Aquarium
Rather than a queen
Bathed in my own tears
While worshipped
Before glass walls
I would be
A tiny shrimp
At the bottom
Of the food chain
Even to be
Eaten alive
While swimming
Freely
Grafting
by: Yuan Changming
Insert a fir twig
Deep, deeper
Into the slit on your heart
And you are sure to grow
To be an evergreen personality:
Strong, straight, nobly tall
And uniquely handsome
Memorials of Plastic Flowers
by Larry Schug
faded to dull pastels
by sun and wind-blown sand,
mark places of accidental death,
the result of inattention, alcohol, speed
along two-lane highways in border states,
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,
into Colorado and Kansas.
Like habitats and planting zones
trying to outrun a changing climate,
these memorials of make-believe flowers
have migrated north
like Mexican workers into Minnesota,
appearing after the snow melts.
Not surprising.
How fast would you drive
to get to a bar for some relief,
or home to your family,
a change of clothes, a shower, sleep,
after working the midnight shift
cutting the heads and feet off chickens
so someday your children
will not be strangers in this land,
be allowed to live with dignity,
not be buried alone beneath the snow?
Irregular
by Larry Schug
Not noticing how the waitresses look at each other,
roll their eyes as I seat myself,
on an empty chair at an empty table,
not knowing I’ve innocently sat
at the“Regular’s table” in the local café,
just before the first “Regular”
reaches for his usual chair,
sits down beside me, doesn’t say a word,
as if I’m just a misplaced salt shaker,
when the second “Regular” sits down,
then the third, the fourth, the fifth.
They all begin talking at the same time,
no one says a word to me, gives me a glance,
and I finally get the hint, get up, head to the counter,
wondering on which stool I should sit
as I watch as the “Regular’s table” fills up,
all but the chair where I sat.
A waitress coyly smiles at me, asks if I’d like coffee,
I say, no thanks, I’d rather have a cup of tea.
My Buddy's Girlfriend
by Larry Schug
I once rented a basement house on an old farm
between dead Silver Corners and deader Jakeville
with a couple guys I worked with at the packing plant.
There was a hand pump in the yard for water
and an outhouse out back by the rock pile
where old bottles might be found,
filled with mud and decaying leaves, but unbroken.
What I remember about that basement is this,
I pissed in a fruit jar I kept by the bed,
rather than face that cold outhouse
in the middle of a Minnesota January night.
I put up with the odor until morning,
when I emptied the bottle in a snowbank,
a yellow splotch, like a Charolais bull signing his name.
Suddenly, one morning the outhouse door opened,
you came out cursing the cold,
women can’t pee in a jar, you said.
I laughed out loud, wished
you were going back inside to warm up my bed.
Bluebird on the Roof
by Larry Schug
An early bluebird alights
on the roof peak outside my window,
dances a little hop-step dance,
cocks his head side to side
in rhythm with the happy blues,
the fills and trills
I whistle through my harmonica,
maybe feeling he’s got a song coming
from one of these earth walkers
whom he’s graced withsong
for all his cerulean-feathered life.
I feel blessed when he looks me in the eye,
does one more little hop-step
seems to give me a nod of his head
before flying off to a cottonwood tree,
the day’s business at hand,
as I return the harp to my pocket,
step out the door to my own day’s work
with new eyes, a renewed heart.
An Unveiling
It is in silence
the heart reveals itself.
When all is still,
each word each gesture
open as seeds do
when the season is ripe:
fingertips touching a jaw
in gentle exploration,
a smile's eloquence
across a wide room
(emptied of distraction)
weaving connection and hope,
and the ineffable resonance
of an unguarded hello...
Vox Populi
flowers bloom from guitarists' fingers
flowers which float into flowing hair of young women
who whirl with a lazy grace
while young men stamp a rhythm round the circle
spring is come spring is sung
all is new all is born again
life once more is fiesta is carnival
is a joining of lilting hearts
La Paz, Bolivia, 2010
What Was That You Said
Now and again, here and there,
in a classroom some student
refuses to give an expected answer,
and utters words not spoken before
in such a setting -- and the roof lifts
and windows open, and a wind
sweeps through cleaning out the dust,
the inertia, the boredom, the mindless
repetition which infects such environments.
And the teacher, stunned at first, bursts
into laughter and delighted dance,
and the students take over the lesson
and someone actually learns something
unexpected and worth wrapping up
and taking home for further contemplation.
La Paz, Bolivia, December 2008
Glamour
by Alex Ranieri
You should’ve seen the back of her head laid flat
against the Civic Opera Building.
Such careless hair-- red thrown out over
shoulders, over
the small of her back, it shocked
the gray staid monolith, straight shooting,
and the dull, grimed-up river
and the iron in the bridge.
It shocked me-- and I stopped to stare
(unpolitely). I stopped
to consider
the permanent clouds
and her face, which must
be beauty in a can.
She turned,
and was a bag of old, sagging skin.
