Christmas in My Heart

for Scott Coskie, a talented theater director who 

loved Christmas and everything Disney

Defying December winds

one blustery day,

we happily strung Christmas lights

across your front yard.

Dressed in Disney ornaments

your tree, glistening through the window

as inside, tinseled shelves of snowy cotton

set a stage for village life.

Within my mind, there still exists

a dancing Pinocchio,

the gift your heart couldn't help but crave

one Christmas long ago.

Watercolor memories,

abstracted and blurred,

melding Christmas past into Christmas present,

alive and aglow,

bringing you back each year 

as angelic characters fill my ears

and Christmas comes to my heart!

© Shelly Sitzer, 2017

Pinocchio and Cantinflas marionettes
at the National Puppet Museum
in Huamantla, Tlaxcala, Mexico
by Alejandro Linares Garcia
from Wikimedia Commons

Understanding Fiction

A two-year-old calls out “Ring, Ring!” and hands us

a play phone, and we take it and say “Hello.”

We carry on a full conversation

if need be, and chances are we need to,

smiles and all. 

                         Does it matter if the child

doesn’t follow all that we say? We could

speak of Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck

or pray for our long-dead Uncle Hutchins,

so long as the illusion is strong.

Chances are the child plays another game

while you talk, stacking bright rings on a peg,

perhaps, or painting her nails with a toothbrush

and the dog’s water bowl.  

                                            When she grows up,

she’ll not remember much more than the phone.

Uncle Hutchins remains just a name

on a list in the family Bible,

and the giants of jazz are just as dead

as he to this child who recalls nothing

but the faded pink phone we held, our voice,

our presence. 

           It’s a time of worthy deceit,

don’t you think? And this poem a parable

that says fiction can carry a good truth,

and  that we who write know the lessons

of irony better than most; we can conjoin

the two ends of this lie about a phone

into something strong enough to outlast

this moment and carry her on somewhere

we don’t now know, but which, if we are lucky,

we’ll live to write about some day.

            © David Black, 2017

Corbin Fleming, brother of 2011 March of Dimes National Ambassador
Lauren Fleming, plays with United States President Barack Obama's telephone
during his family's visit to the Oval Office on 7 February 2012.
Photo by Pete Souza, posted to White House Flickr Account.
From Wikimedia Commons 

Pegasus Dream

A wild Pegasus grazes

next to Star B Stables in Virginia,

ready to spread his lacy wings

and rise above the weepy clouds.

But the preverbal horse

relies on the words of a fickle poet

to make him fly.

If only there were just a Pegasus problem,

an idle poet could solve it.

If only there was just one lie,

a word could make it right —

to awake the dreamer,

to raise the dead.

The brilliance of words brings confusion —

they were mighty, now they are useless.

A peek at a stranger’s grocery list

tells me more than a hundred poems.

Pegasus glimpses the leafy forest,

the steep road to a grassy field,

lusts after the weepy clouds.

But the pathetic horse cannot wing his way

without the words of the fickle poet.

On the wooden porch stands

an abandoned broken rocker.

Pegasus and poet left

to wring out a few more lines

from memories of the leafy forest,

the steep road to a grassy field,

the weepy clouds.

The sunken, colorless eyes of Pegasus —

the defeat sprang from euphoria.

© Helen Kanevsky, 2017

Four Muses and Pegasus on Parnassus
Painting by Caesar van Everdingen, c. 1650
The Hague, The Netherlands
from Wikimedia Commons

How to Lie to Your Mother

Talk about your cats. You’re worried

the calico is getting too thin, but she

won’t eat any of the food you bought,

not even the organic one. Mention

you’re redecorating your bedroom.

You don’t have a favorite color

at the moment, so you picked blue.

You’ve spray-painted some wall hangings

and you found this paisley print sheet

at Thrift USA. You’re going to make

curtains. Everything is blue.

Say you can’t wait to visit her.

Insist on a trip to IKEA. It’s so close

and you need shelves. You don’t want 

your new roommate to think 

you’re a slob. Dodge the question 

about group therapy. Ask her 

about her health. She always

has a lot to say about it.

Try to remember which medications

have changed. There’s a list

in her purse, but still, someone should

know what she’s taking. Dad doesn’t.

Has it been thirty minutes yet?

