Warrior Blessing
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Two old warriors
long divorced
bow gray-streaked heads
over their wounded firstborn.
Ask the Ancient One
to gird their son with strength,
hold him steady
in his new course.
They gaze at each other’s
life-scarred face,
smile about pain
inflicted, time-eased.
Muttering thanks
for what they’ve learned
they pass it in silence
with hands and eyes
to the young warrior
going into his greatest battle.
Warrior Blessing was previously published in Kota Press Poetry Journal, 2002
***
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.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Hub
Hub
Hester L Furey
You are the center, my word of power,
my whole life a series of your spokes,
of radii beginning with you
in the short overlap between us.
All my life I have flirted with Death
for your sake, but as I give her up,
Father, I lose you --
each day your flesh retreats a little
further from my mind’s anxious touch.
I gather now only buckeyes you carried,
copper bracelets, a feathered hipster hat, cocked to one side.
I find your smell on a lover's cheeks
from time to time, or asthmatic, I belt out
your wheezing, irresistible laugh,
and a few spoken phrases
catch me unawares in your voice.
You are becoming an idea, a story:
a wild old wicked man, a rake of the thirties,
the third son, the one who had adventures,
who threw parties every week and invited everybody,
right down to the police.
You kept a gun propped behind the bedroom door,
another across the back of the car, a pistol
in your desk, and probably another on your person,
for reasons we never discussed.
You talked to me about social policy from infancy
and invented “take your daughter to work day”
long before feminists thought of it. At three
I learned to read, so you gave me encyclopedias.
You left home in your teens,
with only a sixth grade education.
In 1929 when your mother died,
you came back to the farm in Amboy.
Then the market crashed, and
men dived from buildings in the big cities.
You hated farming. You opened
a laundromat, a bus station, bought an inn,
opened a bonded warehouse,
bought cotton for Hohenberg Brothers.
All through the Depression,
you had money when no one else did.
You let Mr. Philips borrow your car to court Miss Ruby,
and you never let anyone else pick up the tab.
At the height of success
you suddenly left everything behind,
the respect of your neighbors, the goodwill of family,
even a cabin at the river,
for a stubborn girl, crazy in fact,
young enough to be your daughter.
Later, you complained to her mother, almost your age.
The girl was wild and uncontrollable, you said.
She lied every day, drank, started brawls in public places,
and spent money like a house on fire. As if you didn't know.
The mother had herself a good laugh, wiped her eyes
on her apron, and served you more cabbage,
just the way you liked it, still a little crunchy,
steamed with butter and pepper.
Then she served you an old country joke.
"You wanted her so bad," she said.
"You got her. She's yours. We won't take her back."
The crazy girl did love you, in her way.
She knew that I preferred you, so when I asked,
she brushed me off, saying you cared only
for “women and money,” but in a good mood
after a few drinks she loved to recount
your life together, the good and bad
mixed together so that I grew up perverse,
unable to tell which was which:
The time you almost bit her toe off,
or the time she drove up and found you with Mary,
did not ask questions, just reached down and threw
a cinder block through the cabin window,
and you refused to fix it all winter long.
Before she died, she cracked herself up telling
about the babysitter who ate your chocolate rabbit.
Coming home from a party to find
the tub full of cold clean water,
me in bed with black filthy feet,
and the rabbit missing from the freezer,
the two of you parsed these signs
and discussed your conclusions.
She raged, "I told her to bathe Lee, damn it!" but
you said drily, "Naw, she thought you said,
`just go on in the kitchen,
an' eat up every damn thing in sight.'"
When you died you had lived with diabetes
and suffered cancer twice, but I always believed
– the therapist got this one the wrong way around –
my mother had finally killed you.
Over her protests, you had named me
Hester after your mother,
the only woman, you said, who ever really loved you,
the one whose death called you home.
The crazy girl called me “baby” for 3 weeks,
unable to say the name while I nearly died
before Dr. Lee saved me with goat's milk.
Sometimes I still run into people who knew you.
They tell me I have your hands.
***
Hester Furey teaches college English. She has published Dictionary of Biography 345: American Radical and Reform Writers, Second Series (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 Little Fish (Finishing Line Press, 2010). She lives in Decatur, Georgia.
Hester L Furey
You are the center, my word of power,
my whole life a series of your spokes,
of radii beginning with you
in the short overlap between us.
All my life I have flirted with Death
for your sake, but as I give her up,
Father, I lose you --
each day your flesh retreats a little
further from my mind’s anxious touch.
I gather now only buckeyes you carried,
copper bracelets, a feathered hipster hat, cocked to one side.
I find your smell on a lover's cheeks
from time to time, or asthmatic, I belt out
your wheezing, irresistible laugh,
and a few spoken phrases
catch me unawares in your voice.
You are becoming an idea, a story:
a wild old wicked man, a rake of the thirties,
the third son, the one who had adventures,
who threw parties every week and invited everybody,
right down to the police.
You kept a gun propped behind the bedroom door,
another across the back of the car, a pistol
in your desk, and probably another on your person,
for reasons we never discussed.
You talked to me about social policy from infancy
and invented “take your daughter to work day”
long before feminists thought of it. At three
I learned to read, so you gave me encyclopedias.
You left home in your teens,
with only a sixth grade education.
In 1929 when your mother died,
you came back to the farm in Amboy.
Then the market crashed, and
men dived from buildings in the big cities.
You hated farming. You opened
a laundromat, a bus station, bought an inn,
opened a bonded warehouse,
bought cotton for Hohenberg Brothers.
All through the Depression,
you had money when no one else did.
You let Mr. Philips borrow your car to court Miss Ruby,
and you never let anyone else pick up the tab.
At the height of success
you suddenly left everything behind,
the respect of your neighbors, the goodwill of family,
even a cabin at the river,
for a stubborn girl, crazy in fact,
young enough to be your daughter.
Later, you complained to her mother, almost your age.
The girl was wild and uncontrollable, you said.
She lied every day, drank, started brawls in public places,
and spent money like a house on fire. As if you didn't know.
The mother had herself a good laugh, wiped her eyes
on her apron, and served you more cabbage,
just the way you liked it, still a little crunchy,
steamed with butter and pepper.
Then she served you an old country joke.
"You wanted her so bad," she said.
"You got her. She's yours. We won't take her back."
The crazy girl did love you, in her way.
