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SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW
SUMMER 2021 "LOVE" ISSUE
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Back Cover: "Proud Mother" | Ink on Paper | J. Artemus Gordon
Editor-in-Chief
Steven Wittenberg Gordon
Art Editor
Jason Artemus Gordon
Associate Editor
Terri Lynn Cummings
Featured Frequent Contributor
Charles A. Swanson
Additional Frequent Contributors
John C. Mannone, Karla Linn Merrifield, Vivian Finley Nida, James Frederick William Rowe, Howard F. Stein, & Tyson West
Biographies of our editorial staff & frequent contributors may be found on the "Our Staff" page.
Unless otherwise indicated, all illustrations are the work of our Art Editor or taken from "royalty-free" open internet sources.
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Table of Contents
A Letter From the Editor
Featured Poets
Gene Hodge — A Retrospective
The Poetry of Charles A. Swanson
Frequent Contributors
Art Gallery
Guest Poets
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
“Love That Sweet Sugar Satchmo”
“Epithalamion of Never”
Lorraine Jeffery
“Unworn Love”
Anita Jawary
“Passion Flower”
“Two Roses”
Sandy Deutscher Green
“Pairings/Parings”
Paula Rudnick
“Love Sandwich”
Mark A. Fisher
“solar winds” (General Submission)
Thomas R. Willemain
“Molly”
Dawn Vogel
“Pinnacle”
Ken Cumberlidge
“A Map of South America”
Colleen Anderson
“Courtship”
Tamiko Dooley
“Kayobi (Tuesday)”
Bob McAfee
“Foot Loose”
Gerri Leen
“Loving, Leaving”
Carol Lavelle Snow
“The Love Trap”
Frequent Contributor News
Forthcoming
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A Letter from the Editor
In this issue, we bid a formal and fond farewell to long time Frequent Contributor Gene Hodge. Five memorable poems, hand-selected by Gene, are reprinted here.
Once again, we are proud to feature the poetry of Frequent Contributor Charles A. Swanson. Charles shares his love for the subject of love from four different angles with as many wonderful poems.
Speaking of sharing the love, you will find love expressed in many original, refreshing, and often surprising ways within these pages. The opening guest poet poem by Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios is my hands down favorite--an intoxicating tribute to a jazz musician and a love song honoring jazz itself. But there is almost certainly something for everyone here. To paraphrase an old TV show ship captain’s catchphrase, “the course is set for love.” Enjoy!
Steven Wittenberg Gordon, MD
Editor-in-Chief
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Featured Poets
Gene Hodge--A Retrospective
Editor’s Note: Soddy Daisy, Tennessee resident Gene Hodge was a member of the Songs of Eretz Frequent Contributor ranks from January 1, 2018, until March 27, 2021, when he decided that it was time for him to pursue other projects. A prolific self-publisher, several collections of his poetry are available through Amazon.com; he is currently working on a book of inspirational poems. His free and easy, whimsical blend of Imagist and Whitmanian styles of poetry added an approachable, simple, yet elegant element to these pages. Gene selected the following poems, previously published in the Review, for his farewell retrospective. SWG
Allow Me To Love You
Gene Hodge
Allow me to love you
the way I cherish
my books of poetry,
hold you in my hands and
stare at you with the passion
of a child’s first Christmas gift,
touch you with the tenderness
of my dreams;
and after you resolve yourself
to my trust . . .
I’ll open your sacred life
and loosely as a leaf falling,
touch each page,
live what your heart
reveals to me in nouns and verbs
of your imagination.
I’ll sit and hold you in the quiet of morning,
listen to you
beneath shades of lamp light in the mellow night,
carry you faithfully through the day
and share you with only the park bench
or some oak tree
that loves the touch of my back.
I want you
more than an empty page
needs the written word,
more than a book cover seeks its title.
And with a stroke of this pen . . .
I give you my heart—
bound in chapters,
bold, underlined sentences.
Poet’s Notes: In this poem, I wanted the reader to feel special--so special that a poet would compare the reader to his book of poems.
Editor’s Note: Even the best poems about romantic love are tough sells these days, but this one comes across as sincere, nuanced, and passionate, and has a beautiful poetic conceit. SWG
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Copyright
Gene Hodge
Before you awaken . . .
before the morning
steals the smell of your skin,
the way your hair
swirls across your neck
and caresses your breast;
let me bottle your fragrance,
photograph your beauty
and copyright this moment.
Poet’s Notes: As an entertainer/singer and artist, I am aware of copyrighting one's creations. This poem's intent is not to own but to hold the passionate beauty of the moment in a personal copyright.
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Antiques, A Wedding And Three Flat Tires
Gene Hodge
She said, “My headaches stopped the day my husband died.”
I stood there, arms crossed, smiling,
while her frail body shuffled through the antique store,
found a 1943 dressing stool and sat down.
With youth’s mischievous sparkle still in her eyes
she continued, “We drove trucks as a team—
we were together seven days a week.
I once asked him if he knew what happened this day 60 years ago,
he said he didn’t.
I said you ought to; we had three flat tires on the way to get married.”
Then slowly lowering her gaze to the hardwood floor,
she paused . . . and murmured,
“You would’ve thought, we would’ve turned around and went back . . .
but we didn’t.”
I never gave her story much thought—
only saw the humor, the irony of the moment—
until I began to write this poem
and my pen searched an empty page for a closing line.
Not once, did I hear the word love, fun or happiness.
Only if I read between the lines
do I find a hint,
and that was...
“My headaches stopped the day my husband died.”
Poet’s Notes: The beauty surrounding us amazes me. People are poetry and they are the living examples of life. I am intrigued by every step, wrinkles on their faces, and the movements of their lips as they write for me and become the poem.
Editor’s Note: This one reminds a bit of William Carlos William's work. The narrative is interesting, and I also like the little bit of ars poetica here. SWG
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Gene Hodge
The phone rang at three a.m.
A chill, darker and deeper than the morning’s stillness
erupts within my stomach.
My wife answers,
turns to me and whispers. . . ,
“He’s gone.”
For a moment, the silence overtook me.
I saw him, not there, lifeless in a hospital bed,
ninety-two years old.
But twenty-two, full pack, iron helmet and rifle,
courageously riding the waves in a Higgins boat;
the doors to drop down
upon the beach at Normandy.
I hear his heart, like thunder over his comrades praying and crying;
see in his eyes, the fear of knowing that
hell is only moments away.
I recalled his look of sadness and hopelessness,
as the medical team lifted his frail body into an ambulance.
The wind of many miles ruffled his silver hair
as they closed the door.
I wept, as I told the driver
the terror he faced in the war,
how young and proud he was
to now be reduced to this worn-out body of flesh.
Here I stand . . .
looking down upon the grave where he sleeps.
I know that he is happy here on the mountain he loved so.
My heart, heavier than the stone above his head, breaks
and the earth trembles beneath my feet.
Poet’s Notes: My father (pictured) was a gentle soul, a quiet man with an air of mystery about him. He, like many other veterans, spoke little of the war. If asked, his only reply was that he was in the Army.
After his demise, I found locked in a cedar chest a book and map describing in detail the maneuvers and battles of the Cannon Company, 320th Infantry as they forged across the European theater of operation. This poem is a tribute to a silent hero who never claimed fame; who fought and lived that others might live; to give me this golden moment to say to the world, “I am proud.”
Editor’s Note: Elegies are usually a hard sell as they are so specific to the deceased and those known to him or her, but Gene has captured a certain universal quality with this one, one that made me think of my father and how he looked so dashing in his military uniform. Will my son one day think of how I looked in mine? SWG
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The Poet
Gene Hodge
I watched him on the balcony of Days Inn,
from my apartment window across the street.
