Poetry

Grasshopper

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by Harriet Sohmers Zwerling

A tiny grasshopper, the color of jade,
lands on the worn wood deck in front of me.
First, I think it’s a leaf;
then it turns itself around toward the bay
and I see its shape, its little paperclip legs,
moving forward like pistons in an engine,
picking up speed, and then,
rocketing into space all the way to the water!
Such incredible energy in such a small machine,
while I, this old woman,
struggle to stand.

I started writing in high school and haven’t been able to stop since.

Wisteria

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by Charles Troob

Wisteria encloses our yard on three sides
Tendrils poke through fence slats
thick ropy stems burrow underneath

A foot or two in from the property line
a vine shoots up from the soil
Every half inch or so it spews out
a cluster of leaves—five pairs
and one more on the end
in mindless replication
then marches on
seizing every opportunity to take hold and climb

A few weeks ago I found wisteria poking
under the fence, then twisted around a seven-foot
false cypress in stranglehold from base to top
I snipped it at the base
spent a quarter hour unraveling
ten yards or so of green vine
and tossed it in the street
for village compost

If the neighbors joined
eradication might be possible
but invasion to me is decoration to them
Next door an arbor supports wisteria a foot thick
Late May it blooms in grapey clusters
the scent heavy
as if to show up the graceful lilacs
that open on Mother’s Day and quickly fade—
like Mama Rose in Gypsy
taking the stage after her daughter’s star turn
blowsy overripe
unlovable but a life force

Charles Troob attends Sarah White’s weekly poetry group. Occasionally he gets lucky and something good comes out.  Enjoy!  
















Three Poems
 

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by Carol Schoen


Prologue


They were nobodies;

two of the million

children of immigrants

from East Europe,

not artistic,

or philosophic,

or brilliant.


Born in New York

same time

as the Communist state

in Russia,  Julius and Ethel

committed their lives

to the goal of equality

for all.  They never lost faith.


Julius


Hundreds of years in Russia

as merchants, managers,

we kept order among the serfs,

dwelled in shtetls, ignored at best,

while the elite wrote scurrilous

books about us.


The Communists gave us the vote!

Imagine that!  We were citizens,

no longer aliens barely tolerated

Citizens, participants in the great dream.

We owe them.  I just wanted to help.


Ethel


No one saw the scabs,

police batons hacking


at the people’s  backs.

My first job, I  was a leader

striking for workers rights;

we won few concessions.


Julius said NO!

let the people feel oppression ,

suffer till they understand

only total change,

total destruction of the old,

will bring the relief

that communism offers.


Destroy?  destroy?

More suffering?


Carol Schoen wrote her first poems for Sarah White’s study group and has been chugging along happily ever since.















This Hand
 

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by Mireya Perez Bustillo


In 1588 the Dutch sculptor

Henrick Goltzius drew his right hand

Strong gnarled

With knobbed knuckles

And strong wrist

With the white cuff rolled up

The veins bulging

Today I see my right hand

Delicate weakened

My wrists a narrow cuff

My thumb

Not its normal self

As it knows

It needs to rest

A while

And

Write another way

A week before its surgery















Bubbling
 

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by Mireya Perez Bustillo


Like a beetle under a frog’s skin

the paint bubbled larger with the heat

almost ready to burst like when she

held “number one” under her belly was hard like

……………………………………………..a balloon.


Sarita liked to look at the bubble

When Miss Jones started with the questions:

……….What happened to the old woman

……….who lived in a shoe?

……….Why did the cow jump

……….over the moon?

……….What did Jack eat as he

……….sat in his corner?


In the bubble puff Sarita could see

“Rin Rin Renacuajo” “Mirringa Mirronga” and “Pastorcita”*

………And Miss Jones doesn’t even

………know why “Rin Rin” left all

………dressed up and so early, or

………why  “Pastorcita” lost all her sheep

………“Rin Rin” is the best and papi

………taught me it and I know

………it all and say it for the guests.


“Sarita, Sarita, there you go again… “

………And I bet Miss Jones doesn’t

………know you say at the end

………“Colorin, Colorado, este cuento

………se ha acabado” ** And

………She doesn’t even know about the bubbling.


*Characters in nursery stories by Colombian writer, Rafael Pombo

** Traditional way of ending fairy tales and nursery rhymes in Spanish















Still Life : September 15, 2001
 

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by Carmen Mason


Is that what it is

this life?

Painting on water

the center not holding

no still life anywhere?


I am glad that the

children are still

on their swings

lovers still

holding hands

tighter than yesterday


fishermen on the bridge

watch the smoke

from the towers

forgetting the line’s pull

the silver dervish

at the end of the line


Driving by the small park

I notice it’s filled with

birch trees, triumphant

warriors of blight


a bride and groom

walk to the edge

of the pier and kiss

as the merciless smoke

leaves the frame of the camera


I am aware of all

I have not seen for years

All things precious


I see everything now

and wait for the next

glimpse of subject

the registering

the arm lifting

the brush taking

its oily ink to write

to paint on water.


I have been writing prose and poetry all my life.

They are sighs of joy, cries for help, testaments of love

or loss, refuge and epiphany. They surprise, console

and astound me. Just like friends and strangers do.















