Poet's Corner

SUMMER SOLSTICE

I remember how you looked that long, humid night—rabid and fierce.

Your mother made some kind of bitter holistic root tea we drank.

In the den, your dad was practicing Japanese for his next trip,

while your brother Scotty was teaching an egg to do tricks

on the speckled Formica kitchen counter.

We snuck out behind your house that endless June night,

to the vacant Baptist school, to the place where the moon nested

with the mockingbirds in the branches of an old banyan tree.

On the front patio, a one-winged palmetto bug flopped into the wall

as your dog Ankota mercilessly pawed it from one corner to the next.

“Hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Music dancing through the leaves gave you reason enough to touch me.

Bio: Laura McDermott, a true native of South Florida, studied creative writing at FSU and received her MFA from FIU while concentrating on poetry in her studies. Currently, Laura is a full time instructor on temporary status at Broward College – South Campus, as well as a part-time instructor at Florida International University and Johnson and Wales University.  For the past five years, she’s served as the Festival Coordinator of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.  Because of her dedication to higher education and writing, Laura received recognition as a 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication Professional Equity Project Grant Recipient.

Lunch

I meet her once a month

in her housing project lobby.

We do lunch.

We trudge, her cane tapping,

my palm on her trembling elbow,

to the corner luncheonette,

I watch her take small bird bites

out of overstuffed platters as she repeatedly

rearranges sugar, ketchup, salt and pepper,

while telling and retelling neatly looped stories

about my dead mother, their shared girlhood,

the farm in the Berkshires, the beach at Coney Island

as though there were no now,

just then, and my mother, long dead,

my mother, still protecting her, my mother

still offering a place to belong, a tribe, comfort,

as this fragile old lady, sipping dishwater coffee,

offers me this ancient map,

and I offer her brief respite from

whatever is just ahead.

 Changing Perspective

Without the language

of the wilderness, I fear

isolated unmarked trails.

Those climbing, hiking,

or riding the rapids are carried by that

splendid feeling of immortality I once knew.

Inside between other gray-haired visitors

I watch the looped film on history and geology,

then pause to study ants clustered

near the pit toilet, laboriously

carrying out some Sisyphean task,

reminding me of how challenging

the smallest of worlds becomes in time.

Now, eating cheese sandwiches

that melted in the hot car,

I suspect that we may appear

to have lost our passion

to become one with nature.

When in fact, we have finally

mastered the art of being exactly

as intimate as we choose to be.

 Bio:

Anita Pulier practiced law in New York and New Jersey for thirty years and was happy to trade legal writing for poetry when she retired several years ago. Anita is currently the representative at the United Nations for the US section of the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom

Birthday Paradox

(fold here)

He tells her he’s drawing up
a poem about her without letting
slip that it is, indeed, about her. Rather,
about a she, a proper she, resembling
her. He approaches, while she sits
in her folding chair, reading: Ah, God,
the way your little finger moved, and
asks for her to let slip the elastic
band of her panties, revealing
a scar hidden just below her waist
line. Along these lines, the poem
about she, and her, begins; along a
perforated line, working title: Reductio
ad absurdum:

“My little finger moved along
the broken line, marked-out on the
skin just below her waistline. An incision,
from an appendectomy, when she
was a child. My little finger moved
along the scar, listening: the dialectic,
like Morse code. I choose, to fold,
not tear. I draw an arrow with
permanent ink, and fold:
I fold
my wife in half by the waistline.
She’s excited, so, she laughs, like
keys, because she doesn’t mind,
for I was writing a poem about my
wife, while now facing the back of
her lower-half. I run my little finger
along the crease behind her knees,
along the line at the bottom of
her buttocks, as well as the
cleft. A symbol, Aries, upside-
down. I trace the outline of a
butterfly, a Painted Lady, perched
just above the crest. The skin, like
Braille, spelling out her name:
K-a-s-s-i-a, in parenthesis. I draw
a perforated line just above the
crest, and an arrow, and fold:
I fold
my wife in half, once again. I notice
beads of sweat, like a necklace of
ellipses, running along the furrow
of her back; the margin, like a bracket,
closing-off the undefined; no
secrets. A laugh; quieted, but unblocked.
The baby-like hairs along the hair
line at the bottom of her neck. Too
half-grown to fly away. I listen to
their gossip, and choose to fold, and
not tear. I draw a perforated line
along the margin of her back; another
arrow, and fold:
I fold
my wife in half, once again. Now,
her face to my face; drawn to her
eyes. Her eyes, like ribbons, a
Lemniscate in bold typeface—
unbounded. I erase lines of
tears with both of my thumbs,
outlining the shapes of two
parentheses along the crown
of her cheek bones, forming an
emoticon of asylum. I trace
the scar along her right eyelid,
like a hem; an accident when
she was a child. A tear line.
I once again choose to fold
instead. I want inside, though
I cannot. Therefore, I draw another
arrow, and fold along the tear
line of her eyelid:
I fold
my wife once again, and continue to
fold her, in halves, like pleats, until
she fits within the borders of my palm,
like a parenthesis within another
set. An arrow at its center, along an
unbroken union line. I close my palm
and let nothing else slip.”

