December - Poem 20

The Horse / Kate Bowers

That time on the tour bus
Coming through Galway
And all the tea shops and paperies 
While every citizen, including you,
Scowled our way at our photo taking and pointing. 

“Ijits” you muttered under breath you were loathe to let go.

Still, I saw your hand on the ear of that draft horse, nothing else.

Unsaddled it was, and you without even a stick
Walking alongside, tipping your fingers 
Slightly to turn her at the corner,
Steadying her gait.

Imagine, I thought, the feel of it, running through, 

The surge.

Opportunity / Katie Collins

It’s easy to fly off
With a new wind
Soaring
Through your sails
It’s harder to stay

When the breeze
Drops you back
down again
On solid ground
Will anything have really changed?

Will the jade green
Grass of days passed
Shine brighter
As they live
In your memory

On Looking into the Central Park Performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Through the Eyes of a Twelve-Year-Old / Ellen Ferguson

When we do this for English class does a boy have to do that?
When we memorize this play do I need to say that?
Will I get a better grade if I do that dance with my hips?
Did Shakespeare have cell phones?
Double Entendre means sex but not saying it so much.
If we are all getting A's this class is too easy because we are not supposed to all get A's.
This is not like Gilmore Girls when they did Romeo and Juliet.

Icarus and Caramel  / Chris Fong Chew

Replace wax laden feathers 

With a sweet sugary concoction, 
a golden brown elixir made by the gods.

When Icarus jumped from that tower 
he began to rise
as the wind 
flowed 
beneath his wings. Powered by sugary 
flight, he soared ever so high. 

But as he flew 
too close to the sun the 
brown and gold 
dripping into the sea
turning the waters sweet 
with sugar and margarine. 

Saccharine feathers falling one by one
then all at once as Icarus lands
in a sweet and salty soup 
swallowed by flavors 
in a gentle 
plop.

Window watching / Davis Hicks

Drizzle-drowning, the constant 
straight-down torrent of the toothpick 
in its trumpetting trickle tacked on top
of doubling drowsy days.
All birds are silhouettes,
all forms of life flashes
glinting only for necessity,
ground-graveling away
from the grovel-gushing that turns 
all bowed things 
to creekbed.

Branches build the tempo in their nervous two-step,
Swaying to the tune
of billowing winds
with an ear
to its musical tenor.
Windows have stars of their own,
reminders that the dry and warm
have different skies
than the wild lives lived
beneath
unlying constellations.
Would wings be clipped if they built
walls instead of nests?
Maybe, somewhere between
mortar and drywall
something akin to wisdom 
is forgotten 
in the skin.
Do we ever wonder 
if we really aren’t
waterproof?
On the other side of the glass,
between bushes and the lurking bodies of trees,
all life could have been lives
even warmer than the one
hidden 
from the rain.

Light / Victor Barnuevo Velasco

and darkness. And how they keep
dancing in a ring of Fire. She takes
in everything. How the flashes
of the kindling become tongues

of flame. How the fire levitates
the clay pot, as if an offering
in a temple. This is not a kitchen.
She is not stirring a porridge

or counting the cups of rice left.
Today she is a cosmic dancer.
Today she becomes Shiva who
has become Nataraja. She is a god

who protects and destroys. Today
is Creation. She dusts off what weighs
down her hands. She raises her right
palm for joy, not supplication. Her hair

is Ganga, on which floats the moon.  
She raises her foot and sounds the Om.
Today she comprehends why she keeps
returning to the same gathering ground.

Rainbows and Ruins/ Jen Wagner

Your wounds. 

They’re so, very romantic to me. 
Even more than the rainbow that chased me down the highway today. 
As I flew down roads slick as a snakes back. 

I could see it in my rear view. 
It reminded me of all the times I chased the proverbial “pot of gold.”
The one that is supposed to be at the end. 
(Or so they say.)

But I digress…

I prefer the beauty of things 
My fingers can touch. 
Scars that run the length of your spine—
They speak to me,
Telling me that you are real. 

I know there’s a story behind each one. 
And I want to know them all. 
One at a time. 

I will ask you about all of them. 
Even scars want to be seen. 
To be held. 
They, too have stories that need to be told. 

I prefer the ruin to the rainbow. 
The texture of flesh
Over the vibrance of arches that my fingers can never reach. 

So please…
Lay with me here. 
Now. 

Let me trace the curve of your vestiges. 
So they are not forgotten. 

It is here 
That I chase my blessings. 

Full of Emptiness / Stacy Walker

Last year, it was a blur,
This time flying by
Only half aware
Of the world around me.

I thought it was the first
But now I see
The truth of the matter
Hadn’t even been born,

Still developing inside
Growing into
Its own being
Of the after.

So this year,
Is the first,
The first time
Feeling this empty space

Like I couldn’t before,
The emptiness
Filling up
What’s inside and out,

And I can clearly see
This space
And time
Without him.