November - Poem 10
Our backyard, a song in spring / Megan Bell
Suddenly, our backyard is a revival after a spring rain.
Geese waddle about in feathered finery, splashing water,
gossiping, telling God their troubles and offering thanks
for the glassy, preening puddles nearby.
I mean, what is life without a little admiration?
Robins gently bounce, seemingly at random, shaking wings,
pecking and checking for insects, all the while
whistling praise to the blue sky above
while whittling the brown earth below.
Has it ever occurred to you that a bird never sings out of tune?
Sandhill Cranes, grooming feathers, find marshy land to roost,
whooping loud and proud,
sounding like a thousand voices offering hello's to old and new friends.
After all, none of us are an island.
A butterfly, unaware of its grace, flits by
while peepers peep
long into the glittery, slippery night,
lulling kingdoms to sleep with their easy symphony.
Restoring, nature's wild, delicate song to our backyard.
Things My Daughter Says To Which I Have Difficulty Replying / Alison Lake
I am going to New York, chugga chugga choo choo, on a train to see Lady Liberty. I love her. She lets everyone be free.
We were never enslaved because we are white, right? How come dark people were? That’s not nice.
(After reading Phan’s Diary about a girl forced to leave Vietnam) I feel sorry for the Freedom Boat that sank and the person who drowned. Is this story true?
Why is _____ being so mean to me? He should be kind.
Why do people throw trash on the side of the road. It hurts the Earth.
Sometimes ______ doesn’t want to be my friend and I don’t like it. She says mean things and I’m like “Why?”
Why does _____’s mom talk to her like that? Why does she have a kid if she’s not going to treat them nice?
I wish I had a sibling to play with. Why did my brothers and sisters die in your belly?
Do strangers take kids like me because they don’t have children of their own?
someone get the bone saw / Maya Cheav
the beast in me is sleeping.
the blight of a forest fire
colors the world a shade of red.
my bones were taught
to be afraid,
to bite back with spittle and sharp canines
when prodded and provoked.
I have to teach them again to be gentle,
to make my legs stop running,
despite the blisters and the bruising.
do not forget my power, nor my strength.
I could kill you with my bare hands—
just as I can make flowers bloom,
I can make hell snap.
but I’m not here to destroy you.
haiku for fall / Jada D’Antignac
a happening for
live to be lived, but where does
change begin and end
Letter to Whoever Will Listen (Fingers Crossed Terrance Hayes) Cannibalized by a Failed Cocktail Recipe / D.C. Leach
I’ve been watching videos online of people mixing cocktails. They shake their tin shakers overhead till a cold sweat appears. They stir with long and twisted spoons. Top with soda. I watch a few like this before mixing my own. “Tonight, we aim for sophistication,” I say to the camera. A cat in a tux sniffs at the lens. First, select a spirit that’s distinct without being too dominant, I say, unscrewing a bottle of aged Leach. “The more heart in the mash, the sweeter the spirit; the more mind—the drier and spicier.” The liquid looks like moonlight dripping off winter branches and slate roofs into your dreams. “Wait, no, first take your rocks glass,” I open my journal on the counter. “Cut an inch-and-a-half thick disk of Barnett—the peel will stand in for bitters and deepen the structure.” I hold drawings of baguettes and the universe falling apart to the camera. My nakedness is dead with the evening. “Leave a bit of the flesh on the rind to brighten the drink nicely. Muddle with 1 tsp of Rohrer questioning the last line. This will add viscosity to the cocktail and draw out some of the core’s aged characteristics. Now pour in the 2oz of Leach. Fill glass with cracked Lee, Wright, Ryzhy, Akhmatova, Glück, Vicuña, they’re spilling out of the glass, keep adding, keep scooping and adding, Ritsos, de Burgos, stir briefly. The cubes crack and sing. The Leach should be nice and chilled by now. Express Sealey over the drink and leave vertical in the mixture for strangeness.” In an outtake, I put my ear to the glass and open my mouth a gramophone. In another, the camera catches me just laying my head against the bookshelf—Murillo’s titles in the background, drawing on whiteboards, saying sweep up the mess, quick, before it melts.
Self Portrait as Kentucky Haibun #5 / Dawn McGuire
Hush
Diane says the shovel is Papaw’s,
It resists when she picks it up
like it’s still loaded.
Billy says rust is heavier than you think.
“No way would I sleep in the same room with it.”
Diane props it against the porch.
No one talks about why the ground behind the barn stays soft.
The plaster angel has grime lines down the wings.
I don’t mind.
I’m not even there, not like they say.
I just got quieter— like an engine
after the key’s switched off.
I watched them bury all sorts of things:
a matchbox Corvette, a plastic clarinet,
a carton of cigarettes, stuff they stole from the gas station.
“Until things cool off,”
Diane would say.
She says she never prays.
But I heard her.
When the Buick groans
and the porch light flickers,
nobody thinks it’s me—
except Diane.
Sometimes when she hums Mama’s old song,
she doesn’t finish the last line.
“How come you always talk like she’s here?”
Billy asks.
Diane crushes her cigarette on the shovel blade.
“Because she is.”
sings into the mirror.
hush-- something
singing back.
Dauphine / Samantha Strong Murphey
At 27, Marie Antionette had an artificial village built for herself
to play in at the far corner of Versailles—The Queen’s Hamlet.
Small storefronts with nothing inside, a fanciful footbridge adorning
a manmade pond. She dressed as a peasant girl. She wasn’t a child
but she skipped down the empty little street, plucking
Rose of Sharon from the climbing vines. This is not shocking.
It’s old as empire: rich girls pretending to be poor girls, poor girls
pretending to be queens. There is a history still thatched into the
useless roof, a soul stuck in the waterwheel. It was quaint,
never intended to work. Though, there were real things—
vegetables garnishing the rows. Lambs alive in the pen. I would never
question if the village had been fashioned exquisitely close
to reality. It’s just that the tomato plants were replaced
each night, unnatural ripeness plucked into a basket each day.
It’s that the lambs were ripped from their mothers.
The lambs grew up pretending to be sheep.
