Author Archives: Kathleen Flenniken

About Kathleen Flenniken

The Far Field is curated by Kathleen Flenniken to showcase the depth and breadth and vibrancy of Washington State's poetry. Kathleen Flenniken is the 2012 - 2014 Washington State Poet Laureate. The Washington State Poet Laureate program is sponsored by Humanities Washington and the Washington State Arts Commission.

Cindy Lamb

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After Brain Surgery

As we drive by the river
the trees are lovely
silhouetting shadows on the road.
I mention what we owe
$163 this month
$168 next.
The insurance company
negotiated with the doctor
finally agreeing on a number.
The woman on the phone
explained it in great detail,
you must have really been sick
the original bill is over $50,000
just for the doctor.
Eighteen months later they have finally
settled the last little piece.
$163 this month
$168 next.
Light glistens off the birches
streetlights wafting through the branches
logs from the mill ooze
the familiar saw-dusty fragrance I love
and we drive on.

 

Cindy Lamb is a retired high school teacher who teaches adults poetry writing. She lives in Yakima and has been published in Breath and Shadow.

Barbara Gibson

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McLane Creek

No need to be afraid
in the dark wood.
Walk near the fox’s den,
the possibility of a coyote,
or toward the beaver’s lodge
sinking into the lily pond.

When you take a single step
into the dense green,
into the comfort of high firs
and the dazzle and pattern
of light among leaves,
there is no need to worry.

You will discover the realm
of dropping yourself,
of losing interest
in the small, failed you.

There is no need
for fear because every fern
and every simple moss
assures you
that you are suitable
for such a life.

The shimmering dragonfly,
stunning and buzzing,
and the red-winged blackbird
skimming over rushes, and each
finch who sits on a sturdy thistle

truly, though you
may not see this,
welcomes you into
the still pond and into
the buzzing meadow
of bright acceptability.

So therefore it is
not necessary to be afraid
once your legs and heart
walk you into the deep,
vivid comfort of just how
here you are.

Barbara Gibson was a counselor at The Evergreen State College, retiring in the late 90’s. She has written poetry all through the years and the changes. She also writes plays, one of which, “The Abolitionist’s Wife: the Saga of Mary Brown” was produced in Olympia this summer to sold-out audiences. Major literary influences include Paul Goodman, Kenneth Rexroth, and Robert Bly, all of whom she was lucky enough to know personally. In Olympia, she is privileged to be a friend of Jeanne Lohmann, who would be Olympia’s Poet Laureate, if we had one. She appreciates the talented and generous poetry community there.

Linda Russo

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from The Enhanced Immediacy of the Everyday [American Poem in Parts]

 

daffodils exploding brightly in a sea of green –

I am busy amassing wealth managing depth bothered by money and income suck in the vivid morning air – registering the heat wavering off the red car
parked neatly on the street

in my house in my country everything is rabbits is trees
how I can I possibly convey the feeling of owning these things

I am an excellent cook, I am the bright riches now, a salty sweetness awash in my mouth I am speechless, bursting with approval, share this with me and your dividend

one day we will all relax in the pink we have planned for and trusted

odd how the air is pocked with grievances
while buds push forth from woody thrones

little motions creating the cicada effect
I can’t help but feel it can you?

sun, this stretch of grass at this hour
or where you are, wherever, touching the ground in some way
planted somewhere that backhoe that stalled
but didn’t, the five yellowjackets revisiting the bench
and my own illusions of readiness

the slender pear tree somewhat still or slightly astir in the breeze sun tea, flipflops,
it can’t be helped, we can’t help it, nor would we want to, what do we want, a
cheering small crowd and the occasional ting of a metal bat

look at the tomato plants we planted
the wire fence your words and works
the weedy weeks dirt worked into knees

 

 

Linda Russo is the author of Mirth (Chax Press) and The Enhanced Immediacy of the Everyday (forthcoming 2014, Chax Press). picturing everything closer visible, a chapbook-length excerpt of a walk-in poem, is due out shortly from Projective Industries. She is a recipient of fellowships at the Centrum Center for the Arts and the Millay Colony, and has published writing on contemporary poetry, including a hybrid review essay of Anne Waldman’s Iovis Trilogy, the preface to Joanne Kyger’s About Now: Collected Poems (National Poetry Foundation), and, more recently, an essay was included in the edited collection Among Friends: Engendering the Social Site of Poetry (University of Iowa Press). She lives in the Columbia River Watershed and teaches at Washington State University in Pullman.

