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Words have Wings – Poetry by Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna

by Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna
written by Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna 
Words have Wings
Words are birds
     of feather; they
     tether together
by mutual attraction
     and chemical reaction.
             
Flocks invent sentences,
     each with scent essences; 
     sweet scents source resonance, 
while scent tenseness makes menace.
Communication murmurations
     may summon the sun,
or feast like buzzards 
     on rot and division.
Your speech far-reaches;
it teaches and preaches.
    Shapes your senses 
and sharpens intenseness; your
     verbs may hurl vipers or virtues.       
             
Braid your strands of syntax 
     to sympathize synapses,
harness harmonies charmingly …
Offer soothing words like lemon curds.
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Two Poems by Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna

by Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna
written by Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna 
Midwinter in the Forest
solstice rain rouses sleepy earth 
     from winter dreams --
forest floor pores sodden,
     oozing droplets 
          slipping into streams;
stubbly sedge stretches lazily 
    into hazy sky 
         
as mute sun filters 
     through stirring sugar pines --
sparking shimmer in stunted shoots, 
    singed by the death of winter;
our wakening world 
    lit in the glitter dazzle 
of a thousand silver sequins.


Sit Silent 
Sit silent.
Sneak between fleshy folds 
of this murky night 
and fasten your listening     
to the beat of your breath.
Sit still  
with your broken confidence.
As a wolf with a blistered paw, 
      you rock him in your lap 
until he dozes and snores away his ills.
Allow the death of silence 
to devour your devils; rip into
their muscles with eager fangs, 
a grand demolition 
with teeth and jaws; lip-smacking gusto 
and grease at the corners of a glutted grin. 
Ravaged, your innards gouged out 
like a rotting squash, relieved
of all that was not forged
from your bones or blood.
You rise, lock eyes
with the pale light 
     of a new moon.
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Two Poems by Phyllis Klein

by Phyllis Klein
written by Phyllis Klein 
Because I Am a Wave Attached to an Ocean
            Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots 
                 into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you 
                     were forbidden to write. Rainer Maria Rilke 
To remind myself why I write, I remember the golden eagle I saw 
in an oak tree watching me. I remember the rattlesnake coiled around
a fence rattling, a fox so close on the trail I could almost reach out 
to stroke its coat of reddish fur that swirled in the shade trees. 
It was near a lake with an abundance of skate ray fish flapping 
their wings at the water’s surface. Because there is nothing else 
to do about loveliness than to bow down and worship it. Because I am 
a hose attached to a spigot of images dying to explain why 
there is so much suffering in a world that offers us this much beauty.
To remind myself why I write, I imagine how a heart dishes out
its love to swim in a lake with skate ray fish and their wings.
How my heart could be out there in the water and also inside my chest.
My heart, queen of the pond! While really, I’m at my desk pressing keys 
with white letters on dark gray background because. Because I am a waterfall 
attached to a river of spirits calling my name, Phyllis. Or maybe it’s Rilke 
with his advice. Maybe it’s the fox who stood still as a photograph 
in his foxy fur coat and whispered without words, Phyllis, write, 
and didn’t say why, but a door opened and I walked through. 

Still Standing
	—For Perie
I went to bed with words germinating,
climbing in and out of each breath, and woke up 
in a metaphor about you. I must have written this 
in my sleep and now it’s going to appear on a page 
vivid as the vermillion vase I saw at the Crocker Museum 
on my weekend in Sacramento. I was visiting 
with two poetry darlings of mine, and we said, 
Let’s find something to write about. 
Isn’t everything something to write about? 
I got caught up with a vase—so big, with its beautiful
ceramic belly all etched with a queen of the night cactus
flower, the kind that blooms only in the dark, and dies 
that next morning,. You would have liked it also,
I think. Maybe it’s the paradox, to capture a thing so fleeting
and carve it into a red eternity. I went to a garden in my mind
where these flowers were spewing their voluptuous scents,
and I watched transfixed in the moonlight as they slipped 
away. Here I am back to the precious withering, houses burned,
lost loves shaking down the rooms of a body’s house. And here we are 
you and I, survivors, old mountains, fir trees of love.
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Everything breathes in. Everything breathes out. – Poetry by Eroldi Idlore

