Tag: workshop poem

Riding Parallel

Janet Kolstein

I’m looking out the window of a car
and imagine I’m on a horse
galloping alongside the vehicle,
and jumping over obstacles
hard by the road.

Bushes, signs, fences, billboards.

If the hurdle’s dangerously high
and threatens to clip
the horse’s limbs,
my mount sprouts wings
and becomes a Pegasus.

Now, I could add a soundtrack
to my wild, untethered side.
Let’s start with “O Fortuna”
from Carmina Burana.
I lament the wounds
that Fortune deals.

Crows in the Rain

Richard Greene

I’ve always wondered what birds do in the rain.
Surprisingly, I’ve never seen.
Today I noticed a cluster of crows
hunched stoically (I imagined)
in a tree,
a cold November downpour
running down their backs.
One was clucking faintly
as if in misery.
Now I don’t much care for crows,
but seeing them pelted with icy water
gave me a shiver of sympathy,
and I wanted them to be
somehow immune
to the wet and cold.
They must be, I thought,
or they wouldn’t be sitting in a tree.
But then where would they sit,
those shifty, thieving,
suffering fellow creatures?

Calling the Jinn

Zorida Mohammed

I hear the words “Jinn, Jinn”
as I’m falling asleep.
I sneak out of bed
and creep behind the house in the dark.

I’m struck to find my father
standing by our lime tree
so laden with limes the branches
are reaching for the ground.
His white shirt glows green in the dark,
almost the color of the Jinn’s eyes.

Our biggest and bossiest rooster
is lying dead at his feet,
next to a bottle of rum.
My father calls “Jinn, Jinn.”
He calls two or three times, and steps back
to look at the sky.

I imagine the Jinn
the shape of a big black cape,
his only discernible feature
his glowing green eyes,
swooping in any minute.

My father’s name was Alladin.
Our lamp had no magic.

The Jinn never showed.

Richard Greene

Summer’s End

This morning,
for the first time in months,
it was cool enough
that I felt like wearing something
next to my skin.
All the summer’s haze had gathered
into a few small clouds
hung out like newly-washed sheets,
and migrant swans came down
on the wings of the wind.

Janet Kolstein

Gleaning Time

The audience is everywhere.
A city’s breath breathing on your neck
and mumbling strange allegations
in your ear,

still searching for that jeweled crown,
halo,
or laurel wreath.
Ornamental sword,
chest of metals,
scarlet sash.

I envision the film opening with his last lover
prone on the floor of the church’s aged stones,
her crinolined dress billowing out,
his encrypted corpse moldering deep below.

Are you comfortable in your clothes yet?
In your skin?

The elevator takes me and shakes me,
wipes the forest from my face.

She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.
If that’s not a sign,
I don’t know what is.

There was a time
when someone cared
if my feet got cold,
or wet.

The clock on the old bank building
was frozen at six o’clock,
but we shop for vases
under a celedon dome.

Each century conveys a shambles:
dried mums,
half-eaten bones,
a concubines’s broken nails.

Claudia Serea

High Wire

So life sets out for me
a high wire
strung between the Chrysler building
and the Empire State,
and tells me, Walk.

Not only walk,
but do a cartwheel,
a back flip,
and a split,
blindfolded.

And I do all that,
and hang up here, baby,

a sharp note
on a guitar string,

sparkling on an eyelash
like a tear.

Will you catch me
when I fall?

Claudia Serea

One October Morning

Maria, God said to my grandmother,
let the kids pick the grapes.

Leave the boiling pot
unattended,
and your daughter-in-law
to chop onion for soup.

Leave the men waiting
for the first shot of tuica
at 10 a.m.

When you hear your name,
leave everything.

Don’t try speaking
to your granddaughter,
for I’ll clench your jaw
and numb your tongue.

Don’t fight
the cold wave
lapping at your feet.

Don’t try standing by the stove,
for I’ll make your knees melt
and your ankles give.

I’m sending for you
my trusted eagle.

She’ll tap at the window,
fly inside without a sound,
reach down your throat
with her beak

and pick your breath.

Maria, I’m calling you by name.

The eagle is here,
in the room.

Janet Kolstein

Converse

She wanted to be
the woman behind the man
and dye her hair green;
then there was the near-rape
in Mexico,
the dash into the street,
better dead, she said, than defiled.

Nothing was taboo.
No word forbidden,
a liquid world of speech
swelling our senses,
dampening arguments and eyes —
waves of recognition,
a bath of accord.

I bought all her illusions —
her flicker in stainless steel.

The expanse of our talks
made our tongues dry,
and we slaked them with coffee,
with wine, with Coke on ice.
We made ourselves laugh
to hear what happy could sound like.

Reputations turned on spit.
Each was the caretaker
of the other’s secrets,
a confidence unbroken,
no names.

Wayne L. Miller

Somewhere Else

I pick up a stick and dig a hole.
If I stand the stick straight up,

where on Earth does the bottom point to?
Google labels my fidget map tunneling.

An app calculates that I’m pointing
into the Indian Ocean, not far from Perth.

I learn that Tangier is opposite Christ Church,
and Hawaii is opposite a park in Botswana.

I swivel the stick, crossing cities and towns,
beaming Hey, I’m here, on the other side.

When my hand stills— where am I pointing?
What is the latest news? Who sings the popular songs?

Tracing a precise ellipse would sweep the equator,
but the app doesn’t have that feature.

Which circle’s diameter would intersect where the planet’s
mantle rests on the iron core, or the crust on soft mantle?

I think about pointing into the 32 Southern constellations,
starting with the Southern Ecliptic Pole in Dorado.

Mark Fogarty

DIANA TAURASI KISSES SEIMONE AUGUSTUS
ON COURT DURING THE WNBA FINALS

When you’re your authentic self every single day, without shame — life sort of falls into place.
— Seimone Augustus

“She wanted to taste my deliciousness,” said Seimone
After the game, but there was more to it than that.
Taurasi’s team was going down, there’s nothing
In this world she hates more than to lose,
And this was the finals, for all the bright rings.
So instead of grabbing Seimone to foul, she kissed her.
On the cheek. Sweet, and not so sweet.
A kiss for the victor, Seimone wins this time.
But also a foul, maybe even a technical foul,
And a Judas kiss as well, marking Seimone
To go down the next time they met.

The following year, Diana made sure her team won.

I should dislike Diana Taurasi, but I can’t.
She went to UConn, and I went to Rutgers,
Enough said. But Diana is the fiercest competitor
On the entire planet, the one you pick first
When choosing teams. She’s the best
Female hooper to date. This year she’s sitting out,
Wooed away by Russian billionaries
Who pay her $1.5 million, a free apartment,
Rides to away games on the oligarch’s jet.
I never rooted for her team, but I kind of miss
The way she cuts my team up with her fiendish passes,
Her moves to the hole, her pullup and score.
I miss the bun of hair she pulls back so tightly
My head hurts. I want to taste her deliciousness again.

Seimone Augustus was engaged for a full five years.
No, she wasn’t dithering about it.
She couldn’t marry her wife until now.
I teared when I read her essay on marriage.
She loves her spouse like I loved my spouse,
Like you love your spouse. No different.
Sweet as the move to the hoop, the circle
All the energy flows through. I too
Want to kiss Seimone Augustus, chastely,
On her tender and triumphant cheek,
Now that the veil has been lifted,
Now that there is no gay marriage, just marriage.