 

Kim Antieau

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Rose Red and Snow White

Skin as white as Virgin snow.
Ice crystals grown from dust motes,
Specks of Earth thrown skyward:
Snow White
Lips as red as pricked blood, first blood,
Unfolding like the Virgin Rose,
Whole in and of herself:
Rose Red
Colors of the Goddess,
Clues this tale is more than it seems.
Aren’t they all?
When Le Bête knocks on their door
Mid-winter, matted ice and snow giving him
A Rasti look, the twin goddesses invite
The Wild in,
Serve him tea and comb his fur.
No sign of gold at first blush.
Then what? Did they watch Jack Frost
Breathe on their windows and listen to
Ice crack into wintry art?
Their version of cable.
Today, would they gulp beer, eat chips,
And watch television, the three of them?
Would Le Bête complain about the
Commercialization of all things sacred
As he clutched the remote?
“Let’s live off the grid,” he’d murmur
While Snow White and Rose Red painted
Their fingernails black as pitch and their lips
Red as a whore’s candied tongue.
Goth or harlot?
Or, perhaps before the Bear enters their domain
The sisters are hippie-girls, wandering, modern-like,
Looking for some thing. Hitching rides.
Living off the land. Eating huckleberries plucked
From their core, the juice staining their lips and teeth
Deep purple. Watching the bloody salmon leap,
They wonder why their mouths water, wonder
What it is they have lost.
Why does it ache so much?
So when a man in gold knocks on their door
Mid-winter, they pull him inside, shining him on.
Until they spot the fur beneath the gold.
Le Bête!
They speak in tongues as they
Rip the clothes from him.
He is only a symbol, after all.
The sisters bury their faces in his fur.
When they look down at their own bodies,
They see they have grown Grizzly claws.
They laugh and embrace each other.
The man, speechless, tries to piece his
Gold suit back together. Alone
In the empty cottage, he closes the door.
Outside, the night is wild with beasts.

“Rose Red and Snow White” is reprinted from The Journal of Mythic Arts. Copyright © 2013 by Kim Antieau

 

Kim Antieau is the author of many short stories, poems, essays, and novels. Her most recent books are The Monster’s Daughter, Ruby’s Imagine, and Under the Tucson Moon, all published by Green Snake Publishing. She lives with her husband, writer Mario Milosevic, in the Columbia River Gorge.

Mario Milosevic

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When I Was

When I was a bear
I filled the world.
My paws were wide,
and I walked large.
I ate all summer
and slept all winter,
dreaming of the time

when I was a dragonfly
and I wove the world.
Darting through air,
skimming over grass,
hovering on water,
my compound eyes
embroidering my dreams of the time

when I was a turtle
and I carried the world.
Walking slowly with the weight,
squat body on four thick legs,
hard shell holding me in,
keeping my dreams of the time

when I was a salmon
and I fed the world.
Sleek skin sliding down river throats,
pink flesh nourishing my cousins.
I swam upstream,
where death took me
and I swallowed my dreams of the time

when I was a tree
and I held the world.
Roots gripping soil,
branches embracing sky,
my vision
encompassing dreams of the time

when I was a raven
and I sang the world.
Single note struck from my throat,
pushed into air,
the sound a call to listen
to the unseen
and honor my dreams of the time

when I was a bear;
when I was a dragonfly;
when I was a turtle, a salmon, a tree;
when I was a raven.

 

“When I Was” is reprinted from The Journal of Mythic Arts and Animal Life (Green Snake Publishing).

 

Mario Milosevic’s poems and stories have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Rattle, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and many other magazines. His novels include Terrastina and Mazolli: A Novel in 99-Word Episodes, Claypot Dreamstance, and The Coma Monologues. He has published three volumes of poetry: Animal Life, Fantasy Life, and Love Life. All his books are published by Green Snake Publishing. He lives with his wife, writer Kim Antieau, in the Columbia River Gorge and works at the Stevenson Community Library in Stevenson, Washington.

 

C. Albert

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Runaway

In a new city, I meet the arranged
apartment with green carpets in sad
basement light. When I take
my first walk, a dog rushes
at me and barks for a long while;

I become stone. In the Beacon Hill
market, I ask for a bottle of California
Riesling because already I miss
the terrain I left. The checker tells me
that every morning he thanks the saints
he is alive and eats seven eggs
for breakfast.

For a moment, I am loved
by his eyes. This isn’t home
but another place I will dream
of coming back to.

“Runaway” is reprinted from The View from Here.