She knew that I preferred you, so when I asked,
she brushed me off, saying you cared only
for “women and money,” but in a good mood
after a few drinks she loved to recount
your life together, the good and bad
mixed together so that I grew up perverse,
unable to tell which was which:
The time you almost bit her toe off,
or the time she drove up and found you with Mary,
did not ask questions, just reached down and threw
a cinder block through the cabin window,
and you refused to fix it all winter long.
Before she died, she cracked herself up telling
about the babysitter who ate your chocolate rabbit.
Coming home from a party to find
the tub full of cold clean water,
me in bed with black filthy feet,
and the rabbit missing from the freezer,
the two of you parsed these signs
and discussed your conclusions.
She raged, "I told her to bathe Lee, damn it!" but
you said drily, "Naw, she thought you said,
`just go on in the kitchen,
an' eat up every damn thing in sight.'"
When you died you had lived with diabetes
and suffered cancer twice, but I always believed
– the therapist got this one the wrong way around –
my mother had finally killed you.
Over her protests, you had named me
Hester after your mother,
the only woman, you said, who ever really loved you,
the one whose death called you home.
The crazy girl called me “baby” for 3 weeks,
unable to say the name while I nearly died
before Dr. Lee saved me with goat's milk.
Sometimes I still run into people who knew you.
They tell me I have your hands.
***
Hester Furey teaches college English. She has published Dictionary of Biography 345: American Radical and Reform Writers, Second Series (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 Little Fish (Finishing Line Press, 2010). She lives in Decatur, Georgia.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Third Cousins in Norway
Third Cousins in Norway
Candace Simar
I would have been the one who stayed
behind. Timid, afraid of oceans
choosing familiar over precarious
caring for parents and sickly aunts
safer than uncertain wilderness
where Red Indians threatened.
I would have written letters
with news of deaths or sickness
births and weddings
tucked pansy seeds inside envelopes
to homesick brothers on North Dakota
prairies and Minnesota pineries.
Read their stories from afar, stroking
blond curls of nephews’ hair
pressing the locks to my lips
knowing I would never see their faces.
I would have been the last of my
generation left in Norway,
the only one to speak with tenderness
connect a face with names, share memories from childhood
answer questions why they left and what they gained
or lost by leaving.
I would be the one who stands
on the other side of the door
flatbread and lefse baked and waitin
hand-woven cloths with Hardanger lace
reindeer sausage, gjetost brown cheese
everything to perfection.
Welcoming distant cousins from America,
astonished they could travel so far
and yet find their way home
***
Candace Simar is a member of Brainerd Writer’s Alliance, Bards of a Feather and the Western Writers of America. Candace’s historical novels, Abercrombie Trail (2009); Pomme de Terre (2010); and Birdie (2011) tell the stories of Scandinavian immigrants in 19th Century Minnesota.
Candace Simar
I would have been the one who stayed
behind. Timid, afraid of oceans
choosing familiar over precarious
caring for parents and sickly aunts
safer than uncertain wilderness
where Red Indians threatened.
I would have written letters
with news of deaths or sickness
births and weddings
tucked pansy seeds inside envelopes
to homesick brothers on North Dakota
prairies and Minnesota pineries.
Read their stories from afar, stroking
blond curls of nephews’ hair
pressing the locks to my lips
knowing I would never see their faces.
I would have been the last of my
generation left in Norway,
the only one to speak with tenderness
connect a face with names, share memories from childhood
answer questions why they left and what they gained
or lost by leaving.
I would be the one who stands
on the other side of the door
flatbread and lefse baked and waitin
hand-woven cloths with Hardanger lace
reindeer sausage, gjetost brown cheese
everything to perfection.
Welcoming distant cousins from America,
astonished they could travel so far
and yet find their way home
***
Candace Simar is a member of Brainerd Writer’s Alliance, Bards of a Feather and the Western Writers of America. Candace’s historical novels, Abercrombie Trail (2009); Pomme de Terre (2010); and Birdie (2011) tell the stories of Scandinavian immigrants in 19th Century Minnesota.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Photo Album
Photo Album
Juliet Wilson
She didn’t travel much
Clacton, the Isle of Man
for family visits and sea air.
Had her feet done before each trip
and a special blue rinse.
Packed a paperback.
Once there, played bingo, bought gifts
for the grandchildren,
drank tea with distant cousins.
For a memento of every holiday
she visited a photo booth,
pasted the prints into a book.
The snaps are still lined up, numbered
from early black and white –
bright eyes and jaunty hats
to later, older faces
staring straight ahead
bravely in full colour.
***
Juliet Wilson is an Edinburgh based poet, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. She blogs at Crafty Green Poet and at Over Forty Shades. Her chapbook Unthinkable Skies was published in 2010.
Juliet Wilson
She didn’t travel much
Clacton, the Isle of Man
for family visits and sea air.
Had her feet done before each trip
and a special blue rinse.
Packed a paperback.
Once there, played bingo, bought gifts
for the grandchildren,
drank tea with distant cousins.
For a memento of every holiday
she visited a photo booth,
pasted the prints into a book.
The snaps are still lined up, numbered
from early black and white –
bright eyes and jaunty hats
to later, older faces
staring straight ahead
bravely in full colour.
***
Juliet Wilson is an Edinburgh based poet, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. She blogs at Crafty Green Poet and at Over Forty Shades. Her chapbook Unthinkable Skies was published in 2010.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Labor Day
Labor Day
Laura Madeline Wiseman
Council Bluffs, Iowa, late 1860s
Miss Florence E. Felts
Durand, Illinois
Happy birthday littlest sister!
I’m writing to announce our first,
Alice M. Fletcher. She shares your day.
The delivery was long. She seems to thrive.
Did I ever tell you what I remember
about your birth? I was seventeen
when you were born—
father (48), mother (43), Susan (24),
Aaron (22), Sarah (19), George (16),
Oliver (14) Emeline (14), Edward (13),
Armihta (8), Orilla (5), and Charles (3)
—all of us were there
by the summer kitchen. It was Sunday.
Besides the labor, only prayer work was done.
Our boarder, a new minister, whispered
verse as he turned pages in his book.
On the trellis porch above the kindling
a wasp flicked its wings as it climbed.
Runners twisted up the whitewash
with scarlet blossoms open as vulvas.
Honeybees purred in the red petals.
The leaves of broomcorn and squash
swayed in our mother’s garden.
Beyond the privy’s crescent moon,
father paced in the wildflowers
as mother cried out during your birth.
I think he knew something good
was coming into this world.
