A practical list of the thing I have not, will not, or cannot fix

the chisel gap wedged between my front teeth my left windshield wiper, my screen protector, my screen, the four tiles beneath my sink: heinrich, stooley, waldorf, and moe, the second and third light bulbs, my thrift store painting, my bungee cord, my longsword’s crossguard, my dice bag, my website, my tax relief, my scalp and the scalp after, my didgeridoo, my mayan souvenir, my providence, my blender, my tomahawk head, the USB port, my deep noon, my bird voice, my lanyard noose, the first belt loop, my threaded spool, my dry vocal cords, my nose, my right loath sclera, my locking thumb, my hoax, my courageous double, my afterthought, my mouse colonies, my mice, the lamp whose shatter hangs cordial like half-lit guillotine, my dues, my don’ts, my do not disturbs, my disturbances, my ice-maker, my speaking terms, my formal terms of surrender, my colon, my first stain, my singularity, my sortie, that sudden stoppage of null, my old ways, my weight, my front right burner, my bad day, my time sink, my grant proposal, dinner (C) James Cole, 2021

Under a Mopane Tree in the Heat of the Day

A lioness stretches out long, eyes closed, still 

but for the in and out of breathing.  Four flawless

cubs sprawl over her belly, press into her breasts. 

They nurse and knead with baby paws.  She turns 

her body, raises one tawny leg, and the cubs 

topple, mew like miniature bells, scramble, 

search, reconnect – joined-again magnets.  

 

We sit silent on the savanna.  Our unmoving 

roofless vehicle six yards from this august 

animal, predatory carnivore, mother of 

nurslings.   In this moment I sense the kinship – 

a summoned tingle deep in my breast, soft buzz 

echo in the belly that announced the flow of milk.  

She knows that too – nuzzling mouths latched on, 

sucking with fury, and that fleeting serenity, 

mine too.  Her ears are never stopped. 

She hears stalks of grass, their snapping. 

© Martha E. Snell, 2021 

Lioness with cubs, Ngorongoro Crater, The Serengeti
Photo by Tony Young
from Wikimedia Commons

On the Move

Bursts of hail and heavy downpours,

resolute, gray, and dismal rain.

Shaggy pine trees overshadow guard rails.

I stumble on the road to nowhere

jammed with angry, hungry folks

seeking shelter from sheer boredom,

humming uplifting folk songs,

shoplifting a bit of happiness 

from the shelves of the rural stores.

Silver lettering reads LOVE

on the roof of a tumbledown house.

My world trembles around me,

I page through the fluffy ball of memories,

I invested too much in the writing to stop now.

Lonely and forsaken, 

I move from the floor to the sofa

swallowing salted sorrow,

typing the phone number,

a collection of digits.

It’s assigned a new area code since I lived there,

but those seven numbers, 

they are still the same,

exactly the same.

Such pain every time

to touch the buttons, 

listen to a pregnant pause,

hit the nail in the coffin of love,

destroying the sandcastle 

populated with crocodiles and cactuses

with the authority of a weathered writer.

Hitting the nail on my head,

deleting the dead seven numbers.

© Helen Kanevsky, 2018

AT&T Push-button telephone
from Wikipedia

Goodbye to 2020

Goodbye to 2020

Prologue:

We live our lives in a spiral

That begins and ends in a year

And still we exclaim, “Is it always the same?

Will a FUTURE ever appear?”

(Will a true future ever appear?)