While she sits in her folding chair,
he unfolds his palm, revealing a page
folded many times over. A poem to
her, written for her. She laughs, and
places Ah, God, the way your little
finger moved, off to the side. A gift,
for her birthday. She unfolds, and
reads.

After serving four years in the U.S. Navy, Michael J. Pagan returned home to Florida to pursue a B.A. in English at Florida Atlantic University. He is currently an M.F.A. student-in-progress (Poetry) at Florida Atlantic University where he is also one of the poetry editors for its literary Magazine, Coastlines. He has published two works: “Palmistry” and “Writing Surfaces,” both in the 2009 edition of Coastlines. He also has an interview with acclaimed poet/novelist/essayist/translator Forrest Gander being published in the 2010 edition of Coastlines.

Maroon Recliner

             —after Maxine Kumin’s “How it is”

I think of the phone call,

honey, how I would let it ring,

the voices mute, the crying left unheard

back from the violent thunder of the shot

back down to the garden, your pleading hands lowered

picking petals from a white gardenia

dropping them in a fragrant flag of surrender,

looking back to the beginning, where all we knew

gathered, a Sunday dinner

with fried chicken and iced tea, our love like a tearful prayer.

A year and a half after your death I sink into your maroon recliner.

The right armrest is thread worn.  Under the cushion, a piece

of wire and a milk chocolate wrapper from a birthday

long passed.  My body slips into the edges of your chair.

My husband you have aroused in me

the need for love.  I whimper—

a puddle, a rock thrown, my reflection broken.

It will take years to capture the snapshots of our memory,

my heart, an envelope,

a tearing from the diary of a spirit.

As You Will Be

Celebrating our anniversary this week has 

me curious, who were you before we were married?

I know the stories

but what about the ones left out—

the version that only echoes in the space

of wordless translation, a drying ghost.

I bet you were the type that swayed to loud music

in fresh air venues,

smoking pot with bare feet and stringy hair

your scent like a tree or the last autumn camp fire;

listening to hallucinating drum beats,

taking you farther from where you ever thought you would be.

Or were you a celebrity

glowing with the flush of youth

neat curls of gel-licked hair like the Italian lover

who is fashionably flashy,

a new swanky woman on your arm

with every dinner?  Did you charm,

were you sultry and suave?

The distant past before the vows

is now the present.  And it has come to me.

I want to claim my solemn promise.

I want to explore your past
comb the clues you left for your future self,

learn your face, your mysteries,

because the original sin is

in loving a stranger.

Bio: Rachel Fogarty is an undergraduate student at USF where she is pursuing a BA in Creative Writing.  She lives in Brooksville, Florida with her husband and their two children.

Yellow Legs

I wish I had yellow legs

like the ring-billed gulls

who strut along the beach;

unwelcome houseguests

expecting to be served.

Or, like the gray sandpipers

who dart in and out

of the ocean’s tides

waiting for dinner

to arrive at their feet.

And the great white heron

who steals through the marsh

on saffron stilts

stalking the minnow

just out of reach.

When you have yellow legs

nothing is demanded of you

except to be admired.

You move through the world

on crocus-colored limbs.

Affixed with a pair of permanent coins

you waltz through the turnstile

past the guardhouse

and over the gate

without paying the toll.

There’s no need for stockings

to hide your twisted stumps;

no shoes required

to cushion calluses and corns.

Imperfect posts transform into Art.

With lemon-painted props,

you can never get lost;

your friends will always find you.

Even strangers know who you are

and what you stand for.

And if you’re lucky,

like the purple gallinule

or the snowy egret

who grace the ground with beauty,

your toes will be topaz, too.

