March - Poem 16

Sheet music / Kathleen Bednarek

Mozart holds a lake of symbols in a metal stand— the silver of a dentist's office. 
Sundays butter the scales, making new pentatonic drifts into a Mississippi of cardboard suitcases and crossroads.
My breath pushes the shift upward in my throat. 
I rise a whole note: Go tell it on the mountain.
My shoulders from behind, hold composure; the room itself, inclusive to my timing—yes,  I made the echo. 
Who’s the rat that scribbled over the concerto? marooned the metronome? made carved faces in the wood of the piano with inattentiveness? Dare. Coda. 
I will use pressure From without or in here.

Found Balance / Mymona Bibi

A found poem using a page from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Sing Where it Opens / Susan Hankla

The one where your heart opens
like an upstairs window in an old house,
where starlings tickle the sill with their tiny feet.

If I were to put my life into another language 
would it have enough range to be heard down this new street?

My sisters-in-song, one sings & one's lost her voice,
both I recognize as sisters, but why isn't she 
bitter her voice is gone. I don't know how she has the grace to go on. 

Keep singing, she tells my other sister. Sing this one,
she says to me.

She sings how she tried to fly as a bird to her mate
only to be caught, her feathers unzipped by sharp blades 
on the window, so she could not fly, a song stuck 

in her lump of a throat. You must stop right where you are, 
for you are listening to god's voice. Sisters, don't cry.

At Schonburg Castle / Amy Haworth

Suspension / Christina McCleanhan

Hope is haunting me; hope has dwindled.
Almost a hundred degrees before noon.
Skin’s rougher than a sanding block.
Can’t quiet these squawking babies,
crying chickens.
Will there be supper, Mama?
Spare some bread, m’am?
Need an extra pair of hands, Mrs?

I am tired of bones-
soup bones, knee bones, brittle bones
in worn-out pots with
broth twice boiled down for
sopping, not sipping.
Oh! My darling, that 
last Christmas with the spiced punch. 

Think loud enough, and the stomach retreats...

I am tired of stooping to 
pick peas from vines that
cannot feed me, warm me, or barter my escape.
What will I do this time if the cough doesn’t stop?

I miss keeping company with 
cleanliness. Each day, there is a sky to 
welcome and tumbleweeds to applaud.
Sometimes, I bite my tongue to keep 
from screaming, look toward 
the brilliant nothingness
of dust, and wait.
Remember who I am, who I have always been.

Season  / Elizabeth McGraw

It hits you slowly then all at once.

Over and over again.

A season ends and the transition is harder than the brutal conditions

Hard to imagine the days when socks feel silly today.  Hard to believe that print will be warranted in a week’s time. 

The search for bookends and barometers tailspin. Mark your spot. 

Multiple fronts colliding on us.

Which one to choose?

I always choose you. 

Musical porch / Alexis Wolfe

oh easy i’ll just write it—like how earlier 
listening to Scorn walking the alley from gym to home
i couldn’t see twelve feet in front of me there was so much
   dust i started all what would it be like
to be under such rubble we know so little
about  war doesn’t happen here     war i watch
on my laptop  war i pay for   lately i’ve been playing
musical porch  with my neighbor he’s deaf you know—
we take turns sitting in our porch chairs staring
   at the empty grass lot  he grimaces stark staring mad 
when he sees me in my rusted   goes into his house 
 i smirk when I see him / sometimes flop inside
 yes seniority still rules   we take turns 
like this  chasing our own tails  of course I imagine he wants 
to be alone   never asked  his delicate dreaming
  give us this day  our daily porch battle   this is 
our hardship I karate chop the dirt dusters / fist 
fight my projections   my war is spiritual   I am drafted
 at the front lines of my branded beliefs / we go looking 
for it