Apiary viii (For the ones
by Carol Frost
who line the corridors and sit
silent in wheelchairs
before the television with the volume off,
whose cares
are small and gray and infinite,
time as ever to be faced ...
Methuselahs the nurses wash
and dress without haste —
none needed ...
this one has drunk from the poppy-cup
and drowses in her world of dream ...
Heliotrope,
carnations, wakeful violets, and lilies in vases —
masses of flowers — wrap
the urine-and-antiseptic air in lace ...
Please wake up; it is morning;
robins whistle; the bees dance.
Isn't this other one listening
from her shell of silence,
and shouldn't she smile at the green return
and dappled light through windows?
As earth orbits the corridor
clocks are wound ...
The last hour is a song or wound ...
Except in this corridor — mother's —
where finity's brainless wind
blows ash, and ash again
blows through their cells:
So much silence, so little to say in the end.)“Inventory” by Alba Cruz-Hacker from her book No Honey for Wild Beasts
Inventory
I’ve switched my wedding
band to my right hand
as a reminder to remain naked.
The shadow stamped on my left
finger aches for cover,
for gold lulled into discomfort.
I’ve switched to expose
each fold and pore, to extend
this strip of skin for you to clothe
again.
010
first things second, last things first
His teacher crawls under
the lunchroom table
to read with Gabriel -
upside down.
She holds his attention with her
sparkly sneakers pressing the book
gently to the underside of the table.
The first three battles she chooses:
writing his name without snapping
the pencil in half; learning to trust
rules about sharing the few books
on the shelf next to the radiator
that burns every time he touches it.
Standing quietly in the recess line
won’t happen until he learns
to trust direction. Gabriel cannot tell
what has happened before
and what might still happen after;
the top from the bottom, the inside
from the outside, sitting on the back
steps of a porch, or sitting at the front
of a classroom, waiting for someone
to show up or for someone to let him in.
Inter-grope Poetry Forum
by Norman Ball
aka: Norm "the schnozz" Ball
If you've ever participated in a writing workshop, writer's group, or an online poetry forum, this is something you'll appreciate.
I love you loving me. Our poems reach
beyond the blogosphere. I'll never drip
acidic comments (unprovoked) nor breach
our tight camaraderie. We'll jointly whip
co-fervor to a fever pitch. High praise
will be your quid. The quo I ask of you?
An automatic sigh; as for malaise
and envy, let the wannabes eat pooh.
Outside our precious circle, jerks can fly
a kite into a power line. Why try
conducting non-believers to our gift
for scaling Mt. Parnassus. Catch my drift?
Of course you do! Who needs a writing credit?
With friends like you I'm loath to pen an edit.