**A**

Goodbye to a year that was frozen

In habits forever engrained

With the tyrants enclosed in their stock market castles

With silk-puckered gowns & brocade

While the hospitals fill

With the fevered

While their families look on in vain

As their loved ones lie dying

In fierce isolation 

Unheard and untouched and unnamed

**B** [Chorus]

Goodbye to the children in cages

Mad rulers who bluster and rage

Hello to the unions of lovers and leapers

The she’s and the he’s and they’s

And we’ll be singing

A new beginning

And we’ll be living

The earth’s own song

We’ll be her friend

Not her extractors

Be her servants

Seeking to mend

**C**

There’s a school that surrounded by gardens

A prairie and two thousand trees

That they planted themselves in the dirt that they’ve held

Like the frogs that slip into the stream

And they’ll watch it unfold as they come to know

What it means to be humble and green

What it means to be humble and green

            **D**

Goodbye to the murder of black men

As they stand or they walk or they speak

The knee on the neck, the shots in the back

No questions, no pause, no relief

No questions, no pause, no release

Hello to the wonder of

Knowing each other

Our music, our histories revealed

Our voices and yearnings

Our failures and turnings

Give us grace to recover ourselves

Give us grace to discover ourselves

-[Repeat B - Chorus]-

**E**

And thus we’ll envision

We’ll sit up and listen

To the facts we’ve evaded so long

Goodbye to the blindness

Hello to the kindness

We’ve left buried deep

We’ve forgotten to speak

With our hearts and our quivering tongues

With our hearts and our opening tongues

**F**

At the edge of the sky there’s a window

Where the faces of others arise

Through the mist of a jungle

The breath of a tunnel

And a village still rich and alive

The children leap into the river

They lift up their faces and shiver

Haul sunfish in hands for their dinner

And laugh the world back with their eyes

And laugh the world back with their lives

**

Epilogue:

We live our lives in a spiral

That begins and ends in a year

And still we exclaim, “Is it always the same?

Will a FUTURE ever appear?”

(Will a true future ever appear?)

© Terry Hermsen, 2021

To listen to the song performed, click on the orange link immediately below:                              

YouTube link:   Goodbye to 2020 ~ Performed by Bill Walker

Photo from the "On the Road to Happiness" website
home page

Roses to the Poets

Roses to the poets who might have been, but for …

the paralysis of pain

the security of consent

the ease of silence

Roses for the stillborn words

© William Vollrath, 2020 

"Gladioli and Roses"
by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904)
Guildhall Art Gallery
from Wikimedia Commons

I did not know / old childhood friend

I did not know 

I had a child to protect

I did not know 

she was used to neglect 

I did not know 

how to feed her 

what she liked to wear

how to hold or care 

for her skin and hair 

I did not know 

how to protect her 

because I did not have 

the strength to fail

until one cold and stormy evening

I heard a ring

and there at my door step 

was a wet 

familiar little girl 

yellow blanket and grey bear 

in her tiny hand 

a warm forgiving look 

in her hazel eyes 

it was then I realized 

that I did not recognize 

her needs as mine 

I had refused to listen 

to her inherent wisdom 

for years 

I could no longer hear 

her pleading for my presence:

my protection 

but then

last december

in the pouring rain 

there she was 

open arms

no raincoat on

welcoming my grief 

like an old childhood friend 

where she asked again 

and this time 

I listened

and instantly 

without judgement 

she offered the kind 

of kindness loss needs: 

a hand to hold

an eternal

internal hug 

standing in the rain

crying like the rain 

around us 

she showed me 

how to take off my armor: 

the denial I wore 

since before 

I can remember 

I told her 

“it hurts, this letting go. 

I do not know 

my life without it.”

she said “it was never yours 

in the first place.”

and once free from its weight

she said softly 

“sometimes holding heaviness 

is a way of trying to forget.”

like I said

I did not know

I had a child to protect 

I did not know 

that this abandoned child 

standing in the rain

was me

© Jona Noelle Baily, 2021

Photo by Zurna Creative on Unsplash 

A True Story

Childhood epiphany:

how a magnifying glass

angled toward the sun

smokes a hole in a dry leaf.

I showed Caren – for

the sake of epiphany –

she needed one, or

two, or three – Caren

was the grade school terror.

She came to grief

at recess behind the trailer

(a shuttered mystery),

squatting in dead sedge grass,

with a fascinated enlistee,

lasering a leaf, utterly

enraptured.  Flame, even!

© Monica Adams, 2021

Photo from Outdoor Life
https://www.outdoorlife.com/how-to-easily-start-an-optical-fire-with-these-three-tricks/