Tag: Poetry

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: JARED RANDALL

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STATIONS OF THE CROSS (UNTRANSUBSTANTIATED)
by Jared Randall

I. Jesus is condemned to death

No one suspects our empty stomachs
when shaking hands
over polished oak pews, our smiles
averting dark stains
we hide in skin creases, the body ache
we carry across
our imagined spirits, our thirsty backs
and sealed lips.


II. Jesus carries his Cross

This sanctuary cross is always empty,
a memory without body,
without panting, thirst, hanging head,
blood and sweat. No fingers
stray—too needy a gesture—to touch
his nail-scarred hands.
No slivers sink deep into flesh, sharing
the rough-hewn death.
No wine to drink, nothing blood-thick,
but watered-down Welch’s
chase stale saltines, broken in pieces
to save money. Only
our symbols, our denied sustenance.


III. Jesus falls the first time

When poorly we remember, poorly we live:
our after-church feasts,
spirits still craving a crumb of bread
until by Monday
the symbols have faded, souls thirst
even vinegar,
next communion a month, two,
three months away.


IV. Jesus meets his afflicted mother

No one from church sees us, angry-palmed,
shouting children down;
passing the beggar who will only spend
on alcohol, we know
and tighten a fist; or hungry-eyed, slipping
into video stores,
past dark paneling and plate glass windows
to little rooms in back—
thrilled and dead and rising, peeking
for eternity.


V. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his Cross

Our shaking hands pick forbidden fruit
from outstretched arms.
When she has gone, we wake at night
and hear a crying,
pluck thorns and slivers from flesh
we feel, each quiver.
We would nail our limbs to dogwood…
the hammer too heavy.


VI. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

A cool hand on our brow traces
the shape of sin,
her hand soft over stretched limbs,
our tired eyes licking
her light, her curve, every touch.
Unheavenly angel,
never—almost—pull back,
my earth-angel.


VII. Jesus falls the second time

Eyes on our backs are not enough.
The shopping aisles white
and bleeding, we turn our faces
to stolen paperbacks
and bottles, red-letter editions
mouthed around glass
openings, fluorescent visions,
lusts we trade in, covers
we open, available confessions
we whisper.


VIII. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

All eyes confess the shape of hips,
of necklines worn low,
the inconcealable draw of veils, lace
uncovering skin
whenever electronic eyes meet.
We wonder why girls
lose their eyes—why stars pirouette—
and we wonder.


IX. Jesus falls a third time

Touching, she began to touch, we say—
not our blame here,
having forgotten how thirsty…
How thirsty men drink
from any stream, well, fountain.
The tin cup hanging
from a rusty nail, wooden post,
falls clattering
and if she picks it from the ground
eyes follow
                         legs inside.


X. Jesus is stripped of his clothes

We look away when wives cluster nearby—
no temptations here—
but with their laughter in the kitchen
our eyes unglue the screen,
her curves shaking pom-poms
on football Sunday,
a groove we all imagine swimming,
our voices fallen.


XI. Jesus is nailed to the Cross

Each pounding rhythmic wave takes us
over the crest.
Flesh: the sight, the touch, the hunger,
our angry words
at children asking why to our backs:
why this pounding,
these nails we should not have seen?

(Let the children come…)

What did he do, did we see, pretend—
what does wine mean,
this blood spouting from nails, over wood,
this bread?


XII. Jesus dies on the Cross

Can we turn from her, turn away,
release the fist,
climb a hill outside any known city
loose with gravel,
the pit where children ride their bikes
and teen lovers meet
on nights to empty their hunger,
the thirsty ground
where people dump old appliances.
Do we admit this?
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? Must we
pound this nail
and why? Must we kneel in this dust,
say, Yes…my hammer
…see my hammer, hear my rhythms,
Eli, Eli…


XIII. The body of Jesus is taken down from the Cross

When it is over, hunger admitted,
we want more
and to eat, bread and to drink, wine
and frequent sips.
This month. That week. Every Sunday,
Friday to remember
with a body on every cross. Every tomb
empty. Open palms.


