tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579213022760373382024-02-07T16:52:06.928-06:00Generations of Poetry: The eZine for GenealogistsJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-78363958716632600352012-02-23T15:18:00.001-06:002012-02-23T15:18:19.935-06:00Indefinite Hiatus - Submissions ClosedJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-9966014631178368032011-06-25T00:01:00.004-05:002011-06-25T00:01:01.778-05:00Summer Hiatus - Submissions Remain Open<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Generations of Poetry is going on a Summer Hiatus. </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Submissions remain open.</b></div><br />
In our initial three months, we have published 54 poems, displaying the talents of 42 different poets. We are very pleased with the quality of the submissions we have received, and hope our readers feel the same.<br />
<br />
Submissions have slowed, so we are taking a publishing hiatus. Our plan is to return in autumn -- as the leaves are changing colors, and children are returning to school -- with more great poetry to share.<br />
<br />
Interested poets are encouraged to read the submission guidelines. We will maintain our goal of a two-week maximum turn around on responses to submissions; the hiatus will only impact the date of publication.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-6387165007981691672011-06-24T00:01:00.003-05:002011-06-24T00:01:03.977-05:00A Divided Plane<b>A Divided Plane</b><br />
Diana Matisz <br />
<br />
I look in the mirror<br />
and chisel my face<br />
into quadrants of four:<br />
<br />
Carolina.<br />
hands never still<br />
Slovak and English<br />
quietly falling from lips<br />
kissing the sweet crown<br />
of a newborn's head<br />
her plump cheeks rest<br />
on the bones of my face<br />
<br />
Martin.<br />
stoic coal miner<br />
living for family<br />
dying for family<br />
the one of four<br />
I never knew<br />
his nose delineates<br />
my facade<br />
<br />
Isabella.<br />
inner steel beneath<br />
soft Scots burr<br />
pale soap-scented skin<br />
the backbone of family<br />
deep-lake blue eyes<br />
those through which<br />
life finds me<br />
<br />
Walter.<br />
digger of earth<br />
puffing pipe smoke halos<br />
cigars and pinochle<br />
straight-backed<br />
reserved Englishman<br />
my hesitant mouth<br />
speaks his words never said<br />
<br />
These four without whom<br />
my face would be<br />
just a face.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Diana Matisz lives in Pittsburgh, PA and writes for the simple joy of it. She's also a casual photograper and her work can be found at <a href="http://dianaswords.blogspot.com/">Diana's Words</a>, and <a href="http://lifethrublueeyes.wordpress.com/">Life Through Blue Eyes</a>.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-14285470983532863802011-06-22T00:01:00.006-05:002011-06-22T00:01:01.859-05:00Erected to the Memory<b>Erected to the Memory</b><br />
Charles S. Carr<br />
<br />
I could not find you<br />
among the weeping cursive<br />
of names scrolled on crusty pages<br />
listing Donegal’s dead 1847.<br />
<br />
But here you are enshrined<br />
under the foliage of an Irish Yew<br />
cultivating questions in me,<br />
but I only have the silence<br />
<br />
to address your stone<br />
with the murmurs in the mist<br />
a breath of your vintage air<br />
the babble of birds.<br />
<br />
Listening to the crunch of my steps<br />
scratch your edges<br />
fingers tapping,<br />
trace the inscription:<br />
<br />
<i>By his sons in America.</i><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Charles Carr is a native Philadelphian, born and raised in Southwest Germantown. Charles attended LaSalle College and Bryn Mawr College, and has a Master's degree in American History. For 35 years Charles has worked in social services, developing programs and advocating for the needs of abused and neglected children. Charles has also completed missions to Haiti and he is active in raising awareness and funds for Haiti. In 2009 Cradle Press of St. Louis published Charles's first book of poetry: <i>paradise, pennsylvania.</i> Charles has been published in various local poetry reviews and is the 2008 First Prize Winner for the Mad Poets Review. <i>Haitian Mud Pies</i>, Charles's next collection of poems will be completed in December 2011. Charles is married and has one son.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-85656108727582729332011-06-20T00:01:00.001-05:002011-06-20T00:01:00.226-05:00Genetic Counseling<b>Genetic Counseling</b><br />
Matt Quinn<br />
<br />
My Dear Client:<br />
<br />
All of European descent<br />
are statistically bent<br />
to be born of kings<br />
and other royal things:<br />
More ancestors were needed<br />
for you to be seeded<br />
than people provided<br />
so tree forks elided.<br />
<br />
If I coupled Charlemagne<br />
to your trim train<br />
and attached Brian Boru<br />
to your scant retinue,<br />
it’s more about the fact<br />
than where they’re tacked.<br />
<br />
Best regards,<br />
Certified Genealogist Evan Gerard<br />
<br />
—Kindly note Queen Elizabeth replaces<br />
Uncle Joe who bet on races.<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
<a href="http://poemblaze.wordpress.com/">Matt Quinn</a> is a freelance writer and professional genealogist who lives in St. Louis, MO.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-74183749051438460952011-06-17T00:01:00.005-05:002011-06-17T10:06:05.787-05:00Etcetera<b>Etcetera</b><br />
Sigred Philipsen<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">We were on vacation driving through the Okanagan Valley</div><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Which according to my Time Atlas of the World (Compact Edition) </div><div style="text-align: right;">Is open shrub lands (I think)<br />
It's hard to tell the exact colour</div><div style="text-align: right;">(On the tiny map, my eyes older, the light dim)<br />
It could be croplands (It is croplands) <br />
Fruit trees, peaches, cherries & pears (Tomatoes too!) (Etc)</div><br />
My Mom & Dad were in the front seat of the car <br />
My Grandpa Odinsen, my brother Garry & I were in the back <br />
<br />
We were all a little weary<br />
Hot<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">The Okanagan is hot (In the summer)<br />
In the winter, middling winter (It gets the occasional cold snap below 20 degrees)<br />
Not as cold as the Cariboo (Not as mild as the Coast)</div><div style="text-align: right;">(Fair bit of snow)</div><br />
We had watched mountain passes<br />
Through the car window <br />
And semi-deserts<br />
Had had a sandwich lunch & a campfire breakfast <br />
And had driven hard <br />
