Category Archives: poem

Graham Isaac

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A Tool Breaks Its Promise

 

You tricked me, leafblower! out amongst
the lawns, admiring my own arms for

their usefulness, peeled bark, owned houses,
guidelines toward mulch. I wanted you

to be the wind, harnessed, I wanted
you to make me God. But like the firehose

or blender or hangglider before you, this is a
clumsy toy, a dignity steal for men in buttoned

shirts even on their day off. Listen: my home
is my castle and the lawn is my moat and the

leaves, they are alligators, even in the fall.
You’ve punchlined me, set me to the neighborhood

council in apology rags, contrition tie, shame loafers.
I drive back, my satnav malfunctioning, Joe,

over there, on his riding mower, grinning,
near asleep in his beer.

 

“A Tool Breaks Its Promise” is reprinted from Wonder And Risk. 

 

Graham Isaac is a writer and performer living in Seattle, Washington. Previously he lived in Swansea, Wales, where he attained a Masters of Arts in Creative and Media Writing from University of Wales Swansea, and co-founded The Crunch, an open mic for spoken word. He co-curates the Claustrophobia reading series and was one of the organizers behind the Greenwood Lit Crawl. His work has appeared in various journals, including Licton Springs Review, Your Hands Your Mouth, Hoarse, The Raconteur (UK), Beat the Dust and more. He is allergic to cats.

Ann Batchelor Hursey

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Made by Hand

My thumb loops yarn, inserts
……….the needle’s tip,
pulls yarn through each stitch: right
……….to left, back
to front—worked-in, slipped-off
……….my needle—
I purse my lips and knit
……….this prayer shawl
to warm a friend’s shoulders.
……….My son appears
to say, Knitting makes you
……….look older.
Startled, I think: Is this
……….the first time
he’s seen gray on my temples?
……….Is it the way
I squint beneath the lamp?
……….My needles slide,
knit three, purl three—and then
……….reverse the row
below; a three-beat seed
……….stitch, trinity
of healing thoughts. As fingers
……….move I tell
him how I cast sixty stitches,
……….like my age—
My needles slide, knit three, purl
……….three—three beat
trinity of healing thoughts—
……….Me, thinking when
was the first time I thought
……….my parents old?
Unobserved, I used to watch them
……….sitting, side by side—
their eyes on strangers— and me
……….wondering when
did they put on weight, when
……….did their shoulders
soften? My son speaks again,
……….would I listen
to a Haydn solo, the piece he
……….needs to learn
next week? He leans against
……….my knees, catches
the shawl, now falling off
……….my lap. My
hands graze past his unkempt hair
……….as we listen to
this floating melody, this
……….slow concerto.
It’s then I start my final row,
……….turn all that
length now gathered on the floor—
……….consider skills
of binding-off. Remembering
……….do it loosely.

 

 

“Made by Hand” is reprinted from Fire On Her Tongue: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry, Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, Editors (Two Sylvias Press, 2012).

 

Ann Batchelor Hursey’s work has appeared in the Seattle Review, Crab Creek Review, Poemeleon, Chrysanthemum and Persimmon Tree, among other publications. Besides collaborating with artists, musicians, and community gardens— she has written poems about fair trade and handmade things.  She holds an MFA in creative writing from the Rainier Writer’s Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Born and raised in Ohio, she’s now lived longer among Firs and Cedars than Sassafras and Buckeyes. She lives in Mountlake Terrace.

 

Martha Vallely

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.