XIV. Jesus is laid in the tomb

Still we tear them open, our gaping wounds
from plucked nails,
lower the rags, wrap in white, oil
embalmed limbs.
We chew our bread softer, a weight
on shoulders
we lay down (hungry tomb) and wipe
thinned blood around
the rim, drip to earth. We wait the month,
two months, another
passing. Wait the crackers and juice. Someday
we only hope to drink
the symbols we fear incarnate. We dare
her, body’s hunger.
We dare her
                           to substantiate


(“Stations of the Cross (Untransubstantiated)” was originally published in The Offending Adam, and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Jared Randall received his BA from Western Michigan University in 2006 and his MFA from the University of Notre Dame in 2009 after spending a decade working in warehouses. His first book of poetry, Apocryphal Road Code, saw print in 2010 from Salt Publishing. His work can be read in Controlled Burn, Crucible, and online at Danse Macabre, Subtle Tea, and The Offending Adam. He is also responsible for the occasional blog post at Montevidayo.com. Connect with him via Facebook or Twitter at his personal blog, Wandering Stiff.

Randall resides in Michigan where urban sprawl cramps old farmhouses. When not writing about tourist attractions, roadside diners, aging factories, the future, the past, and the folk who might frequent them, he makes his living as an adjunct instructor and freelancer. He hopes you’ll keep a wandering eye open for new roads and that you’ll always lend a ride and a hand to fellow travelers.

Editor’s Note: What is this poem about? Suffering? Longing? Sacrifice? All of the above? What at first glance appears to be a religious poem upon further reflection proves to be deeper, richer, layered with the exceedingly current themes of hunger, desire, poverty, desolation, sex, and sin. People–all over the world and in this poem–are starving. They are stealing to survive. They are giving in to temptation. They are human, with human needs, desires, and flaws. In today’s poem, Randall not only weaves for us a world that is thick with meaning, but does so with moments of finely-crafted language. Moments like “a memory without body,” “When poorly we remember, poorly we live,” and “All eyes confess the shape of hips, / of necklines worn low, / the inconcealable draw of veils, lace / uncovering skin.”

Want to read more by and about Jared Randall?
Wandering Stiff
Subtle Tea
The Offending Adam

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: H. L. Hix

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FIRST CONFESSION FROM HARVEY OF THE PIOUS AND PATRIOTIC HIX FAMILY
(After Mustafa Zvizdic)
by H. L. Hix

I didn’t mean to fall away.
I own no whit of defiance.
I am, though, afraid of everything.
Others have a lucky amulet
attached to their key chain, or,
on a necklace they wear every day,
a ring from a lover. I have my fear.
I carry it in my left front pocket,
always, because (of course)
I am afraid to leave it behind.
I couldn’t carry it with me like this
without naming it, so I call it Kasimir,
because it resembles a Russian nobleman
out of Chekhov, with serfs who scythe
his sazhens and sazhens of wheat,
but for whom each year it proves
harder and harder to find credit,
and whose estate falls each year
further, more utterly, into disrepair.
It’s me in Benton’s “Persephone,”
keeping a tree between myself
and the most exquisite human body
I will be near ever, making sure
she doesn’t know I am there,
afraid to speak, afraid to ask her name.
And I talk to myself, out loud,
when no one is near (and no one ever is).
How could they not distrust you,
you who cannot look yourself in the eye?
Even in first grade your fear was visible,
and gave away to Miss Cassandra
the failures she rightly foretold.
So I slip through the party,
shuffling sideways, with my arms
above my head to avoid bumping
an elbow that would slosh someone’s drink,
hoping to get out the door
without Whoever Notices noticing.

(“First Confession from Harvey of the Pious and Patriotic Hix Family” was originally published in The Offending Adam, and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


H. L. Hix’s most recent book is a “selected poems” entitled First Fire, Then Birds: Obsessionals 1985-2010. Others of his recent poetry collections include Incident Light, Legible Heavens, and Chromatic (a finalist for the National Book Award). His books of criticism and theory include As Easy As Lying, Spirits Hovering Over the Ashes: Legacies of Postmodern Theory, and Morte d’Author: An Autopsy. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas, and currently teaches in the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Wyoming. More information is available at his website: www.hlhix.com.