Early it was—6 am.
Everyone sleeping
but noisy blackbirds
on rooftops and power lines.
Oblivious to passing traffic
he sat reading a book,
sipping coffee
and occasionally looking-up
to see if he was missing something.
Laying the book aside
he stood, holding the handrail . . .
scanning the street’s double yellow lines,
white parking spaces,
cracks in the sidewalk,
bouquets of morning glories
hanging from each lamp post,
a runner with tattooed arms chasing the morning
and a grey Siamese cat with three white mittens
tip-toeing across a porch roof;
gutters hanging loosely
from antique houses
where peeling, painted bricks
checkerboard the exterior.
He thought about the dirt and cigarette butts
laying in the parking lot,
who was the last to turn the parking meter knobs.
I saw his lips move
as he peered into the sky.
I thought . . . he’s praying!
Then with his head lowered,
smiled and returned himself
to reality—
disappearing through sliding doors
behind curtains of the day.
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The Poetry of Charles A. Swanson
Constancy
How are you constant? More than tidal waves
with cadence I can clock, you do not washthe sand from under me. You do not crave
my shoreline, carving under stubborn trust
and resolution, pounding until cliffs fall.
How are you constant? More than yellow sun
or harvest moon, your firefly lovelight, small
as that, pulses like a beacon, calling home.
How are you constant? No, I wouldn’t place
you up against lunar pull that moves the tides,
or Sol whose mass creates planet tethers.
No, you are bound by time. Your lovely face
is wrinkled. Some say your attraction hides
in yesterday. I say it lasts forever.
Poet’s Notes: A sonnet still seems a good vehicle for an exploration of love. I admire the love conceits of the Renaissance poets, and I had several sonnets in my mind as I wrote this one. The sonnets I felt the most kinship to were Shakespeare’s Sonnets 18 (Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s… | Poetry Foundation) and 130 (Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like… | Poetry Foundation), and Edmund Spenser’s Sonnet 75 ( Sonnet 75 - Poetry Archive).
I chose to use a rhyme scheme that is a combination of the Shakespearean and the Italian, and I favor slant rhymes and enjambment to lessen the impact of the rhyme. Nevertheless, rhyme has the kind of noise that is effective when it occurs in places that need the clash of a cymbal.
I wrote a good portion of this poem in the old-fashioned way, on scrap paper with a pen, the way I used to write all my poems. I was sitting in my truck at the time, waiting for some men of the property committee to come and trim the shrubbery in the churchyard. In my composition, I had so many cross-outs, write-ins, and arrows pointing to what comes next that the pages looked quite dense and indecipherable. The text was somewhat like the bushes and debris from the work of the hedge clippers after the landscape crew arrived and did their work.
I admit to having become spoiled to word processing programs with add and delete features, and the functionality of being able to insert new text, moving the old down the page. Sonnets are a brain tease, certainly for the writer, and sometimes for the reader, too. The compact music of a sonnet can have lasting power—like any great song.
Editor’s Note: I really enjoy the intricate rhyme scheme Charles employs here. SWG
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The Childless Aunt
Charles A. Swanson
I first recall a family reunion
where she was quick to give her firm opinion
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| "Matriarch" | Ink on Paper | J. Artemus Gordon |
and vinegar barbecue. I said, yes, please.
At four or five, I was ready to sample
and begged for more than just the offered nibble.
I had, of course, to wait until the dinner.
And such she taught. Although she wasn’t a spinster,
for she and Unk were always a pair, she’d teach
with firmness, quite the overbearing reach,
which Mama tolerated well. She could
tuck lessons into tidbits such as food.
She’d almost died with fever as a child,
and poor as well as sick, what kept her alive
were doses of potato soup. She loved things green
and she could twitch her nose while snapping beans,
or grating cabbage, like a speckled rabbit
(for she wore glasses). She had a habit
of searching all the farm for things to eat.
Persimmons at her hand were made a treat,
an autumn cookie bar just like a brownie,
and she could fish the pond as well as any,
for she had patience. Perhaps of all the things
that I remember, the one I like the most
was her great white hunter joke. She’d often boast
that she could bring more game home than the men,
who went out with their guns. This happened when
we’d drive the woods for deer. The men would wait
for any that we flushed—a fleeing shape
escaping noise we made. We’d tromp the woods,
a cheering troop, the beagles’ barking good
for scaring deer. My aunt stepped with a stick
for balance. One dog, Bubbles, was so quick
he’d run down a rabbit at first jump, and then
he’d give the still warm catch to Esther. When
she stepped out from the woods, she’d claim
it only took a stick to bag her game.
The great white hunters hadn’t seen a thing,
and she, a woman, put them all to shame.
Poet’s Notes: I admire Chaucer’s tight rhyming couplets in The Canterbury Tales. In today’s world of poetry, such pronounced rhyme might seem archaic. I also remember hearing that many poets imitated Pope’s heroic couplets, but few could write them as well as he did. They are a challenge. I think the formal rhyming can add a sly twinkle to a human portrait, so the strong rhyme is worth the risk.
I have great regard and love for my Aunt Esther. She was very good to me, and she didn’t mind giving me advice as if she were my mother. I hope some of the respect and admiration I feel for her come forward in this poem.
Editor’s Note: I feel the love in this poem as well as the love that went into composing it. It is well paced, and the rhymes help it flow nicely. The narrative is humorous with just a touch of melancholy. SWG
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Please Sleep on Me
Charles A. Swanson
Put your head to my heart,
I want to say this
to my grandchild, (or my wife).
The words, the whisper,
I say to myself—I just hope
for that tender head.
My invitation to intimacy
must be acted, with a pat,
an arm rotation
like a circle of embrace.
Don’t you want to nap?
That sweet head, hair tousled
with webs of gossamer,
sweat warming my shirt,
my slow heart beating tic, tic, tic
as he snuggles deeper, clutches
a snatch of cloth, all this
slowness, this lazy afternoon,
it’s the measure of clocks,
the swinging of screen doors,
drowsiness of bees. It is
humming bass notes of
my Southern lullaby,
I gave my love a baby
with no crying, the gentle
tremolo, the slumbersome
slowness of air-strummed
voice-box, the susurrus
of my lazy, easy heart.
Poet’s Notes: I know of few sweeter moments than those of sleeping with a baby or a small child lying against my chest. This grandpa is not as soft and cuddly as the children’s grandma, but he does have a heart that beats with an unusually slow pace. When a child is asleep, everything relaxes. The earth even moves more gently on its axis.
Editor’s Note: What a beautiful, peaceful moment Charles captures here! I feel all snuggly. SWG
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I don’t care if you hate it; I love it.
Charles A. Swanson
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people.
--Psalm 149:4, RSV
Eyes closed.
My daughter sits,
a pink soft sweater
catches the pink blush in her cheeks.
Still life.
Awkward,
one unguarded pose,
not camera friendly,
not photogenic. She hates this
picture.
I love
her fragile look,
no look with eyelids dropped,
no window into the soul, so
Ramsey.
Her aunt,
her grandmother,
both closed tissue paper
lids across puzzled eyes to find
right words.
She sits,
my daughter, still,
the creaking heirloom chair
stilled, her grandmother’s mother’s chair
so still.
Olive
and honey skin,
trace of Melungeon,
brown eyes call forth my wife’s people,
but eyes
are closed—
one unguarded
moment caught—revealing
by being vulnerable, more,
oh, more.
