Guest poets: NaNe St. Orts and T. RobinSeine
Editing: Jay St. Storts
Whining, he says he feels homesick…
We are home!, Mama cries, bemusedly.
He retorts Home-sick means
You are sick of your home.
Classic Bedtime.
I bought some pretty paper in different shades of blue
Then I thought I’d write – using one or two
The problem is the blues – they came in different hues
So I’ll have to write on the hue I think is you
I hope you like the color – I think that you liked blue
We use to sing about it – every song we knew
She Wore Blue Velvet
Blue on Blue
Am I Blue?
Blue Moon
I’m Mr. Blue
Blue suede Shoes
I keep up with your brother but it’s just not the same
He’s the one who told me – but I can’t hold him blame
He’s the last one left you know – your mother passed away
And no one with any children – well, what is there to say?
I wish you Happy Birthday every single year
The 18th of November and I always drink a beer
So I’ll send this letter
On this shade of blue
The one I think you’ll like
The one I picked for you
Addressing is so simple
Just write the number seven
Then put the location
Care of ‘My Blue Heaven’
i.
I call you the sun king,
say you’re the hottest man
on the planet,
in the solar system,
you send me to outer space
and I’m a heavenly body
reflecting your radiance,
shining like all the stars.
Firewoman in the sky.
ii.
When a poet throws her heart into the cosmos
mountains move
and tides shift,
orbits differentiate,
rotations accelerate,
gravitational pull unleashes a lasso,
globe spins off its axis.
My center is your sun.
I sat down to write a feminist poem
But my keyboard broke beneath my rage typing
I sat down to write a black lives matter poem
But my pen melted beneath my angry tears
I sat down to write a social justice poem
But my paper kept wadding beneath my fists
I sat down to write a peace poem
But my heart broke beneath the weight of our losses
I sat down to write a prayer poem
But my soul could not be heard above the din of the godless preaching
You said you needed
solitude, a slow life,
deigning to stay in
your house
that you felt
more
like a snail.
I asked if I could
be your shell——–
transparent, hugging
your every curve, my
smile the golden ratio
of decoration.
It would be months before I would see it.
Those hands, my mother’s hands,
on the steering wheel of my car as I drove myself to work.
An unexpected, and maybe unwelcomed, echo
to a morning long past filled with golden sun
and music I didn’t know.
My brother jumped from counters and chairs
as I lay with my head in her lap,
holding her hands up in front of my face, studying them.
Small fingers against hers, measuring the differences and
making shadows on the cushions against the light
spilling in from the windows and warming our small room.
Here, on another day under a colder sun,
I sat again studying the shapes and curves of hands,
marveling in the pain of familiar recognition.
Nun at the Retreat Center
Her hair is wet in the morning
but the showers are dry–
Too modest to undress
in a strange place?
Gray-haired, quiet and mousey
slight and bent,
her tan slacks have a crisp crease.
She combs her hair with a small
curved comb–the kind women
wore in their hair in a past
century. It must feel like
raking, pulling it through
thinning locks atop
her white scalp.
She’s leaving today,
wants to look nice
for her departure.
The frog turned back into a prince
The ugly duckling grew into a beautiful swan
The beast, like the frog, returned to his princely state
But that ogre princess, no change for her, and that was OK.
I am personally more concerned about the stupid curse
Can a prince or princess break that spell with a kiss?
What if it doesn’t work?
Would it be OK for the cursed one to stay stupid?
Here’s a thought: Go out and kiss every stupid person you know
It’s worth a shot.