Matilda
***
Laura Madeline Wiseman is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. She is the author of Sprung, forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press, as well as three chapbooks of poetry, My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010), Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), and Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her work has appeared in Margie, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Blackbird, and 13th Moon. She notes this poem is based on the life of her ancestor, nineteenth century suffragist and lecturer, Matilda Fletcher (1842-1909).
Laura Madeline Wiseman
Council Bluffs, Iowa, late 1860s
Miss Florence E. Felts
Durand, Illinois
Happy birthday littlest sister!
I’m writing to announce our first,
Alice M. Fletcher. She shares your day.
The delivery was long. She seems to thrive.
Did I ever tell you what I remember
about your birth? I was seventeen
when you were born—
father (48), mother (43), Susan (24),
Aaron (22), Sarah (19), George (16),
Oliver (14) Emeline (14), Edward (13),
Armihta (8), Orilla (5), and Charles (3)
—all of us were there
by the summer kitchen. It was Sunday.
Besides the labor, only prayer work was done.
Our boarder, a new minister, whispered
verse as he turned pages in his book.
On the trellis porch above the kindling
a wasp flicked its wings as it climbed.
Runners twisted up the whitewash
with scarlet blossoms open as vulvas.
Honeybees purred in the red petals.
The leaves of broomcorn and squash
swayed in our mother’s garden.
Beyond the privy’s crescent moon,
father paced in the wildflowers
as mother cried out during your birth.
I think he knew something good
was coming into this world.
Matilda
***
Laura Madeline Wiseman is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. She is the author of Sprung, forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press, as well as three chapbooks of poetry, My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010), Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), and Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her work has appeared in Margie, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Blackbird, and 13th Moon. She notes this poem is based on the life of her ancestor, nineteenth century suffragist and lecturer, Matilda Fletcher (1842-1909).
Monday, May 9, 2011
Draft
Draft
Jacob Oet
First the settlers’ dream
to build a home.
Later the immigrants dreamed
of two-bedroom apartments
and fantasized
about the availability of showers.
Some came naked.
Some came with clothing but sold their clothing
for a bag of seeds
from trees back home.
And they planted their children in the new way,
showering them with allowances
and enlisting them in public education.
Some joined the army.
They planted
only their own gravestones.
In spring they bore a name etched into rock.
My name is Jacob.
I am the grandchild of second-hand dreams.
***
Jacob Oet lives in Solon, Ohio. He has loved writing and making images since he was little. Jacob’s poetry and images appear in The New Verse News, The Jet Fuel Review, Superstition Review, H.O.D., and OVS Magazine.
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.
Jacob Oet
First the settlers’ dream
to build a home.
Later the immigrants dreamed
of two-bedroom apartments
and fantasized
about the availability of showers.
Some came naked.
Some came with clothing but sold their clothing
for a bag of seeds
from trees back home.
And they planted their children in the new way,
showering them with allowances
and enlisting them in public education.
Some joined the army.
They planted
only their own gravestones.
In spring they bore a name etched into rock.
My name is Jacob.
I am the grandchild of second-hand dreams.
***
Jacob Oet lives in Solon, Ohio. He has loved writing and making images since he was little. Jacob’s poetry and images appear in The New Verse News, The Jet Fuel Review, Superstition Review, H.O.D., and OVS Magazine.
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.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Dorothy Q - Oliver Wendell Holmes
Dorothy Q.
A Family Portrait
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
GRANDMOTHER’S mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.
On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene.
Hold up the canvas full in view,—
Look! there ’s a rent the light shines through,
Dark with a century’s fringe of dust,—
That was a Red-Coat’s rapier-thrust!
Such is the tale the lady old,
Dorothy’s daughter’s daughter, told.
Who the painter was none may tell,—
One whose best was not over well;
Hard and dry, it must be confessed,
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed;
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,
Dainty colors of red and white,
And in her slender shape are seen
Hint and promise of stately mien.
Look not on her with eyes of scorn,—
Dorothy Q. was a lady born!
Ay! since the galloping Normans came,
England’s annals have known her name;
And still to the three-hilled rebel town
Dear is that ancient name’s renown,
For many a civic wreath they won,
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son.
O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.!
Strange is the gift that I owe to you;
Such a gift as never a king
Save to daughter or son might bring,—
All my tenure of heart and hand,
All my title to house and land;
Mother and sister and child and wife
And joy and sorrow and death and life!
What if a hundred years ago
Those close-shut lips had answered No,
When forth the tremulous question came
That cost the maiden her Norman name,
And under the folds that look so still
The bodice swelled with the bosom’s thrill?
Should I be I, or would it be
One tenth another, to nine tenths me?
Soft is the breath of a maiden’s Yes:
Not the light gossamer stirs with less;
But never a cable that holds so fast
Through all the battles of wave and blast,
And never an echo of speech or song
That lives in the babbling air so long!
There were tones in the voice that whispered then
You may hear to-day in a hundred men.
O lady and lover, how faint and far
Your images hover,—and here we are,
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,—
Edward’s and Dorothy’s—all their own,—
A goodly record for Time to show
Of a syllable spoken so long ago!—
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive
For the tender whisper that bade me live?
It shall be a blessing, my little maid!
I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat’s blade,
And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame,
And gild with a rhyme your household name;
So you shall smile on us brave and bright
As first you greeted the morning’s light,
And live untroubled by woes and fears
Through a second youth of a hundred years.
***
This poem is about Dorothy Quincy, the mother of Holmes' maternal grandmother.
A Family Portrait
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
GRANDMOTHER’S mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.
On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene.
Hold up the canvas full in view,—
Look! there ’s a rent the light shines through,
Dark with a century’s fringe of dust,—
That was a Red-Coat’s rapier-thrust!
Such is the tale the lady old,
Dorothy’s daughter’s daughter, told.
Who the painter was none may tell,—
One whose best was not over well;
Hard and dry, it must be confessed,
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed;
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,
Dainty colors of red and white,
And in her slender shape are seen
Hint and promise of stately mien.
Look not on her with eyes of scorn,—
Dorothy Q. was a lady born!
Ay! since the galloping Normans came,
England’s annals have known her name;
And still to the three-hilled rebel town
Dear is that ancient name’s renown,
For many a civic wreath they won,
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son.
O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.!
Strange is the gift that I owe to you;
Such a gift as never a king
Save to daughter or son might bring,—
All my tenure of heart and hand,
All my title to house and land;
Mother and sister and child and wife
And joy and sorrow and death and life!