Editor’s Note: What a heartbreaking work of human genius. How brutally honest Hix is–not only with himself–but with his readers. Keenly observant of both his own inner workings and of the world around him, the narrator notes that while some carry a trinket for luck or love, he carries his fear–keeping it with him always because (of course) he is afraid to leave it behind. The mindset driving this piece is almost palpable. I know and love people who approach life in this way, and I have had my own moments of awkwardly trying to escape a room, “hoping to get out the door without Whoever Notices noticing.” Relatable in its content, today’s poem is also embellished with moments of brilliant and beautiful language and imagery. My personal favorites: “a tree between myself / and the most exquisite human body / I will be near ever, making sure / she doesn’t know I am there, / afraid to speak, afraid to ask her name,” and “I talk to myself, out loud, / when no one is near (and no one ever is).”

Want to read more by and about H. L. Hix?
Like Starlings
Poetry Foundation
Connotation Press

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: HUGH MANN

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BROTHER
by Hugh Mann

I’m not well
If you are sick

I’m not rich
If you are poor

I can’t live
If you’re not free

I depend on you
And you can depend on me

A brother is no bother
We all have the same Father


(“Brother” was originally published in organicMD, Envisioning Peace, and Poets Against War in Canada, and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Hugh Mann, MD is a holistic physician-poet whose website, organicMD.org, promotes peace and health by publishing Peace Poetry. His work has been published in various poetry anthologies, websites, and medical journals, including MIT’s Envisioning Peace, British Medical Journal, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, Jerusalem Post, and Poets Against War in Canada.

Editor’s Note: In keeping with our recent discussion on this series about peace poetry, today’s poem is by a poet who has dedicated his life to bringing about peace through poetry. Short, sweet, and to the point, today’s poem highlights how simple peace ought to be.

Want to read more by and about Hugh Mann?
Hugh Mann’s Official Website
Envisioning Peace

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: MICHAEL HETTICH

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AFTER THE RAINS
by Michael Hettich

So let’s say one sweaty morning you wake
in another person’s body, or you wake up without
any body at all, which means you start feeling things
as the air might do: the flight of birds
across your garden, even pigeons, makes you sing inside
your backbone; the delicate staccato of a lizard
climbing your kitchen window, the snakes
draped in your wild coffee, that come alive
like water when you step out. You feel that sometimes.
And so you walk slowly, feeling even what the beetles do
with their singular lives, and you feel what the spiders
intend by their webs, beyond hunger.
You study caterpillars, and you spend your evenings
imagining the lives of the creatures you rarely see,
hummingbirds and manatees, the foxes and opossums,
birds of lovely plumage, and you start to open up
to nothing you call it, but it’s not really nothing:
Squirrels are breathing right outside the window.
Birds are breathing as they fly across your roof.
You are the only person in your body
for a moment. What’s a moment? Where eternity resides
you think, and blush at your grandiose pretensions,
turning back, with relief, to the world.


(“After the Rains” was originally published in Perigee and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Michael Hettich’s most recent book of poems, Like Happiness, was published this past fall by Anhinga Press. A new book, The Animals Beyond Us, is forthcoming from New Rivers press. Today’s poem is from a manuscript in progress, tentatively entitled Systems of Vanishing. He lives in Miami and teaches at Miami Dade College.

Editor’s Note: Ah, a nature poem; a poem celebrating life and the earth! I came across Michael Hettich’s work in Perigee and was taken by all of it. The poems in that publication vary in style and theme, and I recommend heading over there after taking in today’s poem and reading them all. When I read Michael Hettich I feel alive, I ponder the nature of things, and I am renewed in my belief that life should be celebrated and the universe revered.

