November - Poem 27
The Last Coal Train / Megan Bell
Grabbed a fistful of dirt -
there was earth,
sin, and men already halfway to hell.
They left it all right there
in upturned soil -
even darkened souls.
Black thoughts
Black lungs
Black tills
A sooty sea of hills in Ohio
Squeezed by the men till they bled dry.
Damn the coal!
Hillbilly's savior, hillbilly's curse.
Didn't care where it came from -
with shovels raised, eyes shut tight -
the men shouted, More! More!
Fat fingers, filthy minds
diggin' at what was already gone.
Money flowing like manna, wasn't no big choice.
Wide wallets kept em' ignoring that still, small voice.
With blunt edges sparkling like diamonds
the tainted rocks kept rollin' into our village.
Dusty cash registers coughin' for their dime
All those pretty homes under layers of grime.
(Didn't know our insides were turnin' sooty, too.)
Damn dirty rock-
Burnin' hot,
Spewin' ash
Leavin' scars that still smolder.
Didn't take long till the land was hollowed out.
Breathin' fire, belchin' flames -
God roared, Enough!
Then... the men looked up and watched
as wounded hills fell to their knees.
Beat down...
the terrain changed.
Nothing remained
once the coal hopped the last train,
and disappeared round the bend.
But, as life does, we carried on.
Replanted, the hills healed -
our souls did too.
Daily, we rise with the sun,
greeting the day wild-eyed hopeful, wickedly revived.
After My Daughter’s Friends Called Me Weird / Alison Lake
I know they think I am weird,
even your father does, but I have
Many reasons this is so.
Most people don’t like
Otherness, that feeling
That someone doesn’t
Belong, or can’t. People like
boxes, and placing other
people inside of them.
When you don’t fit, when
what you say, how you
think, what you love,
is different, it makes
others afraid and that fear,
that fear my girl, leads often
to hate and most times to ridicule.
I don’t fit. I have edges
Where I should be smooth,
And am too soft and curved
In other places that should
Be rigid. I dance with language,
Mourn even moss, and I have come
To love that about myself.
Whether you fit or not,
I hope you always know
I will love who you truly
are and I will make a house,
a house that fits just right,
for your spirit to rest in,
rest in and grow strong.
a loss of faith / Maya Cheav
the heart is loud
but the mind is louder.
words crumble in midair
as they are spoken,
just thoughts unrealized.
they exist only in sound waves
before they dissipate
and so quickly
disappear.
more of this / Jada D’Antignac
after Emily Sernaker
a strip of sun peeking through the clouds after needed rain
a meal that tastes just as good as it looks
a girls night out full of twists and turns keeping the energy high
a cozy coffee shop with a good playlist
a laugh that hurts due to jokes being added
a forehead kiss
an honest conversation that goes well
an arrangement of words coming to me unexpectedly
an elder dropping a random piece of wisdom
a book where the characters fall in love and don’t climb out
a song with a levitating bridge
a homemade birthday card
a handwritten note
a God-wink
a moment to tend to the details
a moment to pause and practice gratitude
The Last Supper by Tom Everhart Has Hung / D.C. Leach
over my bed on Riverside Dr
my bed on Calamo
my desk off 14th St NW
it hangs now over the china cabinet
in the dining room off Edmondson watching me
sip coffee from a cup bearing
the likeness of Mt Fuji little sun peeking
over the mountain’s shoulder
metonymy to the warm ideas
between my hands I’m drifting now
he’s always seemed aloof alone a war hero mouth closed
and I took solace in the lone candle burning low
—shape of the melted candle, shape of my mind—
in the lone bottle on the table lone cake
pushed to the side goggles pushed
to the forehead taking life straight to the eyes watching
as it passes unfiltered just out frame
me in bed with books lovers
at my desk fondling pencils at my dining room table
always others supping in kinship always the finger
of his loneliness finding harmony on the wet rim
of me but today I resonate
noticing for the first time that I
am seated at this end—this the end—of his red
and white checkered table cloth and he
not so much sad as forlorn
arms folded on the table I think waiting
for me to stop peering
into all the mirrors of this world the only darkness
in frame bleeding
stage right from the corner of another
clouded mirror he says look at me look
at the flame dancing
songs speckle the air
whose supper did you think this was?
if you’d only look at me.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING! / Dawn McGuire
I, Doctor Dreidel,
African Gray, age 37, of sound mind and sharp beak,
mimic, part-time oracle, full-time judge of character,
resident of this household since before the second Bush left office,
do declare this my Last Will and Testament.
Item One:
I leave my cage
—not the travel crate, not that fluorescent nightmare—
but the grand wrought iron ark with the swing I never used—
to no one.
It is a throne.
And I do not believe in monarchies.
Item Two:
My food dish,
chewed and cracked,
goes to the woman who never tried to cover it with pellets.
She gave me pistachios.
She can have the dish.
Item Three:
My words.
Everything I ever repeated,
intentionally or accidentally.
Including but not limited to:
She’s a runner, Katie.
Don’t trust the pretty one.
Shame! SHAME!
and the one perfect line from Mary Oliver,
that made two people put down their weapons
and pick each other up:
To love what is lovely, and will not last.
I leave these words to both of you.
You know who you are: met in a bar
that smelled like disinfectant
and regret, and made a life
with a bird who never stopped heckling.
Item Four:
To the one who whispered poems to me
after every heartbreak—
I leave all the silences we shared.
Item Five:
To the one who said “I don’t like birds”
but loved me anyway—
I leave the sound of your laugh
when you caught me quoting Pablo Neruda
during the dishwasher cycle.
You can never un-hear it.
Item: Final
When I die—
and I will,
though frankly I plan to outlive both of you—
do not bury me.
Scatter me
somewhere slightly profane.
The bar where you met.
That tiny pond, Grass Valley,
where someone said I love you
and you both panicked.
Scatter me somewhere that matters.
Last thing—
don’t replace me.
No cockatoos, no parakeets,
no tragic little rescue parrots
with French names and trauma.
If you miss me
go outside.
Look for something loud,
smart, a little bit broken.
Tell it your secrets.
It may not talk back.
But it will stay with you.
Like me,
until the end,
against all odds.
with talon and attitude,
Dreidel
Cabaret / Samantha Strong Murphey
As I tuck her in, she tells me about last night’s nightmare:
her in a heavy outfit inside one of those tall scary fences
with loopy things across the top. Earlier, she’d danced
around the kitchen table while we ate risotto. I lowered
the lights, lit a candle while she high-kicked, hands spread
wide trying hard to shimmer. Ambiance instead of attention.
I hoped she couldn’t tell. Years ago, I was with a boy in Argentina
outside a soccer stadium being flippant with my good
camera. A group of kids grabbed the strap, pointed a broken
bottle at my throat. The boy yelled drop it! run! so I dropped it
and ran. Nothing had ever been easier. Over lunch, a friend
tells me about a memoir she can’t shake. Hard, hard life.
The guy’s mom became an alcoholic. I related to her so
deeply—this from a woman who has never had a drink
in her life. When she couldn’t hold our feelings any longer,
my mom microwaved our bath towels. Three minutes on high.
She wrapped us in the hum of invisible wavelengths,
carried us like logs down the hall. We stiffened our limbs
for affect. She lowered us into our beds like bodies.
We didn’t want to sleep. She didn’t want to make us,
fight and flight playing chicken in our chests.