You can’t talk for less or she’ll feel 

shut out. Ask about the animals

at the shelter. Are there any new kittens?

Try to stay focused on the details

when she describes them. Make it

into a game. See how much 

you remember later. Check the clock 

again. Wait for her to lose 

her train of thought. Pretend 

you’ve just realized what time it is. 

Tell her you need to get ready for work. 

Say I love you. Say goodbye. 

             Ellie White, 2016

(First published by The Academy of American Poets, 2016)

Young woman posed with a telephone, circa 1915
from the Library of Congress's Prints & Photographs division
via Wikimedia Commons

Sideways

Coming in that way, folks don't even hardly notice.

A glance, and they never knew you were lookin';

a board game, they never knew they had it comin';

a poem, and you just keep on chopping that onion.

Don't picture the black words on the white page 

or worry what they're gonna think.

Just listen to those words in your head, and get ‘em on out.

Don't label drawing "official, career, capital ‘A’ artist" work

And don't even mention the 

"this is what makes me tick" little ‘a’ artist passion 

when they ask you who you are.

Just keep on goin' to the swim meets 

and slapping down that home-cooked chicken on the table, 

all the while slipping in the making 

without your brain even knowing.

Sorta like that first base runner stealing second.

Out of your head, in the zone,

just get on out a step or two 

and start running for all you’re worth.

Afore you know it, 

you're slidin' on in.

You and that second baseman 'll never know what hit 'ya.

© Rie Harris, 2017

Sliding baseball player at a St. Louis Terriers game, 1914/1915
Photo by Russell Froelich
from Wikimedia Commons

From Whom Did I Spring?

Her mother was a slave, her father the master

She was beautiful and vain

She loved life and enjoyed it all

She lived till 100 years

She gave me time and love and stories

She told the time by the way the sun hit the window ledge

And she knew the Bible better than the theologians

How proud and beautiful was she

Her daughter was my grandmother

Who was my “mother” because Mom had to work

She fed us the special foods and ironed my starched dresses

She combed my hair and gave me extra nickels

She scolded me and helped us to grow

She raised siblings and children and grands and foster children

She helped me with my children

And she ironed with love and care

She was a quiet woman

Who gave love always

She lived to 89 and left quietly

How special and loved was she

Her daughter, my mother, had a rough life

She worked hard to provide a roof and food

She was a fighter, young and old,

And encouraged us to move forward

She gave us the time she could

And made us strong and able

She still is part of our lives

A great great grandmother but doesn’t look the part

She is called grandmommie and Gee Gee

She loves being with them, and playing too

How young and vivacious is she who is loved

The women in my family were and are strong

Working hard and raising families

They have left imprints on all of us, young and old

They are queens because their ancestry said it was so

I can be proud of my heritage

Because they were and are Black Beauties

Thank you Lucinda, Nana, and Cinda for the strength and beauty

You are queens, one and all!

          © Hilda Ward, 2017

Nzinga Mbandi, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba
Taken from Nzinga Mbandi: Queen of Ndongo and Matamba from the UNESCO series
on women in African history. Illustrations by Pat Mason
from Wikimedia Commons

I Indulge My Imagination

I found a smooth river stone that fits my hand

when I grasp it that right way, 

with the flattened end toward my little finger. 

It’s easy to imagine it’s been handled by people before, 

who may have made use of it for years,

smashing nuts or grinding seeds

or simply noticing how soothingly it fits in the palm

when held just so 

before chucking it back into the river.

© Laura Seale, 2017

Probable rubbing stone
by Adam Daubney, via the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme
from Wikimedia Commons

For Sandy Hook

Tears fall like flower petals.

Nothing left but a dry stalk of pain in the heart,

And once that is tossed aside, as it must be,

The heart is still an empty vessel,

Holding only the question WHY.

Tears fall like flower petals,

Washing up memories, washing away the immediate ache.

Once dried, petals pressed remain

A pretty picture, a sweet cache of fragrance.

Time beside the tears, healing the hurt slowly.

Tears fall like flower petals,

A remembrance of a presence

Once alive, now gone forever.

Yet the sweetness remains,

Tenderly growing peace in the heart.

