Dawn Leas, Three Poems

Delta
Dawn Leas

I am a mosaic of Emerald Isle,
Italian leather and gypsy song.

I am swirls of magic,
Stories my grandmother told in Slovak,
a foreign language she lived in,
but never taught us.

I am salt. I am water.
Flowing blue to green,
dancing calm to chaos in a white foam dress.

I did not root in mountain mud
like an evergreen, but in sand,
like a pitch pine or orchid
moving with fire and breeze
in the barrens of New Jersey.

I am the woman
stepping off the known trail Continue reading “Dawn Leas, Three Poems” →

December 12, 2017 0

Jim Zola, The Gingerbread Boy Turns 40

Vintage, Christmas, Gingerbread People, Enchanted Forest, Route 40, Ellicott City, Maryland,

The Gingerbread Boy Turns 40
Jim Zola

Last night’s love carries me
back across the river.
I hurry the kids for school,
replace missing gumdrops,
straighten crooked faces.
Fox grumbles that our life
has grown stale.
Sometimes I hear Continue reading “Jim Zola, The Gingerbread Boy Turns 40” →

December 11, 2017 0

Dean Robbins, Two Poems

You . . . Again
Dean Robbins

“I know. It’s just habit,”
he says standing too close
to an old memory;
trying to warm himself
against a coal burner
some weeks ago removed
from ever offering
to stay the cold again.
I smile, thinking of you,
and wish I did not know
exactly what he means.

Family Reunion
Dean Robbins

The snakeskin, most complete and long enough Continue reading “Dean Robbins, Two Poems” →

December 11, 2017 0

Patricia Farnelli, Two Poems

Corroboration
Patricia Farnelli

My great-grandmother Augusta
saw leprechauns daily.
She shared her high four-poster bed with me,
age three.
I slept on the side against the wall.
When wee green men
danced on her chest of drawers
she would yell for my mother
to bring a broom
and sweep them away.

My great-grandmother was thin
and wore cat-eye glasses
and she’d say, “Let’s go for a walk
around the block”
and take me by the hand
and we’d walk a few laps
around the dining room table. Continue reading “Patricia Farnelli, Two Poems” →

December 6, 2017 0

Ken Haas, Two Poems

Perfection
Ken Haas

In junior high Spanish class
Mr. Koochman gave each kid a nickname
that followed us into the streets.

The pouty ingénue was Labios Levine,
the over-developed blonde Melones Morgan,
the kid from the projects, Kong Coleman.
The hairy one became Oso,
the sweaty one Puerco,
and the frail, nervous one
who rode the D train early
with the night nurses and winos,
was dubbed Hércules.

This was the Bronx in 1965.

Koochman, a cadaver in tweed, Continue reading “Ken Haas, Two Poems” →