White Clothing

Our plains winters often pass over
with only blistering cold, the land
wind-sculpted clear down to the skeletal.
These are the remains we all have to
leave behind, anyway. It is not always
pretty, but if you prefer economy of means,
that ideal is achieved in a year such as this
when everything is stylish
in ice and piles of white
and a prairie spread of white.
Fashion did not begin
until Adam and Eve had to hide
their nakedness with leaves and such.
This year the jays and cardinals
are fat already,
but they visit me splashily
all over snow's light-returning blanket.
I thank heaven for this covering,
the satisfaction of my deep desire
to hide the ugly facts.  

-- Carol Hamilton 

Blues

Look up through leaves
and the sky is bluer.
She always said the sky
turned bluer the moment
we crossed the state line
into New Mexico.
I know it puts on a show
in autumn, especially
above orange and golden leaves.
Nothing and everything
has been washed out of it,
and I am purer
than I ever am then,
sucked into infinity.

-- Carol Hamilton 

Buried alive

How charming your young breasts. How sweet that you blush, having chosen clothing that reveals still growing concupiscence tightly strapped with skin, glowing in the twinkle of an older eye staring as you turn away, unable to recognise that it’s a wish, an optimism, a pretense that youth can surround pitch and yaw of aged flesh drawn tight around hollows shuttered behind eyes that look away, fearing it may bring the regret of age. But since there is no definite beginning, you cannot point toward what existed the day before the day that beckoned backward thought, where nothing existed the day before but choices, survived, held against the sag of flesh.

Even blood wrinkles as it blotches skin, gross with weight against imagined youth that holds itself as though eternal. It is a pretense, that age scours wisdom into flesh. Each stroke a wrinkle torn into the flush of a lover’s first kiss, close eyed, blinking toward hope.

-- BJ Muirhead

Animals

We came from everywhere.
Flat roads where families ate together
and across the Pacific with streets
even more infested than here.

We were many animals.
Some panting and some striding
with feet both bare
or covered, living in a mass
of personality and disorder.
Some popping mind-candy, most
swallowing music.
And we weren’t afraid.
We could find home or a glimpse of the world
with one climb of a Red Wood.

We had many visitors in visors
with their many mouths agape.
The beauty, the sea glass,
the courage, the dirt…

They were always ready to leave.

It was a mad forest, untamed
in all of its glory.

-- Ashley Warren

Funeral for the Last Parent

They were never one
always two
yet they had five,
adults themselves now,
bowling pins today
upright in the front pew,
wondering still
after all these years
why the two
were never one.

It's not a story
the two would tell
even if they could.
They were galaxies apart.
They had no answer
yet they still had five,
adults themselves now
who can celebrate
they're here at all,
bowling pins today
upright in the front pew.

No need to wonder why
the two who loved them
were never one.
It's not a story
the two would tell
even if they could.
They're galaxies away.

-- Donal Mahoney

Three Card Draw

Jack o’ Diamonds is a pickpocket, I remember
Bringer of false hope in time of need
With a sly red eye
Looks good laying in the mulch
Brings out the red in the cedar bark

The Queen of Clubs awaits fate in exile
In the dirt, her rightful place
Declaiming misconceptions in my face
Buffeting about the head and shoulders
An already-sore heart

The Three of Hearts is a morning after card
Found in my jacket pocket
In the parking lot of a New Hampshire State Liquor Store
Where I had stopped to look for
Hair of a dog named “Slivovitz”

Drunken six-handed poker
Hands all over the place   
Crossing my face
A nervous smile, “Just call me Jack”  
King on the floor with the Queen

What are you doing to me?
Can’t do anything with this hand
Except slap it
Face down on the table
Beside my money
And go home

-- Tom Rubenoff

Dying at Midnight

Two big attendants
in white coats are here
to remove my remains.
My son called the mortuary
after Murphy said I was gone.
The doctor, a good neighbor,
came over at midnight, found
no pulse and made it official.
I could have saved him the trip.
I knew I was gone.

My wife's in the kitchen
crying with my daughter
in a festival of Kleenex.
I told her I was sick
but she didn't believe me.
She thought I was faking it
so I wouldn't have to go
to her mother's for dinner.
I don't like lamb but
her mother's from Greece.
Lamb shanks are always
piled on the table.
Stuffed grape leaves I like
and she'll make them for  
Christmas provided I start
begging at Thanksgiving.
Every Easter, however,
it's another fat leg of lamb,
marbled with varicosities
and sauced with phlebitis.

Right now I'm wondering
who'll win the argument
between the two angels
facing off in the mirror
on top of the dresser.
The winner gets my soul
which is near the ceiling,
a flying saucer spinning
out of control.
I want the angel
in the white tunic
to take it in his backpack.
The other guy in gray  
looks like Peter Lorre
except for the horns.