What if a hundred years ago
Those close-shut lips had answered No,
When forth the tremulous question came
That cost the maiden her Norman name,
And under the folds that look so still
The bodice swelled with the bosom’s thrill?
Should I be I, or would it be
One tenth another, to nine tenths me?
Soft is the breath of a maiden’s Yes:
Not the light gossamer stirs with less;
But never a cable that holds so fast
Through all the battles of wave and blast,
And never an echo of speech or song
That lives in the babbling air so long!
There were tones in the voice that whispered then
You may hear to-day in a hundred men.
O lady and lover, how faint and far
Your images hover,—and here we are,
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,—
Edward’s and Dorothy’s—all their own,—
A goodly record for Time to show
Of a syllable spoken so long ago!—
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive
For the tender whisper that bade me live?
It shall be a blessing, my little maid!
I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat’s blade,
And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame,
And gild with a rhyme your household name;
So you shall smile on us brave and bright
As first you greeted the morning’s light,
And live untroubled by woes and fears
Through a second youth of a hundred years.
***
This poem is about Dorothy Quincy, the mother of Holmes' maternal grandmother.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Looking Into Origin
Looking Into Origin
Jessica Erica Hahn
I am from the green-blue world
born upon the high seas
to salty dog expatriates
who met on Belizian soil
who birthed me on a ship
where gulls flipped through the air
and sunshine glittered on the sea
a long line of fighters is where I spring from
on the matrilineal side,
Prussians pushing through
the Baltic sea, into forests sweeping
escaping Nazis, running to New York
where she grew up, leaving the money behind,
fighting with the freedom riders
raising my sister alone
my father hails from the tinker-builder-welder side
making machines for smashing atoms
weaving through quantum physics
surviving accidents that left others dead
building rockets to send mice to outer space
& riding motorcycles and mail trucks across the land
destroyer escorts & minesweepers from a mothball fleet
full of schemes & dreams
before drowning decades later in a southern sea
two wild creatures of the 60s & 70s
shirking lines of normalcy
crying for freedom in a whirling world
clinging to architectural visions of life together
propelled to leave remnants for posterity
birds flew over where my father
was to be buried in the sea, upon a silver sunrise
& the first night of many my mother woke alone
then there was the migration westwards for
us three, to land in SF, the city by the bay
build our timbered home upon a granite hill
and when the thieves crept in our windows,
padding softly, scattering pictures across the floor
we did not run or hide.
when cops devastated and raided us
it was simply fate’s brutality
my mom incarcerated for growing marijuana trees
somewhere someone whispers,
beware of crossing boundaries
or you’ll get what you deserve
I live in mythology & am
from the deepest part of earth
I have a darkened mantle
in which lives a craggy dragon
a guardian for my heart
to make the untrustworthy turn
to go back home,
or sweep in ones who are
like the old
***
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 (Ontologica 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 jessicaericahahn.com and Hill Babies.
Jessica Erica Hahn
I am from the green-blue world
born upon the high seas
to salty dog expatriates
who met on Belizian soil
who birthed me on a ship
where gulls flipped through the air
and sunshine glittered on the sea
a long line of fighters is where I spring from
on the matrilineal side,
Prussians pushing through
the Baltic sea, into forests sweeping
escaping Nazis, running to New York
where she grew up, leaving the money behind,
fighting with the freedom riders
raising my sister alone
my father hails from the tinker-builder-welder side
making machines for smashing atoms
weaving through quantum physics
surviving accidents that left others dead
building rockets to send mice to outer space
& riding motorcycles and mail trucks across the land
destroyer escorts & minesweepers from a mothball fleet
full of schemes & dreams
before drowning decades later in a southern sea
two wild creatures of the 60s & 70s
shirking lines of normalcy
crying for freedom in a whirling world
clinging to architectural visions of life together
propelled to leave remnants for posterity
birds flew over where my father
was to be buried in the sea, upon a silver sunrise
& the first night of many my mother woke alone
then there was the migration westwards for
us three, to land in SF, the city by the bay
build our timbered home upon a granite hill
and when the thieves crept in our windows,
padding softly, scattering pictures across the floor
we did not run or hide.
when cops devastated and raided us
it was simply fate’s brutality
my mom incarcerated for growing marijuana trees
somewhere someone whispers,
beware of crossing boundaries
or you’ll get what you deserve
I live in mythology & am
from the deepest part of earth
I have a darkened mantle
in which lives a craggy dragon
a guardian for my heart
to make the untrustworthy turn
to go back home,
or sweep in ones who are
like the old
***
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 (Ontologica 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 jessicaericahahn.com and Hill Babies.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Judge Hilton and the Women's Hotel: Matilda Lectures
Judge Hilton and the Women's Hotel: Matilda Lectures
New York, 1878
Laura Madeline Wiseman
Urged and sent by a committee of sixty women, Matilda
Dared to come to New York alone with certificates of her
Good character. She arrived at the Women’s Hotel
Early one rainy morning, sick. No one received her or took
Her luggage. She was told she could not be admitted. Out
In the rain she purchased her breakfast. She threatened a
Lawsuit. The clerk said she might come in. Days afterward
The judge called and apologized. He did not want
Out-of-town women, only working women. He said,
Now, see here. The press will be down on us if we make
A single mistake. Matilda knew that Judge Hilton was
No worse than other men. Back in the Women’s Hotel, the
Doors were thrown open on Matilda with the remark
They were never to be closed. Lady physicians couldn’t
Have libraries in their rooms. Lady artists couldn’t have
Easels. The management turned pale when instruments
Were mentioned. Then, a Superintendent ordered Matilda
Out of the library because she brought in a dress to
Mend its ruffle. But I have seen ladies sewing in here,
Even crocheting, she answered. The Superintendent said,
No. That’s different. Those were small things. Though
She hated to kneel to one man for charity, the Women’s
Hotel professed to offer protection and yet had not really been
Open to women. Matilda thought the judge ought to know how
The hotel’s inmates were presided over like school girls.
Even if he thinks otherwise, he doesn’t rule this country. It isn’t
Like a kingdom. But if it was, he’d never be selected as King.
***
Laura Madeline Wiseman is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. She is the author of Sprung, forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press, as well as three chapbooks of poetry, My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010), Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), and Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her work has appeared in Margie, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Blackbird, and 13th Moon. She notes this poem is based on the life of her ancestor, nineteenth century suffragist and lecturer, Matilda Fletcher (1842-1909).
