December - Poem 26
From My Left Nostril, A Thought / Kate Bowers
For Kitty
“Really? This is your response?”
“Look, I’m saying I am needed.
I dropped the paper in a hurry,
And there it was.”
“You’re an intuitive sneezer then?
Is that how you’re billing yourself?”
“Absolutely, yes.”
I blow my nose again and point at the list.
Pennsylvania drops a lot of balls from time to time, but on New Year’s Eve it excels consistently
across the board, dropping:
o A 4 -foot, 9 -inch tall 400-pound marshmallow peep that glows, yellow I think, in Bethlehem
o A 1,000-pound orb of recycled materials in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District
o An 85-pound galvanized wrench in Mechanicsburg
o A 16-foot cylinder of Pennsylvania Dutch bologna in Lebanon will be lowered rather than dropped for obvious reasons. Is bologna a middle eastern food originally tho? Hmmm.
o Gettysburg, a contrarian, raises a replica of Abraham Lincoln’s stovepipe hat into the sky.
o Hallam drops a replica of an entire house—the Shoe House, though so far, no witches have been crushed from the doing of this deed.
o A gigantic bag of Hartley’s Potato Chips in Lewistown
o A white rose in York, and a red rose in Lancaster. Because you can never escape the Plantagenets, not even in the New World.
o A strawberry in Harrisburg in recognition of a nearby shopping center. It is unclear as to whether this berry is unusual in size or consists of anything other than a regular berry in nature.
o Unlike a stainless steel, 700-pound glowing mushroom that is dropped in Kenneth Square, the “Mushroom Capital of the World.” Does Worthington know this?
o A Hershey’s Chocolate Kiss, still wrapped in foil in, of course, Hershey
o A dill pickle known as Mr. Pickle in Dillsburg
o A 5-foot-tall pair of yellow breeches in Lower Allen Township in recognition of the Yellow Breeches Creek—-Wow no pun intended, but wow, there it is, and what a good reminder to add Borax to the wash, but never at the same time as white vinegar, no.
o An anchor in Shippensburg
In the streets, in the square, in a park, it’s all going down. Well except for Gettysburg—those guys.
“It’s my favorite holiday! We should go,” say I.
“Pick one, maybe two if you’ll let me drive. We can make it!”
“I’ll start with that used Kleenex you’re still hanging onto,” say you,
holding out a trash can.
“Drop it.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSbGW0bj3BT/?img_index=9&igsh=MWdnZmdmYXlkMzRwZA==
Take Care / Katie Collins
I’ll make the breakfast
And wash the dishes
Fix you a cold wash cloth
Soothe whatever inside you is screaming
No one should be sick on Christmas
Be a fountain, not a drain / Ellen Ferguson
Driving out past the Russian math place
Miles after the Russian piano school
West of Westfield,
There’s a curve in the road and a church with a sign:
“Be a fountain, not a drain,”
It reads.
Like a Grecian urn who says,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”
A good sign points flailing trees towards the light.
J. Alfred Prufrock sighed, “It is impossible to say
Just what I mean,” but J. Alfred should have talked
Less, listened more. Not only to the voices in the wind, cradling
Birches, not only to signs and urns, but to
Things we give away: Chobanis whisper their goodbyes, Bluey houses murmur.
When the burning bush burned, who knows how many passed it by --
Moses was the first who stopped, that’s all.
What crashes against Outer Banks / Davis Hicks
Upon the green of greater shores
where waves are more emerald than water,
I witness the turning of the tide.
Witness the growth of so many packs of wrung rough rot, drifting in the dark.
Witness the floating imposters of plastic bags
posing as jellyfish.
How many shelled things have shoved their gullet with the fake,
which will outlive the memory of all of us
and haunt the horizons of our descendants.
I witness the way anonymous-apathy
ravage-wreaks across the highways and the byways of the world,
scenic and cutting both,
between the ranges of every standing mountain.
I have witnessed the terror delivered upon the world
by those who think it’s “just one time”
as if the knife delivered to the neck
did not count
if raked across flesh
just the once.
Bleeding is bleeding,
dead is dead,
and our endlings are the cadavres
we must learn to doctor from.
Witness the cry with braces shoulders,
as I have witnessed the drowning of the living,
There is no time for tears,
no spare breath or water
inside the furnace-fires never meant for brush.
Ears more open than mine have heard
the melodies of birds which will not sing for long,
Carolina parakeet spreading neotropical wings
if only for the dreaming.
They have much to do before they sleep,
Yet we have contracts to keep.
Yet we have contracts to keep.
Soon there will be no witnesses.
In time, the magic hour / Victor Barnuevo Velasco
with a line from James Agee
Against persistent rumors of storm --
polished and calculated, if incomplete,
arranged to wield the maximum damage
to body and brain,
I collect the levies of a dreadful summer.
Another enemy is headlined each day --
the older asylees, the newer arrivals,
those with dialects yet to be identified --
grasping for words that approximate
misery and terror from where they came.
Turn your skin into night – at day, the sun
burns white. Will I understand
the Morse Code of your footsteps? Will they
mark the timbre against concrete
and asphalt, gravel and mud?
You long for the magic hour -- tender and kind.
But now is still the season of armored beasts
and restless battalions. In warehouses still,
armies keep forming. In his palace,
still captive the old wild king.
Self care / Jen Wagner
Sometimes self care is lying in bed and bleeding all over the white duvet
How long will I be here?
How long would it take for someone to notice?
Pillows are soaked with tears and rage.
Grief so cutting there’s a hollow where my heart should be.
Sometimes self care is cutting off your arm for that taste of freedom.
How far will I go?
Is there anyone out there?
Let me run
Not to find you
But to find myself.
in the places I’ve always wanted to be.
Sometimes self care is obliterating thought and drowning in emotion.
Is there a way out?
Or do I have to go through?
But I already know the answer to that.
The hardest decisions to make will always be the ones that birth the butterfly.
Once Upon a Time / Stacy Walker
It’s easy to get caught up
In a wish
For what happens
At the end of a story,
A wish for the fortune,
The happy ending,
All the wishes
Come true.
But when the ending becomes
Just another beginning
And nothing sticks
And the wishes come and go,
I wonder
What to long for
Along the way.
The peace, the ease,
Time to breathe,
The wherewithal
To wonder and wait,
The willingness
To soak in the pain
As wholeheartedly
As the joy,
But the joy –
To find the joy
In the mundane –
To laugh
Til I cry
Over nothing,
To feel the warmth
Of my body
On cold sheets
On a morning
When the sun
Is higher in the sky
Than it should be,
But I’m still
Wrapped up
In letting the day become
What it will.
I wish
For the story.