Want to read more by and about Michael Hettich?
Michael Hettich Official Website
Mudlark Journal
Anhinga Press

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LAWRENCE CRONIN

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MY FATHER WAS A WANDERING ARAMEAN
by Lawrence Cronin

Behold, I was somebody back there!
Then this guy, who calls Himself
‘I AM who I AM’, let me tell you, He
looks more like three hooligans, and
comes talking about blowing up
Sodom and Gomorrah
if “He” can’t find ten decent people.
Oy, they should be so lucky.

Back there they called me Sarai,
others called me Ishtar.
We had god-sex up in high places
on the pyramid of the moon.
None of this sordid swinging
what with slaves and pharaohs
and Abimelech!
Yech.

Behold, I was somebody back there!
High priestess of the moon
But now we have this I-AMbic god.
He, my husband insists we spell it He,
was over for dinner last night
with a couple of buddies.
I laughed them out of the tent.

I’m sure those three are thinking of
doing it again, but I’ve had enough
of this royal wife-swapping scene.
I’m getting too old for it anyway.
We’ll never settle down.
My husband should stick to sheep.

For behold, I was somebody back there,
But my father was a wandering Aramean
So was my husband, my brother
And they took me from those whom I loved,
More importantly
From those who loved me.


(“My Father Was a Wandering Aramean” was originally published in Perigee and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Lawrence Cronin: Ostensibly a practicing psychiatrist, Lawrence Cronin’s literary work is better described as that of a spiritual chiropractor working to achieve a better alignment of all our off-piste notions. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, he dreamed of migrating out west. One day on the streets of San Francisco he met a Mexican girl from the town of old Tucson. Lawrence fathered all her children and is working on a series of novels based on the Book of Genesis.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to my mom, I am immensely interested in pre-monotheistic goddess worship, particularly that of the Jewish matriarchs. Today’s poem explores this idea, reflecting on a time when the goddess was turned away from in favor of the idea of one god. In today’s post, Cronin uses humor and wit to play around with these notions from the goddess’ perspective, a dance I know my mother will enjoy. This one’s for you mama; specially chosen for Mother’s Day. Love and light, and may the goddess(es) be with you!

Want to read more by and about Lawrence Cronin?
Lawrence’s work has appeared in the following publications:
– “My Muse” appeared in Sandcutters, 2008, Arizona State Poetry Society.
– “Alzheimer’s in Triptych” appeared in Harmony, A Humanities Magazine, University of Arizona, 2009.
– “My Father Was a Wandering Aramean” appeared in Perigee, an online literary journal.
– “Cutting Grass” appeared in Sandscript, Pima Community College, 2008.

Lawrence is currently working on a novel titled Edge Of Innocence (and its four sequels), in which Adam still walks the earth, Eden is a town in modern America, and God meanders into lives almost daily, shining new light on Biblical truth in surprising and shocking ways.

Small Press Review Series: Adam Robison and Other Poems (A Call to Arms or At Least to the Continued Search for the Munitions Locker* of Meaning Where Arms Might Be Kept)

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Adam Robison and Other Poems
Adam Robinson
Narrow House (2010), 77 pages, $12

As an editor at a small press/journal, I wage daily confrontation against the sheer tonnage of quality work out there. After awhile, you don’t always ask yourself “Is it good in some objective measurable sense?” or even “Do I like it?” but “Does the literary world need this?” Of course this leads to a more fundamental question: What kind of writing, if any, does the world need? The shelves of bookstores and warehouses of Amazon are flooded with writing someone thought worthy of publication, and yet much of it is just more words on a page. The detritus of a culture with too much time on its hands.

As I read the charming Adam Robison and Other Poems by the not-quite-eponymous Adam Robinson, I wondered why this particular book needed to be published. As the title suggests, this is a work of fourth-wall-breaking experimental postmodernism. When I say that as an editor, I am seeking “the new,” I mean the truly new, not the merely “experimental” – which as anyone versed in their Barth and Barthelme knows is neither new nor actually experimental. It is, rather, another tradition like the more accurately named traditionalism.