New York, 1878
Laura Madeline Wiseman
Urged and sent by a committee of sixty women, Matilda
Dared to come to New York alone with certificates of her
Good character. She arrived at the Women’s Hotel
Early one rainy morning, sick. No one received her or took
Her luggage. She was told she could not be admitted. Out
In the rain she purchased her breakfast. She threatened a
Lawsuit. The clerk said she might come in. Days afterward
The judge called and apologized. He did not want
Out-of-town women, only working women. He said,
Now, see here. The press will be down on us if we make
A single mistake. Matilda knew that Judge Hilton was
No worse than other men. Back in the Women’s Hotel, the
Doors were thrown open on Matilda with the remark
They were never to be closed. Lady physicians couldn’t
Have libraries in their rooms. Lady artists couldn’t have
Easels. The management turned pale when instruments
Were mentioned. Then, a Superintendent ordered Matilda
Out of the library because she brought in a dress to
Mend its ruffle. But I have seen ladies sewing in here,
Even crocheting, she answered. The Superintendent said,
No. That’s different. Those were small things. Though
She hated to kneel to one man for charity, the Women’s
Hotel professed to offer protection and yet had not really been
Open to women. Matilda thought the judge ought to know how
The hotel’s inmates were presided over like school girls.
Even if he thinks otherwise, he doesn’t rule this country. It isn’t
Like a kingdom. But if it was, he’d never be selected as King.
***
Laura Madeline Wiseman is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. She is the author of Sprung, forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press, as well as three chapbooks of poetry, My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010), Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), and Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her work has appeared in Margie, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Blackbird, and 13th Moon. She notes this poem is based on the life of her ancestor, nineteenth century suffragist and lecturer, Matilda Fletcher (1842-1909).
Monday, May 2, 2011
This is How the Holocaust Began
This is How the Holocaust Began
Emily Rosen
Grandma took me to the museum
We saw dinosaurs
or mummies
or 17th century costumes
or pictures by Turnbull
I was nine
or twelve
or six
Outside,
a trillion steps down
Grandma gave the Good Humor man
a nickel
He gave me a chocolate pop.
Right near,
right near the Good Humor man
the newspaper wailed,
“Hitler invades Poland!”
“What’s Poland?” I asked
Grandma sat on the steps
of the museum
and pulled a picture
from her wallet,
a little girl rolling in the grass
“That’s Poland,” she said.
***
Since 2000 Emily Rosen has been teaching a memoir-writing workshop in Boca Raton Florida, "Memories, Milestones and Memoirs." A background in journalism, education and mental health counseling, for over 20 years she has had a column in local papers, "Everything's Coming Up Rosen." For over 17 years she has been a volunteer leader of mental health support groups. She has published two anthologies of stories from her classes - "Memories, Milestones and Memoirs: Selections From A Writing Workshop.
Emily Rosen
Grandma took me to the museum
We saw dinosaurs
or mummies
or 17th century costumes
or pictures by Turnbull
I was nine
or twelve
or six
Outside,
a trillion steps down
Grandma gave the Good Humor man
a nickel
He gave me a chocolate pop.
Right near,
right near the Good Humor man
the newspaper wailed,
“Hitler invades Poland!”
“What’s Poland?” I asked
Grandma sat on the steps
of the museum
and pulled a picture
from her wallet,
a little girl rolling in the grass
“That’s Poland,” she said.
***
Since 2000 Emily Rosen has been teaching a memoir-writing workshop in Boca Raton Florida, "Memories, Milestones and Memoirs." A background in journalism, education and mental health counseling, for over 20 years she has had a column in local papers, "Everything's Coming Up Rosen." For over 17 years she has been a volunteer leader of mental health support groups. She has published two anthologies of stories from her classes - "Memories, Milestones and Memoirs: Selections From A Writing Workshop.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Editorial Note
As editor, I am very pleased with my 'child' after its first month, as I hope are you, the readers. I have been impressed by the quality of the submissions, and hope they continue.
The spring rains have brought a slower pace of submissions, so we will be altering our schedule and posting a new poem on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The spring rains have brought a slower pace of submissions, so we will be altering our schedule and posting a new poem on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Search
The Search
Eileen Apperson
"The trees," my daughter pointed to
as we landed in a New England Autumn,
"the colors look like Fruit Loops."
I was there to finger through dank
parish records, step among
grave markers, relocate homesteads gone
for two hundred years. And I don't know
why I brought her along. She pulled
on my shirt and begged, "can we go home?"
Perhaps because she does not know her own
grandparents, only that the Roseville pottery
belonged to Grandma and those button-up
baby shoes once fit Grandpa's feet.
***
Eileen received an MA in creative writing with an emphasis in nonfiction prose and an MFA in poetry from CSU, Fresno. She teaches creative nonfiction, composition, and literature at Reedley College. Recent publications include the Platte Valley Review, The Packinghouse Review, The Mom Egg, Writing It Real, and Kaleidowhirl. Eileen’s latest writing project is in fact an old one as she has dusted-off the pages of a 10-year old manuscript and is working with a documentary film maker to bring her vision of landscape and memory to the screen. Genealogy research has been an obsession of Eileen’s since she was twelve when she inherited her grandmother’s letters.
Eileen Apperson
"The trees," my daughter pointed to
as we landed in a New England Autumn,
"the colors look like Fruit Loops."
I was there to finger through dank
parish records, step among
grave markers, relocate homesteads gone
for two hundred years. And I don't know
why I brought her along. She pulled
on my shirt and begged, "can we go home?"
Perhaps because she does not know her own
grandparents, only that the Roseville pottery
belonged to Grandma and those button-up
baby shoes once fit Grandpa's feet.
***
Eileen received an MA in creative writing with an emphasis in nonfiction prose and an MFA in poetry from CSU, Fresno. She teaches creative nonfiction, composition, and literature at Reedley College. Recent publications include the Platte Valley Review, The Packinghouse Review, The Mom Egg, Writing It Real, and Kaleidowhirl. Eileen’s latest writing project is in fact an old one as she has dusted-off the pages of a 10-year old manuscript and is working with a documentary film maker to bring her vision of landscape and memory to the screen. Genealogy research has been an obsession of Eileen’s since she was twelve when she inherited her grandmother’s letters.
Friday, April 29, 2011
American Heritage
American Heritage
Dean Olson
I don’t envy those who savor
sepia-toned photographs.
Those who sift the slender veins of genealogy,
mine the fissured tissues of family bibles
or distill diaries of voyages over sea and rutted trail.
