Tag: American Literature

John Macker: “Abundance “

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Abundance     
                 – For Stewart Warren

An 80 year old woman in New Mexico
does tai chi in the dog park
in an abundance of presence
shares the rhythms of her age
gathers in and then releases the
shiftless summer air.     
In Iceland activists hold a funeral for a famous
glacier, on the permanent plaque they 
placed, in English and Icelandic, 
is written to the children:

Only you know if we did it.

In Auden’s memorial poem to Yeats
he wrote: Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Out the window a police car siren’s
pulsating shriek cleaves the morning
into two organic halves, one an act of faith
the other, not so much. We were instructed
by the nuns to say a prayer or cross
ourselves every time we heard one 
until the danger became
innocent whispered echo.

As if nobody had been hurt.

Ireland will plant 400 million trees in the
next 20 years to combat climate change.
So many more will recognize El Degűello
when they hear it than those who’ve
memorized “The Second Coming”. 
A poet friend in New Mexico 
in his last days of hospice
always traveled his own rivers
now they change course, fill him
with their own abundance, tell him
we have all the time in the world.

The purple morning uplifted cosmos petals
a day after rain and the land which has withstood
the emancipation of all these latest hells

never stops singing.

 

About the Author: John Macker’s latest books are Atlas of Wolves (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) and The Blues Drink Your Dreams Away: Selected Poems 1983-2018 (Stubborn Mule Press, 2018 and a finalist for a New Mexico/Arizona Book Award.) Macker has lived in Northern New Mexico for 24 years.

 

More By John Macker:

Last Riff For Chet

 

Image Credit: William Henry Jackson “Embudo, New Mexico” (1882) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Jeff Hardin: “A Word That Means Standing Between Each Moment”

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A WORD THAT MEANS STANDING BETWEEN EACH MOMENT

I dreamed I was speaking every language,
no one a stranger, and then I woke to find
the same few words I assemble my life around.

Overnight a dusting of snow has settled into leaves,
into crooks of oaks in the side yard. It takes years 
sometimes to know what sifts down into my thoughts.

Having lived this long has granted me few answers.
I’ve been given only new questions and less
confidence in anything but my own inadequacy.

If only it were possible to pause between each
moment and weigh the implications of what 
came before against what is now coming to be.

I laugh to think of how I once labored to memorize
a poem, to embody its words and carry them forth
into the world. Now I remember only one word: float.

 

About the Author: Jeff Hardin is the author of six collections of poetry: Fall Sanctuary (Nicholas Roerich Prize); Notes for a Praise Book (Jacar Press Book Award); Restoring the Narrative (Donald Justice Prize); Small Revolution; No Other Kind of World (X. J. Kennedy Prize), and A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being. The New Republic, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Southwest Review, North American Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, Hotel Amerika, and Southern Poetry Review have published his poems. He teaches at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, TN.

 

More By Jeff Hardin:

A Namelessness of Starlings

 

Image Credit: Unknown Maker “Niagara” 1860s – 1880s Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Daniel Romo: “20/20”

Posted on by Chase Dimock

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20/20

When the regular asked how she was doing
the barista replied, Living the dream, before making
his usual drink
and isn’t that what we all do as we rely on
whatever form of faith and familiarity it is that
keeps us moving into the face of
a new day?

I just had my eyes checked for the first time because
I’m at an age where I’ve seen every hurt too clearly
and I want to ensure my vision from here on out
will allow me to recognize the victories in any battles
the younger me would’ve deemed too fatal
to fight.

My face stuffed into a machine transported me
to a world of tiny, tricky letters appearing too small
to be alive
and that’s how I feel sometimes,
overcome by a combination of consonants and vowels
teaming together to create sounds that still echo
amongst memories clanking around in a life
I’ve left behind but will never
forget.

Shouldn’t we all aspire to attain the stillness of the barista,
the one who makes the same drinks and repeats the process
in the midst of monotony and minimum wage,
her fears and misgivings swirling around inside each cup
like a never-ending threatening motion
before eventually settling at the bottom
rather than us guessing at a series of blurry symbols in our lives
trying to guess at
what we can’t see?

Her customer leaves and thanks her for his purchase and for
her sense of reverie and the barista says,
I’ll keep it as long as I can
and the optometrist says I’ll need reading glasses
in the next few years,
both of us making out all that is in front of us
the way we want to see it
whether in the distance,
or right under our noses.