In a crowded hot car<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">For miles & miles <br />
(Miles & miles)</div><br />
Miles & miles<br />
<br />
"Look!" my Mom said <br />
"Turn in there. See that sign!"<br />
And she pointed to a large sign <br />
A hundred yards <br />
Behind<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Professional lettering (Three bright colours)<br />
A picture on it (Of a TeePee)</div><br />
"Where!?" my Dad barked<br />
Weary too<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Hot, tired, stiff (Confined)</div><br />
"To the right Frank. It's not a government camp <br />
The sign said it's a KeeWee camp." <br />
<br />
"What the hell is a KeeWee camp" GrandPa Odinsen<br />
Rumbled up<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">From the right hand side (Window seat)<br />
Me in the middle (The hottest)<br />
My brother beside me on the left (His hand out the window)</div><br />
"They're a privately owned camp site" my Mom explained<br />
Often they have showers & sometimes a pool <br />
<br />
"A pool!" I piped up"<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Suddenly enlivened (By even the thought)<br />
Of cool, blue, silky, wet, cool, weightless (Water)</div><br />
"Oh can we, oh can we, oh can we!" I chattered <br />
<br />
"We'll see" my Mom replied calm <br />
"We'll see" GrandPa Odinsen replied ominously<br />
"We'll see" my brother Garry mumbled so quietly only I could hear<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">My Dad swung his head to the back seat (I became quiet)</div><br />
We turned off the paved road & travelled down a winding dirt one<br />
Entered trees & a patch of groomed grass <br />
And passed a children's playground <br />
My heart fluttered & I leaned over my brother <br />
Looking longingly at the slide<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">He pushed me back roughly (I squealed)<br />
GrandPa's hand flicked up (ForeFinger raised)<br />
Mom turned 'round (And scowled)<br />
Dad growled (I shrunk in my seat)</div><br />
"Over there Frank" my Mom pointed this time <br />
At a concrete block building with a sign over the door that said<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Office (I could read)</div><br />
Dad went through a gate <br />
Around a circular driveway<br />
Past the building labelled office<br />
And parked in a dusty parking lot<br />
Underneath a green hill <br />
And stopped the car<br />
Turned the engine off<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">We all sat for a few seconds (Silent)<br />
Getting used to the idea of not driving (Not moving through the air)<br />
Hot (Dry hot hot)<br />
Breathing (Hot air)</div><br />
Dad turned round & looked at GrandPa<br />
Checked out me<br />
And my Brother too<br />
<br />
"Well Gwen, what do you think?" he asked my Mother<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">I looked longingly at the pool (Noticed the showers beside the office)<br />
Checked more thoroughly the slide in the park (And the merry-go-round) <br />
Even my teenage brother had a soft smile on his lips (Watching the pretty girl at the pool)</div><br />
"Looks fine to me Frank" my Mother said<br />
With more enthusiasm in her voice <br />
Than she should<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">GrandPa grunted (Dad made to get out of the car)</div><br />
"I don't like me here" GrandPa mumbled<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Dad swung open the car door (Letting in the heat)</div><br />
"I don't like me here" GrandPa said louder <br />
My Mom said "What?"<br />
"I don't like me here!" my GrandPa said with no doubt in the tone of his voice<br />
"I don't like me here!" <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">My brother groaned (My Dad turned to face GrandPa)<br />
I moaned (My Mother looked straight ahead out the car's front window)<br />
Straight ahead (Without a word)</div><br />
"I don't like me here" GrandPa said one last time<br />
His arms crossed over his chest<br />
<br />
My Dad closed the door And started up the car again <br />
Drove past the office Around the circular driveway<br />
Past the pool & the patch of grass<br />
Up the dirt road until we hit the highway<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">And then turned right (Or maybe left)</div><br />
***<br />
<br />
Sigred Philipsen lives with her partner in Ecuador. Prior to that they lived on a classic patrol boat in Vancouver British Columbia. Living on a boat or moving to Ecuador, they both take the same kind of general outlook on life. It's an adventure! Either that or they've both got a screw loose. In any case, there they are retired (finally) with their shih tzu Fredi, making a life for themselves at the equator. Sigred's poetry can be found on her site, <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/danglingonahook/Home">Dangling on a Hook</a>. There is also a blog, <a href="http://planetirony.blogspot.com/%20">Planet Irony</a>, chronicling their move from Canada to Ecuador over a 3 years period 2008 - 2010, and a new blog, <a href="http://thosenotcomplicatedneednotapply.blogspot.com/%20">Those Not Complicated Need Not Apply</a>, which contains articles on Ecuador, random stories, cartoons from other authors, photographs, infographics from other authors, poetry, quotes and whatever else takes Sigred's interest.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-38367374645976135102011-06-15T00:01:00.005-05:002011-06-15T00:01:01.721-05:00The Way It Was (1937)<b>The Way It Was (1937)</b><br />
Matt Quinn <b><br />
</b><br />
<br />
In town, a man came up to Amos<br />
saying he hadn’t eaten in three days.<br />
Amos knew he’d give the man food<br />
if this were his farm,<br />
but it was town.<br />
“There are Colored folk in Sparta.<br />
You can get food there.”<br />
Sparta was twenty miles away.<br />
<br />
Fifty years later, Amos still told the story<br />
on himself, of the man turned away<br />
because of his skin, Amos still wishing<br />
he’d been more brave.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Way It Was (1937)</i> was previously published in <i>Phantoms (2008</i>)</span><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<a href="http://poemblaze.wordpress.com/">Matt Quinn</a> is a freelance writer and professional genealogist who lives in St. Louis, MO.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-5026896785245580512011-06-13T00:01:00.003-05:002011-06-13T00:01:02.413-05:00Two Gun Lil<b>Two-Gun Lil</b><br />
Karen Douglass<br />
<br />
Two-Gun Lil is five years old.<br />
She wears a purple skirt and vest<br />
with white fringe, leatherette holster<br />
for her matching six shooters.<br />
<br />
She rides a broomstick to the edge<br />
