Wednesday, April 10, 2013

April, 2013

FEATURED POET: Carol Alexander is a writer and editor in the field of educational publishing. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Bluestem, Canary, The Commonline, Chiron Review, Earthspeak, Eunoia Review, Ilya's Honey, Mobius, Northwind Magazine, Numinous, Red Fez, Red River Review, OVS, Poetrybay, Poetry Quarterly, The New Verse News, and Sugar Mule. New work is scheduled to appear in Poetica and the Mad Hatter's Review. Her work has also appeared in the anthologies Broken Circles, Joy Interrupted, The Storm is Coming, Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, and Surrounded: Living with Islands. Alexander was the Poetry Finalist in the Warriors Alliance Poetry Competition for "Rewind" and received Honorable Mention in NPR poetry contest judged by Tracy K. Smith for "Port Arthur Girl." Her poem "The Penalty" was nominated for the 2014 Pushcart Prize. Alexander lives in New York City with her family.


Rose Lake

In the midst of winter
when the wooden gate, suffering disrepair,
hung slovenly from its post
and a bleak wind blew through the house
with its lone gable, like an afterthought,
a folly or a remnant, a failure of vision,

deserting, derelict of duty, we fled into the marsh
and made something festive of the muck and chill.

Those nesting boxes on their flimsy posts--
a reminder of the isolation, the singularity
of that sweet pursuit of endless repetition
multiplying species upon species--
stood out from the sunken marsh,
the only trace of human endeavor.

You let me hold the binoculars.
Herons stalked among the sedge
and patience was rewarded
by a glimpse of frowsty head and beak.

Massasauga snake glided in the reek,
its tiny elliptical pupil winking like
an allegory we ignored, deliberately,
until we saw the gravid female,
drinking the last rays of refracted light,
its skin giving nothing off 
of self-absorbed darkness.

Was there a snake?
Yes.
Was there a garden?
Define your terms.




There was, in fact,
she of the woozy, riven heart,
vs. she of the cold hearth.
There was, like an afterthought,
a child grown surfeited
on the cloying fumes of gasoline,
curled in the front seat,
awaiting the verdict
under a white menace of sky.

When she begged you to bring the snake
back to the marsh you did it,
turning the car east and traveling over
thirty miles of December road
with little light  to steer by,
rutted roads passing horse barns
and fields where nothing much grew,
miles past the town limits
and the dim glow of scattered bungalows
and all-night package stores.

We skidded twice in the first gusts of rain,
rain that sent wheels into ditches rapidly glazed
as the temperature dropped in panic.
Twice we missed the turnoff to Rose Lake,
where we‘d found those beauties,
but where would you find a sign  at night
on such a willful, wandering road?

Round and round you went
on that crazy ride, then stopped for your drink
while I counted the stars and stopped my ears
against the slamming of doors and the throaty laughter
of men arming themselves against the night.

You were drinking to something or in farewell to something.
                                    .   .  
And then we came back to it, to Rose Lake,
and freed the venomous thing into the marsh,
then stood for eons in that purifying cold
knowing there was not and could not be a sign.
A miserable crossroads of a night, yet,
conceivably, there was some wisdom in it, after all.

-Carol Alexander

Ouija Board

Put it away: the dead have better things to do. They will not tell you how or when to love, though April, with its tender tear-washed leaves, might be as good a time as any.  Put it away. Under the hill where stacks of loved ones lie, strong roots draw on rich alluvial soil, yellowed bone collapses, feeding layered earth; white-throat birds make wistful our salty picnic on the grass. We like to dine where once we said goodbye, flinging crumbs to the pennycress mincing up through red topsoil.

Put the board away. It will not tell you how to lay a bet or when to cut and run or pick the trumpeting chanterelles for mouthy salad on this crapshoot of a day. I’ve plated glittering tropes for you: mackerel sky, wave of grass, pickled plum of woe.  What can gimcrack wood and trembling hand reveal that introspection can’t anneal? I’ve made strawberry pie and scone, wrapped them in a napkin only slightly worn. There were three weevils in the flour and those I simply flicked, flicked away.

Why inquire after grief that is to come? A friend once walked me through the graves, smiling as she witnessed mother, father, brother taken somewhat before his time. What time was that, I did not say, the mushrooms rioting near the stones. Some like them for an earthy metaphor, some eat them with a dish of bitter greens. We sat them on your dime store Ouija board and seasoned them with tears. The chanterelles and plain pine board in the end agreed: Live, you sore fools, live.

-Carol Alexander


WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS WRITING PROJECT
(High school poet)

Peaches

Someone once smiled and told me:
"You're a peach."
See, in my head, I knew
That the man who had
Just referred to me as a fruit
Was complimenting me,
Calling me sweet, tender.
But the only way I saw it,
I realized he was telling me that I was easily bruised.

- Andrea

Insomnia

You watched the moon
Fall behind the hills
And as the sun became present
Your head fell
Into your open, inviting palms.
Your eyelids were so heavy
You swore they could
Crust the planet.
But as soon as your 
Body collapsed into that bed,
You were as awake
As you were when 
The sun sank to the ground.

- Andrea

WRITE YOUR POEM

In ancient China, you wrote poems on silk for a court procession or in the sand for a Buddhist meditation.  Before moveable type poems were sung by minstrels.  After Blake or even e.e. cummings poets poems were replicated on reams and reams of vellum and paper.  Now a poet like Billy Collins can sell out like the latest boy band from L.A.  So what motivates your poem?  Cyberspace has the same illusions of Buddhist sand.
With all of them it always boils down to craft.  From where you are what steps are you taking to improve your craft.  From any angle attention to the word is the deal.  Just sit down and write.  Stand up and dance.  Make sure to create. 





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