Poet’s Notes: The camera waves a kind of magic over the magician’s hat. Until the picture is taken and viewed, one can hardly guess what exact image will pop up out of the vessel. Sometimes the inexact representation (I say inexact because it is somehow skewed by a poor pose, or by improper lighting, or by a flinch and a blur) says something unexpected, something precious, something fleeting and yet just nebulous enough to suggest spirit, and not just physical manifestation.
Editor’s Note: This stretches the boundaries of the theme, and I like that. The love of the speaker for his/her daughter comes through obliquely yet enchantingly. SWG
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Frequent Contributors
A Mother’s Prayer
Terri Lynn Cummings
for Conor Cummings
It’s 4:00 p.m.
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| "Dissolved" | Ink & Watercolor on Paper | J. Artemus Gordon |
drowses on bare skin
Soon, night will slip
through eyes, ears, lips
Seconds devour
themselves from within—
diseased
One remains
Its cloak of silk
unravels thread by thread
from the child’s cocoon
A shell remains
No, more than mortal
Whisper in his ear
replace his voicerecirculate veins
re-pace his heart
Leaf after leaf
falls to earth
locked in a season
that lost its battle
to breathe
Poet’s Notes: I continue to write about the loss of our son and doubt I’ll ever stop. The process pulls the longing from heart to page.
Editor’s Note: It is tragic that it takes such a profound loss to inspire such a beautiful poem. SWG
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A Mother’s Love
Terri Lynn Cummings
Summer is short, we mothers warn
but such language makes no sense
to a child whose hours stretch like taffy
and birthdays arrive once every hundred years
Hummingbird visits feeder
for a brief snack by window |
| "Fleeting" | Ink on Paper | J. Artemus Gordon |
I try to explain they arrive and
leave in the delicious snap of time
Clock’s hand seconds our existence
but how do I persuade my child
to value this flowering tick
resolute and careless
Since March, termites
transform walls into papery havens
driven by what they don’t understand
thinning as they feast
I say, Like them, we are blind
until we use our senses. Grandmother
guides us through pictures filled with war
Spanish Flu, depression, privation. She says
Mine was a simpler world—
well-mannered, slow, unlike today
when traffic jams
garage door betrays
repair service drags its feet—
all pesky distractions
My child walks in
I don’t like school
How will I
teach endless summers lose their resolve
promise nine lives
full of harrowing splendor?
Poet’s Notes: Our grandson graduated college, and our granddaughter graduated high school this May. We were present in their lives, but they grew up in the snap of a second. Too fast, too fast.
Editor’s Note: Terri captures a universal moment in such a personal way--a perfect balance. SWG
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snowflakes feel like your kisses
as they touch my glowing face
love you are the first
sweet sip of cool lemonade
on a summer’s day
sun rays feel like your caress
as they touch my exposed skin
--Steven Wittenberg Gordon
Poet’s Notes: “The somonka form consists of two tankas. They are relationship poems, exchange songs. In the first stanza, a lover conventionally addresses the beloved. In the second stanza, the beloved replies.” [https://poets.org/edward-hirschs-poets-glossary]
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The Shattering of Light
John C. Mannone
Nobis alius quartus modus illuxit, quem nunc proponimus, vocamusque; diffractionem, quia advertimus lumen aliquando diffringi
It has illuminated for us another, fourth way, which we now make known and call "diffraction" [i.e., shattering], because we sometimes observe light break up
—Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1665)
Light falling spills its blood
of secrets in a language
of equations—physics
the interpreter, but that alone
doesn’t translate emotion. Waves
of clouds escort sentiment
as orange and persimmon
settle from a Rayleigh-scattered sky,
while distant points of light
from racing automobiles
diverge into two rings
as demanded by the laws of diffraction
for what was once one bright spot,
its devolving into two separate lights
still trying to kiss
the darkness that remains silent
which might be as incomprehensible
as the darkness itself.
Poet’s Notes: “The Shattering of Light” is part of an ongoing collection called The Physics of Longing. All the poems allude to relationships using metaphors of light characteristics and/or phenomena; in this poem, it is an aspect of the circular diffraction of light that limits resolution. In particular, when you look down the highway at night and see an approaching car, you will see a single nearly circular blur of light in the distance, but as it approaches, that extended point source of light separates/resolves into two circular blobs of light (one for each headlight). It’s much the same thing that a telescope does (by bringing the image of the star closer to us, so to speak). When you look up and see those stars with your naked eye, more than half of them are really two or more. Robert Frost wrote about it in his poem “The Star-Splitter.” Here is an excerpt from it:
That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter,
Because it didn't do a thing but split
A star in two or three the way you split
A globule of quicksilver in your hand
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How to Lose My Love
Karla Linn Merrifield
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| "Withered" | Ink on Paper | J. Artemus Gordon |
tossed in a change bucket,
now turning me into another
of your tarnished one-cent women.
Like a delicate orchid,
so scarce, but left sun-withering,
my moist pink petals
you abandon drying of thirst.
Like a priceless porcelain
figurine bargain-priced
amid the chipped and cracked
at your yard sale of love's detritus.
Like a vintage Spanish guitar
its heart strings sprung,
mine the body of a woman
warped by your silence.
Just like that. Exactly like that.
The silence, the silence.
Editor’s Note: Such sass!! I especially like Karla’s choice of "drying" instead of "dying" in the second stanza. SWG
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Arc
Karla Linn Merrifield
Your first kiss—the reddest of all—is turning
forty-seven this spring-green morning.
I press it to my crinkled lips, this time
halfway between laugh-line wrinkles,
just below a whisker Nair must have missed.
Your first kiss till fully wetly clings
like lilac perfume of that lilac time—
May 22, 1965 – Dear Diary: He loves me.
In 2012 my skin’s the dried brown blossoms
clasped by yellowed pages unlocked again.
Your first kiss, a short boy’s straining
on tip-toe, eyes open, to his taller girlfriend,
twelve-going-on-thirteen with boobies
now going on blue-veined sixty in full sag.
No violet-colored glasses now, only trifocals.
Your first kiss was a tongue-tasting
of Mandarin oranges come all the way
from China to the indigo bowl
of my virgin mouth, seventh grade, sipping
illicitness. Late-mid-life, my sole vice is memory.
But somehow I yet see: your first kiss, its rainbow.
Editor’s Note: Karla captures a universal moment with whimsy and poignancy without tripping on the cliché. No easy feat! SWG
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Vivian Finley Nida
Morning, full sun
I search ten tomato plants
clamoring out of wire cages
Beefsteak, Cherry, Roma, Celebrity
blush in gallon bucket, then rest on window sill
above kitchen sink until fully embarrassed
This beauty sparked controversy in 1883
Botanically a fruit, but for import tariffs
US Supreme Court deemed it legally a vegetable
A vegetable I mostly shunned as a child
without knowing that for two hundred years
rich Europeans called it poison apple
Perhaps Snow White was given one
If Seven Dwarfs used pewter plates
acidic tomatoes leaching lead from them
would poison, cause death or heartbeat
too low for pulse to register, resulting in
being buried alive, yet it was also a potion
for ladies luring princes with love at first kiss
I knew nothing about this when I refused
Mama’s green tomato chow chow
and ripe tomatoes sliced, roasted, stewed
but I begged for her red spaghetti sauce
like ambrosia to gods on Mount Olympus
If Mama were here now, we’d be in the kitchen
preparing her recipe with my vine ripe tomatoes
It grieves me to know she will never
When I stretch to reach a new cookbook
Tomatoes, 50 Easy Recipes, I imagine
her contagious laughter, picture her
hands in sudsy water, calico apron
tied at neck and waist, face turned to me
eyebrows raised, asking, What have we here
For me, this will have to be enough—
picking through tangle of salty light
to harvest her voice
Poet’s Notes: Stream of consciousness allows this poem to stray from tomato plants to court cases, lead poisoning, favorite recipes, and my mother, whom I greatly miss.
