Tag: William Palmer

Three Poems by William Palmer

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

One, Please

“Just one, please,” I tell the hostess
who is new.

At the side José, the owner, says:
“Just one? No—you are ONE!”

The word pops into red and green confetti.
“Remember this, my friend.”

I try to smile: “One, please.”

Then I ask for a booth and watch
cars on Front Street head home.

When Vera says hello, I ask
if her son is doing better.

She nods, her smile shy
like early twilight.

I order a shrimp chimichanga
and a side of mole—with its spirit

sounds: the o of soul
and the a of angel.

Vera brings me a pint of Modelo
with its blessed o’s.

I squeeze the lime.
I sip and take my time.

*

Waking Early for the Long Drive Home

There is a round red glow
on a power line
over the parking lot

as if a world globe
balances there
aflame

where tapered sunlight holds it.

I wait:
a cardinal.

It stays there
as if content.

Why did I open the curtain
at just that moment?

*

Joy Be With You All

“I love unbearably sad moments,”
Robert tells Anne, his therapist.

Her eyebrows lower like a bridge.

“Like in Olive Kitteridge
a wife pulls away from her husband

in bed and says ‘I think I’m just done
with that stuff.’”

Robert shakes his head. “I shared that
with my wife and she laughed.”

“She did?”

He nods.
“But I’ve been wanting to tell you

I’m learning a new song on my guitar.
I keep singing the refrain:

‘So fill to me the parting glass,
Good night and joy be with you all.’”

“I know that song,” Anne says.
“Are you thinking of saying good bye?”

“Oh, no,” he says. “I just love singing
‘joy be with you all.’”

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared in American Literary Review, Ecotone, JAMA, ONE ART, The Summerset Review and elsewhere. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights and Humble. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

ONE ART’s September 2025 Reading

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

ONE ART’s September 2025 Reading

We’re pleased to announce ONE ART’s September 2025 Reading!

Date: Sunday, September 7

Time: 2:00pm Eastern

Featured Poets: James Crews, Gloria Heffernan, William Palmer, Michael T. Young, Andrea Potos

>>> Tickets Available <<<

Free!

(Donations appreciated.)

The official event is expected to run approximately 1-hour.

After the reading, please consider sticking around for approximately 30-minutes of Community Time discussion with our Featured Poets.

*

~ About Our Featured Poets ~

James Crews is the author of Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Courage & Self-Compassion, and editor of several bestselling poetry anthologies, including Love Is for All of Us, a collection of LGBTQ+ love poems. He is also the author of four poetry collections and lives in Southern Vermont with his husband. For more info: www.jamescrews.net

*

Gloria Heffernan’s forthcoming book Fused will be published by Shanti Arts Books in Spring, 2025. Her craft book, Exploring Poetry of Presence (Back Porch Productions) won the 2021 CNY Book Award for Nonfiction. Gloria is the author of the collections Peregrinatio: Poems for Antarctica (Kelsay Books), and What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List, (New York Quarterly Books).  Her work has appeared in over 100 publications including Poetry of Presence (vol. 2). To learn more, visit: www.gloriaheffernan.wordpress.com.

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared in Ecotone, I-70 Review, JAMA, ONE ART, Rust & Moth, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.  

*

Michael T. Young’s fourth collection, Mountain Climbing a River, will be published by Broadstone Media in late 2025. His third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared in numerous journals including I-70, Mid-Atlantic Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Vox Populi.

*

Andrea Potos is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Two Emilys (Kelsay Books) and Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press). A new collection entitled The Presence of One Word is forthcoming later in 2025. Recent poems can be found in CALYX Journal, Presence, New York Times Book Review, Earth’s Daughters, and Poem.  You can find her at andreapotos.com

*

Three Poems by William Palmer

~ ONE ART ~ 5 Comments

Portal

I hear my phone ding.

There is a photo of the baby
swaddled, a pink wool hat,
her skin ruddy and scraped

as though she’s come through
a portal in the cosmos,
eyes closed, delicate nose, lips—

a sob shoots from me like a star.
I had been praying
for days.

Later, getting a haircut,
I tell Kristy
my granddaughter was born

that morning
and when I heard,
a sob burst from me.

Oh yes, she says.

At the counter
I give her twenty-five.
Just twenty, today, she says.

*

Rhonda Posts Our Photo on Facebook

At the end of her visit
Rhonda, my former student, asks me
to hold her new book of poems
as she takes a photo of us on her phone

and in that moment
I don’t have time
to think—so my smile opens
wide, my teeth crooked and a little gray

and I don’t care
how I look
holding Rhonda’s book
with her beside me,
the way
I remember feeling
in classes
all those years,
my smile unleashed.

*

Sighing

I sigh a lot.
My doctor calls it frequent involuntary sighing.
But isn’t all sighing involuntarily?

Does anyone say,
“I’m going to sigh now”?
We just sigh.

I kept sighing
after my friend Roseanne
hanged herself,

and I sighed between sobs
on the steps of her church
after a young priest claimed

she would not go to heaven.