-- Donal Mahoney

When a Debutante Marries a Troll

The problem is, Priscilla grew up
in a penthouse having parties while
Biff came of age under a bridge

fighting other trolls, he remembers.
When Pris calls his office and says
we're having guests tonight

the chasm in their marriage grows.
The guests go home sauced and smiling
but the chasm stays behind, snarling.

Biff can't make the leap to kiss Pris
and some day have 10 kids.
The next time she invites guests

he wants to be told at dawn.
Biff plans to skip feeding the pit bulls  
and introduce them to her guests.

-- Donal Mahoney

We Are all Gods

We are all gods
         he said,
breathing fast, then withholding a step, before saying
we create for ourselves a crap universe,
chest, casket, cave, prison cell,
reciting chapter and verse (twenty-three).

I searched my nature, and found, hidden like pearls,
all places my mouth made my own,
unearned and burning as crepe-paper men, festooned
as with sweat (after bouts), with breathlessness,
with strings of better sins, that mouth to me
hey boy, sink deeper, lest what's about you,
all the hiding places that are creeping into you,
let rip, spit you up, bring Valhalla down.

Oh, they'll moan, come back groaning to me now,
he said, with a flat, dead voice
                 they're dumb,
may not find, among the thousands,
this masker maudit, maudlin, unfit,
unwilling to fight or mouth off.

I searched my nature, and I came back with sure information:
ever since that morning, when I woke up
remote and unhappy, alone, aware
I'd left the human race at last,
hapless in this Götzen-Dämmerung,
a sweet prince, reborn in pools of slime
more suited to faeces, sliding like knives
slipping from the corpses of us all….

We are all dead
         he said
         and every one a doleful knight
or idol trapped tonight in a noir twilight.

-- Phillip A. Ellis

Mom and Pop

They got along fine lying down
but sitting up or standing, well
that was quite another thing.

Talking made things worse.
Lying down they found
no words necessary.

Had she been deaf
or he been mute, they would
celebrate next week

their Golden Anniversary.
Five kids would be there,
born in less than seven years.

Last Saturday, at the wedding
of a grandchild, they knew
they got along fine lying down.

-- Donal Mahoney

Metaphorically Speaking

Dive under any
skirt that floats
your way, Amish
or otherwise,
metaphorically speaking.
Be an explorer.

Sail every sea until
you find the eddy
you want to swirl in
the rest of your life.
Then stake your claim.
Make it your own.

-- Donal Mahoney

Listen to the Muse

Never engage
in conversation
a man with a beard
down to his testicles  
talking to himself
under a viaduct
at midnight

if all the bulbs
under the viaduct
have been shot out.
Take notes instead
on what he's saying
provided he speaks
in iambic pentameter.

Take those notes home
and sit next to a candle
at the kitchen table
and weave a sonnet
and send it out
to every magazine
you can find

and then go back
under the viaduct and
take more notes and
sit next to the candle
at the kitchen table.
Weave another sonnet.
Pray he talks forever.

-- Donal Mahoney

- PULSRITUDE -

aah, the weather so
deliciable you want to
eat It, swallow her
in ravened beast mouthfills, whole     
collops of rare air Sun crisped

No, no! last vignettes
like drams of spiced vanilla
savory tune not
to be too swoon-gobbled, but
morseled, nary oso at

the hive, rather pined
le biche at the deerberry
muted nibbles, an
afternoon of faun, the clime
of delight, honeysuckle

camellia, lily
magnolia to scarlet's daze
lustraled, and the waft
of dusk's daffodil oh so
deliciable you want to…

-- H.E. Mantel

A Wall of Memories

I was naked for my first kiss.
My mother’s lips registered her baby’s love
on a snow-filled December world.
An infant’s wail rang through her tears:
happiness and relief to declare the year
my birth became a memory.

Hopscotch and dolls a fading memory,
Marco cupped my face for an innocent kiss
my altar boyfriend of the year.
Our heart shaped sweets spelled ‘first love.’
Departed from a colorful history of happy tears,
entered an era of short skirts: my high school world.

Books, boys, my bullied bandy-legs world,
a teen’s wild dreams locked in a graffiti memory.
Silence erupted into a hormonal dance of tears,
longed for freedom – sweating for a lingering kiss
stolen moments; do you remember trial love?
Whistled adieu to end my school year.

Exchange of gold bands; a foolhardy year
aware of warring words in our rose-tinted world,
a tower of bubble-bursting champagne love
created two infants locked forever in half a memory.
Your lips were untrue, meeting to face someone new for a kiss.

A fresh start to an unknown life; I wiped away empty tears.
My gold band sees no daylight in a single mother year.
Cherished are two hugs and bedtime stories for a goodnight kiss.
Hungered for change to live in a warmer, southern world
adventures to bloom in our shards of memory -
au revoir home, old village, the friends we did love.