Let me stress that Adam Robison is not a bad book. I even have a soft spot for this type of writing; I did pay for the book. The charm in Robinson’s writing is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. In fact, it seems to directly position itself against serious interpretation. In this sense, asking whether the culture “needs” such a book is already answered, quite cheerfully, in the negative by the book itself. Its language is deliberately unpoetic and the poems tend to end on flat, declarative statements or sometimes even non sequiturs. Here are some representative endings, all as printed, without periods – suggesting that the poem’s ending is provisional or even arbitrary:

He had a pompadour or feather/A nom de plume was Johannes Climacus – “Soren Kierkegaard”

Brahms died in 1897 – “Brahms”

My grandmother is still alive – “Emma Ruth Rogers Tyner”

I know a lot about Mike Schmidt but he doesn’t know one single/solitary thing about me – “Captain Cool”

As I’ve already mentioned, and as is especially evident in the above quote from “Captain Cool,” Robinson’s prose is purposefully conversational, even comically so. From the same poem: One time Mike Schmidt hit a hit that hit a loudspeaker in Houston. That repetition is 100% grammatically correct and yet it’s the kind of move we rarely see in prose, let alone the heightened, compressed language of poetry. Or this, from “Curtis Ebbermeyer, Leading Authority on Flotsam:” What’s up with bottled water man…Boy howdy what’s the deal with bottled water. The missing commas only heighten the sense that these words have been arranged to resemble an overheard conversation, just more cultural flotsam, to echo the poem’s title. Such a tone and syntax seem to be saying, “Hey, none of this matters, but it’s kind of fun and interesting anyway.” This is a smart rhetorical position to take in this age of centerless postmodernism, but in its extreme – i.e.–when it’s used over and over throughout a collection – it leaves a reader a little sad and untethered. The trouble is that it’s not a trick meant to lead us toward the meaning at the heart of apparent meaninglessness. (See how, for example, David Foster Wallace uses postmodern means for traditional ends.) Rather, Robinson appears to believe in the meaninglessness of it all. Which leads me to the question: why a book of poetry? Is it just one more wet noodle thrown against the void? Robinson seems aware of this weakness:

My poems lack depth and complexity in which the reader can invest
They are bald things…
…Readers will grow bored and go about their day
“There’s no urgency” they’ll complain “No incision.”

And yet an admission of a book’s faults does little but reveal the impotent self-consciousness of the author; it doesn’t eradicate or reduce the faults (though it can mitigate them marginally). Robinson is not wholly without poetry, as that interesting word “incision” in the above passage suggests. Here’s a passage from one of the stronger poems:

Deathbed is one word made special for the place you die
But there is no one special place for your deathbed
On her deathbed what do you want your daughter to say
You will be so spitsoul sad
Then you will be okay
Then you will be sad that you are okay
Then mostly okay again and well this will continue
Even now I often feel sad that I am not sadder
And my worst thing that died was a dog

This piece strikes me as new and weird and truly experimental. It strikes me, which is exactly what literature needs – poems that act as a slap to our complacency. Who hasn’t felt “sad that you are okay?” And further, doesn’t it say something interesting about the paradox at the heart of Western luxury and ease that the speaker is saddened that his “worst thing that died was a dog?” And yet this is an ugliness that we rarely admit: that our lives are empty, and our poetry shallow, due to the fact that our lives are too good.

Probably it is unfair of me to insist that every book assert its necessity. When you get right down to it, Robinson and I are asking the same question: when the traditional is too retrograde and predictable to impact us and the postmodern is a dead end (and equally retrograde), where and how do we find meaning? I worry, though, that Robinson has settled for postmodern stasis rather than trying to find the hard path forward. Because I believe there is meaning in the world. People die – not just dogs – and along the way they suffer and kill and surprise with kindness, creating narratives about themselves and the world, just as they always have.


*Editors Note – But of course the munitions locker wouldn’t contain meaning itself but merely the tools to target that meaning. Or something. To append a Robinson-like ending: Oh well.

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: NICOLAS DESTINO

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SATURDAY MORNING
by Nicolas Destino

When you live alone you can put thing s where you wish.
Alone, you can contaminate your own environment and spill
olive oil on an orange floating in the sink.
You can Sink where you want to, in your own part-icles,
part the water in your own sink, create miracles.
You can say things like excuse the mess. Would you like a drink?
When you live alone you are naked more often.
If another man is naked with you in bed, you can say welcome visitor.
If another man contaminates your environment, you can say
thanks for coming over,
and you can clean up after him with old rags
only you know where to find.