by Eroldi Idlore
written by Eroldi Idlore 
Everything breathes in. Everything breathes out.
Why do you have such a hard time celebrating? 
Why do you wrestle with joy?
Everything is going to be okay.
(Everything is going to be alright).
Settle down, pain
Settle down, surrender... 
Go to sleep, eyelids.
Go to sleep, pajamas.
What came before this?
What are you meant to learn here? 
How are you?
How are you doing?
Can’t you just relax? 
Can’t you just be happy? 
One thing at a time, dear 
One thing at a time.
But haven’t we only just arrived? 
Isn’t this only just the beginning? 
We had to start somewhere;
It might as well be now...
Is that a smile there?
Do I see you smiling?
Love is so powerful a thing, 
There is still love in nothing.
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Two More Poems by M. R. Mandell

by M.R. Mandell
written by M.R. Mandell 
Ode to the B Side
To the ones etched on the back. 
Tracks rarely heard, lyrics 
rarely hummed by pretty girls 
driving home from handsome dates, 
or frat boys road-tripping to the river. 
Never the wedding dance,
seldom the theme song from 
90s sitcoms starring 
shaggy-haired starlets, or 
Grammy’s golden choice.
To the forgotten ones
who bottom the charts.
Scorned children, turned
away from the crowd. 
Veined in leftover vinyl.
I’m listening.
Your fractured falsettos
mimic mine when I cry 
hard behind a locked door.
Your bastardized beats
bolt me up when I’m 
too numb to step out
of bed. Your ratty rhythms 
remind me I’m not alone 
on days filled with 
menace and spite.
Thank you for dancing 
when boyfriends didn’t 
show, wiping my tears
with your sleeve, for 
lullabying my shame to sleep.
I adore you, B Side,
with your broken ballads 
I flip over.

Letter to Mom’s Little Girl
Win, lose, or draw, Dad slithered home from the casino, spitting bourbon, smoke, venom at anyone who got in his way. Her tears dropped on to your nose as she tilted the bottle over your mouth. You were too young to understand, but you heard, you knew.
Her split lips, bruised wrists, coffee burns, sunken eyes carted you through emergency rooms, police reports, welfare offices, food pantries, Section 8 housing, stacks of bounced checks, overdue bills, driveway arguments, slammed doors, divorce petitions. 
Government offices were your second home. Plastic chairs your bed, her lap your pillow. You peek-a-booed with security guards, organized her purse while waiting in line after line, took candy from strangers when she said it was fine.
You toddled alongside her to JC Penney for her first job interview in twenty years, wrapped arms around her when the nice lady with white hair hired her on the spot,  waved as she waltzed out that first day, stuffed tears till she cleared the door, ran to the ring when she called to say I miss you on her coffee break, tackled her 
when she paraded in after a six hour shift, brushed fingers over her lashes as she dozed off watching the news, peace carrying her into her dreams.
She always called you her Little Girl, but you were big in so many ways.
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Two Poems by M.R. Mandell

by M.R. Mandell
written by M.R. Mandell 
Tinsel, a Love Story
They fell in love squished between 
rolls of Rudolph wrapping paper 
and a plastic nativity scene
missing its Baby Jesus. 
He was drawn to her sparkle. 
The way she shimmies in the 
reflection of the red and green.
How she drapes each limb, 
silver dancing through the air.
She couldn’t resist his gold
braiding the fir from its starry
crown to its flowing skirt. Tinny
elegance cascading the hearth,
twisting the staircase, hugging
her metal heart.
Their romance beat the odds.
No longer in vogue, they know
they are lucky to shine.
That many of their friends
are crumpled up with used
tissue and ribbon, left out 
in the cold.
When January comes, it’s 
time to return home, 
curled together under the 
bulbs and lights, waiting 
another year for their 
love to glow.

