POEMS of SIX POETS
(Summer 2017, Volume 5)
(Summer 2017, Volume 5)
Nels Hanson
Plow Horses The horses answered willingly their names, stopping, starting as they drew in harness the harrow my grandfather steered, reins around his shoulders, worn gloves on raised wood handles guiding clean curve of steel down vineyard rows. I found and keep their huge rusted shoes that might fit young elephants. On Spring and Summer nights they plow by moonlight, moonless nights by stars, Pole, large and smaller Bear. Morning their tracks are gone with prints of boots, Muscat vines disappear, white farmhouse invisible again and farm far as heaven, barn fallen, no bluebirds among absent bales of golden hay. The autumn grapes are sweeter but more out of reach than distant Neptune, dried raisins blue as planet made of blue icy airs that won’t condense to make a solid world, loam farmers’ ghosts might cultivate with plow blades sharp as Orion’s sword. The leads are white comet tails starry horses swift and strong as Pegasus obey. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Pedro Marreno
In Terrible French It wasn't the persistent tic of the clock On the nightstand next to me That made me think of death. It wasn't the spider quietly spinning Her delicate web in the corner of the ceiling, Nor the dying ember's orange glow On a cigarette about to meet its end As it hangs between life and death Between my fingertips. It was an unfinished poem I found today, Hidden away among old notes. Lines to a girl living In some small unknown town in France. A note that read like love, like love Written in terrible French. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Emily Srauss
Swimming in You Let me swim in you, sea coiled in tresses across my shoulders down my naked back cool water shivering me I break for the surface forehead to the hot sun momentarily then sink again you chilling thick abundance azure turquoise depths dropping to black, I emerge into you as a fairy into night mingling in some middle zone winding through my hair. Let me swim deeply-- you will enfold me flowing in your currents I drift content without thoughts watching colored fishes graze knowing you surround my open arms your blue-green rays shining the way to my rest, I will linger in you Ocean forever. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Allison Grayhurst
Our children are orchards By the door we wait for the end of school, for the long day to bloom to lay to rest the tricks of superstition and our obstinate ache to be carried to the next fertile shore. Blocked, but that too must be an answer to the polished space that compresses and invades our waking hours. Risk that comes out of despair as a last ditch effort to not give up has been told in chronicles, as surrendering stories that rain away dust and heal the hunt of weighted hunger, nourishing spiritual belonging. Leaves and feathers we collect with our children, graveyards we visit to look at lost names, where our hands seed deeper into the Earth, rise higher than the hawk-bird into the stratosphere of grace, grace as wind we depend upon to navigate our footsteps, to quilt together our four-way love, cooling the cut of arduous days and pilgrimage. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
James G. Piatt
He Resides in Shadows Memories lost, in the Scarlet-laced shadows Of all his yesterdays, The voice of a cold world Cries to his soul: The old man Searches his graying past for That, which was light When love and life were so Very young; now fading trails Of bygone times, lead him To a motionless emptiness: A scarred apartment door opens, Revealing a barren loneliness, He wonders where the time Disappeared while he played With life so casually: Only old Cardboard boxes filled With the sad broken relics Of his vanishing life remain: He now follows lonely paths Searching, searching, for ever Searching, for that which . . . Is now forever gone, never finding Those happy hours, that once Give solace, to his yearning soul. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Tulip Chowdhury
I’m Quiet Today I'm silent today who do I talk to? The wind is not blowing not whistling or singing the songs and lullabies so who do I talk to? The rain is not falling no thunders crashing no raindrops pattering on window panes to knock and awake me, and so who do I talk to? Tree by my window stands silent no birds or wind to share untold tales, it seems to say sorry for not having any company, and so who do I talk to? There are people all around they chatter like birds shout like raging storms but they don't listen, really listen you know to what I say. And so whom do I talk to? I'm quiet today. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |