"The Three Wisemen Under the Star at Bethlehem" by N.M.B; Copyright 2011
Lost
by Nicole M. Bouchard
When all is said and done, the rituals and rites have been performed, everyone’s gone home and the doors are closed, I will wonder where you are… if you’re safe and happy tonight, if everything on this earthly plane was enough- did I give you what you needed?
I held those hands, so warm with a fast heartbeat pulsing into my palm, for just a single, clear moment one of them on my back in a half embrace before falling back to the bed Only to touch them less than a week later, folded, cold, unfamiliar…
Every detail torments me- did I remember to kiss you goodbye on both sides of your face, your forehead before I left that night, not knowing it would be the last time? And later, when I saw you again, stilled but beautiful and regal, did it shock my childhood senses that for the first time I couldn’t feel your comforting presence?
You gave me my name; I remember seeing the best of what I could be in the mirror of your eyes I wish I knew what you knew I wish I could keep that reflection or is it just the shine of your eyes that I need to confirm some part of my identity or embrace it? Perhaps I just need to see my perception of you in that reflection for a point of reference, that light, a guiding star full of hopes and dreams, all of which I wish I could have shown to you so that you’d know I’ll be alright.
I’ve said to people that I lost you, but really, in heaven with your family and one true love, free of a weakened body, you are found. I’m the one feeling lost.
I’m terrified of closed doors and cold stones. I’d rather think of warm breezes that lifted your curtains to the ceilings like ship sails pregnant with hope and better days. Or the light unique to your homes, unassuming gold, gentle but powerful enough to chase darkness from the souls touched by it. What of the rose blossom smells in every drawer, on all the garments, even the thread from the sewing box which I often use. If I can still pick up the scent on your gloves and scarves, is this real? Can I not run and see you to tell you everything I’ve wanted to?
Will I dream of you? Will it ever again be remotely close to what we had? I need your comfort and happiness more than I need your nurturing for myself, though I’ll never stop wanting it, reaching out for it from a child’s broken heart in a woman’s body. But then, you loved me enough to last this lifetime and tie us beyond.
As a young girl, I could never stay asleep if you were awake the times I stayed at your house. You had an energy like a party no one ever wanted to miss. Tip-toeing quietly in the hall so as not to wake me, I’d sense you in my sleep. Seeing me, you’d worry that I wasn’t getting my rest. We’d talk until I was weary, sliding down from a seated position on your couch, you in your chair. Just as my body would give in to sleep, calmed by your nearness, I’d feel a blanket tossed over me, neatly tucked in.
When I can’t sleep because I can’t sense you or know where you are, just think of me and the thought alone will be the blanket that envelopes me as I get weary, give in and let go.
A Sparrow
by Michelle Kennedy
There was a sparrow hovering over pooled water casting reflections on pieces of my memories scattered along the surface
The tiny bird seeing the garish light and cold shadow play upon its wings wisely and graciously decided to fly away to safe, placid places
But I ran my fingertips calmly through each image careful not to cut myself on any of the sharper edges painfully aware of Serendipity and how her brother, Fate could leave me stranded bleeding on the shore
Yet I could not move from the swirling smoky images First to greet me was a man with cedar sawdust in his pepper hair he smiled and pointed to the distinguished lady drinking Earl Grey tea wearing a peacock feathered hat
She beckoned me to come closer whispered to me like wind floating in the air about sparrows and love regret and mistakes Most of all she reminded me of second chances and forgiveness
As if in an alchemist's palm the shattered glass transformed became a luminous mirror a palette of bursting colors revealing me, to me
Belle la France
by Cheryl Sommese
Beauty is your form and Charm your name.
For your beauty greeted me at every corner like an affectionate mother tidying wispy hairs straying in her daughter’s face. And your charm captivated my spirit as my feet traversed the enchanting cobblestones winding about the romantic pathways.
Yes, your energy cradled my innards with fondness as each location I bid a melancholy farewell grew even more preferred than the one before.
But how can I endure such loss now that a frigid ocean separates our love?
It’s somewhat serendipitous to explain. But the smell of baking breads infusing your neighborhood shops, and melody of chimes resounding from your gothic cathedrals, and vision of masterworks adorning your alluring landscape enacted a pact with my core: and now they’re one with my heart.
Towards Dawn
by Katie O'Sullivan
I dream a beach, a tidal wave coming. I gather three sons, look for the fourth I stumble through sand dragging the others with me I call his name begin to awake resist opening my eyes for I need to hold them see their little boy faces their voices clear, in ways I had forgotten. their images fade. I want them back, their arms around my neck small hands in mine loving me with no disguise.