Heaven’s Day
Heaven rises at the crack of dawn. Stretches, breathes, smiles down at Earth. So much to do.
So much to prepare. So many to welcome, so few to turn away.
She’s called on her angels to pearl the gates, fluff the clouds, size the wings, rainbow 
the bridge. Ready the names. The sunbather that traded her life for the drowning baby, 
grandmother who raised nine kids all alone, Golden Retriever that loved the newborn even 
though she took his spot on the bed, the Special Ed teacher whose students were his kids, 
the young father who flew off a bridge, soldier split apart by shrapnel, immigrants swimming 
for their freedom, the mother marching for her murdered son, her murdered son.
All the others who did their best, tried to be good. 
With a twinkling tear, Heaven nods her head, raises her arms, opens the gates, brings them home.
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Pyriform – Poetry by Brenda Yeager

by Brenda Yeager
written by Brenda Yeager

To close out The Bloom’s literary publications for 2022, and to celebrate Lake County, we revisit pear poems that were written by local writers for the annual Kelseyville Pear Festival in September of 2022.

Pyriform
Earth black and red speaking in curves, 
  in juice. The fruit of history hangs
   heavy on the branch. Who walked here, 
    hid beneath the surface, a single reed
      breathing her story into our memory?
        As her people seeped crimson into the lake.
          Who cleared and sowed these acres 
           into longing: seed for the sun, skin
            for its gold, ancestors for their own bones?
            Their lines spreading across corridors of land,
            as the shadows of pear trees. Fruiting sweet joy,
           warm and round in the palm, then dripping
          to the elbow. And who will speak a new name here?
        The sandpaper moment of its flesh on the tongue. 
The bitter seed. For Ni’ka and her own.

From the plaque in northeastern Lake County, California 
marking the California Historical Landmark No. 427:
BLOODY ISLAND BO-NO-PO-TI
ONE FOURTH MILE WEST IS THE ISLAND CALLED BO-NO-PO-TI (OLD ISLAND), NOW BLOODY ISLAND. IT WAS A PLACE FOR NATIVE GATHERINGS UNTIL MAY 15, 1850. ON THAT DATE, A REGIMENT OF THE 1ST DRAGOONS OF THE U.S. CALVARY, COMMANDED BY CAPT. NATHANIEL LYON AND LT. J.W. DAVIDSON MASSACRED NEARLY THE ENTIRE NATIVE POPULATION OF THE ISLAND. MOST WERE WOMEN AND CHILDREN. THIS ACT WAS IN REPRISAL FOR THE KILLING OF ANDREW KELSEY AND CHARLES STONE WHO HAD LONG ENSLAVED, BRUTALIZED AND STARVED INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE AREA. THE ISLAND, NOW A HILL SURROUNDED BY RECLAIMED LAND, REMAINS A SACRED TESTAMENT TO THIS SACRIFICE OF INNOCENTS.
One of the few survivors was a 6 year old girl named Ni’ka, later known as Lucy Moore, who hid in the bloodied water and survived by breathing air through a reed. 
— quoted from: https://www.aclunc.org/sites/goldchains/explore/bloody-island.html
Kelseyville, California was named after Andrew Kelsey, whose brutality lies at the inception of this massacre. A movement exists to rename this town, unsuccessful to date.
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Harvest Time – Poetry by Pamela Bordisso

by Pamela Bordisso
written by Pamela Bordisso 
To close out The Bloom's literary publications for 2022, and to celebrate Lake County, we revisit pear poems that were written by local writers for the annual Kelseyville Pear Festival in September of 2022. 

Harvest Time
You are not here
You do not stand in these
Long rows of trees
You no longer look at the size,
Or shape, 
Or color of these pears
You are not in this orchard
You do not direct the picking
You do not toil 
This harvest season
You do not tell me of
This year’s crop
The market price
The tonnage heading to the sheds
You are gone
Your trees,
Your father’s trees,
Stand tall 
Glossy dark green leaves
Against brilliant, blue sky
In your absence
Strong branches 
Bear the weight of 
this year’s pears
You are not here 
To let this green fruit
Ripen
In your kitchen
You whisper through time
the sweet joy of biting
Into the fragrant 
Golden flesh 
You are not present 
To slice, can, dry,
preserve, or bake
these tender 
Globes of light
The pears miss you
The orchards that are
Also gone
They long for the tender 
Loving care
Given by you
You and the 
whole town
Who breathed life
Into 
Kelseyville Pears
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Pear Talk – Poetry by Kathleen Scavone

by Kathleen Scavone
written by Kathleen Scavone 
To close out The Bloom's literary publications for 2022, and to celebrate Lake County, we revisit pear poems that were written by local writers for the annual Kelseyville Pear Festival in September of 2022. 


