December - Poem 19
We Walk Back to the Wide House / Kate Bowers
Here south of the Bear Camps but north of the trailers, we walk.
The wide house we seek lies against the mountain on a narrow lane.
Already the house begins to split open, like a crackerjack or pomegranate scattering.
A barred owl dreaming there high and large atop your cedar tree opens its eyes.
The wide house we seek lies against the mountain on a narrow lane.
Unfindable under summer skies but through blood beating inside the ear.
Before the barred owl dreaming there opened its eyes high and large.
We knew the cedar as a fellow sapling, its brothers planks, roof shingles for the making.
Unfindable under summer skies but through blood beating inside the ear.
We remember it from the touch reddened fingers made hewing its wide shape.
The barred owl now casts a veil warning off would-be Aladdins from its walls as we come closer.
Bears give it wide berth, the trailers remain, unconscious in the face of splendor.
We remember it from the touch reddened fingers made hewing its wide shape.
Already the house begins to split open, like a crackerjack or pomegranate scattering.
Bears give it wide berth, the trailers remain, unconscious in the face of splendor.
Here south of the Bear Camps but north of the trailers, we walk.
Wisteria / Katie Collins
Flowers grow around me
Covering me in beauty
Little purple petals
Fall with every
Breeze
If trees are meant to be strong,
I am a bush in tree’s clothing
Bowing to the pressure
Of the delicate I can’t quite
reach
As their vines suffocate slowly
I now know what it means to be lovely
Little green arms
Closing rank
Choke
Ugly Sweater / EllenFerguson
Held fast, the sweater with the cat in the snow
Drapes nonchalant crunch like an invalid invalid
Passing it to you I acknowledge:
She's really gone.
How to “Discover” a land inhabited by people, declare it empty and make it yours / Chris Fong Chew
Land on another land far away from yours, declare yourself explorers in search of something more
Begin trading with the locals, offering your goods for theirs.
Being setting up beneficial alliances with the locals, try to befriend them
After befriending them, find out who is the most powerful group, begin to build an alliance with them
While building those alliances, find other groups that dislike the most powerful group, begin building alliances with them as well
As you build trust with the most powerful group, begin drawing up unfair agreements, tip the scales in your favor
When the most powerful group begins to call you out on it, begin threatening violence and war
When the most powerful group refuses to back down, declare war, arbitrarily, and use your other alliances to take the most powerful group down
Once they are out of power, turn on your other alliances with the less powerful groups
Once you have defeated the groups as well, any survivors, make sign an unfair treaty for “peace”
Once this is done, declare the land empty and untouched, pristine to build upon
Lay claim to this land and continue to expand
When the tide of history turns against you, erect statues honoring those you slaughtered and call them heroes
Rinse, and repeat
Rinse, and repeat
Rinse, and repeat.
Embody what survivors teach, with anything but promises / Davis Hicks
Listen with the ears of squirrels-
with their twitchy consistency,
with hearing unfazed by cars
but aware
of every drying leaf,
witnesses of the trembling.
Be fluid as the flox,
that water walker whose presence
is not louder than the mist,
diligent and clever
in all the ways that keep
hearts beating-
protectors of kits even
while hunting the small
and wet-nosed.
Drift as crane feet in winter
On skid-ice,
the only walker willing to take
the light steps of faith
over the abysmal.
Determined with long beak and beady eyes,
those looking glasses full of fortunes
and not a single ripple,
all the focus of the
far-fisher,
willing to dive.
Swim upstream, salmon
and ignore the bears-
ignore the clawed, ignore
any looming shadow.
Your body will warp
as breath loses its salt
and open water is closed
In by so many stone-smoothed sliding walls.
Take this proof as permission,
vain-veining as valor.
Do not mind the bodies-
the current
will honor them
with return to sea,
with a true sailor’s burial
even as you
return to the home,
to the bedding grounds
in the clear crispness
atop the riverway.
Primal purpose arrives just,
ragged and discolored with the bruises of the
completion of every endocrine impulse
Answers.
There’s no secret to the upstream soul-search,
only diligence outswims the stream of luck.
We all deserve the honor
of giving the entirety
to a single solitary sanction,
of providing our battered bodies as the oasis
of a whale fall.
Ash / Victor Barnuevo Velasco
for Amy Haworth
Waiting for the universe to become a grain,
he watches a cloud of starlings condense,
grow tendrils in six directions -- only to retreat
into a teardrop before exploding into dandelions.
Galaxies within galaxies cluster and break
apart unceasingly. Stars seem still. Right now,
as he rests his hand on a passage of a medical
book, invisible galaxies pulse through his veins.
They swirl inside his organs -- brightness
sweeps across his body, scours dregs,
and shines through his pores. What silhouette
does his brilliance make? What hole
will it leave behind? A long time ago, he watched
a blank screen as a man infuses a dye in his
bloodstream. He saw how his body became
tendrils and fronds in an instant. He was black
ink that explodes and swirls. This must be
how the universe begins -- over and over.
It is not dust and ash that make him -- but light
and darkness. And how they keep dancing.
Keeper / Jen Wagner
I am a keeper.
of secrets
And wishes.
Of skeletons you keep hidden from existence.
From dark dreary pasts
Where you lack self forgiveness.
I hold stories close.
I’m here to bear witness.
I am an enabler.
Of your wildest dreams.
Here to usher in all your hopes
and your schemes.
To lay a red carpet
That connects the inbetween
Of this everyday life
To the road rarely seen.
I am the wilderness
Where you shed all your skins.
Remove all the bindings
We label as sin.
Here you roam free
No fear of the hidden.
Dive deep my love,
To the bounty within.
I am the calm
You seek from the storms.
Blue skies with blue eyes.
Skin soft and warm.
Sun dappled waters.
Come lay in my arms.
I will love you
And keep you
Protected from harm.
I am the mother
Who’s love knows no condition
I am the wife
Who serves in her mission
I am the lover
count all your blessings
I am the conjurer
Of all of our happiness
Priorities / Stacy Walker
I’m going as fast as I can
And as I want
And I don’t see
The reason
To hurry.
When you rush me
And speak to me
That way,
I feel scared
And sad
And can’t understand
What I’ve done
That’s so wrong.
When you ask me
What else
Needs to be done
Before we go,
I hurry on my scooter
To fill my water,
Get my shoes,
And along the way,
There are other things
To do.
The dogs need snuggles,
My ball needs bouncing,
It isn’t my fault,
These things are true.
And anyway,
I still don’t understand
The reason
To rush.
Whenever we get there,
Whatever we do,
It’ll all be fine,
Right?
You worry a lot,
Mama.
