The Irony of a Snag
Changming Yuan
1.
You have long since died
But you will never fall
Standing deadly among leafy growths Continue reading “Changming Yuan, Winter 2017”
Changming Yuan, Winter 2017
Mary Buchinger, Winter 2017
Snowstorm
Mary Buchinger
and after begins
the art of subtraction
the digging to find
what was before
cars follow plows
blinking yellow
along temporary-walled
salted paths
but the river practices
addition lying still
folded into blankets
quiet and absorbing
in this world white Continue reading “Mary Buchinger, Winter 2017”
Marjorie Maddox, Winter 2017
Two Sets of Clerihews by Marjorie Maddox
Literary Clerihews
Marjorie Maddox
Shakespeare
has an ear
for lovely sonnets.
He must know phonics!
* * *
Edgar Allan Poe
loves to scare us so
with thumping hearts beneath the floor
and ravens squawking, “Nevermore.” Continue reading “Marjorie Maddox, Winter 2017”
Harold Jenkins, Winter 2017
Ora Pro Nobis
Harold Jenkins
Between the worn wooden pews
parishioners in a double row
approach the priest to take Communion
rocking with each step
Fewer every year
thinner, fatter, grayer, balder
fewer baptisms, more funerals Continue reading “Harold Jenkins, Winter 2017”
Sandra Kolankiewicz, Winter 2017
On the 75th Anniversary of the Defeat of Poland
Sandra Kolankiewicz
For John Guzlowski, who invited me to be Polish.
Their defeat was lovely, noble except
for the horses, and afterwards if you
were someone, nothing changed. Historically
they went to live at the court of the place
which had just defeated them, dependent,
prisoners of another sort but still
first in line for the potatoes. Likewise
we rebel but underestimate
the problem. Those are shadows coming
across the plains, yet we wait, wanting an
obvious enemy. Seventy-five
years is nothing to a trilobite or
the boy in the bow of a canoe where
the glistening light tells him he will live
forever. I think of you as if you
were already in your bed, myself like
I willingly packed up my clothes for a Continue reading “Sandra Kolankiewicz, Winter 2017”
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