March - Poem 24
Smoke Ring Ghazal — An Imperfect Ghazal / Kathleen Bednarek
Tears soak through the filter of your cigarette. You try—exhale.
Don’t answer the door if the police come. Fake sleep, lie, exhale.
A total liar. I allow myself to say I don’t know.
Disembark the planet. Vodka. Breathe a stinking driver side exhale.
Under some stars, the car in a snowbank. A mechanically fucked angle.
The solution, rather than the problem. I am alive. Exhale.
Now I want peace under a large breaking sky, completed by doubt.
My face upward, rain falling onto the lids of my eyes —exhale.
I stopped before I ever learned how to blow a smoke ring.
Parting with illusions, I learn to go without, let time exhale.
Saying I don’t know transforms and opens our present future.
I love you Kathy. You too, sister. Forgive each moment. Exhale.
Bibi Garlic / Mymona Bibi
My Sestina / Susan Hankla
After Elizabeth Bishop's "Early Sorrow"
I'm staying up in here, I'm not leaving this house,
b/c this's where I commune best with Grandmother.
I've stayed indoors quite a bit, even as a child,
Her house was lit; she had her dressing table by the stove.
And the piano was against the wall on the other side, like my tears.
What's missing is a copy of the 1954 Farmer's Almanac.
Is this what you want me to do, Grandmother?
I'm afraid I'm not grown up enough, so call me a child.
I just can't get it out of my head how you cried tears
whenever I wanted to go outside in pine needles by your house.
You said you needed to read to me from the Farmer's Almanac.
I've misplaced it carefully, and darkly inside the cold stove.
You say you think it's in the sewing box I've loved since a child.
I think you know I am wicked enough to hide it in your house,
because Mother says I am spoiled, then fall real falling tears
of mine; she's fierce, unlike you best-out-of-two Grandmother!
I really like you & your three-hole notebook kept by the stove,
in the chewed, flaky antique secretary's bookcase, beside the Almanac.
Somebody ill-informed like a cop, would say I'm in a mouse-house.
I roll out molasses-spiced dough and leave it to cook in the stove.
The recipe for gingerbread biscuits we serve policemen who shed tears:
"Those cookies are so good we could throw them up and eat them again, Child!"
But I don't acknowledge appreciation because I'm reading the farmer's Almanac.
She stands near me, sliding out more trays of cookies, my lovely grandmother.
I just had a flashback from literature; shall I push her inside the stove?
Uh oh, can't stop thinking that thought, but that's why books live in this house.
We are educated women, ahead of our time; in that sense I was never a child.
It's probably because I hold reverence for her husband's farmer's Almanac.
William knew when to plant the asparagus, and greens for Grandmother.
Too bad he died the good death in his roses, but that didn't stop our tears.
I can only remember his arms in white sleeves reading the bles-sed Almanac.
I remember he taught me to like sardines and saltines, holding me, a tiny child.
He read for the crop settings, & the storehouse of facts: how to polish a stove.
He handed Grandmother his paycheck; she balanced the 7-daughter household.
I wanted to be Mother's sister, why can't I, I cried salty hot stupid tears?
Yet I wanted to be the 8th daughter; sew me white dresses like theirs, Grandmother!
It's time to make that don't rhyme with corsets, Grandmother'schild!
Here's a house that will live in my tears, in my 5 senses, out of the lovely stove.
But in the end, you know I'll bake her with the Almanac for kindling & live to tell.
Wisdom / Amy Haworth
Who are we when we forget to listen
Not to hear, but commit to listen.
We’re burly bullies when we know it all
Arrogance, the absence of knowing how to listen.
Talked over, interrupted, disregarded
When I’ve been taught it’s best to listen.
Won’t be shut down, torn down, talked down
I’ll speak up, but first -- I’ll listen.
Years it took to have enough to say
Now, mon ami, I see you’re ready to listen.
Assessment / Christina McCleanhan
Of course, there will be chicken, it is Tuesday.
the room, mirror, tabletop trinkets are familiar
enough
hairspray and vanilla musk
linger
between the funeral plans and walking the dog,
pantyhose was rolled down into thick ankle doughnuts,
mourning dress, pearls, and
travel bag tossed on the bed.
I will kiss you as if the brilliance of
sunshine travels on your breath.
I will lift the shades to peer at the
people walking below who
do not care that you prefer a medium-well steak.
You will notice the woman's pinched brow as she
delivers an extra blanket and hope she makes time to
shave and soak away her appetite.
We wait for room service, and imagine how long it takes to
fold towels with new nails.
What is my pillow chocolate worth? Less than three blocks to
a pint of red-skinned potato salad.
Turn up that Charles Mingus jazz, so I know how to
dress myself if the room gets crowded.
Don't come looking for me, either, if I'm wearing sneakers.
So, this is temperature-controlled ambition.
Japanese? Maple? / Elizabeth McGraw
The neighbors’s cherry blossom bloomed loudly last night. It’s crossed the threshold and is telling the rest of us to catch up. That’s you too temperature but don’t turn it up too much. We like a little bristle in our walk these mornings and a whiff of rain as the climate rolls across the earth. The dandelions are taking root ready to be rooted out. The peonies begin their peaks breaking through burgundy against the soil and early clover. In back where we face the north a rolling spring arrives. Tight bursts on the eastern redbud tell a native story of resiliency. Edison lights hang in the maple tree. Bare for all to see. Will the hostas reappear? Will the azaleas bloom? Remember at the native nursery and you asked if the species was local and she replied slowly. Japanese? Maple? Made us laugh. Still.
To Elliot / Alexis Wolfe
scintillating progress
dusted wind
blank window weaves a forgotten memory
what your heart was: dustmote
what your heart was: swollen thumb
tyranny of bedrock
scintillating tomb
make of me a martyred ____
you can be the expanded thing
to witness the tendril alone
shining web whistling alone
tiny wet web alone
to witness
to witness splitting
to witness alone
frozen horsemane shining moss
frost-turning-water tiny web witnessed alone
mist of air
cat’s cry knotted pine
asterisk