Editor’s Note: Ah, the tomato! Slang for "lady", the color of love and blood, once a forbidden fruit, a fairy tale fruit. What a perfect metaphor to use in a love poem! Karla’s final stanza, metaphorically summarizing how much the speaker (presumably Karla) loves and misses his/her mother, takes my breath away. SWG
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Looking for Signs Amid COVID-19
Signs, we look for signs,
Moments of reprieve,
To help us make our way,
Hints, that is all,
Beatific flickers of loving
And of feeling loved,
They vanquish no disease –
Masked and gowned,
A nurse or doctor
Gently pats a dying patient’s forearm,
Offers a kind glance into a patient’s eyes –
They redeem by grace
What they cannot cure.
Love is medicine, too.
Editor’s Note: Despite being about the now worn out topic, there is a freshness here that I enjoy immensely. Here is love as medicine and medicine as love. SWG
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Half Life
Tyson West
I got to ride shotgun
after dad loaded the lead
eggs through our Buick's two tone tailgate.
White walls rolled our town’s radium needles from Greenville to Grove City
to frost their cancer blossoms.
Since dad never fished nor scouted
I could only learn mansplain
doing man and boy chores.
Gripping the wheel at ten and four as he decreed I must as well when I learned to drive,
he foretold my shaving soon
recalling the red toilet paper bloom across his face his first time
victim of grandpa's straight razor and mustache cup―
thank God for King Gillette blue blades
and Barbasol. He pondered
Mother’s thought my first blooding could wait.
He suddenly shifted to extoll half lives
of radioactive elements how
in some isotopes gamma rays
blink out in nano seconds
but alpha and beta particles of others linger like
Tellurium 128.
Its half life longer
than the end of the universe.
As he rambled double beta decay and chemical contrast
I noted the pleasure I sensed in the dactyl meter
in the six syllables of “radioisotope.”
He went quiet at septillion seconds.
My best friend Billy's dad would have tapped his Pall Mall on his wrist watch,
lit it with his Pittsburg Steelers Zippo, then
draw pungent blue smoke to cloud
the physics of bobbysox and black leather.
As dad now inhaled his talk
of decay and time
I thought he might unsecret sex
but he already fled
that pole dance by giving me an AMA pamphlet
clinicing the details of very very much.
He shifted straight to he and mom married newly
under big war's prancing shadow.
She baked him peach and cherry pies cooled
as they negotiated their nest
to Walter Winchell, Norman Rockwell, and Bishop Sheen blessing their
proper American love.
He flicked to his first flame
Frannie from Falmouth who I felt may have faded faster than fluorine 14―
her cameos always amused mom―
who alluded once to me privately
of a young cobber’s proposal she reluctantly declined.
Dad measured mom’s weight telling me
I should vector mothers of girls
my shaved face may fancy to prove the end element of my love’s decay.
When we reached Grove City elms where dad
handed off the eggs to their radiologist to hatch,
adult eyes must have
restored Dad’s layers of lead.
Still, I heard his lecture before my lab.
Someday I dreamed, I would no longer decay
in the half life of breathing
outside a woman’s love.
Poet’s Notes: I remember a ride sixty years ago with my father from Greenville to Grove City. He would use such opportunities to lecture me on “lessons of life”. Of course, he never directly spoke to me of his relationship with my mother, nor did I ever know the details of their dating history, other than with each other, but we heard reflections and echoes of their own private mythology. In any relationship, passion has a tendency to fade away after a while. It is just a question of how long a half-life it may have.
Editor’s Note: I finished reading On the Road recently. This poem has the same Beat feel and even a similar narrative. SWG
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Carthusiana
Tyson West
Wise were fathers and brothers who cherished Saint Bruno's statutes
that distanced me until my lifeline crossed 23 great circles.
I danced free in flowering fields
longing amongst rivers and rills all nymphs
blurred beautiful through royal jelly rubbed over the lens of my logic.
God’s beckoning seemed simple to we of wide angle lenses
days of breath viewed as a puff against the mountain range’s
eternal stretch.
Once I accepted that premise my soul must sail far
from folding flesh into that of woman
to form envelopes for such souls
as God chooses to stuff into them,
I must take the convoluted passage to barren fields of
dust blown in katabatic wind.
Knowing the greatest gift I cry out to my Lord
grows in silence,
I mint my days
as so many identical prayer patterns
words and annunciation in my heart
never changing.
Hours before the rough day sloughs off the wonder of climbing sun
I struggle to find some novelty
in my never changing God,
and Father Polycarp’s tin ear and tongue ever off key.
Always must I doubt
any alteration I perceive in the platitude of pleasures
each time I ponder the same old sacrifice on a cross.
My monkey mind each day pops the point
why care about this botched execution?
I doubt you my God as a husband doubts
the words of his woman, deceptive by nature
words my love lacerates and recasts as truth
to preserve our passion.
I adore hours of sleep to rise in darkness
routine of simple food
weekly walks where we may speak
in our rows of ever rotating couples
the mass we cry out in Latin unaltered
among a planet full of billions of ever slanging tongues.
I cherish cuddling with trinity and our lady
and second cousin saints,
the punctuation of weakness and desire and doubt
against the habit of my heartbeat and breaths in
a silence shaded only by pentatonic chords our fathers' and brothers' voices chant,
peppered of bird calls and thunder.
I thank my God for his gift of the candle of this capacity to love
I could have chosen to burn for woman, child, dog
all creatures great and small
or even my image in silvered glass.
Surely, he will welcome my imperfections I struggle to cleanse
until this perfect path ends when love flies silently away from this flesh and
my brothers place my unembalmed corpse into the boil
of fungus and bacteria laden soil
under a plain white cross
that will never bear my name―
for God
claims it already.
Poet’s Notes: Carthusian monks, who live in a world of isolation and silence strictly ordered of Saint Bruno, fascinate me. The fathers live in cells, almost like convicts, in a world of solitary confinement provided for by brothers who provide them with food and other necessities singing the same Latin Matins each day. Yet even these institutionalized hermits share the ritual of a weekly walk where they speak with one another, in rotating pairs. Human minds share the foothills of a love for their group and one another to some degree, and require some social interaction, even against the 8,000-meter peaks of God’s love. Many members of religious orders, even Mother Theresa and Father James Martin, also confronted feelings of doubt just as every spouse at times wonders if he or she made the right commitment.
Editor’s Note: I can feel the human longings and conflicts of heart and spirit as the speaker describes his devotion to God and isolation from all else. SWG
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Galahad 2021
Tyson West
I linger more at ease
with your wild hair, Merlyn, than tonsured priests―
confessors who never have balanced choice with sword nor wand in hand.
Still your grotto reeks of
smokes bequeathed of esoteric herbs fumed
in your meerschaum pipe
altering the fabric of space time but not my destiny.
In that fabric’s weave we bequeath
those priests power to hold off our sword strokes and spells
by faith in their manipulation of grain and grape gleaned
from filthy fingers of sinking serfs
into the essence of our Savior's guts and gore.
You foretold much to me slipping deosil in the stream of hours
I worry not the fate of my flesh
knowing in my asexuality I will not wring hands over
my child’s failure nor allow ego to swell
when my boy makes the buzzer beating basket.
I angst more where and how my image warps
in the eternity of print and illustrations hence.
You have hinted that felon Malory's inscriptions
Caxton shared with those few literate souls
in the rack of years you call renaissance
tinkled far purer
than the distortions of 19th and 20th century pulp mills
illustrated of Wyeth or Pyle picturing me
as some clean shaven girly man.