(“Saturday Morning” is printed here today with permission from the poet.)


Nicolas Destino’s work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, The Bellevue Literary Review, Barge Journal, 580split, 322 Review, and others. He is a graduate of the MFA program at Goddard College, and his first full-length collection of poems, Heartwrecks, was released by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2013.

Editor’s Note: I have been a fan of Nicolas Destino since he was published in the Friday Poetry Series here on As It Ought To Be last year. There is a lulling quality to his work. A rise and fall of language like waves that either gently lap against wet sand or swell and crash as torrential surf. If his poems had arms, I feel as if they would wrap around me and rock me; comforting, familiar, gentle, but with intent.

Today’s poem is a snapshot of the familiar. Of the struggles one has as an individual. Self-perception of one’s own space, of one’s own independence and control. There is a beauty in Destino’s vision of what it is to live alone, and, yet, beneath the surface of that beauty is dissatisfaction with that lone existence, of an uncleanliness inherent within it.

Today’s post is dedicated to a special occasion in the poet’s life. Mazel tov and congratulations on your marriage, Nicolas. Here’s to having found love worth cohabitating for!

Want to read more by and about Nicolas Destino?
322 Review
Verse Daily

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: THE ACHE AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD: ISRAEL-PALESTINE PEACE POETRY

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Editor’s Note: Peace is always a timely topic. Today much of the middle east is in a state of political unrest. Civil wars are raging, dictators are struggling to keep the masses under their control, and citizens are taking up arms – be they in the form of guns or words – in the name of freedom. Having been born in Israel, the daughter of Israel-Palestine peace activists, conflict in the middle east has been a reality in my life for thirty years. I believe peace in the middle east is not only possible, but is an eventual reality, for Israel-Palestine and beyond.

Throughout history, poets have used their poems and songs in the name of peace. Today, rather than share a particular poem with you, I want to share with you some of my favorite Israel-Palestine peace poets. May their energy, their words, and their efforts help to bring forth peace.

Yehuda Amichai

Elana Bell

Mahmoud Darwish

Naomi Shihab Nye

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: JAMES VALVIS

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THE LINES AT ST. PAUL’S
by James Valvis

The nuns lined up the boys on one side, girls on the other.
We lined up knowing God loved us and Jesus was God.
We lined up understanding our place in heaven was arranged.
We lined up as boys and girls, but that was all that separated us.
Not once did we line up according to appearance or wealth,
or according to size of our breasts, or the strength of our biceps.
We didn’t line up as Democrats and Republicans, blacks and whites.
Never lined up as fats and thins, prudes and sluts, gays and straights,
We didn’t line up as believers and doubters, saints and sinners.
To the nuns, we were all sinners who were trying to become saints.
To ourselves, we were all saints who would like to one day be sinners.
They lined us up and marched us to recess, lunch, the bathrooms.
They lined us up, all the girls pretty and smiling,
all the boys tough and smirking, like it would always be that way,
like those perfect rows would go on forever and ever and ever,
like if you simply followed the person in front of you
you would get to the place you needed to be,
and for a while you dreamed it possible,
maybe you all did, even the nuns,
until one kid stopped suddenly
and the pushing started.


(“The Lines at St. Paul’s” was originally published in First Class and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)

James Valvis lives in Washington State with his wife, daughter, and cat. His poems or stories have recently appeared in Arts & Letters, Atlanta Review, Crab Creek Review, Hanging Loose, LA Review, Nimrod, Pank, Rattle, River Styx, and are forthcoming in Daily Science Fiction, Fractured West, Kill Author, Midwest Quarterly, Night Train, New York Quarterly, Pinyon, Sierra Nevada Review, Verdad, and many others. In addition to being a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Web nominee, a novelette was a storySouth Million Writers Notable Story. A poetry collection, How to Say Goodbye, is due in 2011.

