA
Her blog: Rice in the Cupboard

Debris

(Debris, Ohio State University, January 2009 )

A half-eaten bagel and a pair
of black furry earmuffs curl
together on a bench outside
Denney Hall, like animals
trying to keep warm by sharing
the small heat of their bodies.

The sidewalk glows thinly,
slick and dangerous. A receipt
from the bookstore is frozen
against the curb, over a hundred
dollars for one book. Free
newspapers scuttle across
my path. Even they are rushed,
hurrying for shelter, missing
so much of this experience.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Emily Anderson, Poetry

Written by Howie Good
He lives in Highland, New York, USA
His blog: Apocalypse Mambo

Previously published in everydayweirdness

Right-Hand Man

I’d pick up a spoon
in my left hand,

and they’d take it
and put it in my right.

I was small, very small,
probably no bigger

than a hobo’s bindle.
They’d look down at me

while I slept
and shake their heads.

Where they came from,
liars and arsonists

were left-handed.
I’d pick up a block

in my left hand,
and they’d take it

and put it in my right.
Now sometimes

when I start to reach
for what I want,

I’ll stop suddenly
and wonder

whose hand this is.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Howie Good, Poetry

Written by Elizabeth J. Russo
She lives in New Jersey, USA
Her site: Elizabeth J Russo

Sparrow’s Song

The hedgerow is alive

A sweet choir from little throats
awakens the spirit
of spring

Winter preaches loyalty
from the pulpit
but a rebellious chorus
sings and the congregation
rejoices

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Elizabeth J Russo, Poetry

Written by Jude Goodwin
She lives in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada
Her website: Jude Goodwin

Originally published in the Comstock Review, Spring/Summer 2005.

One grunt

This is my floor,
I'm down on it
cheek flattened, hands
on the wood. Its yellow grain
spreads away from me like wheat,
like all these things:
tumbleweed, dog hair,
the sodbuster’s son upon me
(one grunt for every nail);
the underside
of a long oak table at dinnertime;
my father with a bottle of fine whiskey
hiding in his pant leg;
and always the boys
kicking each other. Tonight
there'll be pieces of dinnerware on the floor
and chairs knocked back
and bellyaching
(quit yer bellyaching).
I never liked sex
on the floor, the convenience
of it and the acres
of accessibility, and it's so
cinematic - like the family supper,
everyone buffed and glowing,
the kitchen hardwood
oiled and ready.
If only those boys
could just settle down,
maybe the old man
would leave them alone.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Jude Goodwin, Poetry

Written by Collin Kelley
He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA
His blog: Collin Kelley

Originally appeared in Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

Secret Origins of the Super-Villains

The comic book arrives in the mail,
found on eBay, sold by a stranger,
my childhood memory only $10
plus postage.
I’ve wanted this since I was six,
the oversized DC for $1.00,
cried over its disappearance
from the rack at Grant’s,
my parents screaming at each other
over why they wasted money
on Lion Country Safari,
when all I wanted was the comic:
Secret Origins of the Super-Villains.
The cover emblazoned on my brain,
a holy grail for almost thirty years.
Superman, Batman, The Flash,
and Wonder Woman all hard-charging
toward the enemies, Lex Luthor,
The Joker, Captain Cold and Cheetah.
Now I have it in my hands, and it means
nothing. It’s as perfect
as a summer day in 1975, unscarred by time,
pristine in plastic wrapper.
Maybe I just wanted that year back,
and the twenty that followed.
To take those days, put them under
lock and key or on a high shelf,
protected from damage.
Maybe I just want to believe,
like when I was five,
that someone could save me.
Could keep my parents together,
save people from dying,
and buildings from falling.
Even at thirty one, sitting in front of a TV
on a blue September morning
as the planes crashed in NYC,
I held out hope there might be a Superman.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Collin Kelley, Poetry

Written by Arlene Ang
She lives in Spinea, Italy
Her website: Arlene Ang

Previously published in The Desecration of Doves (iUniverse, 2005)

Women in Love

It is the pillbox hat I remember most, a Paris
green with matching veil. In our house, au pairs

came and went. She lasted two years, smiled
rarely. Under her instructions, my mother slimed

fish, towel-dried glass jars. We ate raw
tuna, babbled in Japanese. Father called it war,

snatched saké from her hands. He was never sober.
We got used to padding around in terry robes.

Her power suit spiked him, every room was mined
territory. In time, my mother burned her denim

pants, the linen dresses, tinged her hair ocher,
took to strolling in the country. My summer chore

was to tend the lawn. I saw them under the peach
tree once: a cutting moment. There was nothing cheap

about her lipstick as it stained my mother's pale
neck. From afar, I heard the church bells peal.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Arlene Ang, Poetry

Written by Pris Campbell
She lives in the Greater West Palm Beach, Florida, USA.
Her website: Poetic Inspirations

Originally published in Walt's Corner
(New York newspaper column by George Wallace).
Inspired by a photo titled: Crash by Elena Retfalvi.

Storm in Africa

You wrote daily
from Africa.

The wind in your words
swept me to spaces
sown by wild orchids,
stalked by lean lions.

But a new love captured,
carried you down
fresh pathways, lay
beside you when wolves
prowled in the night.

Our storm now peaked
and passed, I am a leaf,
tumbling,
with no memory
left of its home.

Posted with consent from the writer.

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Featuring: Poetry, Pris Campbell