And Camelot! What does an alp hugging songster and amphetamine sucking lyricist
know the smell of horse piss or the fear a knight feels in his steel wrappings
holding in heat stroke and sacrificing mobility for some
illusion of invincibility.
We constantly guard
filthy peasant pikes or mercenary billman
jerking us off horse to slit our throats for their lord’s pleasure.
At least Lerner and Loewe had the sense
to cast Goulet as my father, a Frenchman, albeit from Quebec
with the same fluid morals...
Yes, you are right
it all comes back to father
since our last session I prayed
and meditated in the chapel
of the convent where my aunt the prioress raised me
and sweet sisters smacked my wrists with rulers
for being born a bastard doubling my burden of original sin.
No, I sense my mother and Guinevere bear the sin of Eve on steroids―
father for all his faults rode faithful in his adultery with his queen.
Elaine’s lust for Lancelot unchained could
triumph only through the delicacy of Dame Brusen's deception
luring my dumb shit dad into mother's bed.
In a sense, old Lance’s passion rose on
thinking Elaine was his solo squeeze Gwen
perhaps making my true mother the queen after all―
can I really blame that foolish warrior grown weak on the mounds of Venus?
I've shifted such devotion to my God
dare I face my feelings towards Him―
the one who predestined my illegitimacy?
I will let slip my soul into the pride of purity
and neither Elaine nor Lancelot nor Guinevere
will spoil any grandchild from me.
I will end their lines and pursue this chastity priests and prophets
extoll into their gospels and proverbs―
it so much easier to endure
than riding under the perfume of a Lady’s favor.
The grail no matter how many times it be found
always escapes just like the Questing Beast.
My feelings stir as clear as a mud boiling creek still
I know this brook will pass rapids and water falls
to some quiet pool where silt will settle.
My old man
no matter how bright and beautiful his sword play and joust
never will say, “I love you, son”
nor will he challenge me.
For I alone repose, in the Siege Perilous, consequence free
he knows he can never match my speed and strength
nor purity.
Poet’s Notes: Arthurian legends and ideas of relationships have changed over the centuries. When Malory wrote Le Morte d’Arthur in the 1400s, he mostly reported the facts of stories he heard and did not probe the relationships and feelings between the characters.
The 17th and 18th centuries were not so infatuated with Arthurian legends. The 19th century romantics rediscovered the Middle Ages to inspire works from La Belle Dame Sans Merci to Wagnerian operas. Galahad appears a proud, almost arrogant figure in Tennyson’s imagination, but only a minor figure in White’s The Once and Future King. In 2021, we are not so focused on jousts but on feelings. What did Galahad really think about his father and mother? Did he feel unwanted? How did he process his emotions?
Editor’s Note: I was simply transported as I read this one. It has made me rethink the legend of Sir Galahad, a knight I always thought was kind of holier-than-thou and arrogant and therefore unworthy of the Grail. This poem is a real game-changer for me. SWG
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Art Gallery
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| "Moment Series--Wish and Shadow" | Melanie Faith | Photograph |
Artist’s Notes: One night, during the golden hour when natural light is most magical, I glanced down and spotted this perfectly-formed dandelion that had gone to seed and yet retained a spherical shape and all of its wispy seeds. Carefully, I plucked the plant, found a wall and my camera, and set to work before dusk. The limited amount of light before sunset meant an intuitive (and quick) photo shoot. This photo’s composition was inspired by the photos of Saul Leiter, puppet theater, and silhouette portraits. I hope it suggests doubling/pairs, reality vs. hopes, childhood memories, and a certain indomitable, playful part of the human spirit that remains, even during tough times.
About the Artist: Melanie Faith likes to wear many professional hats, including photographer, poet, prose writer, professor, editor, and tutor. Her latest published book is Photography for Writers, available through Amazon.com. In 2021, her fine-art photographs have been featured online in the PhotoPlace Gallery, “The Poetry of the Ordinary” show, and in the Don’t Take Pictures photo exhibition, “A Show of Hands”. Learn more about her projects at melaniedfaith.com.
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| "Proud Parents" | Ink on Paper | J. Artemus Gordon |
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| "Governmental Matrimony" | Ink on Paper | J. Artemus Gordon |
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Guest Poets
Love That Sweet Sugar Satchmo
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
Verse Slow Drag
give me some sugar sweet sugar baby
i blow
that superfine
whine
over the slow
turpentine
shine
it be sweet
as spit polish
on my dancin' shoes
sweet as popcorn
sizzle on the skillet
as champagned fizz
a rumswizzle
that drizzles the air
the slooow kisssss of apple wine
Refrain Fast and Hot
diggity-dug it my man dig it
honkity tonk-honk from New Orleans
sparkety tokety blue
i'm the bobbin' and diggin' man
smokin' and tokin' man
corkscrewed horn blowin'
fitful twist of mumbly
tumbly
man
ya da do do zed zad zed, ba buh
is you is or is you ain't.
beedle dee bee
biddle dee bee bop
verse Slow Slide and Dig
my key-lime paradigm
rusty
saw-dusty hinge of a sound
mumble-crusted ,
sweet tasting twinge
wet against
my lips
when youre smilin the whole world
smilezzzzz with you
galvanizzzzze that grooooove
waltz that slow sugar
back into dynamite
whispered silk
kissssss, yesssssss
my plead
to dream
sibilant fire
charred
on my tongue
Coda Bring it Home
twine
the grapevine's
treacled shine
don- diddle -dee dom dut dee
sweetest riff you ever dug baby
dream a little dream of me
Poet's Notes: I appreciate the music in Louie Armstrong's delivery of words--it is as erotic and sweet as his horn playing. There are moments when music and poetry are so finely aligned that one can hardly determine the difference.
Editor’s Note: This is easily the best poem on the love of jazz that I have ever read, surpassing even the work of Jack Kerouac. I was transported as I read this poem, as though jazz were circulating through me. SWG
* * * * * * * * * *
Epithalamion of Never
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
Tell me Beloved, why should we marry?
My heart's already worn through with years
of waiting, our chiffoniers strange
with clothes and secrets.
Our mantle of darkness and salt
now frayed at the edges where stars play
their threadbare games of hide and seek.
Our moon already grown overripe and sour.
If you ask, My Love, I now know why
I will not lose these dead wings of my name
nor bear a dim candle into a tomb.
It is because I have waited too long for a promise
where a hope of love might live forever
and you have made a promise with never.
Poet's Notes: I read so many sonnets and odes about love, how wonderful, how beautiful it is. The epithalamion in particular intrigued me – a poem written for a bride or a wedding. But, what happens when the woman never becomes the bride–what happens then? In this case – I felt the form should turn on its head – lose its flowery optimistic sentiment and become bitter. Here is a rant from a never to be bride – perhaps “the other woman?”
Editor’s Note: I enjoy this modern take on the petrarchan sonnet form, clinched with a rhyming couplet. Sadly, the narrative will read as all too true for many people. SWG
About the Poet: Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios is professor emerita from American University in Washington DC, having chaired the vocal and music departments. Vrenios’ solo recitals throughout the US, South America, Scandinavia, Japan and Europe have been acclaimed. Featured in Tupelo Press's 30/30 challenge, she has been published in such journals as Clementine, Cumberland River Review, The Feminine Collective, The Kentucky Review, Into the Void, Unsplendid, Edison Literary review, Passager, NILVX, and Unsplendid, and featured in such anthologies as The Poeming Pigeon, Love Notes from Humanity, Stories of Music, and the American Journal of Poetry. Her chapbook "Special Delivery", prize winner with Yellow Chair Press, was published in 2016, and her second chapbook released in April 2021, "Empty the Ocean with a Thimble", by Word Tech Communications. As the artistic director of the Redwoods Opera in Mendocino, California, she has influenced and trained vocal students across the country.
