July - Poem 30
The Nature of Things / Clayre Benzadon
After the 8 am log in,
three tabs open to three
different emails,
after the settling in—
you forget how to think.
Papers piled up on your desk,
which you can’t keep track
of, so instead you come to
the digital page. How to say
“gray day” a better way,
you type, wonder. You
conjure ballets and ash-
trays in your head, then
start to understand the nature
of things a bit more, how
one object shouldn’t relate
to the other so casually,
because life is random like
that: After ballet, the women
leans upon the ashtray atop
her nightstand, another kind
of Pirouette. A draft. Just
a draft entering the kitchen.
You shake a little
before reading this
more constructed
poem aloud.
More Less Than We Could Handle / RJ Ingram
Giovanni was the first to set his foxkitten free / Not to be one upped by their older brother Brock & Misty also set their foxkittens free: Brock let his go when the train stopped in the mountains then Misty sent her’s ashore as the train dove into the endless sea / The Lieutenant taught his foxkitten how to restart a car by rubbing up against it & when Erica’s learned to chirp like blades of grass whistling the other children yearned to learn what other tricks the foxkittens knew / But they always set them free / Sabrina’s foxkitten turned mauve in the morning twilight but Janine’s foxkitten’s divine immunity to every kind of poison was the most remarkable / Although not quite as useful as baby Blain’s kit’s ability to survive being set on fire / Mother watched her children grow up from her chapel in the caboose / They gave away their birthday presents like they were donations of stuffed animals for the needy / Mother was easily disappointed but this went beyond disappointment it was betrayal / To her it was eight ungrateful children unable to see power to be controlled / They had failed the test of the foxkitten / All of them / And they needed to be replaced / So Mother grabbed her deck from the Iron-Ivory box on the black altar & drew a card to find places to abandon them while she looked for their replacements.
New Growth / MeraBaid Kuar
To grow watermelon soak the wood-grain seeds for half a day–
set a poem free to flap its wings and gums,
if it returns commit it to the page
and whisper its magic into pockets of air your plant inhales–
choose an earthy non-soil to press your arthritic fingers into
and place your seeds upright–
allow a little tip to peek through
long enough to wiggle in its blanket and take in the warmth,
as it shifts and yawns and says grace tuck it in completely.
The hard part is keeping it moist and warm in cool weather,
but soon the sun will wear its summer crown
and you’ll bring it out for open air playdates with your other plants.
It will become a large slumber party that lasts all day, everyday.
Try to keep it damp and fed, but the sun will do the rest.
Sometimes you’ll forget to respond as it begs for another sip of water,
there is so much noise, but usually it will sprout green shoots,
then its pinnate loaved leaves will devour the feed you give it
and compete for readiness to enter soil.
When you pinch it from its temporary cell, cradle it in your veiny hands,
mosquitos will sneak sips of your blood and you’ll anchor on the ground,
knobby knees spitting riddles as you attempt their puzzle,
wiggling and angled until they hum a lullaby,
which will become the deposit you send your watermelon off with,
as it enters the world of work, forgoing its cradled existence.
Now your melon will take off, according to the soil beneath it,
the neighbors around it, the weather it inherits.
You’ll stay close enough to see it, pour bits of help into it most days,
but you let it fruit,
walk away when it encounters conflict,
your intermittent neglect in infancy prepared it
to strengthen, sweeten and form its own flavor.
Wait to see what song it sings when it's ready to perform
and say a prayer when you finally taste its flesh.
Even if all you can eat is a next time. The next poem will water itself.
broken pantoum portrait of T / Kes Maro
graying wolf will not let himself
sleep, though he cannot stand.
he cannot sleep though he can
not stand. he cannot sleep though
he will not stand. graying will let him
sleep. graying will not let him. can
sleep not stand. sleep cannot
stand. graying will . though
wolf, he will not let himself.
wolfing will not stand. he cannot
. will not . gray .
Stigma Sticks / Tammy Smith
Everything changed after Dad died
from bladder cancer. No, that’s not true,
but bad news sends me spiraling.
Crisis speaks in absolutes:
Always. Never. Everything. Nothing.
What mental health professionals
call black-and-white thinking.
Wait—I’m the therapist now.
Why can’t my own training save me?
Never mind. My psychiatric history
is longer than a child’s list to Santa.
No one knows unless I tell them
I spent years behind locked doors,
where doctors, nurses,
and social workers hurled words
that stuck like Krazy Glue:
Borderline. Bipolar. Narcissistic. Histrionic.
Labels scrape like sharp nails
across a chalkboard. A wolf howl
rises from the dark cave within,
a shadow so frightening
Plato might rip out his eyes
rather than face its glare.
Even Thoreau’s quiet desperation
can’t compete with this dread.
Kierkegaard comes closest
with his dizziness of freedom:
standing at the cliff’s edge,
staring into the inconsolable abyss
of what if—
and what comes next.
In Your Rebel Dream / Daphne Stanford
“Rebel Rebel” blaring from speakers in the back seat of your Datsun wagon & you’re driving the foothills of your hometown, Pacific on the horizon thick with mist. Still time before first period for swim practice, pre-dawn—short drive down to the swimming pool, where steam rises from lanes splashed by warm-up flip turns at each end. Lanes churning, flippers kicking. Soon it will be time for Moon to set & Sun to rise, fully. Until then, you keep swimming.