I turn over ask my husband, “Have I been crying?’ “No,” he answers but doesn’t ask why. Promenade
by Katie O'Sullivan
I placed my small sons into the hands of French nuns while my mother lay dying a thousand miles away. See their suitcases on candy colored quilts at the foot of white iron beds in a room of many beds.
my heart tore in two for my mother for my sons those ragamuffins who raced for the first dip into the sea who elbowed one another for a window in the car wrestled for the last candy bar.
heart composed I returned hours early from a thousand miles away to retrieve my sons anticipating what I could not guess of their strange holiday. in the care of others.
Sister said the children were on a promenade. from a window I could see them returning singing French songs, hand in hand, two by two, up the path leading from the village below. a nun in front to lead a nun in back to herd the stragglers.
they saw me, broke ranks ran to my arms Oh Mama, the eldest said we get to go to the piscine or to the village on promenades. if we are good Le Pere will give us a bon bon.
Reflections On a Window in Lan’tien
by Geoffrey Heptonstall
The cricket in her cage Speaks sadly of life. Living through many seasons, She seeks the springs of paradise.
Once there were forests Where leaves fell gently. Now there is carved ivory Encompassing her dreams.
Strangely those human eyes Stare with idle minds Amused by their captive In natural beauty.
The rain runs down the window pane. In the kingdom of glass The river has many streams Flowing from ancestral mountains,
Higher than the fireflies, As distant as the moon. The luminous river Is an image of heaven.
A Day's Work Far From the City
by Geoffrey Heptonstall
At dawn the sky is sea. The grass we barefoot tread Moves also like the sea. And the sun is a ship with sails Graciously swelling in fortune, Seeking its familiar course with calm.
We wake in the deeps where, drowning, We rise toward first light. All embers of evening ashen, Our vermilion dreams vanish. Dust in the dawn breeze makes mist Of our company leaving for the day.
Working will mock the song I heard by night of she Who flew with white wings, Plumed in unforgiving innocence Of the walls enclosing the world, Of the wilderness no-one has seen.
Tis the season…
by Peter Franklin
Eggnog thoughts were sparked today, Perhaps a bit sentimental As I listened to an old Benny Goodman tune… And late afternoon Raindrops danced on the hot asphalt. I squeezed my eyes and tried to put a chill in the air… But the steamy rain prints pockmarking the dust Would not allow me that one escape. Capriciously, I cajoled myself into taking the seasonal readings: Windspeed, moisture, temperature variation. Collated, they were awry… Weather: hot. Humidity: yes. And very. Snowfall: don’t make me laugh. A shudder pulsed through my reverie, The realization that after all these years, Opposites had struck. Truth is that even if I did have a chimney Santa Claus would probably fall out of it, Rather than into it. Just a bit close to the sash… Equatorial blues. Yet, I don’t think I was intentionally lied to as a child.
The palms are swaying, My palms are sweating, And my holiday-worn stocking… Nailed to the right of a postcard just received from home…just may lie empty this time around. Silly, even I know That reindeer don’t wear seersucker suits…and can’t stand the heat.
As a child, I loathed the cold For with it came the slow drift of mottled leaves… Always relegated to raking them into cute little piles. But how I now long to have the curtains teased… Breezed…by a sturdy arctic breath… Cold blasts sending stragglers to the hearth. The Amana air-conditioner lacks the true effect.
‘Tis the season to be jolly. Then tell me, how does one make a snowman out of coconuts? At least they won’t melt at the first B-R-E-A-K in the storm.
The puddles are steaming larger now… Somehow just a bit perverse. And they seem to reign here daily.
Seraph's Song
by Colin Griffin
Sweetly singing seraph, seemingly silent Alone, amidst the emptiness of eternal night Nothing to do but sing, softly swooning Amidst her isolation, longing. reaching. Her back to the endless depths of sea Waves of black crash against her rocky perch Jagged, worn, unwelcoming One day he will come, she confides Counting the days But all the while she sits, softly singing Sinning in the safety of her sanctum Leading those who pursue her heavenly herald to the void of a grave unknown She remains, somber, atop the stone Lest she join them
Untitled
by Simon Perchik
When this clock holds back its scent has meaning --even dogs are trained
for lies or no lies --truth has a calm to it, by instinct soothes this kitchen wall
flows underneath as bone and sleeplessness --you wait for night to reset the hands
teach them honesty practice till the weak one hardens solid, smells
the way an invisible stone can be trusted lets you lower your head
against this darkness seeping out your skin as silence and the nights sure to come.
Winter's Thaw
by Shelby Thomas
Oh, lonesome fox wandering, zigzagging
through the bush and fifty foot trees
At winter’s end, the ground, it thaws Her roughened paws hit dirt and
long gone leaves
Her whiskered face searches the ground, with nose to soil
she breathes…
she breathes in a scent, the scent of life
She is alive, she knows this now with air in the lungs and a sight of the world A conscious being of depth, of feeling.
With this, she runs feeling the Earth below Her, the air surrounds Her.
