Category Archives: Uncategorized

Martha Vallely

Posted on by
Reply

Volanding on an Updraft

 

He said you are a lovely lady.
She thought that he was joking.
She said she saw a butterfly
red ziggy zaggy
with half a hind wing ripped off
volanding on an updraft
a little lopsided what with half a half a wing gone
but moving still
from a near place to a far.

Painted ladies fly across the Alps she said–
don’t you want to do that?
Of course we’d have to eclose first–
don’t you want to eclose?
It would be sweet to spend five instars–
don’t you want to be instar?
motionless in a pupa
become liquid
have all your cells rearrange while you hang.
I want to be mother-of-pearl morpho iridescence.

You are lovely as mother of pearl he said,
slipping it into the conversation when she wasn’t looking.
I will follow painted ladies across the Alps with you,
chase morphos into the heart of Brazil,
go to Papua New Guinea in search of the Queen Alexandra’s birdwing,
go anywhere everywhere whicheverwhere,
if there you will know that you are loved
and let me touch you.

 

“Volanding on an Updraft” is reprinted from Windfall.

 

 

Martha Vallely lives in Seattle where she has worked as a legal editor for 36 years.  Her poetry has appeared in The Smoking Poet, Menacing Hedge, Windfall, Motel 58, and the anthology 31 (Crane’s Bill books).

 

 

Student Poem

Posted on by
Reply

 

Syzygy
by Nathan Cummings

 
Like syzygy, we collided
in the darkness, ricocheted,
twirled, aligned
(helped along by gravity?)
and were gone when the moon showed its face.

I told you the word at dawn,
and had to write it on a notepad
before you would believe me.
Many things sound impossible
before you put your tongue into them.

Listen.
Feel it in the roots of your teeth.
Let the zy and gy crackle
like the static on an old TV set,
turning sound galvanic,
making atoms tremble in ecstasy
until they leap skyward,
form rows and hang in the void to hear
the planets sing with one burning voice.

Let consonants carry you away.

 

Nathan Cummings has been appointed the West Region’s National Student Poet for 2013. This is the highest honor in the United States for youth poets presenting original work. Nathan currently lives in Mercer Island, a community which has afforded him many opportunities in the arts. These include playing the clarinet in marching and concert band and serving as the editor-in-chief of his high school literary magazine, Pegasus. Nathan is also a reader for two national teen literary magazines, Polyphony H.S. and The Adroit Journal. His experiences with Polyphony and Adroit, as well as his time spent at the Iowa Young Writers’ studio, have introduced him to a remarkably close-knit and supportive network of teen writers from across the nation. Nathan also participates in cross country and track and field at his school. Some of his favorite poems originate from ideas that first came to him during long, solitary runs.

 

Nathan Cummings pictured at the White House with Mrs. Obama (Nathan is just right of her) and his fellow National Student Poets.  Read more about this excellent program here and here.

(This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.)

 

 

Poets In The Park from Alliance for Young Artists & Wri on Vimeo.

Larry Crist

Posted on by
1

While you were gone

i slept on your side of the bed
i climbed the stairs backward
i stood on the porch and howled at an absent moon
with your panties on
the red ones which i then
put neatly away
Bottles clustered like bowling pins
dishes piled like buildings
i took them down with terrorist finesse
a perfect strike

I kept the ball-peen hammer in the freezer
i chased squirrels from the yard
i consulted runes
rued the result
i scared ghosts from our pantry
got drunk three times and
cried 17
ate blackeye peas and gruel and bratwurst with honey mustard
i thought 72 immoral and lewd unlawful acts
committing several without even trying
i masturbated using only my left hand
i bathed in mayonnaise
i found your diary and your dildo
i couldn’t help myself
i read your dildo
but i did not insert your diary
somethings cannot be

Funny
with you gone
i feel i know you better
than when you are here

Hurry back
I know too much about you already

 

“While you were gone” is reprinted from Four Corners.

 

Larry Crist has lived in Seattle for 20 years and is originally from California, specifically Humboldt County. He has also lived in Chicago, Houston, London, and Philadelphia where he attended Temple U receiving an MFA in theatre. He’s been widely published. Some of his favorites are Pearl, Rattle, Slipstream, Evening Street Review, Dos Passos Review, Alimentum, Floating Bridge Press, and Clover.  He was a 2013 Jack Straw writer.

 

Jeanne Lohmann

Posted on by
Reply

Best Words

Like a heavy temple bell
struck loud
death claims a good man
And his love resonates after
shimmering through our lives

—Joseph Stroud, “Steps to the River”

Is he around me all the time
helping me along, as once he said
I helped him on his dying way?
He thanked me for that.

Now there’s no way for me
to tell him thanks.
The simple truth is I miss him.
I want him to know,
want the words we said then
as alive in him
as they are in me.

But when there’s no answer,
no body listening,
even the best words between lovers
disappear as chimes on the air,
memory like a poem
more than its words,
the way love always is.

 

Jeanne Lohmann has ten poetry collections in print, and two of prose. Her most recent work is Home Ground (Fithian Press, 2013). Her poems appear in chapbooks, literary journals, and anthologies, and have been read on local and national public radio. The Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Trail  with six poems is part of the wooded landscape at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, Washington.

Cindy Lamb

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Kim Antieau

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.