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared in Ecotone, I-70 Review, JAMA, One Art, Rust & Moth, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

The Eclipse by William Palmer

~ ONE ART ~ 6 Comments

The Eclipse

          after Walt Whitman

When I wore my solar glasses that cost a simple dollar,
When I watched the perfect ball of fire 93 million miles away,
When our moon moved in measured time between us and our sun,
How my mind cleared
In those mystical moments toward totality,
And not until I took my glasses off did I realize
I had not thought about lies, fraud, or immunity.
I never thought once about his name.

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in I-70 Review, JAMA, ONE ART, On the Seawall, and Rust & Moth. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of July 2023                               

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of July 2023 ~                               

  1. Alison Luterman – My Vibrato
  2. Betsy Mars – Residual
  3. Susan Zimmerman – Two Poems
  4. Donna Hilbert – Two Poems
  5. John Amen – The 80s
  6. Jennifer L Freed – Five Poems
  7. Margie Duncan – If Found, Return to Store
  8. Robert Darken – Everyone Has Better Parents
  9. Lisa Zimmerman – Two Poems
  10. William Palmer – Four Poems

Four Poems by William Palmer

~ ONE ART ~ 4 Comments

The Dervish

Reaching for a small glass
of apricot juice, I first noticed
the tremble.

It stopped when I danced:
head tilted, right palm up, left palm down,
whirling round.

“Parkinson’s,” a doctor said.
I listened
and the sky turned lavender.

After a year,
a friend carved a cane for me
etched with phases of the moon.

When I walk with my cane
around the village, the tremble
disappears like a hummingbird.

*

After the Isolation

After the coughs that pulled
the insides out
of pumpkins, after
the three Paxlovid tablets
twice a day, the Z Pack,
the Prednisone,
after I can be
with my old throat
again as if in prayer,
I drive
to the market
and see forsythias
blooming—
their bright yellow stems reaching up and out
on both sides
of the road
all along the way

*

The Sound

When Lowell learned
he’d have a few more weeks,
likely, he asked me to come over.

We sat downstairs by the wood stove
and looked out at the steady waves
and the light gray sky.

He gave me a box
of his favorite lures
for lake trout and whitefish.

When Carolyn came down
and said she had to go to the store,
she leaned over and hugged Lowell—

I heard the sound of their wet kiss.

*

Pup

Trust in the Journey
was the pup’s name;
he’d be six pounds or so
his whole life, the seller said.

My wife and I tried calling him Trust
but the name felt engraved
on a building and loan.
We chose Ollie with its long e

trailing in the air—
like a kid sledding
down a hill of fresh snow
holding that note of glee.

He’s black and white
with a gray beard;
his face looks like a Van Gogh
self-portrait.

When he runs,
he skips,
swaying
his hips.

Sometimes at night
he’ll lick the inside
of my left ear
then disappear.

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Braided Way, JAMA, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, Poetry East, and The Westchester Review. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Maeve by William Palmer

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Maeve

She is wrapped
in a blanket with a blue glow
under her

to reduce her jaundice,
backlit like a small bough
on a Christmas tree.

My son changes her,
then lays her tenderly
in the curve of my arm.

She wears only a diaper,
her cord above it
hardened dark.

As I speak to her, her eyes move
on me, her tiny lips pushing out
in perfect circles, as if kissing air.

I touch her ruddy feet,
skim the soft skin
of her chest and cheeks.

I have forgotten
how my son felt newborn,
as if that part of me had fallen off.

Just a year ago,
my darkness black,
I thought of leaving.

And here, now,
I am holding Maeve,
her name Irish for joy.

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Braided Way, Innisfree, JAMA, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, Poetry East, Sheila-Na-Gig, and The Westchester Review. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Two Poems by William Palmer

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

A Green Veil

In college I bought a Casio
watch for a few bucks,
cut off its rubber straps,
and put it in my pocket,
pulling it out when needed.
It felt good in my hand like a stone.

When I taught, before
cell phones, I imagined
a green veil
over the clock
that lowered when class began
and rose when class ended.

I wanted time to disappear
for students
the way page numbers do
with a book
they discover
they love.

*

Cleaning the Picture Window

The disease, I say,
is shutting down parts of me
like bedrooms no one uses
in an old farmhouse.

I’m less a man
now, lacking the stamina
to mow the damn lawn
or clean the picture window.

Sometimes I want to go
into East Bay past the shelf
where the water turns dark
and sink.

Kevin, my therapist, asks,
“When your fatigue hits,
can you accept it and not judge
your life as worthless?”

Later,
sitting in my car,
I feel as if an abandoned garden
has been plowed—

something is being tilled.

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, and Poetry East. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights, and Humble. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Plates by William Palmer

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Plates

He stands in his garage
beside the pile of plates
he bought at yard sales.

He takes one and flings it
at the steel door:
It was snowing—a whiteout

the boy said
whose car struck his wife
as she opened their mailbox.

The man lifts another plate,
feels its cold shine,
puts it down.

He sweeps the pieces
into a cardboard box
with the other pieces.

In the kitchen he sits
and closes his eyes:
a small door opens—

he finds a parcel
of light.
He thinks it will not go out.

*

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, On the Seawall, and Poetry East. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights, and Humble. Retired from teaching English at Alma College, he lives on Grand Traverse Bay in northern Michigan.