 

About the Author: Daniel Romo is the author of Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press 2019), When Kerosene’s Involved (Mojave River Press, 2014), and Romancing Gravity (Silver Birch Press, 2013). His poetry can be found in The Los Angeles Review, PANK, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere. He has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte, and he is an Associate Poetry Editor at Backbone Press. He lives and teaches in Long Beach, CA.

 

More by Daniel Romo:

The Main Event

 

Image Credit: Conrad Poirier “Paul Legendre looks in a sextant” (1944) Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Victor Clevenger: “Milkman’s Mustache”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of poems by Victor Clevenger about his son, nicknamed “The Milkman”

 

 

Milkman’s Mustache

i offer him a razor for the first time

he declines it 
like a thirsty hound from hell 
when offered holy water

turning his head from side to side 
in front of a bathroom mirror 

admiring something that looks quite fragile in its infancy

like spiderwebs the color of rust 
that spell out the word masculinity 
in a thin font stretched 

across his cracked lips

 

About the Author: When not traveling on highways across America, Victor Clevenger spends his days in a Madhouse and his nights writing poetry.  He lives with his second ex-wife, and together they raise children in a small town northeast of Kansas City, MO.  Selected pieces of his work have appeared in print magazines and journals around the world, as well as at a variety of places online.  He is the author of several collections of poetry including Sandpaper Lovin’ (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017), A Finger in the Hornets’ Nest (Red Flag Poetry, 2018), and Corned Beef Hash By Candlelight (Luchador Press, 2019).

 

Image Credit: Achille Devéria “Portrait of a Boy” (about 1850–1855) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Jean Biegun: “Hospice”

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Hospice

It’s nothing I can talk about, June— 
I don’t even know how to be here.
I sat once with a friend who was giving 
birth.  That I could do, but you:
I can wash your floor, but I’m no good 
at pushing you to heaven.

Let me try, though, June.  Listen, 
there are 16 hushed angels  
at the edge of the bed, and listen, 
June, they are hugging quite happily
and humming an ethereal anthem.  

I’m not making any of this up.
Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy 
are here, too, as well as the winner 
of the 6th Annual Spelling Contest 
who crowned you the 7th.  He passed 
on in Viet Nam, 34 years ago this month, 
remember?  

He is kneeling here by your elbow 
and grinning your favorite winning words— 
“grandeur” and “halcyon.”  How did you 
know the letters in “halcyon” back then,
June, without knowing the definition:  
tranquil?

I am counting 7 leprechauns all  
with bunches of 4-leaf clovers ready
to stuff in your hands.  It will be 
a blast,  I can see right now.

 

[This poem was included in the 2008 Wisconsin Poets Calendar.]

 

About the Author: Jean Biegun began writing poetry back in 2000 as a way to overcome big-city job stress, and it worked.  Poems have been published in Mobius: The Poetry Magazine, After Hours: A Journal of Chicago Writing and Art, World Haiku Review, Blue Heron Review, Goose River Anthology and many other places.

 

Image Credit: Simon Alexandre Clément Denis “Study of Clouds with a Sunset near Rome” (1786) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Robert A. Morris: “Natchez Green”

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Natchez Green

I was eleven, walking out past Silver Street to 
the river’s edge, headed “under the hill,” a spot
infamous for men who no longer exist and their 
transient killers.  Some say a ghost woman walked

the Mississippi, her body anchored by gold from 
her lover so she could lay beside him at the bottom 
where the bottles turned to jewels.  Looking out, I 
saw something flash, deep emerald, and unbroken, 

glittering in the river silt, waiting like a patient miracle. 
Expecting Laffite’s treasure map. Clutching the cork 
with my teeth, little boy hands twisted. The sharp too 
sour smell gave me a headache, and I stood hearing 

phantoms as the wind made the bottle coo. In the river 
debris, a hand summoning me to the water. I threw 
the bottle, which it accepted, swirling the rank liquor, 
towing it further and further from my shore.