American Beauty
 

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One does not become enlightened by imagining the figures of light

but by making the darkness conscious.  ~ Carl Jung


by Carmen Mason


Oh yes

the melon roses

shot with coral edging bending

down, their scalloped shadows

(strong scented, sweet) upon my favorite

page of writing (who today? Colette

Munro, Morrison, Millay?)

The West, its burnt sienna mountains

against feathered shirt-white tufts

periwinkle skies.

Oh yes, the sea, everywhere the sea.


And home

my grandchild’s face so full of trust

perfect kissing-lips turned up awaiting me.

Two neighbors, bowed and plodding

hands entwined, their fine

white hair whisping in the reminiscent air;

the garden’s figs, hard purple not yet cracked

by the squirrels’ teeth; obscene peppers, eggplants

melons hot and squirming in their lusty skins

eggplants, peppers like women bent and yearning

lettuces, frilled and gentle green

baby slugs benignly curled in their

tight wombs. America the Beautiful.


But no:

museums filled with blushing forms

of porcelain flesh and corn silk hair.

Madonnas and baby Jesuses putty pink

anemic white ’neath radiant halos –

arcs of sacred personages;

our Founders’ high-bosomed matrons

smiling coldly or away, pinched tight

but certainly please, not Beautiful.


(When my little girl, dark and olive-eyed

first went horse-back riding

the keeper booted and bravado, moved to

the little girl behind her on the line and said

here my angel, my blond-blue-eyed beauty                                                  


jump on his back and let him

ride you to glory, little princess

then pulled the

dappled pony round my own

sweet girl

to that golden smiling one


Later, driving home she asked

what it had been all about :

Why didn’t the man take me

first on the line? Avoiding

what she meant to say

her dark face looking out, away

my brave girl perhaps fearing my reply.

It’s the ignorant people

in the unfair world my .

darling colt, my gorgeous girl.

She laughed and turned to kiss

my neck, my fury galloping away

through her thick dark hair.

What could I say to a girl of six?)


There is a black girl in that astounding book

The Bluest Eye, called out of name:

a child who dreamed of gouging

out her shadowed eyes (her mother

looking down at her, assuring

she was Ugly, Homely, UnBeautiful.)

Pecola Breedlove begged to have the bluest eyes

so she might prevail and overcome.

She goes mad instead.


But the most astounding of all:

Helen Keller, smitten with years and years

of American lore, then old, had her eyes

surgically removed (one had always bulged.

She knew without seeing

it was unsightly.)

What did she replace them with?

Liquid blue glass

globes unseeing –

American Beauties (a marble term.)

Dear old Helen, her new blue eyes flashing,

still deaf and blind to those worn-out Old Men

who served to hobble her along her azure way.


I have been writing prose and poetry all my life. They are sighs of joy, cries for help, testaments of love or loss, refuge and epiphany. They surprise, console and astound me. Just like friends and strangers do.















AMERICA: Flip Book
 

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by Carmen Mason


I remember Search

for Tomorrow, Ernie Kovacs

Pinhead and Foodini

benevolent, laughing times


years later with my first child

still resting inside me

I watched the President and his

pink pill-boxed lady

spilling and scrambling

through blood   then

Ruby getting Lee Harvey

in the gut    again and

again    a flip book

repeated on every

channel through the

day and night


fifteen years later the

Amazing Wallenda weaving then

plummeting again and

again onto a San Juan taxi cab

his granddaughter    the crowds

and the city buildings staring

all day long    all night


So I could only

sit still and give him

my unimportant tears

Robert Kennedy’s son

who sat alone

forgotten in his motel room

switching stations from daddy

to daddy to daddy waving

triumphantly

waving and waving

then shaking some hands

then falling and falling

again and again

and again   the boy

watching him fall

through the day

through the night


I have been writing prose and poetry all my life. They are sighs of joy, cries for help, testaments of love or loss, refuge and epiphany. They surprise, console and astound me. Just like friends and strangers do.















The 4th Daughter
 

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by Marjorie Levin


(Gilberto’s 75th Birthday)

She was eleven and radiated a girl confidence.

She spoke in Spanish but the praise for her father was so clear

that individual words weren’t needed to understand.


(Last Wednesday)

She is very fragile and cries in the middle of her happy life.

It’s over the tired but heavy slights that just don’t go away.

The mother that never was and oh that very same father.


(It Happened About 18 Months Ago)

She explained to me her baptism.

Coming from her people- never a god or God in sight.

She found Jesus Christ to be her savior.

And she wears a large key to keep that day firmly in mind

and keep her new families firmly attached.


(Singing)

Theirs are amazing voices full of grace. Really.

If voices could love, these do.

It seems they rise and fall in study and in song.

They pray in song together.

What are they looking for?

What do they hear when it’s found?


She is like the baby- at thirty-three

With the clear chimes of a girl calling out to her life.

But she has that already and it arrives soon.


I’m a lifelong designer.

I’m trying out writing as a different route to designing answers.

I have always designed visual answers to solve specific problems.

I am trying to shred the visuals and glue them back together in words.















Blooming
 

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by Jim Gould


Flowers spring my longing.

Snowdrops push through frozen crust

Crocus peeks from thatchly brown

Daffodil turns its yellow proud     to sun.

Take heart, my heart –

………dare to show your blooms

………before they wilt


A recovering lawyer, Jim travels the world, devours

NYC culture and writes in many styles.