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Unworn Love
Lorraine Jeffery
My mother watched her sisters-in-law
dump their work clothes on the floor,
don new rayon dresses, peep-toe heels,
and hurry to learn the lindy, jive, jitterbug,
meet returning soldiers.
She cared for her child, went to church,
cooked meals, cleaned house and
hugged her young husband,
but sometimes—her eyes followed
the lines of those fancy dresses.
I wish I had a pretty dancing dress,
she told my dad.
His brow furrowed,
But, if you had one—
where would you wear it?
Mom laughed.
I know, we can’t afford one and
even if we could, I wouldn’t have
any place to wear it. Silly!
Still, Dad saw longing in her eyes
and took her shopping. They bought
two showy dresses and she beamed
when he told her
how pretty she looked.
Sometimes, when no one was home,
she’d put one on, stand in front of the mirror—
twirl and smile. They hung in her closet,
unworn for thirty years,
and were finally discarded.
confided, They were the most
extravagant, impractical things your
dad ever bought me. Silly!
She had laughed,
while tears eased down
the furrows of her cheeks.
Editor’s Note: I like the narrative of this poem, a kind of Cinderella story, but with a different ending. The repetition of “silly” is nicely done, as its meaning is slightly different each time. The final stanza asks the reader to cry along with the speaker, which I did. SWG
About the Poet: Lorraine Jeffery delights in her closeup view of the Utah mountains after spending years managing public libraries. She has won poetry prizes in state and national contests and published over one hundred poems in various journals and anthologies, including Clockhouse, Kindred, Calliope, Canary, Ibbetson Street, Rockhurst Review, Naugatuck River Review, Orchard Press, Two Hawks, Halcyon, Healing Muse, Regal Publishing, and Bacopa Press.
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Two Roses
Anita Jawary
Two roses on your rose bush,
after all this time!
Even in your shady slouch hat
you burned hotter than the sun when you dug it in.
That pendant droplet of sweat, gleaming on the tip
of your long bony nose
like a hovering dew drop.
But no, you did not accept water,
and pressed your shovel into the stubborn soil with your boot,
you, so broad and strong against the sun,
that I thought
I could stand in your shade forever
and never get burnt.
Two roses on your rose bush!
Think of it!
The one, older,
parched, scarred by aphids, battered by wind,
and her petals, blackening at the edges.
She hangs her head.
So much promise.
So much loss.
You can see her end came just at the point
when she might have opened her mouth to sing.
But the other rose, a younger bloom, looks the sun square in the eye,
leads him on, curls her crimson lips,
lipsticked for the dance, and lures that distant sun
to extend a long tongue, and lick,
lick, lick
along the quivering furls of her bud,
and coax each petal
to open
with his hot, wet breath.
He has all day to play,
with fiery fingers along their edges,
back and forth, back and forth,
like an accomplished zither player,
caressing and plucking the strings
till the notes fly up to the stars
and the rose bursts open in glorious song to the sun.
I don’t know where you are,
or if you’re alive,
or if you even remember.
Today, a newborn bud
thrashes about, rebounding like a madwoman
under the fists of a pugilistic morning wind,
and with no morning sun to orchestrate,
she can hold no tune.
But had you come back,
and had you said sorry,
and had I said sorry,
and had you begun to dig in my garden again,
to rake
to weed
to plant the seedlings and break apart the roots and replant here and there
to create a veritable chorale of colour…
well, I think you knew,
that while those blooms would have sung all day to the sun,
they would have sung only one song,
and it would have been your song,
never ever mine.
Editor’s Note: While love poems involving roses are as old as love and roses, Jawary has managed the near impossible by bringing something fresh and new to the metaphor. There is a tasteful eroticism here, too--again, no simply feat! SWG
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Passion Flower
Anita
You floozy!
Sunning your sensitive stamens and stigma
in full view
of every bee, bird or butterfly
that comes your way!
Extending your arms
to curl round the staid old olive tree
who had no time to look up your name in his ancient dictionary,
you wove yourself around
and in and out of his venerable branches
and kissed and caressed him long enough to draw out his dormant tongue now alight with lustbefore you tied the knot and moved on
and left him to find his own way home.
Then it was the cumquat tree.
Your fingers, curling, as was their wont,
round his finely patterned trunk,
creeping slowly upward.
Strumming your lyre the while, you sang all day of love and desire and fruitful plenty
so that his swelling fruit hardly noticed
when you pulled at the knot
and cut off
its only supply
of sustenance.
You even played around with my
and practiced your spirals and arabesques
all along its metallic lengths,
threading and knotting yourself along the way round its old plastic pegs and sullying my clean sheets and towels
and singing at the top of your voice
and never doubting your right to make your way
to my wisteria!
Your family can all vouch for you?
Yes I know, you’re brimming
with LAAAHV.
Yet there isn’t one plant in my small
that hasn’t suffered
the strength of your passion.
My secateurs mean nothing to you.
They only encourage you to flourish and to sing,
and to reach notes higher than La Stupenda.
Don’t you think that as an immigrant
you should be a little more circumspect?
I do not call on the militia lightly.
Soon, the gyrations of their electric saws, like rounds of barraging bullets
will cut off your song,
and those high notes of yours, of which you are so proud,
will twist into mad cries for help.
Today, in the stillness of my small
I sip my tea at nine,
while the staid old olive tree, his trunk still tangled
in knotted repression,
still wears his dull sleepy grey.
The cumquat, in neat pots, will give me one jar of jam next year
and the wisteria will display
her sweet lilac blooms
like a debutante, till the night wild possums descend
and debouch her tenderness.
Was it simply envy on my part
that made me cut you down?
I do miss your purple
Are you still alive in Paraguay?
What do you say? Can we try again?
My dear Beautiful Passion Flower, don’t you know?
That nowhere on this planet
will you find
small back yards
large enough,
no, not even mine,
for a passion as big as yours.
Poet's Notes: I wrote both these poems during our 2020 lock-down. Each morning, I would sit in my old red velvet armchair and look out at my garden. I became intimately acquainted with each plant and weed there and made many friends.
Editor’s Note:
About the Poet: Anita Jawary is a Melbourne writer and artist. She has published over 200 journalistic articles, is author of The Perpetual Table and creator of The Dickensian Challenge. She has had ten solo exhibitions and has been involved in several group shows. Through all her creative pursuits, Anita strives to share her continued awe and astonishment at the shimmer and magic of this glorious, bedeviled world.
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Pairings/Parings
Sandy Deutscher Green
The orchard enters our kitchen bustling through the side door
sweeping keys and recipe cards from the counter
tree roots clutch fists of soil
high branches tangle with our hanging pots
we scramble to gather them to wash and crush for cider
He tosses them in the galvanized tub
runs cold water from the sink, picking out twigs and leaves
but the orchard demands we make
We politely decline, and it scrapes away through the door
the doughnut and ice cream type:
I’m the four apple cider doughnut balls plump and sweet
sliding like ice skaters on a mulled raisin butter puddle
he’s the scoop of ice cream
veins of cinnamon cutting through the cream
topped with a crisp apple chip beret
instead of
which he doffs to me and says:
Good harvest this year
We’re the perfect pair, cakey soft heat plated
next to his suave chill, a spicy fire in the snappish air
indeed… as I sweep stems, twigs, and apple peelings
out the door, and he gathers them to burn.