So when you leave this earth

and fly towards heaven

the vivid aura of saints and angels

will streak behind you;

gilded, like the sun.

A Moral Dilemma

Driving north on 441

he hears the dull thud and crunch

of animal flesh hitting the blacktop

before he sees it; a hypothermic lizard

has slipped from a treetop, bounced and bumped

along the roadway in its arctic catatonia

and settled under the front wheels of his pickup.

It’s twenty-seven degrees in the tropics

and the iguanas are dropping

like giant lime-green popsicles from

the Florida palms, frangipanis and bougainvilleas.

He could rev up the engine

and pulverize the pup; after all,

this far-flung remnant of the genus iguanodon

is by no means endangered. Hell no!

it’s not even a native.

It’s a mother f. . .’n illegal alien

that’s chomped its way north

from Lima to Lakeland, gorging itself

on the Sunshine State’s sweet bounty

and Boca Raton’s garbage.

Or, he could take the high ground,

wrap the slimy stiff in a blanket,

melt it down in his garage, and haul it

to the ASPCA in the morning.

He listened to his better angels

(and the voice of Jiminy Cricket),

but when the big newt woke up from

playing Rumpelstiltskin in the back of the truck,

it climbed into the front of the cab

to say ‘thank you’ to the sucker

and sent the driver reeling off the road

into a live oak that saw it coming.

The iguana survived; don’t know how the Samaritan fared.

He should’ve read more Jonathan Swift

and opted for “decreasing the surplus population.”

Bio: Beth SK Morris is Adjunct Professor of Speech Communication at PBSC, South Campus. She has been a participant poet at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival since 2009, and was the second prize winner in the 2009 Writers Network of South Florida Poetry Division for her poem, “Feeding Frenzy.”

The Mask

Night enters through the narrow opening,

wearing a gilded mask with raven feathers

 rising above  two hollow eyes

silver and gold tassels hang

like trim around a bordello lamp,

ready to reveal and capture,

 the one who can look in and see

 the dancing  horse hidden in the grassy field.

Eyes wide open, don’t look away,

As the dancing horse stares

The  night covers their innocence,

Lighting strikes like a marked dagger

 As the rider steps deeper and deeper

 where the dancing horse bows and leaps away,

Are you inside me the mask wonders?

The  rider and horse skip through the night

Teasing and touching the morning

Revealing  the other side

Filled with candy canes and fairy tales

That only a few dare to take

 Eyes wide shut, the night slips back

As the hollow eyes reflect

the horse and the rider inside.

Two Oceans

One side is flat

calm in the morning,

with green and blue reflections,

but dark and eerie as the full moon

casts a pathway

along the horizon.

The other side

White caps cover the cold waters

 full of hills with crisp breezes

 and tall mountain tops

 that thrust  upward

 from the bottom of a time long gone.

The hot and humid

The cool and breezy

both capture and seduce you

like a trance from a magician’s spell.

The hot  air strikes

Like a branding iron

burning  into raw skin

But the cold is the past

And comforts

like a woolen  blanket on a snowy night.

I can paint them on canvas

Write about them

Like a man and woman

Moving in sync  for the first time.

Touching both,

Feeling both,

Living both.

Two oceans

On the opposite sides

Becoming  one.

Bio: Karen Herzog has been a journalism/film teacher for twenty years in Miami, Florida, and is currently Media Specialist at Braddock Senior High.

Herzog has also taught at Miami-Dade College and University of South Florida. She holds A BA from Florida State University, a BS and MS from Florida International University, an MFA from the University of Miami, and an MLS from the University of South Florida. Her interests include reading, writing, politics, film, social issues, painting, and photography.

OED

“Love, n.2 -Any one of a set of transverse beams supporting the spits in a smokehouse for curing herring” (Oxford English Dictionary).

A perfect world is one where
the man who reads the whole of the OED
falls tumblingly, madly in love

with the woman who has 20,000 dictionaries.

I read about them both
in a newspaper article,
which also mentioned his girlfriend,
who does not have 20,000 dictionaries.
Perhaps they’re both happy,
and living how they should,
or he’s repellent,
or she’s repellent,
and they’d just hate each other
in the end.
But I can’t help thinking
it would be

the greatest love story
ever told.

///////////

Giving away every day

 It isn’t that I hate myself

want to keep my genes from spreading,

to protect the earth from evil human hands.