of the yard, careful not to trot<br />
across the rotten cesspool cover<br />
half hidden by waist-high grass.<br />
<br />
A rhubarb patch by the empty barn blocks<br />
the other end of her trail. She’s heard<br />
that rhubarb raw can kill you.<br />
She ties her stick pony in an empty stall<br />
<br />
and worries that she’ll never catch<br />
any cattle rustlers with so much in her way.<br />
Inside, Gram has hung the jelly bag<br />
from a knob on the cupboard door.<br />
<br />
“Don’t touch! The jelly isn’t ready to eat.”<br />
Nothing Lil can do for now but<br />
accept Wonder Bread with butter<br />
and sugar, folded to keep her hands clean.<br />
<br />
“You can’t shoot with butter fingers.<br />
Now go back outside.” No one tells<br />
The Lone Ranger to go play. He doesn’t<br />
worry about riding Silver into a cesspool,<br />
<br />
or getting a mouthful of raw rhubarb.<br />
Kemo Sabe won’t ever see his gram<br />
thin as a fence rail and wonder<br />
what he could have done to save her.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Karen Douglass writes poems, novels, a blog, and grocery lists. She lives in Colorado with three dogs, one cat, and her family. You can visit her at <a href="http://kdsbookblog.blogspot.com/">KD’s Bookblog</a>, or you can come to Colorado. Her books include <i>Red Goddess Poems</i>; <i>Bones in the Chimney</i> (fiction); <i>Green Rider</i>, <i>Thinking Horse</i> (non-fiction); <i>Sostenuto</i>, (prose poems) and <i>The Great Hunger</i> (poems), which is available from Plain View Press (2009).Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-65828172988271584972011-06-10T00:01:00.001-05:002011-06-10T00:01:03.039-05:00There Are Untold Failures<b>There Are Untold Failures</b><br />
Patrick Winn<br />
<br />
As a boy, I saw the processes of failure,<br />
Unto those secret and leaden coves,<br />
While others played in the industrial parks, waving dry sticks around,<br />
I saw beautiful Maria melt into her cotton sheets<br />
While the rest hid and sang to each other through the nettles,<br />
Maria, we could never sing to each other.<br />
And there was rage in me the likes of which you could not imagine.<br />
<br />
But then, somehow, I was a man, and mellowed in the vale of years,<br />
Before me a new generation rose in the Hollow,<br />
shuttering and turning back and stopping.<br />
In rising defeat, you ante-heroes, fearsome eyes for the decline.<br />
I stand in the distance, your malignant Aeneas<br />
Warm defector, wrapped in an aegis of calm,<br />
<br />
But the distance between us is not that great.<br />
Mark my words: the best things ever written have been thrown out on the backs of inventory tags<br />
Or forgotten in the smoke and ether of broken hearts.<br />
Heaven simply cannot exist,<br />
If it is not a tender conclave of such failure.<br />
You will lose beyond reckoning,<br />
Failure upon failure, you will live forever.<br />
<br />
Come, look into the sinking face of Maria,<br />
You see, there, you do not know how to live.<br />
But I love you more for it.<br />
Your wounds are about me, and I am with you.<br />
Sing your decompositions, and I will listen.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Patrick Winn is an attorney who studied literature as a grad student at Boston College, and as an undergrad at Brandeis.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-29313409281225673392011-06-08T00:01:00.012-05:002011-06-08T00:01:00.660-05:00Letter to a Dead Grandmother<b>Letter to a Dead Grandmother</b><br />
Karen Douglass<br />
<br />
Before I forget again, let me say<br />
that I remember the front hall<br />
with the stag’s head watching over us.<br />
And the enamel topped kitchen table.<br />
I remember your lap, the porch,<br />
the rocking chair with paint so thick<br />
I etched my initials in it with my fingernails.<br />
Summer evenings we watched barn swallows <br />
diving and darting, and you and Aunt Grace sang<br />
“Bye, Bye Blackbird” and “I’ll Be Seeing You.”<br />
<br />
Bedtime meant the door between my room<br />
and the dining room left open because<br />
I was afraid of the closet and a little bit scared<br />
of the whippoorwill who sang every night<br />
under my window. We never saw that bird.<br />
The summer after first grade, I never<br />
saw you again. Oh, Uncle George said<br />
the thin woman in that high bed was you.<br />
I didn’t believe him. Now I do. I’ve visited<br />
the cemetery and seen your name on the stone.<br />
<br />
In those seven years you mothered me, did you ever<br />
resent raising another child? After all,<br />
your youngest, Gracie, was ten the day I was born,<br />
soon dropped into your lap when my mother vowed<br />
she had to work and couldn’t watch me. She was right.<br />
Not made for mothering small children, not like you.<br />
Maybe she never noticed your hands as you made<br />
jelly, lemon pies, mashed potatoes, tea with milk.<br />
She drank coffee and smoked Pall Malls and married<br />
four times. You were widowed early and never again<br />
had the comfort of a man at your side. It wasn’t fair<br />
that you had to suffer, never an easy day or<br />
enough cash to shop anywhere but the IGA. <br />
<br />
I know you’ll never read this. Writing to you now<br />
cannot make up for my silence, or break open<br />
the family secret that you were dying. <br />
I was yanked away, sent off to the other grandparents, <br />
who were good, but who cut off my braids, <br />
and closed the bedroom door, who had no birds but <br />
silent, tiny hummingbirds they fed on sugar water <br />
from red glass bulbs. Now I am a grandmother, <br />
not like you, not singing and rocking. One day I will die <br />
and my grandson will—maybe—think about<br />
what he might have said, but didn’t. Generations,<br />
lineage, heritage—what is it but a bird flying over us,<br />
dropping feathers that blow away in the breeze? <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Karen Douglass writes poems, novels, a blog, and grocery lists. She lives in Colorado with three dogs, one cat, and her family. You can visit her at <a href="http://kdsbookblog.blogspot.com/">KD’s Bookblog</a>, or you can come to Colorado. Her books include <i>Red Goddess Poems</i>; <i>Bones in the Chimney</i> (fiction); <i>Green Rider</i>, <i>Thinking Horse</i> (non-fiction); <i>Sostenuto</i>, (prose poems) and <i>The Great Hunger</i> (poems), which is available from Plain View Press (2009).Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-77237892557390385212011-06-06T00:01:00.001-05:002011-06-06T00:01:00.138-05:00Outsiders<b>Outsiders</b><br />
Doris Lueth Stengel <br />
<br />
Grandfather sailed into New York on the Bremerhaven,<br />
clutching the American dream.<br />