Notes: My daughter is a pastry chef, and I wanted to honor her work with a collection of poems. This is one poem in a baker’s dozen.
Editor’s Note: The apple is, of course, steeped in love lore since Eve offered one to Adam, but Sandy does amazing, fresh, and new things with the metaphor. The personification of the orchard is exhilarating. And the dessert stanzas near the end ruined my diet (thanks for that!). SWG
About the Poet: Bio: Sandy Deutscher Green writes from her home in Virginia USA where her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears in Bitter Oleander, Paper Dragon, Neologism, and The Lake, as well as in her chapbooks, Pacing the Moon (Flutter Press, 2009) and Lot for Sale. No Pigs (BatCat Press, 2019).
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Love Sandwich
Paula Rudnick
When I think about my father
he’s not in the Veteran’s Home,
green eyes bouncing down
the rail-lined hallways
looking for his bearings.
He’s at our summer house
folding sandwiches in plastic wrap
tight as Army cots,
flags of tissue wicking blood,
hoping
will communicate his love for me
without the awkwardness of hugs.
We didn’t march in close formation
on the mowed parade ground
of suburban life post-war.
Once he packed away his rifle,
he built other battlements to keep him safe
from enemy attack or friendly fire.
I tried to make him proud
with commendations and awards,
but when I won, I forfeited
my special spot as
the team he always rooted for
in snowy weekend football games.
I want to climb into his lap now
so we can yell together
at the nightly news,
snap our country from the spell
of flimflam men and thieves,
show him that the values
he insisted we embody
are etched into my backbone
like the rest of what he fought for,
deep as
spread with mayonnaise and mustard
on a bruised linoleum counter.
Poet’s Notes: My father wanted to be Don Draper in “Mad Men”, but wound up working for my mother’s uncle, a former Boston bootlegger, after attending West Point and earning a Bronze Star in Korea. He passed away in 2014.
Editor’s Note: I like this poem about the love between child and father. Paula also captures the way serving in the military can carry over into civilian life in a good way. SWG
About the Poet: Paula Rudnick is a former TV producer whose credits range from
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GENERAL SUBMISSION
solar winds
Mark A. Fisher
we sail upon the solar winds
all through the infinite worlds
boundless in the starry sky
eons in instances pass
all through the infinite worlds
evolution takes its time
eons in instances pass
civilizations come and go
evolution takes its time
on fragile blue little worlds
civilizations come and go
while extinction leaves its holes
on fragile blue little worlds
while extinction leaves its holes
where once were beautiful dreams
dreamers each cherish their hopes
boundless in the starry sky
where once were beautiful dreams
eons in instances pass
Editor’s Note: What a beautiful, flowing, impeccably constructed pantoum! SWG
About the Poet: Mark A. Fisher is a writer, poet, and playwright in Tehachapi, California. His poetry has appeared in several journals, including Songs of Eretz; his plays have appeared on California stages from Bakersfield, Tehachapi, Pine Mountain Club, and Hayward. His short poem "there are fossils" came in second in the 2020 Dwarf Stars competition for short speculative poetry.
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Molly
Thomas Reed Willemain
Six years now Molly’s gone.
It feels wrong that
he thinks of her, now,
just a few times a day.
There was a time she’d
been on his mind too much,
him asking for help with this
and that and where’s my whatever.
She’d always said yes dear
Yes just a wee minute dear
Something’s on the boil.
Ah, “yes” and “boiling”!
Not that she was a Molly Bloom
but “yes” and “boiling” call up
dusty memories of yes
I’m boiling yes and yes all those years.
The boil seems distant
most days but not all.
Now and then a spark,
quick to pass but noted.
He was grateful she thought
the boil a gift, a present,
a thing never certain but
never gone for long.
He hopes it not now gone,
that this form of enthusiasm
will fire him again
before his quiet.
He thinks enthusiasm too little
appreciated because a woman
can look a gnarled stump
but save everything with enthusiasm.
He never indulges such thoughts
but sometimes he gets close
if the God of Supermarkets gives him
the right girl to bag his oatmeal.
He doesn’t feel disloyal about that
because Molly cheated and went first,
leaving him a man of cold ash
and lost enthusiasm.
Editor’s Note: I am quite moved by this love
About the Poet: Thomas Reed Willemain,
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Pinnacle
Dawn Vogel
Atop the lonely mountain,
no other souls in sight,
we find the vented place by its scent.
After sacred cool clouds surround you,
I warm to you with soft hot smoke,
and we join together, as one.
Our desire a wild sky,
devouring,
through these moist breezes.
Yet you and I
were like steam and fire,
and morning's rosy-fingered blush.
About the Poet: Dawn Vogel's academic background is in history, so it's not surprising that much of her fiction is set in earlier times. By day, she edits reports for historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business, co-runs a small press, and tries to find time for writing. Her steampunk adventure series, Brass and Glass, is available from DefCon One Publishing. She is a member of Broad Universe, SFWA, and Codex Writers. She lives in Seattle. Visit her at http://historythatneverwas.com.
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A Map of South America
Well, this is awkward.
I had it all planned out: the casual catch-up,
you with coffee, me with tea...
the venue: quiet; unhurried vibe – and, crucially,
well off the beat of anyone we know, might see
us
accidentally
the day and time: made sure we'd both be free
all afternoon, had nowhere urgent else to be.
It all had to be right –
for you of course, but mostly, yes, I guess, for me.
I had this thing to say, you see,
about the way things are – or, maybe, possibly...you know...could be?
between the two of us? er... you and me? Yeah. Obviously.
Though mostly about how your eyes make me forget
how words are
matter anyway to someone made half misery, half glee
but before we’d even ordered you were talking, so excitedly,
about this time next month and
You pointed at the map.
"They have a lot of coffee there," you joked. "You know:
like in the song." – and, laughing, smiled at me.
So I smiled too, with you – for you –
and sipped my tea.
About the Poet: Sixty-three-year-old recovering actor Ken Cumberlidge was born in Birkenhead, UK and cut his performance teeth on the Liverpool pub poetry scene of the 1970s. He has been writing poetry, songs and stories on and off for over forty years. Examples of his work have appeared variously in print and, more recently, online in venues including Algebra of Owls, Allegro, As Above so Below, The Fiction Pool, Impspired, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Message In a Bottle, The Open Mouse, Picaroon, Rat's Ass Review, Runcible Spoon, Spilling Cocoa…, Strange Poetry, and Snakeskin. Since 2011, Ken has been based in Norwich, but can be lured out of cover by good company and an open mic--a proclivity that has led him to become an habitué of the slam/spoken word scene
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Courtship
Colleen Anderson
Predawn, the first taste
sun licks the shoreline’s lips
the time it takes to draw a breath
the moment before beginning
an errant rooster crows
and crows slight fury at night that ends so soon
as every night
The sun encroaches further
resolute to slowly stroke the shore
murmurs, its warm breath tickles
the long woody necks of trees
as they shiver ever so slightly
from a breeze
the subtle serenade of solar love
Throughout the languid summer months
the seduction continues
the rooster always crows
his anger at the sun’s brazen touch
but nothing stops the shore from warming
or the trees from blushing a full heady emerald
replete with loving caresses
The time of courtship passes
though solar romance discounts the seasons
everything is not the same
in the wavering heat so deep
the rooster has lost vigor to crack that silence
the trees bend low, burgeoning
then drop ripe coconuts upon the sand
The sun moves off
not so close as it once was
now a time of biding begins
of trees aloof and sun unheeding and rooster striding
impotent until the dance is renewed and the offspring
of a cyclic courtship and serenade
drop once more to the sand
Poet’s Notes: Nature (both flora and fauna) is one long courtship of growth and renewable. Our greatest love should be for the earth which sustains us all, regardless of who or what we are.
