October - Poem 14

Amoria / Katerina Canyon

I was Agapia.
I resided next to a meadow
of sunflowers and honey locusts.
Their seeds held the definition
of passion.

Then Miseon came and cinched me
within bushels of snow
while carrying a hydra on his back.

I was tossed into the tar pit of
a kraken, unable to swim
to a sandbar
for sustenance—

punching the kraken away,
and nowhere I looked
could I find a callow hand
cupping the sunset.

The kraken swam the Salton Sea
to sit on its shore for comfort.

The ice trumpet called the
kraken to the Valley of the Dead,
and it carried me, comatose,
inside an oyster’s shell
while tonguing forest embers
in search of the definitions for affection.

Garden Notes /  Sam Calhoun

It’s late, every bloom 
on the loofah closed, 
everything that brings
light has left, save 
the viburnum, burning
like streetlamps all night, 

soft scent of smoke distant, 
the kind of scent you know 
the fire has since stopped, 
the kind of distance
it’s too late to check, start
the car, find the old shoes, 

search in the dark for fog, 
no, smoke, edge of every ditch, 
like this lone bee searches 
the small reservoirs above
the hummingbird feeders 

for water, takes its fill, 
flies away. 

Claw Machine Golden Shovel Haibun    /  at/om

“but my heart is like a claw machine, 

its only function is to reach 

it can’t hold on to anything.”

-Claw Machine, by Sloppy Jane

i need to stop writing about love as violence but 

there is a cannibal inside of my

torn apart heart 

and she is 

breaking her way out of my ribcage like 

a crouched over vulture like a 

poet with no hands only claw(s) 

that is to say she is a violence machine 

that is to say cruelty is her second nature its 

her only 

found function 

the cannibal in my heart defrosts in winter she is 

reborn by the cruelty of the natural system to 

leave behind the weak to turn from the reach 

and she knows better than I we can’t beat it 

no matter how I argue and say I am not her I can’t 

break apart her claws the hold 

on 

my neck as she screams out to

tell me she will do anything

(and she will survive 

the cruelty that kills me

she knows the winter)

unhired fired quit/a pantoum  /  Ellen Ferguson

  the peace corps said no if she’d pray in a crisis: unhired
  she dusted too slowly at the architectural gem: fired
  bookstore violating the equal pay act? quit
  we show up at work every day

  she dusted too slowly at the architectural gem: fired
  Nate sewed shoulders at the Bensonhurst ILGWU
  we show up at work every day
  the other Nate ran The Belle Shop

  Nate sewed shoulders at the Bensonhurst ILGWU
  Alice taught the mandolin
  the other Nate ran The Belle Shop
  Anna drew comics with her cerebral palsy friends

  Alice taught the mandolin
  bookstore violating the equal pay act? quit
  Anna drew comics with her cerebral palsy friends
  the peace corps said no if she’d pray in a crisis: unhired

They came to the trees /  Brett Gastineau

In the hustle they came to believe

they were living another pair’s life.

Anger dwelt in their pockets,

replacing the keys they had kept to their past lives.

They gathered in their separate corners of solitude.

They hungered and called out—“You fill me with desire.

I am afraid of you…

Hold me.”

They had tried the nighttime sky as a balm.

But moonlight broke their hearts.

The stars found their wishes incomplete.

And so they came to the trees,

those doors to a mystery religion.

They lay beneath them taking comfort

in the leaves’ quake above.

See how they thrill and shudder

one and then the other played

by the beautiful breath on their skin.

The two in each other’s arms look up

the sky a luminous study in blue;

the trees full of a golden wind.

When they closed their eyes

there was the same bright hue,

speckled by falling dark.

A Dialogue between the Typewriter and the Joy  /  Joy Johnson

(after Andrew Marvell’s “A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body”)

TYPEWRITER

The news ne’er rumour’d I was missing,

Though clearly I had gone skipping

’Til now, when found me shackl’d here:

In keyboard is where my feet are,

Sometime in notebooks too I’m locked:

Dismay’d, uncommitted, shipwreck’d;

I wait, I wait, to integrate

When hand driven through trauma’s gate

Meets my face, which is never seen;

I long to reconcile again.

JOY

Years in misery I survived,

Nothing holding me upright save

Mores.  The news ne’er acknowledg’d

How my soul from me abolish’d

Was.  Driven through trauma’s gate,

I drank wine until I was late,

Eventually I happened on

The key to this orangutang’s

Evolver:  words locked in notebooks,

missives breezing by, pussyfoot.

TYPEWRITER

She is there, where her pen scribbles

Down my chin; I can’t realise

Why I want her pain, why I’m drawn

To complete this connection, damn.

Our memory, a blank ’til now,

So why rush to (re?)join what’s maw.

Our hungers, falling, mirror each;

How can both be the lower piece?

Astounding to find new fetters,

With dread hist’ry, makes being better.

JOY

Now a fourteen to rejoice in

The parts that see each else again.

I find myself able to feel

The sense of the gravity pull

Which made falling into our well

Cert sure pleasure of flowerbed

In full bloom and abuzz with what’s

Meant to come together to test

How is it the Joy and hopeless

Yearning profound can coalesce

To coherence of existence,

To meaning with some persistence;

Or Joy is just a girl who dreams

Poetry is love she machines.

last day of the farm market  /  Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco

greens

turnip tops, beetroot tops, rocket

pesto

sauce tomatoes

turnips, kohlrabi

squash

cabbage

pickles, jam &

chutney

love the last farm market day

preserve what lasts all winter

gives me more to hope for in spring

TWO SONS  /  H.T. Reynolds

after Warrior (2011)

Timothy never wore a hat

like Paddy but shared

in the same ideology—

that a whisky-kissed

mind made for better

main events—two sons—

one underweight champion

in the minor division

we were two and five,

what were we fighting for

there was no purse

no sponsorship or home

to keep—only blood

running between us

dripping down

our quivering chins

hidden in the red

of our boxing gloves

I was told I was

like Tommy—unhinged

and rabid, a short-fused

firecracker with something

to prove, an attitude

but they didn’t see

my training—how I wanted

a father who didn’t drink,

who didn’t regret me—

who stayed

or a brother who didn’t

look at me

like I would devour him

even as I’d bare my teeth—

swing,

and bite down

Bed For the Nap of Shadows /  Gabriel Phillips

I’ve bargained my window

for a better view

of a short man eating

the shadow of the long man.

Nobody is nobody

and nobody keeps it that way.

Just sobbing once often. Fills

open spaces, therefore empty

spaces can appear. Green hats.

At the end of my bed

at the end of the better

window. Peter Pan

was a sleepless short shadow.

Nobody believed him. He lost

himself over the shade.

Crying, until he filled

the space of the empty room.

I am not an elegant color,

I have a gorgeous view.

lilac  / Colin Sturdevant

here, with the lashes of a whisper

i peel its innards until a fragrance bursts

vessels of liac petals

here, i imbibe motherliness

to stir you from my stomach

& hurl you out like a bad fever

for good