He waved to the lady with the torch---<br />
she was an immigrant too, from France.<br />
<br />
In the steamer trunk were his tools,<br />
plane, lathe, level, chisels.<br />
A cabinet maker by trade, also <br />
undertaker, because he made coffins.<br />
<br />
He traveled to Minnesota,<br />
where other Germans had settled.<br />
The train traversed broad prairies.<br />
Such good land, such opportunity.<br />
<br />
Then came the day when a farmer<br />
hanged himself from rafters in his barn.<br />
The widow pleaded with grandpa<br />
to find a place to bury her husband.<br />
<br />
Righteous townspeople <br />
would not abide lying near a suicide.<br />
They were buried south of town, <br />
tidily laid down in order of death,<br />
too thrifty to waste farm land on large plots.<br />
<br />
A man must be put into the ground.<br />
The immigrant carpenter walked north<br />
where a family had a small private cemetery.<br />
Could he buy one plot? Not inside the fence.<br />
<br />
To this day, too sinful to lie among neighbors,<br />
that man lies alone outside the fence.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Doris Lueth Stengel grew up in North Dakota. Her paternal grandfather immigrated from Germany and this is his story. Doris is a member of Heartland Poets, League of Minnesota Poets and National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS) and has served as president of all 3 organizations.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-88331497116093746312011-06-03T00:01:00.000-05:002011-06-03T00:01:00.780-05:00The Sewer Line Fall<b>The Sewer Line Fall</b><br />
Geordie de Boer<br />
<br />
<i> in memory of my grandfather</i><br />
<br />
Melvin judges the fall while I dig<br />
the ditch for the sewer line. A harsh sentence,<br />
twenty yards hard labor. “Dig a bit more<br />
out here,” he says pointing with his shovel<br />
keeping me bent to the task and grunting,<br />
a Semite slave and he, my Egyptian<br />
master warning: “The rod is in my hand,<br />
be not idle.” Under the house we hollow<br />
a bowl below the joint where the sewer pipes<br />
converge before making their exit<br />
to the septic tank. Then, with a pail nailed<br />
to the end of a two-by-four he dips<br />
the tank, (an Old Master’s painting in dark<br />
tones: The Sewage Dipper), pours sewage<br />
into the wheelbarrow, which I push. Each<br />
bump sends sludge sluicing forward in waves<br />
that splash my face when they slap against<br />
the back of the barrow. Thus, am I baptized:<br />
The Wasted Baptismal, another painting<br />
in somber tones. On Melvin’s command<br />
the sewage goes onto Laura’s flower garden.<br />
It scorches the plants and the fabric of<br />
their marriage when she finds out. We<br />
crawl back beneath the house to break the joint.<br />
I sit, another clod on the dirt pile,<br />
as Melvin, like a long-time jailbird, raps<br />
an anemic tune on the pipes till they<br />
give way. Sewage pours out wrenching at his<br />
pant legs dragging him into the hole. (I<br />
imagine him as a mummy wrapped in<br />
a toilet paper shroud.) “We didn’t dip<br />
the tank low enough,” says Melvin. “We could<br />
have killed more flowers,” I say grasping his<br />
arms. Escaping to daylight we watch as<br />
sewage flows the length of the ditch, our toil<br />
gone to waste. “You’ll need to dig that sewage<br />
out of there so we can lay pipe,” Melvin<br />
says. “And be sure to not ruin the fall.”<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Geordie de Boer, a rambler and wrangler of rhythm lives in rural Washington. He’s been published most recently by<i> Hobo Camp Review, Hobble Creek Review, the beatnik, Offcourse, </i>and<i> Cirque</i>. Visit him at <a href="http://geedeboer.wordpress.com/">Cockeyed Fits.</a>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-4168033992059921792011-06-01T05:14:00.000-05:002011-06-01T05:14:40.350-05:00One Hundred Strokes<b>One Hundred Strokes</b><br />
Bill Roberts<br />
<br />
Never once did I count aloud<br />
the hundredth stroke,<br />
sound asleep in Grandma's bed<br />
as she brushed my hair with<br />
her silver hairbrush, counting<br />
aloud with me till I tired,<br />
closed my eyes, went off<br />
to a comfortable dreamland.<br />
Awakening next morning,<br />
usually a Saturday, stretching<br />
to get going, we'd dress,<br />
head out the back door,<br />
through her garden full of smells<br />
that intoxicated if you lingered,<br />
but we had a mission - the bakery.<br />
There she purchased Parker House<br />
rolls in a pan, still warm, so<br />
we hurried home, made tea,<br />
stretched out breakfast on her<br />
sunny summer porch until most<br />
of the rolls and orange marmalade<br />
had disappeared into a full tummy.<br />
I had to go back home, reluctantly,<br />
later in the afternoon, taking<br />
a sleep-inducing streetcar ride,<br />
nodding as I counted blips<br />
in the steel tracks, relaxing, yes,<br />
nowhere near as comforting as<br />
Grandma's soothing brush strokes. <br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">"One Hundred Strokes" was previously published in the January 2011 issue of <u>Long Story Short</u>.</span></i><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.billrobertspoet.com/">Bill Roberts</a> is a retired nuclear scientist and widely published poet; his works having appeared in over 200 online and small-press magazines. His poetry has been nominated both for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Bill gives a seminar on how to write a poem a day in 15 minutes, then prep it for market. He, his wife of 53 years (both her age and years married), plus two totally spoiled dogs live too near the edge of Broomfield, Colorado.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-86962172006738503942011-05-30T00:01:00.001-05:002011-05-30T00:01:00.379-05:00Genealogy<b>Genealogy</b><br />
Susan Duncan<br />
<br />
I find they’d been neighbors on Fourth Street,<br />
a garden, perhaps only a fence between.<br />
But here<br />
on the microfilm of the 1850 Springfield census,<br />
they’re separated by just two lines:<br />
<i>David Grayston, preacher</i><br />
<i>Abraham Lincoln, lawyer</i><br />
Footnote, that’s all, to a pedigree<br />
whose pyramid of neat boxes has room alone<br />
for my family’s birth dates, spouses, gravesites.<br />
<br />
No place for the neighbors’.<br />
<br />
Just a stair-stepping, very tidy<br />
from father to child.<br />
A careful sidestepping of the disorderly<br />
waged beyond the boxes:<br />
secession, sedition, emancipation,<br />
assassination.<br />
<br />
In my next row down<br />
hometowns and cemeteries shift west<br />
one state.<br />
Joplin’s 1920 census shows<br />