 

About the Author: Robert A. Morris lives near Baton Rouge and works as a teacher.  Besides poetry, he also writes fiction and bashes out the occasional song on his blue Stratocaster. His work has appeared in The Main Street Rag, Pear Noir, and The Chaffin Review among others.  He is in the final stages of editing a chapbook titled Descending to Blue that he would like to see published in the near future.  For updates, please visit his blog  https://robertamorrisblog.wordpress.com

 

Image Credit: William A. Faust “Natchez Trace Parkway, Located between Natchez, MS & Nashville, TN, Tupelo, Lee County, MS” (1997)

Rob Plath “that which”

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that which 

sitting on 
my old green 
couch 
she asked, 
“are you afraid”
& i replied, 
“terrified”
w/ out even 
asking of 
who or what 
& we lifted 
our bottles 
against 
that which 
follows us both 
day & night 
across streets 
beneath sun
& moon
thru doors 
& down corridors 
& into rooms 
of any dimension 
& into dreams 
& moments 
of waking 
& dreams again

 

About the Author: Rob Plath is a writer from New York. He was once tutored by Allen Ginsberg for two years from 1995-1997.  He has published 22 books and a ton of poems in the small presses over the last 26 years. He lives with his cat and tries his best to stay out of trouble.

 

Image Credit: “Portrait of a Couple” Unknown Artist (1860s) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Stew Jorgenson: “5 Geezuz”

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5 Geezuz

I asked her how she felt about 5G
she said it might be
the new heaven and earth
of which Jesus spoke…
everything so nice
a real virtual paradise
smart TV’s
camera phones
electric cars
surveillance drones

artificial and
emotional intelligence
unconscious streaming
on demand

I took a sip of my high-buck latte
and told her we’d die just in time
if we’re lucky

She said it’s too late for that
come back to bed
it’s memory foam
I’ll make you forget

 

About the Author: Stew is a part-time wordsmith who has more words than he knows what to do with. Sometimes he uses the extras for poetry, celestial navigation, or target practice. He has worked on farms, fishing boats, and in factories.  He’s skilled at mistakes, guilty by association, and suffers from occasional bouts of inspiration. He is working on a cure.

 

Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Power lines dominate the skyscape above Flagstaff in northern Arizona” (2018) The Library of Congress

Rusty Barnes: “The Act of Working”

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The Act of Working

The act of working occupied 
my father like an obsession,

a crushing sixty hours a week,
running a loader over and over

again into heaps of gravel
and sand, piling dump trucks

full and sending them out into
the world. Rock he loaded built

prisons and roads all over 
the states of NY and PA

but he came home every night
dirty and so exhausted he’d

eat then fall asleep, cigarette
still in his fingers and  I write

this poem over and over,
seeing my father lie there,

hoping somehow this poem,
this time, will end differently.

 

About the Author: Rusty Barnes lives in Revere MA with his family. His poems appear widely, in Plumb, Heavy Feather Review, and Black Coffee Review, most recently. His latest chapbook, Apocalypse in A-Minor, is out from Analog Submission Press.

 

Image Credit: Lewis Hine “Factory Worker” (1931) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

William Taylor Jr: “A Seventeen Dollar Glass of Wine and the Early Works of Matisse”

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A Seventeen Dollar Glass of Wine and the Early Works of Matisse 

I’m drinking overpriced wine 
in the cafe at the Museum 
of Modern Art on a Tuesday 
afternoon.

Summer is done and the tourists 
have gone back to whatever sad places
spawned them.

Everything is quiet and civilized
as I sip the Chardonnay of the day
while reading about Baudelaire
and his miserable genius.

The women are pretty
in skirts and dresses
whispering to each other
as they gaze upon some lesser 
work of Edvard Munch.

Everything is clean, white and pristine
while outside are all the things 
the headlines drone on about:

cancer and freeway crashes 
things on fire and the inevitable 
collapse of every decent 
thing we’ve ever known.

But it all seems so far away 
and meaningless when 
compared to what Matisse 
achieved in his later years

and it feels pointless 
to dwell upon such dreariness
when confronted with Warhol’s 
comic book yellows 
and reds.

Here the mistakes of our past
have been captured and neutralized
handsomely framed and placed 
upon the walls with gilded 
plaques of explanation

so that we might see
and soberly contemplate
for a moment or two
before moving on 
to something else 

and then back downstairs 
for another glass of wine 
before everything
closes.

 

About the Author: William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.  He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in journals across the globe, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The Chiron Review. He is a five time Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award. Pretty Words to Say, a new collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Six Ft. Swells Press.

 

Image Credit: “Henri Matisse Working on a Paper Cut Out” Creative Commons Public Domain