My scrapbook has little depth beyond parents,
a childhood spent outdoors and an obscure
hard-drinking Danish grandmother.
That may be why I feel there is little pattern to life.
There were few hand-me-down expectations.
And it may be why I favored uncharted waters,
never giving more intimacy than necessary,
never giving the boss more than two weeks notice.
But I want you to know,
in this hour of falling leaves,
though I am captive to mysterious foliage
I believe everything I have done
is useful.
***
Dean Olson has published six limited-edition poetry collections. He is emeritus faculty of the Evergreen State College, where he taught economics, cultural studies and maritime history. He lives in Olympia, Washington with his children and grandchildren. His poems have been accepted for publication in Cascade #2 by the Washington Poetry Association, and by Prairie Schooner.
Dean Olson
I don’t envy those who savor
sepia-toned photographs.
Those who sift the slender veins of genealogy,
mine the fissured tissues of family bibles
or distill diaries of voyages over sea and rutted trail.
My scrapbook has little depth beyond parents,
a childhood spent outdoors and an obscure
hard-drinking Danish grandmother.
That may be why I feel there is little pattern to life.
There were few hand-me-down expectations.
And it may be why I favored uncharted waters,
never giving more intimacy than necessary,
never giving the boss more than two weeks notice.
But I want you to know,
in this hour of falling leaves,
though I am captive to mysterious foliage
I believe everything I have done
is useful.
***
Dean Olson has published six limited-edition poetry collections. He is emeritus faculty of the Evergreen State College, where he taught economics, cultural studies and maritime history. He lives in Olympia, Washington with his children and grandchildren. His poems have been accepted for publication in Cascade #2 by the Washington Poetry Association, and by Prairie Schooner.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
What My Father Believed
What My Father Believed
John Guzlowski
He didn't know about the Rock of Ages
or bringing in the sheaves or Jacob's ladder
or gathering at the beautiful river
that flows beneath the throne of God.
He'd never heard of the Baltimore Catechism
either, and didn't know the purpose of life
was to love and honor and serve God.
He'd been to the village church as a boy
in Poland, and knew he was Catholic
because his mother and father were buried
in a cemetery under wooden crosses.
His sister Catherine was buried there too.
The day their mother died Catherine took
to the kitchen corner where the stove sat,
and cried. She wouldn't eat or drink, just cried
until she died there, died of a broken heart.
She was three or four years old, he was five.
What he knew about the nature of God
and religion came from the sermons
the priests told at mass, and this got mixed up
with his own life. He knew living was hard,
and that even children are meant to suffer.
Sometimes, when he was drinking he'd ask,
"Didn't God send his own son here to suffer?"
My father believed we are here to lift logs
that can't be lifted, to hammer steel nails
so bent they crack when we hit them.
In the slave labor camps in Germany,
He'd seen men try the impossible and fail.
He believed life is hard, and we should
help each other. If you see someone
on a cross, his weight pulling him down
and breaking his muscles, you should try
to lift him, even if only for a minute,
even though you know lifting won't save him.
***
John Guzlowski is the author of Lightning and Ashes, a book of poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps. His stories and poems appear in such journals as Ontario Review, Atlanta Review, and Chattahoochee Review, and in the anthology Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust. Garrison Keillor read “What My Father Believed” on his program, The Writers’ Almanac. John blogs about his parents’ experiences at Lightning and Ashes.
John Guzlowski
He didn't know about the Rock of Ages
or bringing in the sheaves or Jacob's ladder
or gathering at the beautiful river
that flows beneath the throne of God.
He'd never heard of the Baltimore Catechism
either, and didn't know the purpose of life
was to love and honor and serve God.
He'd been to the village church as a boy
in Poland, and knew he was Catholic
because his mother and father were buried
in a cemetery under wooden crosses.
His sister Catherine was buried there too.
The day their mother died Catherine took
to the kitchen corner where the stove sat,
and cried. She wouldn't eat or drink, just cried
until she died there, died of a broken heart.
She was three or four years old, he was five.
What he knew about the nature of God
and religion came from the sermons
the priests told at mass, and this got mixed up
with his own life. He knew living was hard,
and that even children are meant to suffer.
Sometimes, when he was drinking he'd ask,
"Didn't God send his own son here to suffer?"
My father believed we are here to lift logs
that can't be lifted, to hammer steel nails
so bent they crack when we hit them.
In the slave labor camps in Germany,
He'd seen men try the impossible and fail.
He believed life is hard, and we should
help each other. If you see someone
on a cross, his weight pulling him down
and breaking his muscles, you should try
to lift him, even if only for a minute,
even though you know lifting won't save him.
***
John Guzlowski is the author of Lightning and Ashes, a book of poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps. His stories and poems appear in such journals as Ontario Review, Atlanta Review, and Chattahoochee Review, and in the anthology Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust. Garrison Keillor read “What My Father Believed” on his program, The Writers’ Almanac. John blogs about his parents’ experiences at Lightning and Ashes.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The Olson Sisters: Field Notes of a Descendant
The Olson Sisters: Field Notes of a Descendent
Carolyn Moore
1
They looked alike back then, as any pair
of sisters can, and spoke in our clan voice.
Yet there all semblance ends. There, the trail branches:
daughters, nieces, grands and greats, must choose
a fork or stray down one with little heed
for the consequence of family mimicry.
A botanist with scant regard for genus,
I mist our orchid genera and log
the scentless differentia that all
our petals, sepals, lips, conspire to mask.
2
Like the ornate jewelry boxes she collects,
indifferent to trinkets inside, the younger
loves surface quelling form: the high baroque
of Cellini’s salt and pepper bowls concealed
amid enamel, gold, and ebony,
with Nymph and Neptune huge above the spice,
his facial cast more petulant than godly.
Nymph’s thumb and fingers idly cup her nipple.
Perhaps he pouts at this impertinent pose?
Perhaps he knows he’s just a bantam knock-off
of Michelangelo’s huge “Day”? And so
turns glum as any junk-bondsman now sunk
to schlepping ketchup packets to fast-food
condiment bins? There!—see how such excess
distracts us from the task of salting meat?
3
The older sister? No collections there.
Shelves kept spare and free of clutter, dust.
If a box, then she was made of unvarnished wood.
Joints trim. Apart from function, no décor.
Hold to the ear—do you hear the whir of watch-works?
Inside, a mechanism plain with purpose,
gears ticking close in tolerance. A thrift
of sufficiency. A shift to just enough.
4
Make no apologies, both the old sisters
would agree: the elder gone the way
of the wild native orchid, “Lady’s Slipper.”