Pear Talk

Pear orchard a cathedral of cool
 
Lake County's agricultural tapestry
 
Interwoven with walnuts and wine
 
Summer's light rings in bell-shaped Bosc
 
And beautiful Bartlett
 
Summertime treats-
 
Smooth and plump
 
As a pregnant belly
 
Pregnant with possibilities
 
Pear pie, chutney, pear crumble, pear cobbler...
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Two Poems by Karin C. Uphoff

by Karin C. Uphoff
written by Karin C. Uphoff 
The Visit
The weary pines stood 
at my door like 
lost relatives 
who
hadn’t eaten 
in years. 
I let them in-
to my dreams
where they could 
drink
until every cell 
of their wizened beings
danced 
to the song of
water.
They stayed all night
telling stories of
how they wove 
baskets  
of earth,
decorated  
rocky slopes,
spun the sky 
in honey.
One time, their 
delicate fingers 
held
so many winged-ones
they almost
flew themselves!
Flew 
into another dream-
time, flew 
to the clouds
drifting as rain.


Merlin
A falcon swoops and lands in my garden
its sharp talons struggle to gain purchase 
on the black plastic water tank. It looks
momentarily confused, perhaps 
a song sparrow escaped with all its feathers.
I witness the merlin’s endearing vulnerability
as he perches regally, composed as a cat 
that had missed 
the mark
Like any considerate host, I act 
as if he was expected, and
unwittingly say 
that he is welcome to his full of finches.
Oh how quickly I toss my feathered friendships 
at the appearance of this intriguing stranger
his dark hood and proud speckled chest,
hooked bill with tomial tooth designed to snap
cervical vertebrae and rip warm flesh . . .
how it suits his handsome face!
The instant our eyes meet
I tumble from the sky
plummet like prey
smitten
but he kills 
our conversation by lifting 
wings to vanish as fast as he appeared.
The garden is no longer the same
and the finches eye me dubiously.
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A Bitter Wind – Poetry by Georgina Marie Guardado

by Georgina Marie Guardado
written by Georgina Marie Guardado 
A Bitter Wind

a bitter wind whisks away bodies upon bodies
where do they go?
Girl    Woman    Two-spirit
the remains of 215 children buried in an unmarked grave
at Kamloops Indian Residential School
one appears to be a child who died as young as 3
Chief Casimir says the bodies found so far 
appeared to be buried in separate “unmarked burial sites that are, to our knowledge, also undocumented.”
5,712 cases of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women 
and girls in 2016
2,306 missing Native American women and girls in the U.S. in 2020
the U.S Department of Justice only reports 228 cases in 2021
nearly 60 percent of the cases are homicides
31 percent involve girls 18 and younger
I remember   age 17   young brown girl   walking alone
Highway 29   Pomo reservation
a middle-aged man   his dirty-white pickup truck
I could have been one of the missing
not one woman-identified Native is safe from this
this is no bitter wind
only sharp human action
acerbic, forthright
stealing souls in the night or shamelessly
in the blinding daylight
are their spirits in anyone’s thoughts?
I burn sage and copal
imagine their spirits lifting up in the smoke
settling into the corners of a safe haven
no red violence smeared across their faces
no last breaths taken
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Healing – Poetry by Jordan O’Halloran

by Jordan O' Halloran
written by Jordan O' Halloran 
Healing


Most days, it’s hard to breathe
The Prozac not hitting fast enough
The caffeine making me numb
Visions of my former self running through my head
Trauma running through my veins
Am I enough? 
Is any of this enough?
But, I try to remember
Try
Try
I owe it to myself to heal
My ancestors deserve closure
What better way than writing?
26 letters
Billions of words
Infinite possibilities
Anxious head
Furious typing
Ideas at 3 AM
I love it all
Poetry is just life
Life on the page
Roots in the ground
Feet on the pavement
Head in the clouds
Insides bursting with light
Writing
What better way to process it all?
The mess inside
The disasters outside
I deserve it
What better way to heal it all?
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Before The Darkness – Poetry by Lance Giroux