This moment, this molecule of time
She is alone
She is alive!
Atlantis
by Spiros Kitsinelis
Demeter, reveal the blossomed land, the cold has lasted far too long, and Persephone is never coming back. Clear the skies almighty Zeus, you promised light and music to your son. Tame the waves Poseidon, make them sparkle in the sun. Aeolus calm the winds, help me find my way Hermes, for they are taking me away from Atlantis.
Sweet Worldly Nothings
by Spiros Kitsinelis
Saturday night dreams and fantasies, sweet as wine on my lips. Smells of summer evenings, smells that numb my senses. Intoxicating sips of worldly pleasures that drown my thoughts and purpose. How sweet the nights become, how much I need the smells and wine, the more I have them, the more I taste them. And soon enough I get addicted on tastes of wine and sensual nights and I have lost all thoughts and purpose. And I am left with empty days that wait for nights. And I am left with empty heart that waits for doses of shallow feelings. And I am left with empty head that throbs with pain and longs for words I can't recall and settles for sweet worldly nothings.
Average Snowfall in Boise
by Vince Corvaia
I want to know everything there is to know about Boise.
I’m curious by nature, but it’s Boise I want to know about.
How much snowfall does it get? Why is the football field blue?
Where can a man go to be alone and forget an unrequited love?
It’s she I once wanted to know everything about, but now
I just want to forget. Fall is here and the beautiful
leaves are dying. Tell me about Boise.
Justification for My Writer's Block #3
by Holly Day
somewhere in the Amazon an old man with a pointed stick is writing the second chapter of a novel scrawling it into the dirt.
the first chapter is on my computer screen cursor blinking steadily as I admit defeat. I have only this first chapter in me.
I wonder if the old man in the jungle is as angry as I am that this unfinished novel, no beginning no end came to him as this first chapter came to me
I wonder who will end up with Chapter 3.
The Idea Of Me
by Teresita Garcia
I realize I tend to surround myself around fears and self-protection, an emotionally tough lesson I learned from very early on; the women in my life, my teachers. I get like this sometimes, insecure, scared, anything but confident. I feel so drained, yet at the same time, I feel a strong sense of emotional balance. I've learned to trust my instincts, they're not always wrong.
Last night I dreamt of wax, paraffin wax, the kind you make candles with. I watched it melt gradually over a burner, feeling a symbolic alignment to it, not so much on a physical level but on an intellectual level; the way I arrange thoughts around in my head, the way they come out of me a certain way. It doesn't take long for me to find a rhythm, there's great power in the weaving of change, great ways to gently start over, with growth, choice of direction and wholeness.
I feel like I’ve been blindsided again, there’s that negative energy that always manages to make itself known when you’re at your most vulnerable. It seeps in, like the coloring and fragrance you add to wax after it has melted, when it calls you to the past, beckoning you to connect A with B, through issues that must be molded and resolved. It’s the same sense I had when I held my sister’s favorite bracelet, the Mexican silver one bought in Taxco with the red onyx stones, the one that remains
scented by her. The patterns of colors are the same, but the texture of the stones is so different, one from the other. I pass my fingers over it, and I get the odd sense of years moving backward in time, and I am joined by the remains that are still very much a part of my life and my heart. If there ever was a foolish notion of happily ever after, I am not consciously aware of it. I think that kind of role requires trust; faith and support, in sync with soul- expansion; natural, healthy that doesn’t make you question your own sanity.
It’s funny how the layers formed on her bracelet. I wonder if they always felt abrasive-like, when Jose first presented it to her as an engagement gift, a promise of true love. I’m sure at one time it needed some fine tuning, some adjustment made because it was too big for her wrist. There must have been reassurances, good, exciting, and worthwhile; something special that made her feel genuine about expressing her experience with all; something awesome before it went scary, before everything liquefied and slipped away.
I can visualize myself out on the ledge of our high rise threatening to jump just as she did, when Jose left her for that Japanese girl, the one he said was sexier than She, the one who wasn’t carrying his baby. I don’t know what qualifies full grounding, but I do know it doesn’t come in the form of loss, and certainly not in the form of a miscarriage. When the rug has been pulled out from under you, you tend to fall before you even know what has happened and I’ve learned that sometimes you can’t even shake that feeling of apprehension, that will always be a part of you,
waiting for the crash, the fall. It’s about the same time where you stop talking, when you no longer feel the need to keep anything from anyone nor to tell everyone everything. My mom was the same way. She had all these vague frustrations that often found their way to a leather belt, onto my bare skin. It was called discipline back then, but I knew better. It was in the way she held that ring. Not her wedding ring, the other one. All her hopes and desires just exuded from that ring. It was strange and intense to witness, especially when she didn’t know I was looking.
