September - Poem 25
The Lighter Longer / Laura Bandy
(An imitation poem in honor of Catherine Wing’s “The Darker Sooner”) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55154/the-darker-sooner
Next came the lighter longer,
arrived the sooner higher.
Life was no more a darker-ever,
night-all-eras. We were over never.
We were closer and calmer.
Remembrance was the word we used for gorgers.
Commence was our torchbearer.
Our longings were listened harder,
and held gentler.
The stars were seers, seers
all was clearer. Our bond was foster.
Instead of ruler we had revolters,
instead of torpor, heeders. And beneath these waters
slouched the rough beast's sure labor.
Diving Practice / Alicia Boemi
The open air,
the beauty in the stars.
And here I am,
lost in your ways.
Tangled, tortured,
a web we weave
Beauty above,
Darkness below.
The water feels cool,
to the touch.
I dive.
I Wrote and Then Threw Away a Poem Complaining / Jesse DeLong
but instead, I’ll tell you about the egrets
I saw this morning grazing
along some cows. They crave
a common grain, I guess. Maybe
you’re more interested in how
I always turn off the main highway
and take the river
road cause there are no
streetlights
and the hills alongside are green.
This morning I turned off the air
and rolled the windows down.
There were no sounds
from the stereo,
neither mine nor yours,
and no one honked as I slowed
and stopped in the road
to watch a flock of geese
flying towards me
their wings
their wings
their wings
Pterodactylic / Shelly Krehbiel
Because it’s just me here tonight and the end
of the world hasn’t happened yet, I’m relying on
the pterodactyl to get me through. Except.
Pterodactyl is not even the right word. The winged
creatures who left their bones behind are not even
dinosaurs, but pterosaurs. And that hawk out there
beyond the fenceline, she is not their descendant.
Her ancestors were small, feathered, stayed
on the ground. Who are you, giant of flight, and
why are you the only one with me and this blank page?
Little kid me would have known to call you Pteranodon.
She would have been able to draw your picture.
She had a worn book on her shelf that named you.
She knew your story. She trusted that book, had no reason
not to yet. She trusted the answers in her head too.
Great being of my here and now, of my forty years after,
it is so dark sometimes. It is so light sometimes. The end
of the world still hasn’t happened, though I know
yours has. She would have known where you ended.
She would have been able to call you into her dreams
and fly. It’s just me here tonight. Let’s go somewhere.
For George Bowering, / rob mclennan
Wisdoms, pearl. Okanagan peaches. Divergent. Like a fly ball, pitched. Hand, over time. My grandfather’s grandfather clock. Speak, the name of your religion. Something that catches. Make a note, dictate. In a drawing room. How many times, this one small body. A subset, of paired grace. A perfect view. The boy, by the kitchen. Jack Spicer, tuned. This writing life. To close one’s eyes. An unbroken sentence. Foreshadow, enough. Copilot, these untroubled hearts. As it began. And as sweet. Goodnight. Start with a word. (25)
Seated Figure (Djenné peoples) / Piper Rasmussen
unbuilt and rebuilt homes
seventy in a ring
hillocks gently grow with
terracotta statues at the heart.
five hundred years
of ancestors --
tell me, wrapped in snakes,
what the bowls around you held
while I imagine a lady dressed in a costume
telling children how she made pie
for the Nation's 250th, white hot face open
in petticoats, ready to tell, tell, show --
never buried, or built
unbuilt and buried, surrounded by
the mud of ancestors
the shards of broken wheels
a petrarchan erasure / Connor Simons
Love in such a novel fashion
that from her cruel side I would draw by force
a thousand sighs a day, kindling again
in her cold mind a thousand high desires;
I’d see her lovely face transform quite often
her eyes grow wet and more compassionate,
like one who feels regret, when it’s too late,
for causing someone’s suffering by mistake;
And I’d see scarlet roses in the snows,
tossed by the breeze, discover ivory
that turns to marble those who see it near them;
All this I’d do because I do not mind
my discontentment in this one short life,
Adirondack / Veronica Vo
two things can be true only if you can’t
look it was interesting until it wasn’t
the world of story time and space
isn’t that what they say we need you
have to be careful or it will become
interesting again survival
because of or in spite of story
sharing something means you lose a bit
of what you have what is it you gain
caution interest a world for existence
The Breath Before the Verse / Melinda Wilson
How easily comes the breath before the verse.
The impulse to emote carries it forth all husk
and alert like the branched hairs on the legs
of a solitary bee that hovers above the asters
and daisies, teasing the stamens that lean forward
ever eager and aroused. When I rise and open
my mouth to speak, there is first a short inhale,
a beat to gather my thoughts and my courage
to meet a new day that deserves my arousal,
but for which I cannot muster much more than
my breath, heavy and rough without delicacy
or elegance. The inhale itself draped in worldly
burden and disgrace for our kind. Nevertheless...