 

 

C. Albert regularly publishes poetry and collage at ink sweat and tears where she is Artist in Residence. Other publications include Wicked Alice, Centrifugal Eye, The View from Here, Monarch Review. . . She is currently conducting experiments with photography and box art.

 

Travis Laurence Naught

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From the Virgin Journals:

Stealing Thought

He has a kid and that proves his virility
Or at least proves his knowledge and ability
To take one without being caught

Jealous Man

“Stealing Thought” is reprinted from The Virgin Journals (ASD Publishing, 2012).
Travis Laurence Naught is an author who happens to be a quadriplegic wheelchair user. He was named in Eastern Magazine’s 2013 Spring issue as one of 20 under 40 young alumni with rising careers. His poetry memoir, The Virgin Journals (ASD Publishing, 2012), was used as curriculum in an Eastern Washington University disability studies course during spring of 2012. Still Journaling (e-book, 2013) is also widely available. Travis graduated from EWU in 2005 with a BA in psychology and went on to complete coursework for an MS in sport psychology. He lives in Cheney. Coffee and poetry keep Travis alive.

Ana Karina Luna

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If You Had Seen Them

I saw two Foxes naked in the water
in the alpine lake named Dorothy.
Who knows who those two giggly Butterflies were,
blue dragonflies smooching their wet hairs, their hands,
maybe they were Dorothies?
But placid so quiet
Dorothy floated them luscious,
held their soft bare bottoms
pushing to the sky their adorable triangles
their buoyant romantic hearts
beneath those two pairs of adventurous beast breasts—
alive, flesh and soul, they palavered by a slippery drowned trunk-phallus.
Then, they disappeared;
clothes ate them.
Today, I saw the Fox-Lioness
still rag-eaten, wandering in the city;
in her wishful eyes drifted my alpine image reflected in the lake of her longings,
and there I saw the Fox-Capra, the other Dorothy:
was she also still eaten by her clothes? Where? And doing what?

 

Ana Karina Luna is a freelancer Art Director and Graphic Designer living in Seattle for 14 years. She is originally from the Northeast of Brasil, where she studied Architecture & Urban Planning. In 2008, craving more art in her existence, she [inherited and] started a letterpress shop in the heart of Central District, called Miss Cline Press. Besides printmaking and poetry, she also experiments with wire sculptures and mixed-media drawings. SheI also loves dancing salsa and samba, and dreams of being a better Flamenco bailaora.

Caleb Thompson

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Apartment Music Box

If, in the evening’s lull of twilight thoughts,
one takes to resignations, turns inward,
lets go the world its hints of suppler form,
it’s no surprise to find sublime the dots
upon the ceiling, or the line along the floor,
or, that across the room is far too far—
and that, in a fact of feeling, distance grows
of infinite measure everywhere,
and in all things, and to itself is sworn,
in silent oath—how melodies disclose:
the heart impaled upon a star, the ear.

 

 

Caleb Thompson is a founding editor of The Monarch Review. He lives in Seattle.

Steve Potter

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“Forcing twentieth-century America into a sonnet — gosh, how I hate sonnets — is like putting a crab into a square box. You’ve got to cut his legs off to make him fit. When you get through, you don’t have a crab any more.”           

 –William Carlos Williams

Boxed Crab

Dear Doctor Williams, with all due respect
For worlds of pleasure I’ve found in your verse,
On this account I feel I must defect.
I love your offhand lines — “so much for the hearse”
From “Tract” for one — and how you defied the norm,
Filled your poems with ordinary speech
And escaped the strictures of long-standing form
Extending by great lengths the poet’s reach.

But, gosh, the twentieth-century whole?
A crab so large should be delegged, declawed!
Who, dredging such a creature from the shoal,
Would not pull back in horror overawed?
A crab of such size must be cut to fit
Boiled, dipped in butter, eaten bit by bit.

 

“Boxed Crab” is reprinted from Able Muse.

 

Steve Potter was active in Seattle’s literary scene as board member and frequent emcee for Red Sky Poetry Theater in the ’90s. He performed at events such as Seattle Poetry Festival, Subtext, Rendezvous Reading Series and Cheap Wine & Poetry sometimes accompanied by guitarist Bill Horist or the sitar/tablas duo Bakshish. He edited an eclectic but short-lived literary magazine called The Wandering Hermit Review. While he keeps a lower profile these days, Potter is writing as much as ever. His work has appeared in journals such as; Able Muse, Blazevox, Drunken Boat, Galatea Resurrects, Knock, Marginalia, Raven Chronicles and Stringtown.