<i>George Grayston, lawyer</i><br />
lived on Elm Street with<br />
<i>John Baker, preacher</i><br />
<i>Richard Smith, druggist</i><br />
<i>Henry Jackson, shopkeeper</i><br />
<br />
Again, I have no boxes for the neighbors.<br />
<br />
But they wanted to be nameless<br />
as on that night—<br />
in the interest of the neighborhood—<br />
they pulled on white hoods<br />
and bathed the Grayston porch in torchlight.<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><u>Genealogy</u> was previously published in <u>THEMA Literary Journal,</u> Summer 2008.</i></span><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Susan Duncan has an MBA in arts management from the University of California, Los Angeles. Having made her living in performing arts administration and arts philanthropy for many years, she is presently an independent consultant with a performing and visual arts clientele. She has served as executive director for San Francisco’s long-running musical comedy phenomenon Beach Blanket Babylon, the al fresco California Shakespeare Theater, and the Grammy-winning, all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer.<br />
<br />
Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in <i>Atlanta Review, Compass Rose, the G.W. Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, The MacGuffin, OmniArts, Poem, River Oak Review, THEMA, </i>and<i> The Yalobusha Review.</i>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-78387420014759886482011-05-27T00:01:00.000-05:002011-05-27T00:01:01.011-05:00Sterkte<b>Sterkte</b><sup>*</sup><br />
Lynn Otto<br />
<br />
<i>Sterkte</i> says my mother when I go,<br />
one of the many Dutch words she knows,<br />
one of the few I’ve learned.<br />
Strength. <br />
<br />
Her mother said the same to her<br />
when she left Los Angeles for Tacoma,<br />
two babies in diapers, no dryer.<br />
It rained all but one day of November.<br />
<br />
The tenth day of wet gray,<br />
it took strength to smile even briefly.<br />
On the twentieth, she whispered<br />
it a hundred times. <i>Sterkte</i>.<br />
<br />
My great-grandmother wished it<br />
when her daughter, new baby in arms,<br />
boarded the boat. Wished it for her daughter<br />
and herself. Just to walk home.<br />
<br />
In each letter we’ve sent: <i>Sterkte</i>.<br />
Four generations, in different hands,<br />
the one word we still write<br />
in the mother tongue.<br />
<br />
*(stĕrk'-tǝ)<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Lynn Otto teaches writing classes for homeschoolers and is an adjunct writing instructor at George Fox University in Oregon. She'll begin work on an MFA in poetry at Portland State University in September 2011. Her work is in <i>Triggerfish Critical Review</i>, Yamhill County Arts Alliance’s <i>Paper Gardens</i> chapbooks, and forthcoming in <i>Plain Spoke</i>.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-63938527897185305342011-05-25T00:01:00.002-05:002011-05-25T00:01:00.510-05:00Genealogy<b>Genealogy</b><br />
Ed Bennett<br />
<br />
(For my Cherokee great great grandmother)<br />
<br />
Some days I can feel your breath<br />
in the rustle of brown paged documents<br />
where I seek a hidden trace or revelation<br />
from so many generations removed.<br />
<br />
I heard your name in childhood<br />
from hushed voices in other rooms<br />
sharing drinks and laughter<br />
over great grandma’s legend.<br />
<br />
You were my dream that night,<br />
drawn from purloined snippets<br />
of grown up conversation hidden<br />
like coins beneath my pillow.<br />
<br />
You have been erased from us,<br />
turned from flesh to whisper,<br />
invisible as the wind<br />
yet part of me, contained in every vein.<br />
<br />
Mother of wind, my blood, my breath<br />
sit with me as I glean these records<br />
where the pieces of your life lie open<br />
for me to take and place on your bones.<br />
<br />
My old life falls from me like leaves<br />
in an autumn gust of anxious change,<br />
to take this legacy of fire and drum<br />
from someone gone to someone resurrected<br />
<br />
You are part of me, a shaman’s cry,<br />
the breath of change roiling my soul<br />
like the angel’s finger in Siloam’s pool<br />
embraced with the chant of eagle voices.<br />
<br />
Bless the whispers of my childhood,<br />
Mother of the Spirit Wind,<br />
that restored my blood<br />
with the songs of my lost people.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
Ed Bennett is a Telecommunications Engineer living in Las Vegas and is a Staff<br />
Editor of <i>Quill and Parchment</i>. Originally from New York City, his work appeared<br />
in <i>The Patterson Literary Review, The Externalist, Quill and Parchment, </i>and<br />
<i>Touch: The Journal of Healing</i>. In March of this year <i>The Lives You Touch Press</i><br />
published his chapbook, “A Transit of Venus”.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-49290286630298542732011-05-23T00:01:00.001-05:002011-05-23T07:02:47.817-05:00The Captain<b>The Captain</b><br />
Bradley McIlwain<br />
<br />
The Captain, again,<br />
has come and gone.<br />
<br />
He has been here twice<br />
in the last month,<br />
<br />
each time his purpose<br />
unknown –<br />
<br />
and we have left empty<br />
handed<br />
<br />
burning with the same<br />
unanswered question,<br />
<br />
each time, taking only<br />
what you have to give.<br />
<br />
I heard from your mouth<br />
he was the lover no one<br />
<br />
knew you had, not even<br />
your daughter who was<br />
<br />
baffled by your seventy<br />
year silence,<br />
<br />
left to wonder about her<br />
legal birth.<br />
<br />
We wondered if he died<br />
in the war,<br />
<br />
but you wouldn’t tell us;<br />
only that he was coming<br />
<br />
to take you away,<br />
from that steel bed<br />
<br />
and whitewashed walls;<br />
when you were afraid to<br />
<br />
fade out with the rest of<br />
the furniture.<br />
<br />
To this day I wonder<br />
If he made it to your<br />
<br />
deathbed, standing<br />
there in uniform<br />
<br />
with your luggage<br />
and your boarding<br />
<br />
pass,<br />
waiting to take you<br />
<br />
to the harbor.<br />
No photograph<br />
<br />
of him remained,<br />
whose name you buried<br />
<br />
with the dead;<br />
and all his secrets<br />
<br />
on your skin<br />
were carried by the tide.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
Bradley McIlwain is a Canadian-based writer and poet, who lives and works in rural Ontario. His works have appeared in <i>Wanderings Magazine, New Verse News, Rope and Wire, Frostwriting, The Copperfield Review</i>, and others. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, Honours in English Literature from Trent University. His first collection of poetry, <i>Fracture</i>, was published in 2010, and is available at <a href="http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1472480">Blurb</a>.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-41141552801792057882011-05-20T00:01:00.001-05:002011-05-20T00:01:00.615-05:00Warrior Blessing<b>Warrior Blessing</b><br />
