April - Poem 20
untitled / Maureen Alsop
Oh, That Merseybeat! / Bob Bradshaw
How Am I?
Old age is good. I don't miss
the tropical heat waves
of menopause.
Still, there’s the fear
of falling, breaking a hip.
And my pacemaker
can’t keep as good a beat
as I had in 1963.
Gerry & the Pacemakers
were my favorite band!
How Do You Do It?
#1 on the charts!
Oh god, Rory
And The Hurricanes!
Rory's pummeling rhythms
like good sex!
Remember
The Cavern Stomp?
The floor so cramped
all we could do
was hold
hands
--and hunch forward,
lean back,
shift our feet
--maybe share a cigarette,
and who knew,
with the right song?
the right band?
the kisses would be flying
nearly as quickly
as the rapid
drumbeats!
To Know Me / Stan Galloway
my civilization . . . does not go deeper than my clothes*
one hundred and eleven neckties
at the end of a career
but not a single suit that fits –
clothes have never made the man
just costumed him
created a predictable façade.
to know me is
to see beneath the shirt
to feel the sweat of digging on a summer day
to smell the garlic coming through my pores
to hear integrity in the timbre of my words
to taste truth in my thoughts
and understand me bare –
vulnerable in trusting you.
*Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan
Love Poem / Ava Hu
*
We move through space.
Seers and prophets
summoned by the explosion
of dust and heat.
The unseen
becomes seen:
dawn, stream, current,
the many-tailed surge.
We move through space
between forms.
Folded current, your heart,
the lines between birches
unfasten
in weather and wind,
until the world
enters your mouth.
*
On returning from Birdsong Nature Preserve / Kirsten Miles
The live oaks canopy their knotted limbs
arching ghost lace tree tunnels
Spanish moss feathering evening light
tiny scales raised to catch any breeze
mouths open in pursuit of the humid Gulf breath
April is the month of rising sap
the lush green fur, resurrection ferns
that ride the tops of fat oak branches
are a scorched rust, a brittle curled skin
Now moss and fern and tree wait with a holy
patience in the long kiln, one thickening of clouds
lowering down in shower, a sudden voltaic green
meeting the rising mist of the road
we are waiting for the sky
to remember its only job
Do n Yo ur Sh oes No w Part 1 / Sergiy Pustogarov
b r o k e n
d o o r
f r a m e s
s c a t t e r e d
a l o n g
a
r o c k I n g
h a l l w a y
I t ’ s
b l a c k n e s s
n e v e r
f u l l y
I l l u m i n a t e d
e x c e p t
f o r
t h e
f l I c k e r i n g
s o l e
l a m p
a t
t h e
e n d
o f
t h I s
e x p a n s e
t h e
s w a y
o f
t h e
f l o o r
s t o p p I n g
u s
b e f o r e
w e
r e a c h
e a c h
w I n d o w
t o
s t a r e
o u t
a t
t h e
h I s t o r y
w e
k e e p
s e e k I n g
a l o n g
e a c h
n e w
e n t r a n c e
s o m e h o w
w e
k n o w
t h a t
s I l e n c e
c o m e s
f a s t e r
t h a n
u s
w h e n
w e
f o l l o w
a l o n g
e a c h
n e w
d o o r
g r a b b I n g
t h e
h a n d
o f
a n o t h e r
j u s t
a s
t h e y
s l I p
p a s t
t h e
t h r e s h o l d
l o s t
I n t o
a n o t h e r
a b y s s
chasing the high of hydroplaning / nat raum
i actually am interested in seeing
god, thank you—sweet nothings
and deistic comparisons from lovers
don’t do it for me anymore. i take
my dirty martinis the same way i was
bottle-fed my kinks—vulgar. olives
are best served from a jar, brine ice-
cold. now twist the dial to the right.
i need to be a little terrified to feel
sane. when the sun shines, i smoke
my joints in twos like cigarettes.
and when it rains, i slip and slide
across a wet carpet of cherry
blossom petals on pavement.
Des Plaines River Flood / Daniel Avery Weiss
Water laps at my feet.
The riverbank obliterated.
Scores—
armies
of oaks
rise from the surface, petrified.
There is no swamp here,
and the trees, they
cannot swim. A squirrel
dances through
its last breaths.