The younger slipping her hold on that tree bark
where the mind shelters from the clutter of soil.
***
Carolyn Moore’s three chapbooks won their respective competitions as has her first book-length manuscript, Instructions for Traveling Light, pending publication from Deep Bowl Press. She taught at Humboldt State University (Arcata, California) until she could eke out a living as a freelance writer and researcher working from the last vestige of the family farm in Tigard, Oregon.
Carolyn Moore
1
They looked alike back then, as any pair
of sisters can, and spoke in our clan voice.
Yet there all semblance ends. There, the trail branches:
daughters, nieces, grands and greats, must choose
a fork or stray down one with little heed
for the consequence of family mimicry.
A botanist with scant regard for genus,
I mist our orchid genera and log
the scentless differentia that all
our petals, sepals, lips, conspire to mask.
2
Like the ornate jewelry boxes she collects,
indifferent to trinkets inside, the younger
loves surface quelling form: the high baroque
of Cellini’s salt and pepper bowls concealed
amid enamel, gold, and ebony,
with Nymph and Neptune huge above the spice,
his facial cast more petulant than godly.
Nymph’s thumb and fingers idly cup her nipple.
Perhaps he pouts at this impertinent pose?
Perhaps he knows he’s just a bantam knock-off
of Michelangelo’s huge “Day”? And so
turns glum as any junk-bondsman now sunk
to schlepping ketchup packets to fast-food
condiment bins? There!—see how such excess
distracts us from the task of salting meat?
3
The older sister? No collections there.
Shelves kept spare and free of clutter, dust.
If a box, then she was made of unvarnished wood.
Joints trim. Apart from function, no décor.
Hold to the ear—do you hear the whir of watch-works?
Inside, a mechanism plain with purpose,
gears ticking close in tolerance. A thrift
of sufficiency. A shift to just enough.
4
Make no apologies, both the old sisters
would agree: the elder gone the way
of the wild native orchid, “Lady’s Slipper.”
The younger slipping her hold on that tree bark
where the mind shelters from the clutter of soil.
***
Carolyn Moore’s three chapbooks won their respective competitions as has her first book-length manuscript, Instructions for Traveling Light, pending publication from Deep Bowl Press. She taught at Humboldt State University (Arcata, California) until she could eke out a living as a freelance writer and researcher working from the last vestige of the family farm in Tigard, Oregon.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Smoke Screen
Smoke Screen
Gail Eisenhart
Rain strips the maple tree and scatters leaves
in my neighbor’s yard, insulting his sense of order.
Raking all day, he mounds them at the curb, curses
their tenacity and strikes a match. Like his anger,
the damp pile fumes. An acrid cloud crosses
the street to choke me
and there he is,
Grandpa.
Mom exiled him to the garage…
No cigars in her house.
He laughed, headed outdoors
dragging and sucking a stogie
until the butt was so small he held it
with a toothpick to get the last puff.
We kids snickered, waiting to see him
singe his nose hairs.
Funny, I knew every fold of Grandma’s girth
but Grandpa was a stranger, an old man with a Tipparillo,
a bottle of beer and left-over fishing minnows
in the bathtub. I hardly remember
his voice—except when he hollered
that supper was late. I thought him ornery,
his face and opinions set in stone, hopelessly
out of touch.
His specter sticks in my throat now
and my eyes blur in the haze.
***
Gail Eisenhart’s poems have been published recently in Jet Fuel Review, CANTOS, Front Range, Barely South Review and in Flood Stage: an anthology of St. Louis Poets. A retired Executive Assistant, she works part time at the Belleville (IL) Public Library.
Gail Eisenhart
Rain strips the maple tree and scatters leaves
in my neighbor’s yard, insulting his sense of order.
Raking all day, he mounds them at the curb, curses
their tenacity and strikes a match. Like his anger,
the damp pile fumes. An acrid cloud crosses
the street to choke me
and there he is,
Grandpa.
Mom exiled him to the garage…
No cigars in her house.
He laughed, headed outdoors
dragging and sucking a stogie
until the butt was so small he held it
with a toothpick to get the last puff.
We kids snickered, waiting to see him
singe his nose hairs.
Funny, I knew every fold of Grandma’s girth
but Grandpa was a stranger, an old man with a Tipparillo,
a bottle of beer and left-over fishing minnows
in the bathtub. I hardly remember
his voice—except when he hollered
that supper was late. I thought him ornery,
his face and opinions set in stone, hopelessly
out of touch.
His specter sticks in my throat now
and my eyes blur in the haze.
***
Gail Eisenhart’s poems have been published recently in Jet Fuel Review, CANTOS, Front Range, Barely South Review and in Flood Stage: an anthology of St. Louis Poets. A retired Executive Assistant, she works part time at the Belleville (IL) Public Library.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Naming Stories
Naming Stories
Eileen Apperson
I want to know women's stories, get them right
before they go wrong, lost in the mouths of men,
of children who did not listen slowly enough.
Was great grandmother's name Havens or Littlejohn,
and was it she who scattered her eleven children
across the Nebraska Plain when Sioux came to visit,
or was that on my father's side?
And was it her mother who came to Virginia
a young Yorkshire bride, a widow within a year,
the one we have a photo of in the hallway
after she remarried, her hair pulled tight
at the temples, lips pursed?
I catch my reflection in the framed glass,
own lips tightened, wishing to know the connection.
***
Eileen received a MA in creative writing with an emphasis in nonfiction prose and a MFA in poetry from CSU, Fresno. She teaches creative nonfiction, composition, and literature at Reedley College. Recent publications include the Platte Valley Review, The Packinghouse Review, The Mom Egg, Writing It Real, and Kaleidowhirl. Eileen’s latest writing project is in fact an old one as she has dusted-off the pages of a 10-year old manuscript and is working with a documentary film maker to bring her vision of landscape and memory to the screen. Genealogy research has been an obsession of Eileen’s since she was a twelve when inherited her grandmother’s letters.
Eileen Apperson
I want to know women's stories, get them right
before they go wrong, lost in the mouths of men,
of children who did not listen slowly enough.
Was great grandmother's name Havens or Littlejohn,
and was it she who scattered her eleven children
across the Nebraska Plain when Sioux came to visit,
or was that on my father's side?
And was it her mother who came to Virginia
a young Yorkshire bride, a widow within a year,
the one we have a photo of in the hallway
after she remarried, her hair pulled tight
at the temples, lips pursed?