About the Poet: Colleen Anderson lives in Vancouver, BC
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Tamiko Dooley
The bedtime story isn’t told
Perching on the edge of his wipe-clean mattress
Or from the dinosaur beanbag
In the corner of his room.
She doesn’t need to avoid the
creaky floorboard on the way out.
Instead, as his eyelids flutter
And he steals away to today and yesterday,
To what will and could be,
She peers into the screen
And watches his grip on
As one by
Once his shallow breathing beats a regular rhythm,
He’s
She stays awhile, drinking him in
From the other side of the town,
Singing Komori-
Fingers across the stuffed Totoro
Only intended for a short stay, to be washed properly.
He hasn’t been picked up yet.
She tries to recall the feather of his cheek,
The tickle of his overgrown mop,
His heaviness on her lap,
the scent of the soap he uses for eczema.
When the screen flickers
And she’s staring into
She thinks of Kayobi,
and it wraps futon-like around her
And keeps her warm.
About the Poet: Tamiko is a half-Japanese mother of two, born and raised in England. When there’s no pandemic, she’s hired as a wedding pianist from time to time.
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Foot Loose
Bob McAfee
I like to think of myself as a foot fancier,
a
There are two types of feet: yours,
fleshy and firm, with evenly spaced toes
and what I have, skin-covered bones,
random
a gift from my dad
about whom my mother said,
“If I had seen his feet before we were married,
it wasn’t going to happen.”
Fortunately, you are a leg fancier,
and my foot limitations are somewhat offset
by my muscular legs which
of good fortune, it worked out that for you
to place your legs against my legs
I got to place my feet against your feet,
and here we are dancing barefoot on the beach,
your feet on mine as the
my feet slowly melting into the sand.
Editor’s Note: I like the whimsy of this poem, balanced by a serious, if somewhat comical, moment. The poem is exactly twenty lines--one for each toe of each spouse--which adds a nice meta aspect. SWG
About the Poet: Bob McAfee is a retired software consultant who lives with his wife near Boston. For several years he made an hour train commute to and from Boston and developed the habit of writing in that fixed time. He continues to try to write
Bob is the author of several poetry collections available through Harvard Bookstore (Harvard.com). His latest collection, Natural Worlds, is available through bookbaby.com (2021). His poems have been accepted by The Lyric, The Blue Mountain Review, The Burning House Press, Liquid Imagination, Abstract: Contemporary Expressions, Minute Magazine, and The Society of Classical Poets Journal.
Email Bob at bob.mcafee@comcast.net; enjoy his website at bobmcafee.com.
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Gerri Leen
I was alone and you found me
Out of love, still seeking
From two, one
Life turned technicolor
From shades of gray
Was it too good to be true?
But we were so in love, how could we fail?
We were so in love; how could we fail?
Like so many couples, we didn't last
It was too good to be true
Life turned from technicolor
Back to shades of gray
From one, two
Still seeking, out of love
You found me and I was alone
Poet’s Notes: I really wanted to see if I could play with a sort of form--I'm far more a free verse type--where the same basic words could mean the opposite thing and have some resonance. I'm still new at this, and at times the form overtakes the beauty for me. I was really pleased with the way this one came together and love the idea of how neutral words can be until they're paired with a situation.
About the Poet: Gerri Leen is a poet from Northern Virginia who enjoys horse racing, tea, and collecting encaustic art and raku pottery. She has poetry published in Strange Horizons, Dreams & Nightmares, Polu Texni, NewMyths.com, and others. She also writes fiction in many genres (as Gerri Leen for speculative and mainstream, and Kim Strattford for romance) and is a member of HWA and SFWA. Visit gerrileen.com.
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The Love Trap
Carol Lavelle Snow
Like light filtering through trees
as day begins
or a quiet, gentle rain.
Not red splashed across
the western sky
or the noise and bombast
of a thunderstorm.
No, it began quietly
not even touching
but
on gradually
and, yes, surprise--
the delight of being caught.
About the Poet: Carol Lavelle Snow has an MFA in drama. She played Aunt Eller in Discoveryland’s production of Oklahoma! for eleven summers. She has published fiction as well as poetry in journals including The Lyric, Texas Poetry Calendar, and StepAway Magazine.
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Frequent Contributor News
Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to announce the following publication credits among current and former Frequent Contributors and staff.
Associate Editor Terri Lynn Cummings
Terri and FC Vivian Finley Nida presented
Editor-in-Chief Steven Wittenberg Gordon
Steve’s short story “Results Are Guaranteed” was anthologized in It Came From Her Purse!, edited by Terrie Leigh Relf & Marcia A. Borell (Hiraeth Books), available in trade paperback for $13.00 at www.HiraethSFFH.com. “The Antenna”, a poem by FC John C. Mannone, also appears.
Former FC Mary Soon Lee
Mary had four poems published in Star*Line #44.2, Spring 2021.
Her poem "Mythic Book Emporium" was published in DreamForge Anvil #2 and is online at https://dreamforge.mywebportal.app/dreamforge/stories/show/mythic-book-emporium-mary-soon-lee.
Her poem "Alien Armada" is in The Future Fire, Issue 2021.57, April 2021 and is online at http://futurefire.net/2021.57/fiction/alien.html.
Her poem "How to Enlist in Andromeda" is in Dreams & Nightmares #118, May 2021.
Her poem "Haiku in the Time of COVID-19" is in Uppagus #46, June 2021, and is online at https://uppagus.com/poems/soon-lee-haiku/.
Her short story "In My Tower" appeared in Daily Science Fiction https://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/fairy-tales/mary-soon-lee/in-my-tower.
Her poem "How to Mourn Kepler's Supernova" appeared in
FC Vivian Finley Nida
Her poem “Monarch Butterfly” appears in Oklahoma Humanities magazine, Spring/Summer 2021 edition.
Featured FC Charles A. Swanson
Charles had one essay and five poems included in the print anthology Writers by the River: Reflections on 40+ Years of the Highland Summer Conference, edited by Donia S. Eley and Grace Toney Edwards (McFarland Press, 2021, Writers by the River – McFarland mcfarlandbooks.com.
Former FC Alessio Zanelli
Alessio is the featured poet with eight poems in Volume 44/45, No. 1, Fall/Winter 2020/21 of The Nashwaak Review, published at St. Thomas University of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada https://www.stu.ca/english/the-nashwaak-review/.
His poem “Cosmic Nemesis” is in the 2021 edition, Vol. 51 of Sanskrit, Literary-Arts Magazine, published by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte https://www.sanskritmagazine.com/.
His second bilingual selection, Ghiaccielo/
He has a poem in Italian Poetry Review (USA/Italy) https://www.sefeditrice.it/collane/italian-poetry-review/16.
He has a poem in Artemis (USA) https://www.artemisjournal.org/.
He has two poems in Concho River Review (USA) https://www.angelo.edu/departments/english-modern-languages/concho_river_review.php.
He has a poem in Slant (USA) https://uca.edu/english/slant-a-journal-of-poetry/.
He has a poem in The Comstock Review (USA) http://comstockreview.org/.
He has a poem in The Lyric (USA) https://thelyricmagazine.com/.
He has a poem in New Contrast (South Africa) http://www.newcontrast.net/.
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Forthcoming
For those of you following the progress of Lana the Poetree,
Our fall 2021 issue will have “religion” as its theme--a Songs of Eretz first. Submissions will open August 1, and close
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SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW
SUMMER 2021 "LOVE" ISSUE
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