Orpheus and Eurydice
by Alex Ranieri
Tongue-tied Orpheus before Eurydice. He loved her
for undoing the knot and setting free dove-sweet sounds, fearful
and terrible
in their beauty. He loved a glimpse
of the tendons in her throat, glistened
with fresh sweat. He adored her
unbound thoughts, squeezed
through a nasally tone. He worshiped at the altar of her
guttural moans.
Her voice was imperfection to his honey-drenched head.
While he could coax a lion into sleep, her shrieks
could wake the dead. But she untied him--
she undid him--
and when death wrapped
her up, he was
undone.
Sisohpromatem
by Alex Ranieri
After a lifetime of slime
and slithering we approach
the click-clack-clatter
of sky-high heels in high-end hotels.
Who would suppose such
a thing, a
(former)
insect living it up by
putting on the Ritz in all
Four Seasons, pruning to the tune of
rubber reality, bending and stretching.
Life, what a life.
Such an acrobat trapeze.
Human beings no longer skyscrapers but
life-sized. Out
with the old, too too small for the ego
of warm-blooded flesh. In
with the New:
the New, made
on the shrugging
shoulders of our own world-
weary
Atlas.
Untitled II
There are no wrong words
There are no harsh winds
That can remove your memory,
shining brother,
From the hearts of those who love you.
Untitled I
This country road
passes through
the small town
I grew up in
Sometimes, an
unruly notion
sweeps even a
tumbleweed
along the road
toward home.
Now and then
The music has lasted since
women in green and a boy
in baggy trousers, eternal spirits
of a chainless mind, tread
through the half-light of waves
and blue winds and a sun
rising and setting, of cheap seats
with a good view, of wild horses,
blue dragonflies, ristras, nutmeg
sticks, a small shop under the stairs.
Poets will never lie as they praise
those whose music has lasted
since the world began. And the
music, it happens now and then.
Coming to it then Falling Away
Mustn't it be dimly lit, the trash-filled halls,
evening's uneventful sky;
mustn't it be a limitless effort with none exorcized
and for those furious contrition in the fields of grace,
momentarily, emblematic, and, then, hunkering down,
trying to be avoided.
Tellingly incognito, fettered til distorted
a carnage of sparrows, of ex-compatriots
superimposed with burdock, cloves,
thistle and clods of earth;
events retried,
doubted;
facts, just that; the grey of the just past.
A message not sent, others reprised,
as much as that shortage of finales,
a latter-day grieving resorbed,
something that could have been said that was gorgeous.
I am nowhere nearer, nowhere farther;
a charade for some,
magic to others.
Shadowy and Human
As near as cicadas stridulating at nightfall,
wolf spiders occupy the floor;
a gnat, a gesture and all flukes
commandeered, not given quarter.
Not to have gone on, nor gaggedrestating
infinitesimal querulous
quandaries, forgetting bungling acts,
their corollaries;
relaxed,
noting spider webs,
a crescent moon,
a piqued human,
and others
whispering across a shadowy room.
Heiroglyphics of the Ordinary
Can, do, be able,
not endless
nor I;
gypsum, taconite,
immobile.
Incapable?
I will not yield
whether connected or not;
stray liaisons, a beetle
and two fruit flies
as consequential
as my dental appointment,
a furtherance of 'constant conjunction'
holds off the welter
surrounding me,
that is, what assurance that the cat will use the litter box?
Hieroglphics of the ordinary,
remarked on, reassembled,
transient,
trespassed.
Clematis, lattices,
rearranged, to have been part of
a storyless subterfuge.
Disgruntled, nearest of kin taxed,
unnoticed, turned back.
Turquoise,
brass,
broadly having been,
are,
encompassing more than before,
comported,
hiding behind secrets,
alarms,
doors.
Slouching Towards Somewhere
Contemptible,
pushed,
pushed back.
nor is it necessarily
jade terraces that can not change;
Irrelevant, nevertheless -
nor so much offend.
a judge slouches toward his fame.
Placards line the courthouse steps.
a jury files in
that has not filed in before
a hot dog vendor
escorted
from the courtroom
protests his innocence.
A crow's fixed stare
amplifies
the magnitude of the occasion.
Somebody less than guilty settles in the stairwell.
twittering, sparrows cower in a gutter.
Tomorrow and tomorrow all will have gone.
Just so: cleaning ladies, duty done,
sequestered in their beds
may lie awake dreamily dreaming of their appointed place.
I Remember Who I Was
by Carly Larkin
I remember who I was
Before the world told me who I ought to be
A bright eyed, cunning risk taker
With forbidden knowledge dripping inside my head-and a soul made of pencil lead-
So that I may write, until the day that I'm dead.
Cottage home, hanging bed;
Hundreds of books on the wall, all read.
I remember who I was
Before my voice was taken, and crumpled up like a piece of paper.
Before my zest for life, and vivacious personality was labeled as failure.
I remember who I was-before I spent my nights and days-waiting for a role model to praise.
I remember who I was before my essence was filled up with silence, and my heart filled to the brim with loneliness.
As a kid, I could make new friends so easily, floated around enthusiastically, spreading happiness around.
In adulthood I lost, what in childhood I had found.