by Lance Giroux
written by Lance Giroux 
Before The Darkness
It’s time
That time
Before clouds,
Before downpours, 
Before shadows
Become so long
That clocks
Lose their meaning.
Outside
Beside
The cabin
Young maple
Oak and madrone
Guard the ditch
On Admiral Way
And warn:
“Don’t fall in!”
But I do.
I descend
When season
And forest
Quietly ask me 
To clear and clean
Ditches, holes
And patchwork fissures
Before the darkness
Surely appears.
After all
That has happened
In this life,
I am at home
Here to live
With neighbors.
Here to steward;
Trusting
The arrival of
An eternal
Spring.
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Two Poems by Jeffrey Kingman

by Jeffrey Kingman
written by Jeffrey Kingman 
SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA
1.
A broken wheel spun around haphazardly
before falling over and warbling to a stop.
Stillness. If you’re not around to tell
the story someone else tells it. And another
retells. I stumbled on a tiny chapel in a vacant
ruined old house. Catherine was in there
along with her wheel. The walls tiled,
milky squares, her story hand painted.
Language of blue.
If it were true my blood was milk.
If it were true the wheel broke
   from the force of the strength inside me.
2.
Crumbled bits of ceramic have been mixed
with the dirt. Many crisscrossing roads,
two ruts, grass in between. Landscape
the same for miles. Broken tiles from
a demolition firm up the sandy soil.


STEPHANIE
If you say goodbye to a house
   the house waves back.
But she didn’t get the chance.
She was away when her folks got kicked out
   way back when.
Nostalgia is a 12-year-old thing
   7 was forever ago.
Sure, you can take a look, come in.
Yep, we got rid of the old wooden gate.
She remembered the laundry chute to the basement.
She’d wanted to drop a kitten down
   to watch it land on a puff of towels.
The whole litter escaped through a hole in the screen door.
She pointed out the window her stepdad
   sent an ashtray crashing through.
Helluva noise, I bet. Scared you?
8 years later
   Stephanie happened to rent the house across the street.
It was her dream to join the Coast Guard.
Took a test, had an interview.
But they didn’t like her tattoos. She cried about it.
Before long, she moved out. This time
   her own choice.
I don’t know if the house waved goodbye.
She probably doesn’t care about that kind of thing anymore.
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Two Poems by Martina Gallegos

by Martina Gallegos
written by Martina Gallegos 
Are You Lost?
If the eerie sensation of walking along a narrow hallway
and feeling like I’m about to disconnect my feet from my body
were not enough, people asking me if I’m lost almost makes me
lose my mind, but I hold my breath and say, “I’m fine.”
Walking around above any first floor is even worse because
that’s when I feel I’m about to lose ground and quickly move
to hold on to any wall or object nearby.
I don’t even try to use escalators yet because when I did try,
I felt I’d pass out or start bawling out on the spot.
At first, even using an elevator was terrifying, and I felt more
claustrophobic than anything, and forget about looking out
to the building next door, or looking down from any upper
floor. I’d rather die right on the spot.
People look at me and grudgingly say, “I’d never would’ve known
you had a stroke.” Others say, “I never would’ve thought you had
a stroke. You’re doing/look great.” But what I really want to tell
them is: You have no idea the hell I’ve been through, or how
hard I’ve had to work every single day since.
I may not be lost in the physical sense, but I’m lost in
every other way, and only I know what that is like; how hard it is;
and how I feel about still being around when I almost wasn’t.
Some people almost attack me because I survived while
some loved one was bedridden for eight years and blah, blah,
but I know for sure that could’ve been me as well, but I made
a promise to do everything in my power to get back on my feet
no matter the pain.

Walking on Clouds
There are times when I feel like my former self, normal, I guess,
but that is rarely the case anymore.
When I get out of bed, I have to move slowly and gently and not
really move away from my bed till everything around me
is completely still.
At least now I’m ok walking around in the mornings but cannot
do so once dusk shows up because I feel completely
unbalanced, dizzy. Forget about trying to do any walking
at night, at least not by myself.
I recall when I couldn’t walk if I saw water on the sidewalks,
or if the sidewalks had any metals. My brain totally resisted.
I felt like I was glued to the ground.
I once went to the beach and climbed over one hundred stairs
each way, and on the way up, I even carried a bunch of shells.
On the beach, I was rock skipping and did just fine, and I was
surprised, but not really. A couple or few times I thought I’d
had it, but I kept looking for the next and biggest shell.
It’s still difficult to get out of the house and walk because
even familiar people look like strangers to me, and I feel my
feet getting weak for no reason, and I must be careful not to
make any sudden moves or turns, or I’ll be crawling around
all over town.
Sometimes I think my world is upside down, and I’m walking
on clouds and not on the ground.
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Two Poems by D.L. Lang

by D L Lang
written by D L Lang 
The Northwest
We wandered down 
the Avenue of the Giants,
taking in the endless greenery
until we ran across Paul Bunyan,
riding his ox, carrying his axe, 
destroying trees to build a country.
He said his axe was really hungry.
We hugged the Grandfather Tree,
glad it was spared from destruction.
We become children in the forest,
specks of dust dancing in the breeze,
laughing freely to ourselves,
rambling past the clover
feeling lucky, feeling free,
as the redwoods tower above
in this land of giants.
The streams are rushing past
fueled by endless love. 

What Dreams Danced Here?
Sparkles like starlight on a marble floor.
The echo of an empty ballroom.
Ghosts pirouette under the moonlight.
Laughter ricochets through the air.
Joy bounces beyond time and space.
Faces unlock the gates of history.
Melody lingers in the atmosphere.
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Punchliner – Poetry by Paul Corman-Roberts

by Paul Corman-Roberts
written by Paul Corman-Roberts 
I was a punching bag a punchline a
punchee spectacle of arms and legs
on the killing floor of love
the one the universe 
surely meant to be mine
called me aside to confide
she in fact, 
loves another.
I’m the grinch in a clinch
a cinch to exact 
revenge on the cucker 
who cucks me the cuckee
and he didn’t even know it
a war only I was fighting.
I was judgement and punishment
could have let him die in that SRO
simply by walking away
his last connection to this world
held in my hand.
Him barely able to stand.
ramshackle skeleton
covered
in his own feces and vomit
this once beautiful specimen
of the liberal dream
the leftist’s 70’s scheme
All I can really remember from that day 
the on-call counselor
this was before cellphones
you had to use a payphone
situated in a dark, decaying hallway 
in the Tenderloin.
and the on-call counselor
on the other end
telling me:
So if you really want to save this guy you need to get him into an ambulance now.
That was the beginning
of me not being a punchline
the end of me 
being a punching bag.
started.
in a very expensive ambulance
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Nice to Meet You – Poetry by Paul Corman-Roberts

by Paul Corman-Roberts
written by Paul Corman-Roberts 
Oxygen was the first trauma, wasn’t it? The first gasp of a new substance burned into our lungs, trying to adapt to that burning and barbaric yowl isn’t pulled; no it rushes out into the big wide world if we’re lucky to not have the infernal obstructions of the medical establishment to prevent it from transforming us into that thing we learned long ago to transform into, whatever that is.
Twice in one year I bounced off the Earth, fulfilling those waking dreams of free falling off the moon as a baby; the first time going downhill on a bike off a mountainside in Idaho, and because I was the last of three mounted on the narrow five speed banana seat I was thrown clear over the handlebars, lucky and dumb because a few months later I learned how much your teeth look exactly like all the other little white rocks on an old country road. 
I discover a world where I see different, hear different, an alternative to the ridiculous laws of gravity. The bathtub becomes a portal where I can disappear from bullies and taunts of smarter kids. My familiar is the sparkly bottle of Prell shampoo whose emerald glitter splattered transparency allows me to uncover the secrets beneath the surface. Almost like a recovered memory.
Fire introduced herself to me in a laundry room in Santa Rosa, a roaring laughing sprite of pure energy who winked at me on the wrong end of a game of hide and seek and she said I could try the roaring and laughing too if I thought it looked like fun, told me I needed to get a little closer, but I ran and ran and told my mom and then the fire chief tried to get me to admit I had set it, and all I could hear was some far away laughter.
Yeah, and then that ephemeral other just beamed down from space in front of me and said “HI!” and the next thing I know they’ve wrapped me in a soft cocoon that also feels, oddly enough, like an old memory recovered and they come and visit every once in a while, but never in the same body, never with the same approach and never tells a soul because she can’t be bothered with the ridiculous laws of arrival and departure.
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OUR VOICE