No, I’m too selfish,

for a sacrifice like that.

I simply can’t stomach the thought

of something living—

squirming and twisting

inside my insides.

Leeching every bit of me away—

shifting my very structure,

just so I can be prepared to give away

every day.

My mother told me once

that she would take a bullet for me—

as though that would inspire

some deeply buried maternal instinct.

As though letting go of our lives,

and deaths,

is something to be cheered.

Maura MacDonald

Bio:

Maura Mac Donald graduated from Roanoke College in 2008, where they gave me an absurdly large piece of paper that says I know things about English. I’m currently in Oxford (the one in England) where I’m learning some things about publishing from Oxford Brookes University. As a part of my publishing degree, I’m in the process of putting together the first issue of my poetry magazine Quintessential, which will hopefully continue long after the course ends. While I’m doing all this learning I like to knit, drink tea, curse, and write poems.

Writing quote:

I tried to think of a deep and meaningful quote about writing, and I know I’ve read and heard quite a few, but I keep coming back to something one of my professors told me about one of my poems “It’s a great poem,” she said “but you really need to smut up the beginning,” and she was right. So I suppose the lesson in that is to not be afraid to take your poems where they need to go; either that or to put more smut in.

“Dwell in possibility.”   –Emily Dickinson

 Emily in Amherst

 Whitewashed walls and drifts of snow, 
a narrow bed in a narrow room.
Kettle on the hearthfire steams,
shadows weave and wobble, cast
ghostly forms and faces on the beams.

 Each day not unlike the last,
she fills a box with slips of paper.
Shadows weave and wobble, cast
evening ghosts and lights aflutter
as the first bright flakes come falling fast.

Sunbeams, cloudy forms of foam,
shadows’ weave and wobble cast
a ship comes sailing through the gloom,
white sails, mist, and cloaking fog,
saltspray, purple petals, stalks of broom.

The kettle on the hearthfire sings.
Outstretched on the bed, eyes closed,
she fills a box with slips of paper.
Beyond four walls she lives a dream,
feet that lightly pirouette and caper.

She fills a box with slips of paper,
evening ghosts and lights aflutter.
Narrow bed in a narrow room.
Windowpanes begin to shudder,
wheels come spinning up the road alone.

 Ships come sailing through the gloom
up the old, tree-shadowed river,
stretched prone on the bed, eyes closed,
beyond four walls she lives adream.

Whitewashed walls, drifts of snow and foam.
Horses stamp, black coachwheels creak and groan.

Bio:

John Damon, a professor of medieval literature and linguistics at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, received his PhD and MA from the University of Arizona after serving as a high school English teacher in Washington and Arizona.  His career began with a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon.  His creative work has appeared in a wide range of journals, from Modern Haiku to Ellipsis …

Boxes

This is how your driver’s license,
Macy’s and social security
card will wind up in a Ziploc bag
on top of the brown striated box
from Office Depot.

You don’t bounce back after
the heart surgery even though
you do seventy laps the week before.
The truth is you aren’t the bouncy type.
Remember the gout toe,
the cane you used for three weeks?
Now you have trouble exhaling that baby blue
Spirometer ball.  It barely moves,
and neither do you.

You lose your keys, your wallet,
your teal Marlins cap. Then you lose
your will to live.  You exercise
your fingers as you click
the remote in your green recliner.
You stop looking forward
to three p.m. chocolate ice cream
and The New Price Is Right.

Voices blur in your ears
as if you are under water:
Keep fighting, feed yourself
Sit on the edge of the bed.
But you can’t. Meanwhile
bills and documents stack up in
boxes; they’re almost dead ringers
for thicker cardboard Shiva chairs
that will be delivered
from Weinstein’s Funeral home.

Your children will sit on them,
fidgeting and then they’ll go
through your unopened mail.
They’ll buy a box at Dunkin Donuts
with the coupon that expires in two weeks,
having found it just in time.

Haya Pomrenze’s poetry collection, Hook, was nominated for the National Book Award and the National Jewish Book Award. Her writing has appeared in the anthologies Irrepressible Appetites and Saints of Hysteria:  A Half Century of Collaborative American Poetry, as well as numerous journals including Gulf Stream, Mima’amakim, Mipoesias, Pearl, Zeek and Ocho.

Her poem “Boxes” was first published in Pearl.

Poetry Quote:

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.
–Robert Frost

Check here for the latest in beauty, inspiration, awe, and wonder.