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.
