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poetry  4

 

 

On Sunday

          by David Waite

white moth pressing

against a nylon screen

on the back door as I lay      sideways on the couch, one eye

above the other watching

the fog on a glass of rum and coke:

 

in the yard this morning, beer bottles

we left as husks by the fire

were shining in their dark gold

when I placed them down in the paper sack.

they slept till late, the coffee smell

grew in a thin light, they drank it slow

with their mouths held soft and mumbling,

 

we pulled out the R&B,

quick steps of the Supremes

and someone played a Bar-kays record.

we drove out for barbeque

after one and the pale sting

that we all felt sat upon our eyes,

 

five people at the booth,

two of whom I knew,

one girl talked with

a faint lisp on her tongue,

she spoke too forward in the mouth:

 

still August and I’m waiting

for September to see

if S. will still remember,

last time a close

inch of thigh beside me,

her legs lit in amber from the sun.

 

and the meat cooked in wood smoke,

the sauce with drop molasses

and it hummed up quiet in the mouth,

silence at the table, murmur set behind us,

the slick meat rolling on our tongues,

 

we walked out to separate cars,

drove home down the highway

empty now in the pale heat

that rolled through the open window.

 

at home the house quiet, air still thick

into evening and the clouds

start to roll another storm,

wind churning, white ball static

curling through the TV tubes.

 

in the heat, J. used to

crack ice between her teeth,

thin hair and face, for my birthday

in high school we’d eat German

where she’d drink black tea

so slowly but we can’t be friends

 

alone at night, a flash of rain

washed the ground for a moment

then died, thin sun peeling off

one sheet of clouds at sundown.

and I lay an hour in the shaded

light from the storm,

the yard down below bit with grape

and tough, small sumac, a barn they’d torn down

then poured with dirt was peaking

out in pieces from the hill,

walked out back to see the new

arch of trees above the trail

with water falling from the vines;

 

at last business, S. was saying

that maybe she’d be quitting, bad shift

of friction she’d been feeling

but none with me, the things I told,

and we’re just one year apart,

a cotton heart that I was wanting,

the give that formed, five minutes talking

& three months to pull to mind, I sat watching

the night run to darkness, by now the fog

dropped from the glass down to the wood,

the night thick with clouds as they burned out the moon.

 

Bio: David Waite is a  writing professor in the Syracuse, NY, area.  He is  also the Contributing Editor for the journal, Poet's Ink Review. He was nominated last year for the Pushcart Prize by this editor.

 

 

Sunday Late May

    by Lester Firstenberger

 

The light of one is an ideal blend

Of breeze and degrees, the leafs

Move and branches too as I bask

in the glory of this earth.

 

This season unfurls a state, no, a sense

 a new sense of

gratitude.

 

My very being when I focus on this view

Whether by design as I journey daily

Or more so when I look up from my

desk and am constantly shaken by the

beauty that surrounds me

that makes me smile with wonder and shake my head

 

Laws and numbers and agreements and models

Fall to the appreciation, no, the praise demanded by the world I see

Was it always so? Shall it always be? My ponder is my ancestors, did they feel this

 and will my children’s children’s children see

 

 

Bio: Lester is a native of Northwest Central Ohio.  He is an attorney and lives in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire with his wife and children.  He enjoys the ocean, lakes, rivers, forests, fields, mountains, and people, that are New Hampshire.

 

Uranus & Gaia

       by Jake Myers

My gut is heavy made of wood
Pain from splinters in the liver
Maroon and russet quiver.
Pull them out if ever you could.

No but trees cannot touch the sky
Green and azure may whisper of.
Nipped are the buds by jay and dove
Gently clouds and branches do try.

Mighty storms reach down unto me
Please forgive my wayward reaching.
Muster my courage beseeching
Pluck me from the ground; I will see.

 

Bio: Jake Myers is a student at Oberlin College. He's  an English major with a concentration in Shakespeare and the romances, and  just received the Oberlin College Research Fellowship this summer . He is a part-time preschool teacher, an actor, a singer, just a person who really enjoys what he does.