Patricia Wellingham-Jones<br />
<br />
Two old warriors<br />
long divorced<br />
bow gray-streaked heads<br />
over their wounded firstborn.<br />
Ask the Ancient One<br />
to gird their son with strength,<br />
hold him steady<br />
in his new course.<br />
They gaze at each other’s<br />
life-scarred face,<br />
smile about pain<br />
inflicted, time-eased.<br />
Muttering thanks<br />
for what they’ve learned<br />
they pass it in silence<br />
with hands and eyes<br />
to the young warrior<br />
going into his greatest battle.<br />
<br />
<small><i>Warrior Blessing was previously published in <u>Kota Press Poetry Journal</u>, 2002</i></small><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Patricia Wellingham-Jones is widely published with an interest in healing writing and the benefits of writing and reading work together. Twenty years ago she got fired up about genealogy and wound up researching, writing and publishing five family histories.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-32866761540127188442011-05-18T00:01:00.002-05:002011-05-18T00:01:02.177-05:00Hub<b>Hub</b><br />
Hester L Furey<br />
<br />
You are the center, my word of power,<br />
my whole life a series of your spokes,<br />
of radii beginning with you<br />
in the short overlap between us.<br />
All my life I have flirted with Death<br />
for your sake, but as I give her up, <br />
Father, I lose you --<br />
each day your flesh retreats a little<br />
further from my mind’s anxious touch.<br />
I gather now only buckeyes you carried, <br />
copper bracelets, a feathered hipster hat, cocked to one side.<br />
I find your smell on a lover's cheeks<br />
from time to time, or asthmatic, I belt out<br />
your wheezing, irresistible laugh,<br />
and a few spoken phrases<br />
catch me unawares in your voice.<br />
<br />
You are becoming an idea, a story: <br />
a wild old wicked man, a rake of the thirties, <br />
the third son, the one who had adventures,<br />
who threw parties every week and invited everybody, <br />
right down to the police. <br />
You kept a gun propped behind the bedroom door, <br />
another across the back of the car, a pistol <br />
in your desk, and probably another on your person,<br />
for reasons we never discussed.<br />
You talked to me about social policy from infancy<br />
and invented “take your daughter to work day”<br />
long before feminists thought of it. At three<br />
I learned to read, so you gave me encyclopedias.<br />
You left home in your teens, <br />
with only a sixth grade education.<br />
In 1929 when your mother died,<br />
you came back to the farm in Amboy.<br />
<br />
Then the market crashed, and<br />
men dived from buildings in the big cities.<br />
You hated farming. You opened<br />
a laundromat, a bus station, bought an inn,<br />
opened a bonded warehouse, <br />
bought cotton for Hohenberg Brothers.<br />
All through the Depression,<br />
you had money when no one else did.<br />
You let Mr. Philips borrow your car to court Miss Ruby,<br />
and you never let anyone else pick up the tab.<br />
At the height of success<br />
you suddenly left everything behind,<br />
the respect of your neighbors, the goodwill of family,<br />
even a cabin at the river,<br />
for a stubborn girl, crazy in fact,<br />
young enough to be your daughter.<br />
<br />
Later, you complained to her mother, almost your age.<br />
The girl was wild and uncontrollable, you said. <br />
She lied every day, drank, started brawls in public places, <br />
and spent money like a house on fire. As if you didn't know.<br />
The mother had herself a good laugh, wiped her eyes<br />
on her apron, and served you more cabbage,<br />
just the way you liked it, still a little crunchy,<br />
steamed with butter and pepper.<br />
Then she served you an old country joke.<br />
"You wanted her so bad," she said.<br />
"You got her. She's yours. We won't take her back."<br />
<br />
The crazy girl did love you, in her way.<br />
She knew that I preferred you, so when I asked,<br />
she brushed me off, saying you cared only<br />
for “women and money,” but in a good mood <br />
after a few drinks she loved to recount<br />
your life together, the good and bad<br />
mixed together so that I grew up perverse,<br />
unable to tell which was which:<br />
The time you almost bit her toe off,<br />
or the time she drove up and found you with Mary,<br />
did not ask questions, just reached down and threw<br />
a cinder block through the cabin window,<br />
and you refused to fix it all winter long.<br />
<br />
Before she died, she cracked herself up telling<br />
about the babysitter who ate your chocolate rabbit.<br />
Coming home from a party to find<br />
the tub full of cold clean water, <br />
me in bed with black filthy feet, <br />
and the rabbit missing from the freezer,<br />
the two of you parsed these signs <br />
and discussed your conclusions.<br />
She raged, "I <i>told</i> her to bathe Lee, damn it!" but<br />
you said drily, "Naw, she thought you said,<br />
`just go on in the kitchen, <br />
an' eat up every damn thing in sight.'"<br />
When you died you had lived with diabetes <br />
and suffered cancer twice, but I always believed<br />
– the therapist got this one the wrong way around – <br />
my mother had finally killed you.<br />
Over her protests, you had named me <br />
Hester after your mother, <br />
the only woman, you said, who ever really loved you,<br />
the one whose death called you home.<br />
The crazy girl called me “baby” for 3 weeks,<br />
unable to say the name while I nearly died <br />
before Dr. Lee saved me with goat's milk.<br />
Sometimes I still run into people who knew you.<br />
They tell me I have your hands.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Hester Furey teaches college English. She has published <i>Dictionary of Biography 345: American Radical and Reform Writers, Second Series</i> (She compiled and edited the volume, wrote the intro and two other essays), various academic essays and reference book pieces, and a chapbook of poems called <i>Little Fish</i> (Finishing Line Press, 2010). She lives in Decatur, Georgia.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-32421130559311483212011-05-16T00:01:00.001-05:002011-05-16T00:01:01.183-05:00Third Cousins in Norway<b>Third Cousins in Norway</b><br />
Candace Simar<br />
<br />
I would have been the one who stayed<br />
behind. Timid, afraid of oceans<br />
