Disappearances
by Richard Widerkehr Birds were moving over the water-- a thin, dark cloud maybe a mile long, slowly flattening. And through the binoculars, we saw dunlins flung like leaves, so many flickering and vying. All at once, the cloud flipped over--white, black, white-- in the sunlight fading to nothing. They came slanting up, a sleeve pulled inside out, unraveling. "Special effects," you said, though the birds didn't seem to know they were doing anything special, flashing in and out of this life and some second life, over gray water. Finalists are Susan J. Erickson's poem, "For the Women Who Row Eight to a Boat" and "Steller's Jay Blues" by Janette Rosebrook. Project Sponsored by: Community Food Co-op & Threshold Documents
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Chapel
by Jory Mickelson Enough of water melding and welded to air, a seamless wedding dress, gray sea and the song it sings to erase itself. I am always departing, but at evening nothing sings: not water, not wind. Gulls depart the shore, always through the gray white gate of wing. The train along the bay’s ellipse isn’t singing. Only a boat’s low call, the empty benches of wave and the boat’s propeller turning over: I do. I do. Finalists: Acts of Service and Other Love Languages by Danny Canham Notes on Transportation by Tegan Beard Testing David Imburgia Poem Booth Sponsored by: Community Food Co-op & Threshold Documents Fates of Autumn by Luther Allen
swirling mosaic of leaves crimson spotted yellow fat salmon and lambs, bled and gutted for winter stew curled essential bronze browns so true it roots restless flight right back into the earth and painful lustful reds drawing blood to the throat, hearts to the sky all under the naked blue of the very very precious last days tossed and tossed into the air by the sooth-saying winds until they finally fall in exact accordance with the way it will be Luther Allen's poem won first prize in our 2019 Fall Poem Booth Contest. Congratulations! Dear Almost Harveyby Harvey Schwartz
Make sure you’re born on May 8! Do not rush out the day before. Repeat: NOT THE DAY BEFORE!! That’s a good little boy…just cozy in and relax. May 8 is a great day this year…three years after the Nazi’s surrendered to end the war. The week the state of Israel will be formed - spurred on by an article in The Nation on May 8. You’ve been dodging genetic bullets for a long time. Great grandfather murdered in a Pogrom. Grandfather escaped the Czar, alone as a teen. Parents faced death and certainly no you if hitler had won and taken over America. So just cozy in and surf that wave that rolls you out on May 8th , child of mother May. Because May 7 is a Vietnam Draft Lottery death warrant…as are the 10th and 11th! If you are born any of those days you will get drafted, way off in 1969. So just stay clam and enjoy floating the pond. Your ancestors have been through enough war and hatred. You need to grow up in Philly and randomly go to Woodstock. Then join a hippie commune to give you the idea of hitchin’ out west. So you can leave on a summer vacation and never come back. Rather than worry about that dirty ol’ Draft. So chill out Harvey…it’s more important than you know! Just chill… Harvey Schwartz received an honorable mention in our 2019 Fall Poetry Contest. Go Harvey, go! Nonresidentby Sarah Brownsberger
This is no longer my home. At customs they ask why I’ve come. The exits have changed; newfangled flowers shine in the beds. The places where I lived all have new paint and on the stoops loll strangers, who never knew anyone I loved. I have to buy a hotel night I can’t afford and there dream of setting my mother’s table with so many places there is no room for me. I fly back to where I now live and soon my daughter comes to visit; I cook her long and cumbersome dishes because, years ago, my flesh was her home. Sarah Brownsberger received an honorable mention in our Fall Poetry Contest. Beautiful work! The Crescent-Yet-Ever-Full Moonby Betty Scott
When skies fall ash-laden gray, when your heart breaks and grieves, picture the orange-webbed feet of the mallard’s mottled family. Paddle your pond through the night tuned to the bright beyond, though Earth swaddled, Earth entombed, swim terra-tuned toward slivers of light. Betty Scott received an honorable mention in our 2019 Fall Poetry Contest. Congratulations Betty! Cezanne's CarrotBy Kevin Murphy
“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution” ~Paul Cezanne you look at the carrot, the carrot looks at you you zoom in, zoom out you rotate the carrot ninety degrees, one-eighty, three-sixty then you spin like a dervish while the carrot remains still you grate the carrot, sauté the carrot cut the carrot into matchsticks, burn down the house you bite the carrot, chew, suck the pulp, swallow the juice, describe the experience in your notebook in terms of chocolate and cabernet in terms of shoe leather and burnt sugar you bite the carrot, note that the carrot does not bite you back maybe it’s because the carrot is a vegetarian maybe you’re a vegetarian but that doesn’t really help the carrot you arrange a hundred carrots in a wheel, a mandala every carrot pointing at the darkness at the center of the wheel you meditate on that darkness, lose yourself in it you look at the paintings of cezanne you see guys playing cards, a woman looking over her shoulder, spindly fingers lifting a hat you see wine bottles, plums and apples, a pile of skulls but no carrots the day is coming says paul cezanne but cezanne has been dead for over a hundred years what’s the story, paul cezanne, are we on the right track? is that day coming still or did it come and go without our noticing? "Cezanne's Carrot" received first prize in our Second Quarter Poetry Contest. Congratulations Kevin Murphy! Strength in Ageby Linda Conroy
Watch the body hold itself upright its muscles tight, flesh held firm by first delight, till softening seeps, a shock, as if the body could compete with rock, and ask can I compete with rust, the slide of iron in the crack of rock, the red and bronze of age, the body holds the clasp of time. I watch. "Strength in Age" received an honorable mention in our Second Quarter Poetry Contest. Congratulations Linda Conroy! WerifestireaBy Gary Wade
Let me walk searching green twilight listening to silence knowing there is something unseen of the forest in the forest unknown something of old there a still new mystery waiting for me. "Werifestirea" received an honorable mention in our Second Quarter Poetry Contest. Congratulations Gary Wade! Artichoke by Rachel Mehl
Blushed purple fist, globe like, high as my throat, black ants are trailing each other's pheromones up your ribbed stalk. They've trained their young to tap aphids, to beat the sweet honeydew from sticky bodies that cling to the base of your fruit. The aphids walk too, on delicate legs, the green of lime, or love when it's gone. A red ladybug, with three black spots lands and swallows an ant, head first, legs still kicking. She swallows his alitrunk, petiole, and gaster. I've got a knife. I could cut your head, steam it, dip your hearts in butter, but how can I take you when you are so many's world? "Artichoke" received an honorable mention in our Third Quarter Poetry Contest. Congratulations Rachel Mehl! |