Reading Whitman on Roque Island

by on Feb 9, 2016

It is unfashionable to honor those who came before us,
and yet I sit in the house
of George Augustus Gardner,
of Isabella Stewart, reading the only book of poetry I can find.
It’s like he speaks to me, here in the drawing room,
to a life lived on the edge of privilege,
on the edge of belonging,
on the edge of a great good fortune.

There are no stevedores now, few butcher boys or drovers
but I hear their song and I remember their voices as my own.
Unlock my soul.
Give me the voice of farmers,
of the unpaid intern trying to grow wiser than her birthright.
Give me the voice of the lobstermen, of the housewife
making jellies in her kitchen, of the ambulance driver
picking up drunks and meth addicts one more time.
Give me the whistling song of the carpenter keeping time with his hammer.

Uncle Walt, your grass is under my feet, your words are in my head.
I know I am an uneasy guest
on this green and holy island.

 

—
Dervishspin lives with her husband and 3 cats in a cohousing community in Berlin Massachusetts. Under her mundane name, Dervishspin studied poetry at Mount Holyoke College with Christopher Benfy and Mary Jo Salter. She has not quit her day job.

Discovered/Uncovered

by on Feb 8, 2016

Discovered

 

Uncovered

 

—
Fabrice Poussin is assistant professor of French and English at Shorter University, Rome, Georgia.  Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in France at La Pensee Universelle, and in the United States in Kestrel and Symposium.  His photographic work has also been published in Kestrel, and is scheduled for upcoming publications as well.

Closed Sign at Bill’s Bait & Beer

by on Feb 5, 2016

Bill’s family came to Hawai’i from China in 1921. They settled on the worst farmland on O’ahu. Bill remembers running through parched sugar cane fields as a boy.

Saturday mornings, Bill drove the family’s Model-T to Honolulu. The back seat was loaded with papayas, coconuts, and sugar beets to sell at Waikiki hotels. Kitchen managers weighed and thumped the fruit, then counted four or five dollars into Bill’s hand. Sometimes 25 cents was added to pay for gas for the trip home.

Bill remembers Mother, Father, and Uncle drinking tea by candlelight late into the evening; talking quietly or, more often, sitting in silence.

“Go to bed, son,” Mother chided gently when Bill padded into the kitchen.

Ten years passed. Bill’s family sold the farm and opened Lock’s Bait & Beer on the North Shore. Hawaii was a territory then. Nobody cared about fishing licenses.

At sunrise, locals lined up to buy bait and beer on credit. Bill recalls seeing men and women standing by the shoreline, straw-hatted, throwing nets in the ocean.

If opah refused to bite, fishermen couldn’t pay. Nobody minded. Locals settled up when fish cooperated.

“We did things differently then,” he says.

 

—
Trish Saunders writes poems from Honolulu, Hawaii.

Rush-hour

by on Feb 4, 2016

Riding down a busy road in Bengaluru… a street dog standing by the side, suckling two of her puppies… sniffing the third one, lying on its side, dead. The two carry on tugging at her teats.

weekend retreat…
how quiet this world
outside me

 

—
Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy is a psychiatrist from Bengaluru (Bangalore) India, living in England for over a decade. A trained vocalist and a composer in Indian Classical Music, he writes poetry in several languages including Kannada, Sankethi, Tamil and English. He is particularly interested in haiku, tanka and other allied genres. Many of his writings have been published in various reputed journals, and won prizes. For him, writing is not only a means of expression, but also a form of therapy to overcome day to day stress.

Resting

by on Feb 3, 2016

I can smell the sun on your skin
taste the salt sea water left
on your lips
as we lean back
into the afternoon
as though it could hold us
safely in its arms
forever
as though nothing could pull us
out of this light

back to the dim rooms
where debt and obligation
line up in columns
long and dark enough
to occlude our dreams
and no one comes to whisper
sedition in our ears
with words strong enough
to break us back out
into the heat
into the light

 

—
Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has only recently come to discover the vital communities of poets online, where there can be a more immediate connection between writers and readers than is usually afforded in print.

Ripples

by on Feb 2, 2016

Ripples

 

—
Olivier Schopfer lives in Geneva, Switzerland, the city with the huge lake water fountain. He likes capturing the moment in haiku and photography. His work has appeared in The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2014 as well as in numerous online and print journals. He also writes articles in French about etymology and everyday expressions at Olivier Schopfer raconte les mots.

Herring

by on Feb 1, 2016

If they are right
and the ocean fills the street
I’ll shut

the door
and watch

for herring
out the window. (Schools

of silver, chandeliers
of thinning

rain.)

The afterimage softly
bleeds out

into nothing,

light and line and melting
sun.

 

—
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California’s Central Valley, where she works as a librarian. Her poems have appeared in Gnarled Oak, The Mas Tequila Review, Paper Nautilus, Word Riot, Hobart, and The Potomac Review, among others.

the heart’s trails

by on Jan 28, 2016

I
dried tears
leave salt tracks

shed Rorschach faces

nurture memories
released
from hard service
as prison guards

II
roller coaster hearts
fly so fast

vision blurs
breath catches

without focus
tightened muscles
cannot guide

bodies flung
at every curve

& hearts collide
without design

III
in a field
of dried stalks
of past loves

lies a wicker cornucopia
woven from
the hollow reeds at hand

invisible
until spring

 

—
Herb Kauderer is an associate professor of English at Hilbert College, and has published a lot of poetry. More can be found about him at HerbKauderer.com.

Somnolence

by on Jan 27, 2016

A boat shaped autumnal leaf knocks the evening window. I open the pane and inhale lungfuls of the crisp breeze.

With each season of the ochre yellows I have begun to resemble the old oak: the parchment skin and sharp increase in the number of grey hair. Earlier, I used to keep a count of those greys, but now they have proliferated beyond the self-undertaken census stage. All the same the grey cells of my brain are functioning like unlubricated cogs, rusty with the monotony of a drab routine.

The other day, I put oil in the wok on a high flame of the gas burner for deep frying and left the kitchen to answer the phone. A few minutes later the pungent smell of smoke fills the house. The flames from the wok were licking the ceiling. I tried to scrub clean whatever could be washed but the white wall putty soaked up the stubborn soot. Deeper it penetrated the surface, the more I attempted to remove it.

I feel aghast each time I enter the black-grey kitchen. In a few days time, perhaps I will get used to it just as one gets used to the lack of love.

wedding ring…
the white mark it leaves
on my finger

 

—
Yesha Shah lives in Surat, India with her family. Poetry has long since been her passion. She started writing Haiku and allied genres about two years back. Her verses have found place in various online and print journals.