November 10, 2024

petro c. k.

HAIKU

 
 
 
it’s all over
but the counting
distant sirens
 
 
 

from Poets Respond

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petro c. k.: “As one who often writes haiku, it’s always a challenge to distill moments to its essence. When I was sitting with my thoughts, I heard sirens off in the distance, which captured the sense I had of melancholy, anxiety, and unknown dangers on the horizon.” (web)

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November 5, 2024

Matthew King

ELECTION

On plywood walling off a stalled construction
site someone had scrawled: WHAT’S IT ALL WORTH
WITHOUT AN OPEN FREE AND FAIR ELECTION?
Behind it, water seeping from the earth
sought its equilibrium in the pit,
rising, falling, following the weather.
We never saw the message fade. Did it
require an answer? Was it merely clever?
A steel and see-through condo tower stands
there now, I guess—I couldn’t say which one—
to fill the hole and make no such demands
on passersby. The question’s day is done.
It always made us smile but now I doubt
we knew just what it was we smiled about.
 

from Poets Respond

__________

Matthew King: “This poem refers to a bit of graffiti I saw many years ago, but the question it posed ironically—obviously, the real question is what’s it all worth with an open free and fair election?—is, for now, as pertinent as ever. This is what your open free and fair elections get you. What do you make of that?” (web)

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November 3, 2024

Alison Luterman

HOLDING VIGIL

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,
waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out
in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down
to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels
as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about
is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat
asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.
I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,
the fact that we are all waiting in the same
hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,
and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?
Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,
as families do, and bringing each other coffee
from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it
while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,
which is also what happens at times like these,
and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,
heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,
in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep
of human history, a soap bubble, because empires
are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations
die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens
all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,
your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,
and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about
when she wakes at three in the morning,
cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,
it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day
and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,
cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,
and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls
and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,
the icebergs for the love of God—every single
blessed being on the face of this earth
is holding its breath in this moment,
and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,
then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it
we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.
 

from Poets Respond

__________

Alison Luterman: “I don’t have to explain why this moment is so fraught right now. I’m feeling a lot of tenderness for all of us who are suffering anxiety this week, and trying to hold each other up.” (web)

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October 31, 2024

Greg Schwartz

HAIKU

 
 
 
his shadow
in the kerosene glow—
bat wings
 
 
 
 

from Poets Respond

__________

Greg Schwartz: “Most of the poetry I read goes over my head, but haiku is something that tends to stick with me. The compactness of a haiku fits my attention span nicely, though the good ones have an impact much larger than their words. This poem resulted from that day’s #haikuhorrorprompt prompt on Twitter, which was ‘kerosene.’ It took a while to come up with something, but the vampire shapeshifting into a bat trope seemed to fit well with the Dracula-era setting conjured up by the prompt.” (web)

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October 27, 2024

Bob Hicok

A POET’S RESPONSE TO AN ACTOR’S ASSESSMENT OF A POLITICIAN’S INTELLIGENCE, UNDERTAKEN IN THE SPIRIT OF THE BELIEF THAT WE’RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS

I’m dumber than a Phillips head screwdriver
or on-ramp or speculum or rain and every diacritical
you can think of, critically or not, can do something
I can’t, I believe in the wisdom of matter,
that every form it takes is a species of intelligence,
an embodiment of knowledge, so to call
a candidate for president as dumb as a fencepost
or as dumb as a combover or as dumb
as a three-legged stool on the side of the road
looking as if it wants to cry, is like chiding the ocean
because it does a shitty Watusi or making fun of a puppy
who barks at its own hiccups, there’s a video of this,
probably more than one, and yes it’s kind of stupid
but that puppy could sniff out cancer or cocaine
better than you, and wag more fulsomely and literally
than you, and a fence post does an honest day’s work
every day of its life if given the chance, so if you must try
to insult someone running for president,
it’s better to call them as dumb as someone
who thinks calling someone dumb is still in style
after third grade, and what if that person is rubber
and you are glue, what then, dumbass, are we to make
of democracy in 2024, if insults are the currency
of debate, if love isn’t at the core of the endeavor,
love of our shared stupidity, cupidity, humidity,
our common state of befuddlement
over where this is all headed
and how best to get where we don’t know
we’re going, we need a president
who isn’t afraid to shrug, who gets
that ten people putting ten heads together
still leaves us with what experts refer to
as half a brain, please, god, enough
of the solo swagger, the hero pose,
I want a president who puts the everyone
in team, who believes that people
are our best chance to be human,
to maybe, possibly, one day
figure out what that even means.
 

from Poets Respond

__________

Bob Hicok: “This is a poet’s response to an actor’s assessment of a politician’s intelligence.”

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October 20, 2024

Ebuka Stephen

GHAZAL OF BONES

Who can love me better than the ligaments love my bones?
 
I’m fragile now, my heart can’t bear the weight of brokenness, those pains from fractured bones.
 
I heard the night feels lonely, too, when the birds choose to leave their nests. I feel the same way but only skin cuddles my bones.
 
One morning, I lifted up my veil. I saw a Bible, opened it & it showed me a valley of dry bones.
 
Perhaps I’ve opened a lonely verse different from the psalms that sang of rising dry bones.
 
I need these miracles but nobody to go these extra miles for me. I only soak my beads for God to strengthen my bones.
 
Who can calcify me from envy of those who never chew the ripe fruit of forlornness? Those who never dreamt of lonely bones.
 
& dreaming is always real until it’s not. In a cadaver room, I saw my twin me being loved by formalinated bodies. They showed me skeletons that were made with their bones.
 
All night, every bone in my body tells me to get a deep sleep. They said I’m Adam, that one day a bone will be made from my bones.
 

from Poets Respond

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Ebuka Stephen: “Poetry is a way I reflect on life. It allows me to explore my feelings and enjoy it. I’m attracted to ghazals, so I hue mine with elegy. I’m currently studying human anatomy at College of Health Sciences, Nnewi in Nigeria. I dedicate this ghazal to the dead bodies and bones in every cadaver room, and in commemoration of World Anatomy Day, celebrated every October 15th.”

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October 13, 2024

Lexi Pelle

HOW TO TELL A RIGHT-TRUNKED ELEPHANT FROM A LEFTY

check for the side with ruffled whiskers
and wrinkles, elephants tend to tilt
their trunks to scoop fruit so one half’s
always a bit shabbier than the other. The end
of my husband’s left eyebrow is sparse
because of the direction he faces
while sleeping. All those beat-up tractors
heaving diesel across our fields,
the fluorescent smirk of strip malls
I see as I speed down Route 22,
the Canada geese—those trucker swans,
those bootlegged angels—if god’s
got a rumpled, favored side
we’re it. We’re the word
that’s been written with a dominant
hand. Is it because we longed for more
legible script? A world we’d slide
our sorrows down as long as it was written
in smooth cursive. We’re ready
to unknow now. When we place Bibles
in roadside motel rooms, slide
flowers into the spokes of white bikes,
when a woman calls the cops
and orders half pepperoni half
mushroom while her husband goes to
give her daughter a goodnight kiss,
we aren’t asking for answers
we’re asking god to switch hands.
 

from Poets Respond

__________

Lexi Pelle: “Frank X. Gaspar wrote, ‘It’s never the aboutness of anything but the wailing underneath it.’ This poem, although based on a relatively uncharged article, was a slow settling into that wailing.” (web)

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