By Anita Tanner Lopsided life, designed to make us lame, to rupture our vulnerabilities, teaches us to walk with a halt, turn toward the grave hunchbacked and clubfooted, left eye nearsighted, right eye, far, disproportionately dealt by fate’s slings and arrows— left-handed, right-brained, even our faces are asymmetrical— deviated septa, long crooked noses, men …
Tag: poetry
Poem: Before Language
By Richard Schiffman Up from the fountain the babble of children, drenched with surprise. Alive! The rain of their syllables does not strain to speech, their glottal whoops and yells never jell to full-fledged words or phrases. Parents hover bird-like by their brood. Parents fan and fan their little flames. And I, alone, the …
Poem: P-Day at the Sugar Shack
By Dayna Patterson This day brims with too much sweetness. The maple syrup, liquid gold we’ve poured into pea soup and red Kool-Aid, over beans, flapjacks, and sausage links. We are the only patrons in this cabáne a sucre made to hold a hundred. We crowd one table. Our hosts watch curiously. …
Poem: The Swing at Orient Point
By Greg Moglia There on the beach a swing for two and in the late afternoon empty We sit and take in the world, we two and words are said but not remembered Something to pass the time ‘How lovely, how perfect . . . ’ But all that’s needed is my foot that …
Poem: In the Day of the Great Slaughter
By Les Blake Young September in the city parkbenched with the good book, water whispering near running dark and God, the gritty two leaves now spinning skew in sunlight’s morning cup bottomside down then up in gravity’s flutter flue leaf on leaf, set fast to page let fresh from tree still living …
The Legacy of Lazaraus: Poetry
By Jerome L. McElroy No one knew how the two leagues apart in distance and ambition became so tightly bound in flesh death could not shear asunder. Perhaps a childhood misadventure or adolescent fantasy sewed their souls together so there was no crease between them. Lazarus the confidant was the one who …
Poem: Remembrance
By Melanny Eva Henson Remember when all us neighbors gathered in your driveway, for food and drinks and bonfire, And our families were whole, but we were broken? There was comfort in the ritual, the damp air embracing us and the children screaming in circles about the house. It almost didn’t matter that …
Poem: Innocence
By Richard Dinges, Jr Sad to say knowledge drips from poisoned fruit, original sin was disobedience, linked to trees that span death and eternity, roots forever digging into our past, beneath our soles, always looking for what we do not know to finish what we began.
Golden: Poetry
By Paul Swenson Hey, Brother Golden, what’s it like over there? You ever share your coffee with the other cowboys ’round that celestial fire? Does it burn as fine and new as you hoped it would when you said you couldn’t wait ‘til you were dead to get the final clue— as to whether …
The Louisiana Heron: Poetry
By Dennis Ross shaggy dark grey in the predawn light, balances one-legged on the beach. Like a compass needle his long beak points into the brisk on-shore wind, towards the grey-blue waves now with brilliant orange dancers cavorting along their crests. A tidal pool mirror picks up the pulsing orange beat as the sun …