The once-blossoms from pear trees
pushed along in eddies of air,
gather in piles on pavement,
Teardrops darken the soil
where they impact – craters form
and moisture seeps away,
While blackbird nests dot between branches,
the sky torn with their cries;
lined-through words leave only
articles and prepositions,
no substance or action –
and scuttles the memory for lies.
Chalk sun-faces on an asphalt driveway,
drawn to chase away the chill breeze
and forecasted rain.
Bicycles circle the cul-de-sac
blazing trails, pedals flail.
Shouts and whoops
to Scout
to fetch the ball
and chase the calls.
Children playing with abandon.
Adults watch and see themselves –
their childhood, stranded.
Dear poet, I have so enjoyed your poem:
the one about the tree branches
that hang over the river -sometimes dipping into the water.
Yesterday, I read it several times slowly to myself and then once out loud –
when no one was within earshot of my voice.
I liked the sounds that it made and the confines of its place. This contributed to the imagery you’ve drawn and I felt I was moving there, then gone. The lyrical qualities appeal to me, especially the internal rhymes that feature throughout the piece.
Upon revisiting the words the next day, the meaning
or at least what I thought) was clear.
The branch is not sufficient in its purpose to simply reflect
from the stream.
The eddies created are themselves rhythmic and gleam.
Thank you poet for allowing your words to spill and flow,
so that trees from the riverside can touch them and grow.
****
I’ve got a poem up at Defuncted, a journal dedicated to reprinting pieces from defunct publications.
I’m grateful to editor Roo Black for providing a place where this poem can continue on. We live in an age of rapid advancement, and with that comes quick obsolescence. Writing has always transcended the technology/medium of its communication.
In silence, they dissolve before dawn-
the words my heart was calling.
They are not in the sun,
I can hear the noiseless sound raining down.
Nothing but the white vowels of the wind,
a perfect song is loveless.
The snow is beautiful on the ground.
For still the night through will they come and go,
unerringly toward the same trysting-place,
making beauty
with iced and darkened flow
on every road I wandered by.
Music, I’ll call it music,
she must have a song at any cost
again and again out of the world’s cold deafness.
*****
This Cento is comprised of lines from the following poets:
Mo H Saidi, Sara Teasdale, Avot Yeshurun, AE Stallings, Miguel Hernandez, Kenneth Patchen, DH Lawrence, Tony Hoagland, Thom Gunn, Philip Levine, Margaret Julia Marks, Graham Foust, Carolyn Wells, AE Houseman, Dabney Stuart
The leaves lay spread amidst a coverlet of snow-
one a bit early, the other late in season
past reds and yellows – some time ago.
They were once green, connected stem to root –
and spring and summer rains
dripping from their tapered ends fed them –
their flowers and their shoots.
The rains that came in maelstrom or set in calming mist,
now fall glissando-like in frozen silhouette.
Lighting on the grass and ground, setting to persist.
The time between these spells now hardly seems unfurled
and yet the leaves, now consummated, are ensconced in winter pearl.
Having arrived, definitively,
from your origins
as a thought
from far away – your power
to hold us all as newly born,
as something once not, yet now are –
created solely from bonds of love-
you are a certitude, swaddled in assurance.
You shine
and we are radiant.
*****
This week we welcomed our grandson into the world. I am almost speechless in my ability to convey how this impacted me.
Smoke arises from the chimney stack
in billows
from an untended burn.
It smolders and flashes, then flames.
More provocation
and maybe some oak, dense among woods,
for fuel;
it brings back the smoke
to choke away the cleansing flame
and obscure the fire,
producing words like bitterness and char.
Threading a long night through the rules and channels
in my memories I thought of trust.
When you get new things
you treat them like glass for a while.
Now the stars appear and the Night dreams
a life, the dazzler, the dark.
We will lose the sun
and surely take everything off your hands.
I don’t know the word for because,
How do I tell my mouth to speak?
It’s quiet again and now the sky is a tangled
mess of rags seeking out the bored and unwilling,
the heavens melted, dropping water down.
Long nights for simple words
Shy words tiptoeing from mouth to ear.
At different times,
a feeling comes, not woven by innocent hands.
And how could any of us get by
with one in the way?
****************************
This Cento is composed of lines from the following poets:
Robert Pinsky, Alex Dimitrov, John Lee Clark, Jericho Brown, Deborah Landau, Mark Tardi, Brenda Hillman, Jenny Xie, Melissa Stein, Ari Banias, Melvin Dixon, Donika Kelly, James J. Ryan, Lucy Ives,Pauli Murray, Adam Clay
Taps and Ratamacues 