February - Poem 9

Alliance  / Kristine Anderson

Daylight low on the horizon
glowing behind thin, gray clouds,
blue sky peeping through,

pitch pine and bare birch reaching up,
waving in the wind. A crow caw,
geese flying overhead, emitting their nasal honk,

the raspy whirr of a blue jay. Soon
our kitchen will fill with scents of soup:
celery and bay and chicken broth.

The dog paws for his dinner. It’s time.
The sun sets orange-pink, a splash
beyond the community of trees.

Poetic Sight / Barbara Audet

"It's not what you look at that matters; it's what you see."
Henry David Thoreau

Wordsworth observed daffodils
explode across green hills. 
He saw alone that day. 
Did his words protect 
his golden horde?
When all around him, 
wordless men 
broke the Earth?
How can words alone
change the scope 
of planetary reeling?
A word-wielding hoard 
everblind to the power of daffodils,
or Thoreau's patient pond,
use language bent to hurt.
Discourse: electronic, rapid,
falsely born to aid distraction,
now governs.
To own what should not be owned,
To claim what should not be claimed.
Shelley wrote of his broken statue,
a vain king, 
long forgotten 
in the desert, 
wasted.
He saw. 
For the privilege 
of his empowered sight,
a sly push beyond providence,
lost him his heart and penmanship.
What is the purpose 
of a poetic soul?
To make the world more lush, 
tolerable somehow?
To right the helm 
of society's sinking ship?
She thought she saw.
How unpoetic words provoke 
pretense that cries 
pathetically blameless.
Translated by narrow blinders, 
these quick bursts 
of money-laundered wordplay
are transparent.
As if a handful 
of jewel-colored balloons
were held up to the sun, 
and we poetic few 
could see straight through 
to the Apocalypse they want.
Soon their visible folly bursts,
balloons transform opaque,
landing from aloft,
across what is left 
of the blanket
of yellow daffodils.
All the cruelty,
is painted on the remnant
of those shattered thin skins.
Words unspoken though
are a silent paradox.
Composition forever 
on the cusp 
of new invention.
Waves of sentences,
particles of grammar,
made up
of passed on threads
of precious daffodils 
and sculptured, broken kings.
Once poetic, voiced,
the words fall 
more gracefully,
side by side,
awaiting translation 
of brave 
long-standing
universal truths.
We see.

untitled   / Bee Cordera

ATTEMPTS AT MEMORY / Ashby Logan Hill

We didn’t want but had to see what both of us knew of loss the morning after.
What happens when you deprive yourself of sleep before going under.
What mushrooms flush on this side of the river in the early parts of Springtime.
Did you happen to see the chickens and hens and cows again?
I can’t say I’m too fond of this cold, this bitterness for the first time here ever.
What is which that is of the moment and all you have is an empty nest?
Where is the paper spark you made which floats aimlessly still within your head?
It’s the year of the horse and you know it — the same thing over and over.
What is the ocean without its depths except a glimpse of the surface?
Five more times I’ve become overcome with the empty space.
It binds us like the seeping sap dripping everything, holds all of us together.
I’d like for there to be something more than the sum of these parts.
I’ll take the long way home to risk the matter of being late and more joyful for it.
Along this line, a horizon forms of lavender, a blue blossom beginning to bud.

A Case for Dreaming / Amy Marques

Silence faces heavy hours.

Dreaming, the village began 

to be lighter and lighter:

amazed,

awestricken.

And came forth to lead

as could be.

Source material: A Tale of Two Cities, p. 122

My day today  / Sonia Sophia Sura

I woke up to my roommate coughing in the kitchen. 
It sounded like a burp in my dream. 
Max texted me at the minute I awoke. 
Asked if I wanted to go to a coffee place. 
Yes! Yes! Yes! 
It felt like a propozal. 
It was 4 o clock, 3:54 pm to be exact, my birth time years ago. 
Max and I are both from 1999, both from the northeast, both met at a Gong festival. In Texas. He was working at the farm. 
I saw him as already-my-friend. 
Today at the coffee shop two people came up to us and said
I just wanted to say you two are so cute and look so in love! 

We’re best friend exhibitionists, Max says today.
Exhibitionists of the best friends in the universe. 
People think we’re in love. 
We are! 
Isn’t that all we’re made of? 

Moments of Japan  / Samuel Spencer

One moment, you’re trudging through
the most overcrowded, overstimulating
street in your life – a sea of people
with no discernable tide, neon lights
and signs for products you didn’t know
existed, a thousand raman shops and
a thousand izakayas; all accompanied by
a multitude of sounds, the chirping of a bird
of a crosswalk.

The next, you’re in a neighborhood devoid
of chaos, surrounded by quaint houses
and parks, grass. This moment is so
serene you forget the one before. You walk
quietly as not to disturb this moment.
An old man walks slowly passed you with
his hands clasped behind his back. He tips
his head at you in acknowledgment, and
finally you know the satisfaction of being
seen in such a place.