The way a painting follows you
around a room, as though part
of the artist has never separated
and how we turn to see if it watches
brings it to life, like an ink drawing
uses the muscle of an arm or a leg
or we lie back like an afternoon
heaves for breath, our chests
filled with the feet of narrowly
escaping some wonderful beast
Charles Carr
https://allpoetry.com/selfrisinmojo
the longest spit
of sand is called
Farewell
it comes and goes
as moon dictates
its sickle talon
snatches shallow fish
and beckons whales
to beach
while overhead relentless
sun and swirling gulls
local folk arrive
with buckets
and wet sheets
cold nights are spent
with new, warm-blooded friends
but when dry sand prevails
then others come
with knives
the bones belong to them
they shout
but whisper as they carve
to keep away
the toxic fear
that haunts this golden bay
Maggie Z Brown
https://allpoetry.com/Margrit
Over 300 pilot whales were recently stranded and died on this sand spit in Golden bay, NZ. Whale strandings here are not uncommon and have been happening for generations, but the actual cause remains a mystery.
She’ll be here – yet ambivalence
is the moonlight on my bedroom floor,
moonlight whose heart is turbulence
reaching my windows and door…
I feel she’ll see joy walking on her floor,
joy maybe carrying her all over earth,
yet dangerous is the human birth.
Shall I, as millions of parents do,
feed her the “light” as spread by mine,
later pour for her what I take to be wine,
feeding and pouring my confusion too?
She’ll be here – yet I can’t avert what’s true,
that while I’ve grown, I’m far from wise,
that confusion still stirs behind confident eyes.
Respectability means nothing in wisdom’s eyes
nor does financial independence.
She’ll be here – this child received
in joy, celebration – ambivalence.
I can prod her into doing well in school,
but what is highest, subtlest is not taught there,
perhaps can’t be taught and is rare.
She may leave it an educated fool,
no wiser at all in dealing with loss,
in dealing creatively with disease and dying.
I’ve dealt with them somewhat, unborn still.
Yet I’ll be cradling her in my arms soon,
one still confused, with limited skill,
one with his demons and cocoon.
She’ll be educated, she’ll – I hope –
immerse herself in knowledge
widening her intellectual scope,
find a caring lover, make it on her own.
Yet the thought of freedom snowcaps my thought:
I want her, I need her to be free
as my mind and heart still are not…
Yacov Mitchenko
https://yacovmitchenko999.wordpress.com
Alice presides:
agrees to be mother,
although she’s as mad
as a snake on crack,
she clatters the cups,
cups her breasts
offering sugar;
slaps down the paws
that clamour for more,
Strings of her pinafore
stretched to breaking.
Wishes she hadn’t accepted
the invitation that led
to the hood where trouble
resided;
where even the ones that were fed
are still wanting.
Read us our fortunes,
they beg.
Alice, who never learned
to say no
empties the pot
and pours over the leaves.
The March wind sweeps in.
Maggie Z Brown
https://allpoetry.com/Margrit
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she wears them when she has to clean the muck
scrub the cowshed
herd goats
mend a fence
sometimes the fields flood
and she hitches them high
but the cuffs always manage
to soak in the mud
now that the baby’s older
and she’s got her waist back
she uses a rope
to hold them in place
it’s not a great look but
hey who’s gonna say
the cows don’t care about
that sort of thing
the goats
even less
they chew
as she rubs their behinds with hay
as she pours water into
their drinking pans
later she’ll shower
and wear a pretty dress
play with the baby
as the cat sleeps
and the soup simmers
in an old glazed pot of
white clay
Seema Chopra
.
.
Different as fingers are,
they work to form the fist
that holds the hammer
of how we began,
two shapes probably never
meant to fit, impossible
now to separate, to imagine
otherwise than joined
by whatever force,
the sun pushing against
a cloud, poetry without
meter or form, electricity
and the matter of music.
The awkward steps,
the running starts,
there is no sense
to make of it, how even
falling apart we land
in this upward instant
of a bird taking to air.
Charles Carr
http://allpoetry-classic.com/selfrisinmojo
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TheParkBenchReview 