Editor’s Note: Ah, the allure of order! The ease of being just another member of the flock! When we have no choice, when we are told what to do, life is simpler. But the easy road is more often than not the wrong road. Today’s piece functions as a philosophical commentary as much as a poem. With brilliant moments like “To the nuns, we were all sinners who were trying to become saints. / To ourselves, we were all saints who would like to one day be sinners,” and “like if you simply followed the person in front of you / you would get to the place you needed to be,” this poem contemplates the human condition in modern times, within the framework built around us by religion and society. A huge topic deftly considered in a few swift clean lines.

Want to read more by and about James Valvis?
Poets & Writers
NYQ Poets

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LISA ZARAN

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By Lisa Zaran:

RETICENCE

Never
does the world
not fall into my lap.

And if God
Himself
were to send me
a private message,
would I react?

Knowing,
possibly not knowing,
reluctant in every passing
thought.

Nor trusting,
holding the weight
of every word spoken
in the palm of my hand,
looking into the not-so-distant
future of every gesture
as if behind each
was a guise
or a secret.

There’s always
the thought
that something
might go terribly wrong.

Every day
the world falls
into my lap
and every day
I’m afraid to touch it
frightened of what it might bring.


FROM BRIDE TO BURIED

It is a chorus, her mother thought
when she was born, a fragile lilt
of voices singing rise rise rise
as if her daughter were already a myth.

She was a knowledgeable child,
too trusting perhaps but never flighty,
no never that. Her center could always
grasp what her mind could not.

She learned very early to trust
her body, its rhythms and advice.
She being an only child, grew with the speed
of those shown to know everything

in corresponding order.
This is your nose, see, touch it.
These are your feet. Soon you will walk.
Out there, beyond this window, is the world.

Which is also a perception.
See that tree over there? Could be
a madman standing in utter stillness
in the breach of night. Shhhhh.

The earth is tired now. The moon is up.
Lock the door, fasten the windows.
Sleep and dream of every possibility.
For beyond this childhood you will meet

a man and fall in love. He will ring you out
of yourself. He will convince you that
you are not yours but his and at the apex
of your dependency where hands and hammers

become one in the same blunt instrument,
he will strike you again and again and again.
To seek your remains, I will pass my fingertips
over your picture. I will try to remember

the scent of your breath, your intangible life.


(“Reticence” and “From Bride to Buried” were originally published in A Little Poetry. Both poems are reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)

Lisa Zaran was born in 1969 in Los Angeles, California. She is an American poet, essayist and the author of six collections including The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl, the latter of which was the focus of a year long translation course in Germany. Subsequently published to German in 2006 under the title: das manchmal mädchen. Selections from her other books have been translated to Bangla, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, German, Dutch, Persian and Serbian. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of literary journals, magazines, broadsides, anthologies and e-zines including: Juked, Ramshackle Review, Apparatus Magazine, Hudson Review, Black Dirt, Other Voices, Kritya, The Dande Review, Soul to Soul, Nomad’s Choir Poetry Journal, Not a Muse Anthology, Best of the Web 2010, Literature: an intro to Reading and Writing by Pearson as well as being performed in Glasgow’s Radio Theater Group and displayed in SONS, a museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium. Lisa is founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, an online collection of poetry by American poets. She is also the author of Dear Bob Dylan, a collection of letters to her muse. She lives and writes in Arizona.

Editor’s Note: Today’s poems give the reader food for thought. The first is, in my reading, a contemplation of the idea of outside forces, who or what is in control of our lives, and the responsibility we as humans have to do what we can with the opportunities and responsibilities laid in our laps. The second is a darker piece, almost cryptic, following the life of a woman from girlhood and the protection of her family home to adulthood and the abusive relationship that ends her life. Both poems are highly successful in their ability to make the reader think, perhaps outside the box of the reader’s normal thinking, and contemplate ideas and worlds that may or may not be their own.

Want to read more by and about Lisa Zaran?
Lisa Zaran Official Website
Contemporary American Voices

http://contemporaryamericanvoices.com/