A Turner canvas of seaside life was a dream to love
two young minds grew tall, leaving me with sorry tears
laughter, constant chatter, meals shared now a distant memory
the warm womb that carried me departed in May this year;
a wall of memories remains in today’s changing world.
My mother’s love for me was sealed with a final kiss.

Show the people your love every day in every year.
A split second results in tears when they leave this world.
Your last spoken words are now a memory; do you remember your last kiss?

-- Pascale de Comarmond

Seeing

Time is a fine sand flowing
Constant over the the soul
Soft as a baby blanket
Wearing away the soul’s skin

Knit lovingly of fear
And patched here and there
With misconceptions
The soul’s skin protects us

But the fine sand of time
Wearing away the soul’s skin
Eventually lets what’s in, out
And what’s out, in

Lines between us
Become less defined
As our souls slowly disrobe
Revealing our light

Eventually we see
Our souls mirrored infinitely
In the endless stream of lights
We call “others”  

Eventually we see
We mirror so intimately
That first soul companion
“Mother”  

-- Tom Rubenoff

Happy Mother's Day

The Gold Standard

Blue stars on frosted windows,
the weather has turned cold
while the children play
and mother waits by the mailbox
     hoping the front doesn’t come to her.

Snow angels on the front lawn,
dressed for filial vision.
We try on smiles for Sunday morning
and later put them away in a drawer,
     folded and pressed like we were taught.

Reels bring the news,
family brings the comfort.
Black sedans bring the messengers.
Who will bring the boys home
     before we don’t recognize them anymore?

Flowers emerge from new soil,
spring sun coating us all
in a red rose film
so we can pretend
     that they never left us.

The newspapers shout the end
and celebration enfolds the country in the streets
as the ships steam into port, bringing them back.
But we stayed home to help mother
     turn our blue star to gold.

-- Christopher Hivner

Wretched

I lied to my father
that morning
because the truth
was wretched.
Our first conversation
in a thousand days
and I started
with a plea
for help
to keep me
out of jail.
I needed him
to not see me
in that hour
just like
during all the years
already buried,
so I could
hold my humiliation
close
like a holy vestment.
I lied
through the
acid in my throat
into a
pair of eyes
that didn’t care
one way or
the other.

I had looked into
those eyes
when he said goodbye
in my childhood,
leaving for a long trip
he said,
that turned out
to be
across town
to plant his flag
in another woman.
I had waited
by my window
for his return,
but Jezebel
kept her legs coiled
around his mid-section
convulsing in rhythm
to his indifference.

To those eyes
I was the
family dog
that needed put out of
my misery,
this wasn’t
a man’s son,
I stood before him
a coward,
losing at everything
because I couldn’t
forgive him,
and now I couldn’t
tell the truth
because I had made
him important,
more meaningful
than the sun and the moon
and the gravity
that held me
in his orbit.

I don’t know
what he saw
in those jungles
in ’44,
never confided in me
his thoughts
on anything,
but on dark nights
when the roads
are quiet
and I feel him
in my blood
we search together
for the sacristy
with the secret
to make us whole.
I have to
find it soon
because I’m so tired.

I lied to my father
because the truth
wouldn’t make
a difference
between us.
He saw me
that day
the same as
any other,
a whisper
from his past,
a breeze
that crossed his skin
when the alcohol
was low
in his veins
and the whore
slept peacefully
next to him,
his own eyes
kept open
by his beating heart.

-- Christopher Hivner

Time Out

I can drive the dog to
canine chemo
in a minute.
Snake the leaking
sewer line,
watch the last egg
slip from my fingertips
to the tile floor
a little later on.
Right now, I’ve
drifted to the top
of the sycamore tree
and that squawking,
put out, grump
of a blue jay is
going to have to
flip me for his seat.

-- Claudine Nash

Morning Bread

Heartbeat watery as citrus, she
displaces fragments of eggshell

and membrane between fingertips
like a broken prayer bead, flour

molecules settled into windowsills
and misparted hair. Yeast steeps

in a tincture of lavender honey
before dough draws in the morning

damp and swells past fragile lips.
Those rare cookbooks passed down

family lines advise minding liquid
measurements to offset sea level. She

brushes her torn earlobe and bathes the
whisk. She has miscalculated the rain.

-- Claudine Nash

The Unanswered

The answer
was scratched on a
crumpled leaf caught
in a mid-march draft,

read once by a woman who
barely whispered its terms,
twice
by a man with a

mouth full of
marbles. It was
etched on the driftwood

that slipped out to sea;
crammed in a rusted tin
box then mislaid

below floorboards.
It was stashed in a closet,
concealed with
sheetrock

and spackle,
splashed on the
walls and repainted   

an oil-based white.
You can search
the negative space

around and between
for weeks without end
and still
never see it.

The rising moon
won’t toss you
a clue,

and for better or worse,                                                                                                                                                       the headstones aren’t
talking.

-- Claudine Nash