My brother, now, he was unique. He was the epitome of the necessary strength and courage one needs to go on, intuitive, but dismissive of it. I never saw him show any sign of emotion other than the one time when dad passed away from cancer; my brother held my father's eyeglasses in his hands and cried, there were no words, and he cried for less than a minute, but I remember. And I remember he never showed weakness again. Did you know that some candles hold their sense of peace, even when there are corresponding physical changes? I’m not so inclined to color or scent those candles;
I just let them be. I’ve got a better insight now, I think. Some conversations are best left for later, some, never. I wonder if all men are like my brother, all women like my sister and mother, particularly within the family structure; esoteric. I find it curious what we base knowledge of another on. For most people, it’s in what is said, you know, that kind of inherent activity that spills out of their mouths. But, me, I know better. Individuality is like the dynamics of melting wax, like the dynamics of most women, who hold deep secrets within their essence. It's not always what they say but what they don't say that defines them.
An Anniversary
by Michael Ceraolo
August 9, 2011 Thirty-three days before the tenth anniversary of the great crime
(said anniversary has already begun to be commemorated, and need not be added to in this poem)
and the exact date of the tenth anniversary of a more private, more important, event in my life: my dad's death
A Tuesday now, a Thursday then Going to the hospital early in the morning to say goodbye, after my mom made the difficult decision to have no more surgeries done
(he had had a stroke a few months earlier and was unable to say that his feeding tube had been dangerously and painfully misplaced; when it was discovered, one surgery was done to try to clean up the problem, to no avail)
I said goodbye
(though he was in a coma I believe he heard me),
but though the prognosis was that it was only going to be a matter of time, I couldn't wait by his deathbed until the end came (which it did, about 12 hours later)
We had a difficult relationship, and, as in all such situations, neither of us was blameless, both of us being extremely stubborn, though as time passed it became less difficult
(and who knows where it might have been today; that's a subject for a different poem)
But today none of that matters: his faults are buried with him in the Veterans' Cemetery in Rittman fifty-some miles away, too far for someone without a car and with everyone else working, so I will honor his memory by visiting the three houses we lived in
Superior Avenue, where it was he and mom and then me and then my brother, a store which my parents owned and ran, with the house behind and over the store; the entire building was destroyed by a fire in the fall of 1962 at a time when we were away at my cousin's christening We returned home to see the fire engines in front of the house fighting the fire, to no avail
Today almost fifty years later the small lot is still vacant, paved over, yet protected by a fence topped with barbed wire, its neighbors now storefront churches The high school just down the street where I would have gone had we not been part of the massive flight that changed the ethnic composition of the neighborhood from ninety-ten one way to ninety-ten the other way in the space of a decade, is now closed, its sign the victim of vandalism and time, and cleaning up its littered ground and mowing its grass have been moved way down the list of priorities
Biltmore Road, where we moved to in the spring of 1963, after a six-month stay in an unremembered apartment while we waited for the insurance claim to be settled A sister and another brother would be added to the family during the ten years we lived there Today the hedges along the sidewalk have been removed by one of the subsequent owners, and so have the apple tree in the backyard where I first learned to climb trees and the brick and stone barbecue in the backyard that we almost never used and the big maple tree in the front yard and the bush next to that tree that hid the yellowjackets' nest we once accidentally broke (The tree on the treelawn, and many trees on the other treelawns on the street have grown considerably since we moved away and now provide a great amount of shade when full-leaved, as well as being a pretty picture, and many of the bluestone slabs used for sidewalks remain too) The lawn where you first taught us how to use a lawn mower has been leveled a bit, the asphalt driveway where we learned to shovel snow has not yet been reborn in concrete I wonder if the basement has been finished, if the crawl spaces are still there and still needing to be checked for the occasional critter Other memories from inside the house are contained in photographs
Homestead Road, where we moved to in July 1973, needing a larger space for the six of us, but staying in the same school district (I, entering high school, and Frank, entering kindergarten, would not even have to change schools; Ross and Patty, entering eighth and fourth grades, respectively, would) A brick-facade bungalow on a corner lot, with a garage large enough to put three cars in and have another car space for storage The place where the four of us kids lived until we each got married, the place where we grew, and were accepted, sometimes grudgingly, into adulthood Bureaucratic arrogance had the house demolished in January of this year (you were born during the Great Depression and died before this millennium's first version, when our house and countless others couldn't be sold because of the greed and stupidity of those who nevertheless persist in believing themselves elite), and in a little over six months the grass has reclaimed where the house, the driveway, the garage, the patio, and the arbor vitae and the small brick wall were; the only sign visible to an outside that a house was ever here is the driveway apron But I look on your pioneering, almost alone in the neighborhood, if not in a much wider area: the half-dozen re-planted Christmas trees now grown to height greater than the neighboring houses (if memory serves, only one re-planting failed to take)
I know the general area, but I often wish I had asked you the locations of the houses you lived in as a child