© Anne Cressin, 2017

Rose memorial for victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
Photo by Alexisrael
from Wikimedia Commons 

We Fought No War This Time

We fought no war this time to find a time

Without the likes of you who even though Cuba

Is no longer the place you hide your face

And live the life that led to Castro

While we crawled neath our desks and

Received the request to be good Dullian 

Citizens who hate what they create

And anyone they suspect to blame

For the fear of the cloud we brought aloud

In sirens that went off every Wednesday at noon

And warned that soon we would be taken over

By godless Catholics, Baptists, or blacks

In a storm of equality falsely defined in identity

Not in being equal in the eyes of God and law 

With lies and rewrites, you cover yours and others

Eyes with the grey shroud of false wisdom. 

But you don’t care, as you stand right there,

In casinos, liquor, prostitution, and dirty money

As we fight no war this time to find a time

Without the likes of you.  

Without the likes of you. 

Without the likes of you.

© Dennis Wright, 2017

Snowy egret at Key Largo
Photo by William H. Majoros
from Wikimedia Commons

My Lagging Heart

... beats in an uncertain, puzzled rhythm, 

slow to change, never in unison 

with the requests of its host.

Trapped in turbulence, my gut, 

shaken by heart’s dizziness, cycles endlessly from wet

to dry – from predictable to random, 

from motility to functionless churning.

My body’s sense of personal posture and location 

cannot itself be found.

Limb and trunk muscles exhaust themselves, 

each battling for supremacy, while my brain, 

fighting protein invaders, forgets to fuel the engines of movement.  

Inexorably, the machinery of life deteriorates, 

quietly losing 

a function here, a movement there.

My eyes miss bits of landscape, busily constructing 

what isn’t there from what is. 

My sleeper’s mind breaks out of its dream-cage and hijacks

the late-night hours with its own mad dance.

A sailor in a stormy sea, my spirit sags.  My soul prepares 

for eventual flight.  Sleepless, unhappy, 

trapped in a fool’s errand of untouchable symptoms

and unlikely treatments, I fall, then crawl 

towards the lamp that Hope lights 

at the far end of a dark tunnel.

© George Phillips, 2017

A light at the end of the tunnel
Photo by Thomas Quine
Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia ~ 2015
from Wikimedia Commons

BESIDE THE WATER’S EDGE

HOW GOOD IT IS

TO STOP BESIDE THE WATER’S EDGE!

I CAN’T FEEL WHAT DAY THIS IS.

I ONLY KNOW THE SUN UPON MY FACE

AND THAT EVERY TIME I RETURN TO THIS PLACE,

RIVER LOW OR HIGH, THAT

I AM ONLY I.

BARBED WIRE HAS BEEN DEVOURED 

BY THIS RIVERTREE--

WILL IT BE SO 

WITH OLD BOUNDARIES AND ME?

WILL IT BE SO WITH OLD ANGER?

ONLY LOVE SHOULD BE GUARANTEED

THE HONOR OF ETERNITY--

NOTHING ELSE COULD MATTER!

© Gerry Sackett, 2017

Entrapment, Oak, Wire, and Mist
Photo by Bob Embleton
from Wikimedia Commons

Weeds Don’t Cry

Weeds don’t cry.

They stand stalwart 

in fields of corn,

in precise gardens of boxwood and lavender,

in chummy closeness with thyme and sage.

Then someone will shout:

“Pull up those damn weeds,”

and hands of all ages 

will strain against the  strength 

of those orphans of wildness and 

pull, pull, pull, 

or put foot to spade and

slice down to clear the root. 

In my salad days,

I pulled up sheaves of five foot tall

lamb's quarters to feed the breeder pigs. 

Lamb’s quarters, dandelion, amaranth, clover -

they grew between the crops and the rocks,

nourishing the pigs till the corn came in.

Someone once told me

that I was a weed - 

resilient, strong, able to flourish

in adverse conditions.

And I carried that thought 

throughout my life,

and felt proud ….

For when someone tells you that,

you never forget it. 

After years of garden work,

here’s how I feel about weeds:

I love them.

Kneeling in the middle

of  my tomato plants, 

I am contemplative and peaceful

as my reedy hands pull and pull and pull,

piling up the weeds of my past,

each a remembrance, 

an homage to enduring.

© Evie Safran, 2017

Men with picks and hoes clearing weeds in a field
Pullenvale, 1889
Photo held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
Photo from Wikimedia Commons