choosing familiar over precarious<br />
caring for parents and sickly aunts<br />
safer than uncertain wilderness<br />
where Red Indians threatened.<br />
<br />
I would have written letters<br />
with news of deaths or sickness<br />
births and weddings<br />
tucked pansy seeds inside envelopes<br />
to homesick brothers on North Dakota<br />
prairies and Minnesota pineries.<br />
Read their stories from afar, stroking<br />
blond curls of nephews’ hair<br />
pressing the locks to my lips<br />
knowing I would never see their faces.<br />
<br />
I would have been the last of my<br />
generation left in Norway,<br />
the only one to speak with tenderness<br />
connect a face with names, share memories from childhood<br />
answer questions why they left and what they gained<br />
or lost by leaving.<br />
<br />
I would be the one who stands<br />
on the other side of the door<br />
flatbread and lefse baked and waitin<br />
hand-woven cloths with Hardanger lace<br />
reindeer sausage, gjetost brown cheese<br />
everything to perfection.<br />
Welcoming distant cousins from America,<br />
astonished they could travel so far<br />
and yet find their way home<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<a href="http://candacesimar.com/">Candace Simar</a> is a member of <i>Brainerd Writer’s Alliance</i>, <i>Bards of a Feather</i> and the <i>Western Writers of America</i>. Candace’s historical novels, <i>Abercrombie Trail</i> (2009); <i>Pomme de Terre</i> (2010); and <i>Birdie</i> (2011) tell the stories of Scandinavian immigrants in 19th Century Minnesota.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-78055965371904833622011-05-13T00:01:00.002-05:002011-05-13T12:56:01.765-05:00Photo Album<b>Photo Album</b><br />
Juliet Wilson<br />
<br />
She didn’t travel much<br />
Clacton, the Isle of Man<br />
for family visits and sea air.<br />
<br />
Had her feet done before each trip<br />
and a special blue rinse.<br />
Packed a paperback.<br />
<br />
Once there, played bingo, bought gifts<br />
for the grandchildren,<br />
drank tea with distant cousins.<br />
<br />
For a memento of every holiday<br />
she visited a photo booth,<br />
pasted the prints into a book.<br />
<br />
The snaps are still lined up, numbered<br />
from early black and white –<br />
bright eyes and jaunty hats<br />
<br />
to later, older faces<br />
staring straight ahead<br />
bravely in full colour.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Juliet Wilson is an Edinburgh based poet, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. She blogs at <a href="http://craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com/">Crafty Green Poet</a> and at <a href="http://foundcraftygreenart.blogspot.com/">Over Forty Shades</a>. Her chapbook <i>Unthinkable Skies</i> was published in 2010.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-14350250270931181682011-05-11T00:01:00.008-05:002011-05-11T00:01:00.381-05:00Labor Day<b>Labor Day</b><br />
Laura Madeline Wiseman<br />
<br />
<i>Council Bluffs, Iowa, late 1860s</i><br />
<br />
Miss Florence E. Felts<br />
Durand, Illinois<br />
<br />
Happy birthday littlest sister!<br />
<br />
I’m writing to announce our first,<br />
Alice M. Fletcher. She shares your day.<br />
The delivery was long. She seems to thrive.<br />
<br />
Did I ever tell you what I remember<br />
about your birth? I was seventeen<br />
when you were born—<br />
<br />
father (48), mother (43), Susan (24),<br />
Aaron (22), Sarah (19), George (16),<br />
Oliver (14) Emeline (14), Edward (13),<br />
Armihta (8), Orilla (5), and Charles (3)<br />
<br />
—all of us were there<br />
by the summer kitchen. It was Sunday.<br />
Besides the labor, only prayer work was done.<br />
Our boarder, a new minister, whispered<br />
<br />
verse as he turned pages in his book.<br />
On the trellis porch above the kindling<br />
a wasp flicked its wings as it climbed.<br />
Runners twisted up the whitewash<br />
<br />
with scarlet blossoms open as vulvas.<br />
Honeybees purred in the red petals.<br />
The leaves of broomcorn and squash<br />
swayed in our mother’s garden.<br />
<br />
Beyond the privy’s crescent moon,<br />
father paced in the wildflowers<br />
as mother cried out during your birth.<br />
I think he knew something good<br />
was coming into this world.<br />
<br />
Matilda<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Laura Madeline Wiseman is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. She is the author of <i>Sprung</i>, forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press, as well as three chapbooks of poetry, <i>My Imaginary</i> (Dancing Girl Press, 2010), <i>Ghost Girl </i>(Pudding House, 2010), and <i>Branding Girls</i> (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her work has appeared in <i>Margie</i>, <i>Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Blackbird,</i> and <i>13th Moon.</i> She notes this poem is based on the life of her ancestor, nineteenth century suffragist and lecturer, Matilda Fletcher (1842-1909).Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-62023133657785055782011-05-09T00:01:00.000-05:002011-05-09T00:01:01.091-05:00Draft<b>Draft</b><br />
Jacob Oet<br />
<br />
<br />
First the settlers’ dream<br />
to build a home.<br />
<br />
Later the immigrants dreamed<br />
of two-bedroom apartments<br />
and fantasized<br />
about the availability of showers.<br />
<br />
Some came naked.<br />
Some came with clothing but sold their clothing<br />
for a bag of seeds<br />
from trees back home.<br />
<br />
And they planted their children in the new way,<br />
showering them with allowances<br />
and enlisting them in public education.<br />
<br />
Some joined the army.<br />
They planted<br />
only their own gravestones.<br />
In spring they bore a name etched into rock.<br />
<br />
My name is Jacob.<br />
I am the grandchild of second-hand dreams.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Jacob Oet lives in Solon, Ohio. He has loved writing and making images since he was little. Jacob’s poetry and images appear in <i>The New Verse News, The Jet Fuel Review, Superstition Review, H.O.D., </i>and<i> OVS Magazine</i>.<br />
<br />
Student by choice, Jacob Oet is never sure which language he speaks. You may spot him in a park, forest or beach, with planted feet, arms stretched up and shaking in a breeze. But don’t let him see you; he likes to sing to strangers. He takes photos of snow, and hates winter.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-34436164430763289302011-05-08T12:01:00.001-05:002011-05-08T12:01:00.170-05:00Dorothy Q - Oliver Wendell Holmes<b>Dorothy Q.</b><br />
<i>A Family Portrait</i><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Sr.">Oliver Wendell Holmes</a> (1809-1894)<br />
<br />