I catch my reflection in the framed glass,
own lips tightened, wishing to know the connection.
***
Eileen received a MA in creative writing with an emphasis in nonfiction prose and a MFA in poetry from CSU, Fresno. She teaches creative nonfiction, composition, and literature at Reedley College. Recent publications include the Platte Valley Review, The Packinghouse Review, The Mom Egg, Writing It Real, and Kaleidowhirl. Eileen’s latest writing project is in fact an old one as she has dusted-off the pages of a 10-year old manuscript and is working with a documentary film maker to bring her vision of landscape and memory to the screen. Genealogy research has been an obsession of Eileen’s since she was a twelve when inherited her grandmother’s letters.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,
While underneath these leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.
The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Rivera interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.
"Blessed be God! for he created Death!"
The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace;"
Then added, in the certainty of faith,
"And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease."
Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,
No Psalms of David now the silence break,
No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain,
And not neglected; for a hand unseen,
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,
Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o'er the sea -- that desert desolate --
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
All their lives long, with the unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears,
The wasting famine of the heart they fed,
And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.
Anathema maranatha! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street;
At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.
But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.
***
The Touro Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in America (estab. 1763), but from about 1781 to 1883 the synagogue lay empty, though preserved, which partly explains why Longfellow wrote about the Jewish people as a "dead nation." The cemetery dates back further to 1677. (Timeline)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,
While underneath these leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.
The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Rivera interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.
"Blessed be God! for he created Death!"
The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace;"
Then added, in the certainty of faith,
"And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease."
Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,
No Psalms of David now the silence break,
No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain,
And not neglected; for a hand unseen,
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,
Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o'er the sea -- that desert desolate --
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
All their lives long, with the unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears,
The wasting famine of the heart they fed,
And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.
Anathema maranatha! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street;
At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.
But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.
***
The Touro Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in America (estab. 1763), but from about 1781 to 1883 the synagogue lay empty, though preserved, which partly explains why Longfellow wrote about the Jewish people as a "dead nation." The cemetery dates back further to 1677. (Timeline)
Grand Canyon, 1937
Grand Canyon, 1937
David Vincenti
In a spring filled with escapes, a photographer
visits Arizona, his satchel filled with unlabeled
canisters. He carries his expandable Kodak
down and back up the many brown steps.
Lacking organization, he leaves markerless
mementos for months, until dusty piles
begin to block the light. Finally, prints find
manila folder homes: a few in Memories,
some under Magazines, still more are mailed
to the brides and grooms whose best days
financed his imminent move from Queens
to Albuquerque. He stops his Plymouth at
a Post Office in Manhattan to make one last
crass commercial gesture before turning away
from portraiture forever. The last face
he affects belongs to my grandmother,
whose eyes widen to the span of a canyon
when she finds only that great sepia gorge
in the box labeled “Milligan, June 26, 1937”.
It is spring again, and no number of buds
can tell the story of my grandparents’
first season, but one will finds its way to
the preserving pressure of a family bible with
a napkin bearing Nana’s writing, addressed
to someone clearly named, but not known.
***
David Vincenti is a father, husband, poet, engineer, accordionist, and bowler whose poems have appeared in Edison Literary Review and The Journal of New Jersey Poets. His first chapbook, To The Ones Who Must Be Loved, was published in 2010.
David Vincenti
In a spring filled with escapes, a photographer
visits Arizona, his satchel filled with unlabeled
canisters. He carries his expandable Kodak
down and back up the many brown steps.
Lacking organization, he leaves markerless
mementos for months, until dusty piles
begin to block the light. Finally, prints find
manila folder homes: a few in Memories,
some under Magazines, still more are mailed
to the brides and grooms whose best days
financed his imminent move from Queens
to Albuquerque. He stops his Plymouth at
a Post Office in Manhattan to make one last
crass commercial gesture before turning away
from portraiture forever. The last face
he affects belongs to my grandmother,
whose eyes widen to the span of a canyon
when she finds only that great sepia gorge
in the box labeled “Milligan, June 26, 1937”.
It is spring again, and no number of buds
can tell the story of my grandparents’
first season, but one will finds its way to
the preserving pressure of a family bible with
a napkin bearing Nana’s writing, addressed
to someone clearly named, but not known.
***
David Vincenti is a father, husband, poet, engineer, accordionist, and bowler whose poems have appeared in Edison Literary Review and The Journal of New Jersey Poets. His first chapbook, To The Ones Who Must Be Loved, was published in 2010.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Samuel Packwood Burns at the Stake
Samuel Packwood Burns at the Stake
Sandra de Helen
“Dear God, Forgive me my sins and take me
straight to Heaven where my wife and parents
wait for me. Oh God, please do not let me
suffer.” His head is covered. He cannot see
the throng of friends and relatives gathered
on the banks of the Greenbrier River waiting
for the Shawnee chief to set him aflame.
“Heathens! Savages! Let him go!” But no
rifles are fired. Only voices are raised.
Shawnee warriors are dressed for this ritual.
Clad in skins and paint. Carrying spears and
torches, they whoop in excitement, the thrill
of justice about to be served hot.
“We will get them, Father!” the last words
Samuel hears in English before the smoke
overtakes him. As his head falls to his chest,
a young rider yanks the cover from Samuel's
head. “White Eyes! Watch our sacred dance!”
Packwood's clan misunderstand, and roar:
Long live Samuel Packwood!
***
Sandra de Helen lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. You can see her current work in Mom Egg, Stillwater Review, and pay attention: a river of stones.
Sandra de Helen
“Dear God, Forgive me my sins and take me
straight to Heaven where my wife and parents
wait for me. Oh God, please do not let me
suffer.” His head is covered. He cannot see
the throng of friends and relatives gathered
on the banks of the Greenbrier River waiting
for the Shawnee chief to set him aflame.
“Heathens! Savages! Let him go!” But no
rifles are fired. Only voices are raised.
Shawnee warriors are dressed for this ritual.
Clad in skins and paint. Carrying spears and
torches, they whoop in excitement, the thrill
of justice about to be served hot.
“We will get them, Father!” the last words
Samuel hears in English before the smoke
overtakes him. As his head falls to his chest,
a young rider yanks the cover from Samuel's
head. “White Eyes! Watch our sacred dance!”
Packwood's clan misunderstand, and roar:
Long live Samuel Packwood!
***
Sandra de Helen lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. You can see her current work in Mom Egg, Stillwater Review, and pay attention: a river of stones.
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