Posts for June 22, 2016 (page 2)

mtpoet

Category

Poem

6/22/16

Ange, Poem Two

Poem 22, June 22

Ange Poem Two

She
Like the animals found
on the island of Madagascar,
where I evolved, and nowhere else,
& as hardy as the Flame Tree in its desert,
I thrive in the warmth of my close friend.

Poet
You are a Delonix regia,
its fernlike leaves and blooms
lovely to behold.

She
Steadfast as a flame tree among the trees of the forest,
the Baobab of the desert,
my poet is a rare tree, salt-tolerant , efficient at
taking words from the shallow porous sand
beneath my swamp.
I delight to read his poetry,
for the words sustain me like vary & laoka .
Let me lead his words to the page
where they will bloom,
fragrant with the scents of love.
Let his words be peaches,
fresh from the market,
& I will devour them until my belly is full.
Ever should his words
surround me; prop up my head;
& seek to make me forget my betrayal
by one whose memory I cannot erase from my past.
I tell myself his words may seek,
upon the line to arouse my soul,
when I cannot acknowledge them
with my body.
His words are cranberry
& vodka to my palate.
My stress lines
dissipate
like fog from Lake Cumberland
in midmorning as I read his words.

Poet

In a hundred years
my words won’t matter.
The doves that coo to my mocking,
my breath blown through my thumbs,
will never be the doves I hear along Green River
of which I write.

She
Write a poem for me today, my poet.
Write us on the bank of Green River Lake
with my son.
Write the water warm—the day hot
& have us wade a while
before sundown
before shadows return
& night surrounds us.

Philip Corley

Category

Poem

6/22/16

The Waste

Last pages of this odyssey
Bring me to a place full of sand
All around, a dessicated ocean
Expanse of bone relics I swear
Are moving when I turn my head

An oasis exists somewhere in these dunes
Well-being rests in my finding it
The very reason for this desert quest
Parallel to the successful hunters
The rivals who make the failure sting.

Creatures claw and they scratch at me
As I breathe in more of the dust
With the occasional choke on foreign ideas
Dominating my mind on this fruitless search
Amongst cactus pricks and rattlesnake bites

But oases are built for desert survival
This waste will win out in the end
When I wither away in unforgiving sun
Never close to living and that’s okay
Oases are but small patches of comfort anyway.

Steve Cummings

Category

Poem

6/22/16

Intelligence Test

At the top of the hill in my town, at the intersection of two ancient trails, sits the local intelligence test. At the ancient intersection is a traffic light – stopping a 4 lane highway from killing people who must get to McDonald’s right now and allowing smart people to enter a strip mall safely. But in the name of free commerce, you may also enter the mall from the 4 lane, maybe 200 feet south of the light. Hence the intelligence test – smart people will enter and exit the strip mall using the traffic light, stupid people will attempt to use the other way, turning across 3 lanes of traffic moving at 45 mph. This maneuver does occasionally cause accidents, an action, much less common now, where stupidity actually matters. Now that I’ve made an objective intelligence test, splitting people into two groups, smart people like me and stupid people who aren’t, every time I drive by I look for a stupid person, maybe like checking a trot line, to see if I’ve hooked one and what sort of dip they might be. I look at the vehicle and into the windows, make assumptions, draw conclusions. So – this time I see a brand new Mercedes SUV – black with dark tinted windows. I can barely make out a man inside talking on his phone. I say to myself “There’s an idiot in a $75,000 car” and clearly see the universe in microcosm.

Carole Johnston