Two More Poems by Kim Shuck

by Kim Shuck
written by Kim Shuck 
Your Beautiful Wild
I don't want to write you bandages
I will if I have to but
I'd rather write you
Party streamers
Laughing until you ache
Walking adventures 
Card games
Good movies
Safety
Safety
Safety
A place to unfold
All of your beautiful 
Wild
Thinking


The Measure of Poets
They're measuring poets by the scars on their hearts
I will tell you now 
The spark for each of our stories is still out there
Somewhere
I will tell you now
Even though 
From this hill 
It looks as if each song grows from violence
Wild garlic will still grow in the quiet
Rabbit
Makes mischief 
Under trees that recite the years
Without being cut
I tell you now that the pink roses 
Lend their sweetness to the raspberry canes
And I will tell you
You are not less a part of this story
No matter what other stories my try to tell you
You are as urgent and
Foundational
As wandering
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OUR VOICE

Two Poems by Kim Shuck

by Kim Shuck
written by Kim Shuck 

Dead Bumblebee on the Driveway
If my hand 
No longer under my control
Someone somewhere else
Choosing 
For me 
What my hand 
Creates
Caresses
The other hand pulls honeybees from my hair
If my eye
What will I be 
Allowed to see?
What will I be required
To turn 
Away 
From
I can hear the yellow jacket
Pounding itself on the
Bedroom window
But can't look
Can't lift the sash
If heart
Now in unfamiliar rhythm
Granting and denying
Blood
From this chair 
I can just hear
Squash bees
Singing zucchini
Singing pumpkin
Can just hear them
For now

Our Own Times
Season of wind ticks over
Change
Transformation
Blurry membranes between
Poems
Identities
Differences we will identify as difference
Differences that are not difference
Allowed to be you if
You are like the children in the books
Or so they say and
They will choose the books
And we who are designated different
We find the places to meet one another
Find the things that we knew all along
In dream or in poem
We find each other
In our own definitions
Our own times
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OUR VOICE

Clean Offering: Poetry by Brian Sonia-Wallace

by Brian Sonia-Wallace
written by Brian Sonia-Wallace 
The world is on fire and I have something 
to sell. I’d like to sell you the world. 
It’s on fire. It is.
But you should buy it — 
not because it’s safe, 
but because the economy
(that’s the end of that sentence.
Because the economy.)
_____________________
Have you been economical with your words?
With your worries? Have your worries 
been eco-centric or ego-centric? 
I would like to sell you an ego.
No — a biome. Take a look around. Lots to see.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Let me know if your questions have teeth.
Let me know if your teeth are chattering.
Or, if you do not have teeth, if you’d like some! 
Actually — I’d like your teeth.
What would you like in exchange?
I only have the world. I don’t carry exact change. 
I carry inexact change. I carry messes 
going back generations, gentlemen 
callers with questions — 
They check the teeth to make sure 
the horse is healthy. You can tell a lot about a horse 
from its teeth. How old it is. If it’s broken to the bit.
Some horses have wolf teeth. Some are wind 
suckers or crib biters. Check — does the horse 
have ash in its mouth? Can it afford next month’s rent?
The horse is sitting on a stack of photos.
It hasn’t made the bed 
that broke its back. 
The horse’s mouth is a bed 
for breaking. Hearts. Records. Bread.
Hooves no good with dirty dishes,
grimed through the open window
by the whole world burning outside.
Didn’t you close the window last night? No matter. 
Throw it open now. Lasso the morning.
Breathe the smoke. Wash your flank clean.
I want to sell you a world on fire.
Call this, love. 
Love, the ash 
you carry in your 
mouth. A bed 
for everything 
that’s broken.
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OUR VOICE