GRANDMOTHER’S mother: her age, I guess, <br />
Thirteen summers, or something less; <br />
Girlish bust, but womanly air; <br />
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; <br />
Lips that lover has never kissed; <br />
Taper fingers and slender wrist; <br />
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; <br />
So they painted the little maid. <br />
<br />
On her hand a parrot green <br />
Sits unmoving and broods serene. <br />
Hold up the canvas full in view,— <br />
Look! there ’s a rent the light shines through, <br />
Dark with a century’s fringe of dust,— <br />
That was a Red-Coat’s rapier-thrust! <br />
Such is the tale the lady old, <br />
Dorothy’s daughter’s daughter, told. <br />
<br />
Who the painter was none may tell,— <br />
One whose best was not over well; <br />
Hard and dry, it must be confessed, <br />
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed; <br />
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, <br />
Dainty colors of red and white, <br />
And in her slender shape are seen <br />
Hint and promise of stately mien. <br />
<br />
Look not on her with eyes of scorn,— <br />
Dorothy Q. was a lady born! <br />
Ay! since the galloping Normans came, <br />
England’s annals have known her name; <br />
And still to the three-hilled rebel town <br />
Dear is that ancient name’s renown, <br />
For many a civic wreath they won, <br />
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son. <br />
<br />
O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.! <br />
Strange is the gift that I owe to you; <br />
Such a gift as never a king <br />
Save to daughter or son might bring,— <br />
All my tenure of heart and hand, <br />
All my title to house and land; <br />
Mother and sister and child and wife <br />
And joy and sorrow and death and life! <br />
<br />
What if a hundred years ago <br />
Those close-shut lips had answered No, <br />
When forth the tremulous question came <br />
That cost the maiden her Norman name, <br />
And under the folds that look so still <br />
The bodice swelled with the bosom’s thrill? <br />
Should I be I, or would it be <br />
One tenth another, to nine tenths me? <br />
<br />
Soft is the breath of a maiden’s Yes: <br />
Not the light gossamer stirs with less; <br />
But never a cable that holds so fast <br />
Through all the battles of wave and blast, <br />
And never an echo of speech or song <br />
That lives in the babbling air so long! <br />
There were tones in the voice that whispered then <br />
You may hear to-day in a hundred men. <br />
<br />
O lady and lover, how faint and far <br />
Your images hover,—and here we are, <br />
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,— <br />
Edward’s and Dorothy’s—all their own,— <br />
A goodly record for Time to show <br />
Of a syllable spoken so long ago!— <br />
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive <br />
For the tender whisper that bade me live? <br />
<br />
It shall be a blessing, my little maid! <br />
I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat’s blade, <br />
And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, <br />
And gild with a rhyme your household name; <br />
So you shall smile on us brave and bright <br />
As first you greeted the morning’s light, <br />
And live untroubled by woes and fears <br />
Through a second youth of a hundred years. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
This poem is about Dorothy Quincy, the mother of Holmes' maternal grandmother.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-857921302276037338.post-17494205294274313642011-05-06T00:01:00.003-05:002011-05-06T00:01:02.506-05:00Looking Into Origin<b>Looking Into Origin</b><br />
Jessica Erica Hahn<br />
<br />
I am from the green-blue world<br />
born upon the high seas<br />
to salty dog expatriates<br />
who met on Belizian soil<br />
who birthed me on a ship<br />
where gulls flipped through the air<br />
and sunshine glittered on the sea<br />
<br />
a long line of fighters is where I spring from<br />
on the matrilineal side,<br />
Prussians pushing through<br />
the Baltic sea, into forests sweeping<br />
escaping Nazis, running to New York<br />
where she grew up, leaving the money behind,<br />
fighting with the freedom riders<br />
raising my sister alone<br />
<br />
my father hails from the tinker-builder-welder side<br />
making machines for smashing atoms<br />
weaving through quantum physics<br />
surviving accidents that left others dead<br />
building rockets to send mice to outer space<br />
& riding motorcycles and mail trucks across the land<br />
destroyer escorts & minesweepers from a mothball fleet<br />
full of schemes & dreams<br />
before drowning decades later in a southern sea<br />
<br />
two wild creatures of the 60s & 70s<br />
shirking lines of normalcy<br />
crying for freedom in a whirling world<br />
clinging to architectural visions of life together<br />
propelled to leave remnants for posterity<br />
<br />
birds flew over where my father<br />
was to be buried in the sea, upon a silver sunrise<br />
& the first night of many my mother woke alone<br />
then there was the migration westwards for<br />
us three, to land in SF, the city by the bay<br />
<br />
build our timbered home upon a granite hill<br />
and when the thieves crept in our windows,<br />
padding softly, scattering pictures across the floor<br />
we did not run or hide.<br />
when cops devastated and raided us<br />
it was simply fate’s brutality<br />
my mom incarcerated for growing marijuana trees<br />
somewhere someone whispers,<br />
<i>beware of crossing boundaries<br />
or you’ll get what you deserve</i><br />
<br />
I live in mythology & am<br />
from the deepest part of earth<br />
I have a darkened mantle<br />
in which lives a craggy dragon<br />
a guardian for my heart<br />
to make the untrustworthy turn<br />
to go back home,<br />
or sweep in ones who are<br />
like the old<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Jessica Erica Hahn lives and writes in San Francisco, where she might be seen wandering over a hilltop with a baby on her back and a camera on her hip. In the predawn hours she's working on a memoir about her freight-riding days (<i>Ontologica</i> is publishing a selection this summer), and a novel about seafaring hippies in the 1970s. She's a student in the MFA program at San Francisco State, and has several self-published titles to her name, something she's both proud of and slightly ashamed of. Some of her writing can be found at <a href="http://jessicaericahahn.com/">jessicaericahahn.com</a> and <a href="http://hillbabiessf.blogspot.com/">Hill Babies</a>.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17779409214968505642noreply@blogger.com0