Tag: poem

Deer Poem by Leigh Chadwick

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Deer Poem

The first time I saw my husband he was a deer
grazing in the field behind my house. It was morning,
early enough for the dew to still be settled.
I was standing in the living room, looking out the window
as I watched him, his head down, his teeth pressed
against the earth. I thought milk thistle
but didn’t know why. I wished him to stay. I blinked,
and he was still there. I did a load of laundry,
and he was still there. I painted the kitchen lagoon.
Again, he was still there. I waited for the sky to cry.
The sky never cried, but my husband stayed,
unmoved, his mouth still pressed against the earth,
the grass nothing but dirt. The sun began to fall.
I opened my back door and walked out into the field.
My husband’s ears twitched. His antlers grew smaller antlers.
His heart threatened nothing but its next beat.

*

Leigh Chadwick is the author of the chapbook, Daughters of the State (Bottlecap Press, 2021), the poetry coloring book, This Is How We Learn How to Pray (ELJ Editions, 2021), and the full-length collection, Wound Channels (ELJ Editions, 2022). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Salamander, Heavy Feather Review, Indianapolis Review, and Olney Magazine, among others. Find her on Twitter at @LeighChadwick5.

State Of Flux by R. Gerry Fabian

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State Of Flux

There are scraps of paper
scattered all over the place.
Reminders.
Milk and cabbage,
use the word ‘vespertine,’
pay electric bill,
water dog & walk plants,
(a personal favorite)
and
one in your handwriting.
“Call me.”
Dated three month ago. 

 

 

R. Gerry Fabian is a retired English instructor. He has published three collections of poetry, Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic and Electronic Forecasts, as well as three novels, Getting Lucky (The Story), Memphis Masquerade, and Seventh Sense. He lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. https://rgerryfabian.wordpress.com

Two Poems by Vasiliki Katsarou

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The Reading

     after a 1976 filmed poetry reading by Jack Gilbert and Linda Gregg

her hair is a curtain
her man worships behind

*

he is dressed in fatigues

*

she might be a chain smoker
growing glowing ash
so that a floating star is always before her

*

he once disintegrated

*

he put himself together with words
glued to his chest and innards

*

as he reads, her look of horror and admiration
as she reads, his look of perfect indifference

*

her laughter dissipates like smoke
but her voice is undertow

 

The Branch

my mother leans
into the kitchen doorway
dressed in my old clothes

digging and weeding
and now gleefully, she brandishes a question,
a branch–

wayward branch,
she found you jammed
inside the flowering azalea
hard by my front door

how she pulled you,
broken thorny dead thing
from the shrub of flowers
and offered you to me

misbegotten bouquet of dry bark,
and how tickled by my lapse
she stands in wait—

how it mars the face
of the house
I show my neighbors

how the unsightly
has indeed hovered
at my doorstep

and I willfully
blind to its presence
came and went
and never once stopped

to thank her

Vasiliki Katsarou’s poems have appeared in Contemporary American Voices, Poetry Daily, Noon: Journal of the Short Poem, Regime Journal, wicked alice, Literary Mama, Wild River Review, as well as a number of anthologies. Her first collection, Memento Tsunami, was published in 2011. She read her work at the 2014 Dodge Poetry Festival, the largest poetry festival in the United States. Her website is http://onegoldbead.com/.

Two Poems by Juanita Rey

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SPREE

One a.m., I’m back
from a spree through
the land of men.
Behind me,
clubs have turned black,
high rises melted into sky.
Yes, I put my best self out there.
And guys showed interest.
One insisted he take me home
I did not go in that direction.

As much as I love the male sex,
I’m aware that, being female
bestows on me a responsibility
to protect what warrants protection.
Should one of those creatures
decide to take me on,
it’s my acuity
against busy hands, prime muscle.
I made it through another night
of alcohol and dance,
chitchat and wavering self-respect.
But just.

I’m back at my apartment
turn on all lights,
report to the kitchen,
make myself a cocoa
before slipping off to bed.
I’m returned temporarily
to being totally in charge.

 

UNWELCOME BOARDER

She crashed in my apartment,
slept on the couch.

I didn’t know her so well
but, as she kept telling me,
we were both from the same village.

That was her excuse
for eating my food
and staying home all day
watching my television.

I kept hinting
at how small my place was.
She just laughed,
replied how,
back on the island,
her home was half this size
and she was one of five children.

And then when I mentioned “job,”
she’d mutter something about
how nobody’s hiring.

She figured being from
the same place
in the same country
meant people had more in common
than if they were both writers
or high-wire walkers,
or even lovers.

She was overweight
and deadly boring
and too lazy to help out
when it came to cooking or cleaning.
My island,
bless its torrid heart,
was none of these.

 

Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Opiate Journal, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.