In the grand scheme of things – Poetry by Alexander Matthews

by Alexander Matthews
written by Alexander Matthews 
I’ve gotten off lightly.
No incarceration in Ward 22 — or a concentration camp.
No chemical castration or conversion therapy. 
I am not hanging from a crane.
I didn’t heed the siren call of suicide, though
At 17 it was wailing loudly.
I slept with a steak knife in my bedside drawer,
Willing myself nightly to use it.
I’m almost twice that age now and,
After over two years of living 10,000 miles away,
I’ll soon be home again — 
Or, at least, back in Cape Town, the Mother City,
The city of my birth.
I invited my parents for lunch with my husband.
No reply, but Mom did email to say
We’re welcome to stay at their holiday home
(They won’t be there at the time).
In the shade of a tan-oak,
I hold my elbows and weep.
Steller’s jays flitter between branches.
I’m not sure what hurts more: Dad’s silence or 
Mom’s attempt at being kind.
Still, in the grand scheme of things,
I’ve gotten off lightly.
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OUR VOICE

The Grants Game: Poetry by Fran Ransley

by Fran Ransley
written by Fran Ransley 
Proposal submitted,
funding requested for a program
that would coordinate services
to benefit substance-abusing
teenage mothers and their at-risk infants.
Money to train staff
to train volunteers
who will provide support
and model appropriate behavior,
parenting skills and problem-solving
techniques, provide child care
so young mothers can go to
job training and support groups.
Vouchers for gasoline
so she can attend classes,
but gasoline doesn’t help
because her car broke down
when her boyfriend borrowed it
and left it parked
on that rutted dirt street by the trailer
they used to live in
but got kicked out of because
he spent the rent on stuff.
A program director
hired to coordinate staff
to train the volunteers
and administer the program,
a master’s degree and five years
minimum experience in related fields,
ninety thousand plus benefits and retirement,
and the teenage junkie mother
gets a gas voucher.
The administrator has never met a junkie
and doesn’t want to;
the volunteers will handle that
with appropriate activities described
in flawless bureaucratese,
designed to enrich the environment
of the junkie mothers
and make sure they get to the baby clinic on time.
And the teenage substance-abusing mother
is eligible for a job-training program.
So, if she stays off the stuff
maybe she can get a clerical certificate,
or she can get on-the-job training
and get to be a Certified Nursing Assistant.
She gets child care so she can attend classes,
if Welfare approves it,
and if she can get the car fixed.
Her boyfriend said he and
his friend would go get the car
and fix it, but somebody
stripped it and smashed the windshield
and they came back with some stuff instead.
The baby is screaming
and she can’t handle that,
the stuff, it makes you forget
the social workers and the fuck-up
volunteers that try to pretend
they’re on your level.
Tell them whatever they want to hear,
they’re just spies for Welfare,
got a file on you bigger than the phone book.
The administrator drives
a silver Mercedes
and keeps the doors locked
when he parks downtown.
Her boyfriend spent the money on stuff
so they took the phone out,
the volunteers can’t call,
there’s no food in the house,
they’ll get kicked out pretty soon
but it doesn’t matter,
the stuff makes you not care
about the silver Mercedes
and all the other shit you’ll never have.
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OUR VOICE

and, all and everything – Poetry by Jennifer Mills Kerr

by Jennifer Mills Kerr
written by Jennifer Mills Kerr 
i learned the exercise 
in school, how to
compare and contrast.
such as: how is the 
desert different than the
mountains? how is the
blue jay similar to the 
robin?
different, similar
how? why?
thirty years later 
i continue to live within 
compare and contrast. 
am i different than you? 
am i similar? how? why?
an endless dance– 
step one, step two
different, similar
how? why?
why? how? 
my mind spins circles 
until i fall into something
else:
the word between
compare and contrast–
the word
and.
there it stands 
a bridge between
black and white
here and there
you and me.
and, all and  
everything.
and together,
let us pause
let us listen.
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