May - Poem 26
Haikus for Best Friend / M. Anne Avera
Stub tail, marbled coat.
How are you actually real?
Marvelous, your genes.
Snout pokes up, then eyes.
Nothing on countertop safe.
Sharp eyes, small bandit.
My dog's teeth snap shut,
chasing her tale late at night.
One day, she'll catch up.
She takes time to wake,
though I like to sleep in, too.
Snuggle, little beast.
A Rainbow Ahead / Desirae Chacon
beyond all the smoke
beyond all the clouds
there’s a little shine waiting
beyond the doubt
they call it red
they call it violet
a rainbow is waiting
beyond all the noise
where it is peaceful
where it is quiet
where you can hear
the words we speak
& feel each other’s
heart’s beat
where you can feel the sunlight
for tomorrow
where all gone
is every pain
every sorrow
and thats the rainbow
waiting up upon the road
a handful of light
of seven colours
to carry with you
wherever you roam
A Good Monsoon / Heather Frankland
We have had the drought so long
all of us turn poetic
at the memory of the monsoon
and the hope that each hint is its return.
Skin dryer, even our scattered thoughts
have no soil to grow
they scrape against our surface,
their roots shallow.
How we look longingly out the windows
smelling the air, measuring moisture.
Oh, to have the rain again, and stay inside
or dance outside or both; we could do both.
We want to watch the birds
call the rain closer,
the branches of our squat tree sway
as if it were a sapling bending with the wind.
Even the black bear
on its way to town
to seek out any water
a small fountain, a leaking hose, a bucket,
that black bear turns,
heads back to the Gila
has no need to grieve the loss of water
has no need to walk uncomfortable roads.
This could be the summer of a good monsoon
of fruitful gardens and few forest fires
when our poetic verses feel fulfilled
our hardened selves become our joyful selves once more.
Deja Vu / John Hanright
Poems (really any art in the world)
Grow legs and walk into the foggy Past to understand the Present
while gazing into the mirror of the Future
Memories of life –
Slip in and out of consciousness or fly away toward the Past, which is where all
our memories go to retire (and then die)
The flowers in the gardens of our imagination
Bloom in the springtime, get summer heatstroke, and
blow through the autumn air into winter’s tantrums
Lenses – for shortsightedness, of course –
Produce in the retinas reflections of the world of the final
Present’s evening – closing lids fall into the Past’s dreary
night and the Future’s blinding dawn
untitled / Jillian Humphrey
there’s a dog in the house
and a woman who tells the dog no
though he whimpers at the door
runs in circles and destroys the furniture
she won’t let him out
there’s a tornado outside
and she’s keeping him safe
she’s afraid and she’s keeping him
safe until the tornado
gets to the house
ACE OF WANDS / Shane Moran
Benicio casts a spell on his sister,
and she walks as if her galoshes
were dipped in molasses until his wand
taps her shoulder and she begins
counting. He hides behind the green,
humming box, as the sun shines
through the wet trees and passing
storm clouds and onto his soaked head.
Malia finds Beni and he is on the run
until she points and shouts, Expeliarmus!—
he drops his wand and begins
counting. She hides behind a sugarberry
tree, and Beni takes too long to find her,
so she comes flying from the woods. He chases
her, casts spells that don’t count since
his wand is lost in the mud.
When Choosing A Paint Color For Our New Home / Christina Vagenius
I consider Onyx, Iron Ore, Nightfall. Think about
the day at the museum. Chagall’s stained glass windows.
It was winter. Lion’s breath bare beneath snow. We’d had
a fight, the stinger still staged beneath skin, stirring red
high-rises from the wound. An icicle hung from the bend
of my ear, steps to the final stab. The boys stood against
his colors. In flavors, small, medium, large. And I wondered
if they could hear him. Chagall and his burnished brush
whispering between the black lines, shrugging some falsetto
about cracks and color and the bend of light —and isn't all
so beautiful
how the dark turns the stone soft, the metal muted
if you turn your head, look over shoulder, hold midnight’s
empty hand. Let the sword fall from its ladder.
Hidden Message / Sonya Wohletz
When I gazed out across the horizon,
there I saw it: the large moon,
unironic with an “M” emblazoned across its face.
I took “M” to stand for “moon”—a most obvious interpretation—
but upon reflection perhaps the message was meant more like:
“M” for “martyr for midnight” or “M” for “mourning,”
or better yet: “M” for “mourning still with good mascara on.”
Everyone here presses me for a password. I can’t
give them what they want, so I deliver the article instead:
an a for an, etc. and am consequently
rebuked by the experts.
I need a break. Day or night.
I need to brush my teeth
and move the fuck out of this place.
No one will miss me.
but I need snow, mountains, some place
to lose myself in mystic wandering. I need
that moonlight to drip down
my forehead like clumps of pink fruit.
Oh, now I see it. Maybe “M” stands for
“Make Me”, or a “W” inverted, as in “Whatever, Mom,”
or better yet—
“Mora, New Mexico” or “Montana.”
Just like the song—
Goin to Montana soon,
Gonna be a dental floss tycoon.
