Lilac Wine

Jeff

Fourth Time

's a charm they say
no matter where it is
no matter what the day
in a church on the hill
her name might be Jill
you're hell bent on this
sealed with a kiss
this time it will work
you won't be a jerk
you'll be superman
and eat marzipan
by the light of the moon
to the past to the ruin
while the ink runs to blood
where the blood turns to mud
and the mud turns to sand
and you take her little hand
forget all the ones 
before her

tip the glass to the past
tie yourself to the mast
leave this friendship to die
in the wind.

Debbie Calverley

Rosa

prohibition and burning bras

burning books and burning

schools, an old black woman

at the front of a bus rides out

chaos while the world hangs

itself waiting.  

Debbie Calverley

A True Poet - 1000 Kisses Deep

Too Far

Too far too deep he said

closer than you think she said

nobody notices he said

as she gazed at him adoringly

across a padded room in a bar

full of virtual strangers

working around the clock

he runs circles between sea and land

as time swims by in schools of fish

silver in sunlight glint

of her casual smile she throws

his way on rainy days

his umbrella inside out

in the wind on the bridge

so annoying this inside out

metal branches against glass

toss and turn away from sky

that could have held them in

such brief suspension

Debbie Calverley

There is No Word (Thanks Beebs)

There Is No Word
By Tony Hoagland
 
 

There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store

with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack

that should have been bagged in double layers

—so that before you are even out the door

you feel the weight of the jug dragging

the bag down, stretching the thin

plastic handles longer and longer

and you know it’s only a matter of time until

bottom suddenly splits.

There is no single, unimpeachable word

for that vague sensation of something

moving away from you

as it exceeds its elastic capacity

—which is too bad, because that is the word

I would like to use to describe standing on the street

chatting with an old friend

as the awareness grows in me that he is

no longer a friend, but only an acquaintance,

a person with whom I never made the effort—

until this moment, when as we say goodbye

I think we share a feeling of relief,

a recognition that we have reached

the end of a pretense,

though to tell the truth

what I already am thinking about

is my gratitude for language—

how it will stretch just so much and no farther;

how there are some holes it will not cover up;

how it will move, if not inside, then

around the circumference of almost anything—

how, over the years, it has given me

back all the hours and days, all the

plodding love and faith, all the

misunderstandings and secrets

I have willingly poured into it.

Go Fish

Like a bad relationship the fish flopped

gasped in the bottom of the pail

until I couldn’t stand it anymore -

dumped him overboard

pail and all.

Debbie Calverley

Wander

What we don't know we don't know,
so accept it. If your mother wandered

when your father was stationed in France
during the war before you were born,

before you were even conceived, so be it.
No matter what her sister told you

years later, after your mother died,
what does this matter now?

Your job anyway is to be the daughter,
to stay open to where you are,

your ear toward the glistening insects
that draw your eye to the wild azaleas

pushing their pale pink selves out of
the limestone ledge just over the edge

of the bluff where your house sits.
What you don't know

you will never know. Look instead
at the fluttering pink blossoms, at the lichen

stuck to the limestone ledge beneath them.
Look at the pale thumbprint of the moon

in the pale afternoon sky. The house is nearly
empty now, nearly no longer yours—

tables and chairs sold, couches and beds
given away, trash dumped, books and dishes

boxed and stacked for the truck
that's on its way. Everything is somewhere

else now, intact or scattered. It doesn't matter.
More than once your father wrote

from the field hospital about the nurses.
What was it like to read those letters?

These insects must be honeybees heavying
with nectar—so many lifting in and out

of the wild azaleas you can almost smell their
desire. Wild like your mother's may have been.

Like your husband's was. But you don't know
anything. You can sit on the porch

of this emptying house and think
whatever you think. You never apologized

for your own lies. Your husband apologized
too much. Even then the moon slept on its side,

its good ear deep in its pillow:
Your job was to be the wife and mother,

the daughter. To be whatever you are now.
The moon has its own job. The house

will fill again. Perhaps you are tired
of watching the bees. Of noticing how

the petals of the azaleas strain upward
to right themselves after the bees

have finished with them. Tired
of the questions that repeat themselves

like the fat predictable moon, and the doubt
that manages, no matter what the truth is,

to never run out.

Andrea Hollander

When the Winter Ghosts Depart

They leave slowly, as if reluctant to go

or unsure when the time is right, like travelers

who can’t decide which books to pack, the long

        Russian novel they’ve been struggling to finish

or the new one about cerebral werewolves, its firm hard binding

bright on the shelf promising a new kind
of death.

Where ice has leeched deep down into soil, they move

slowly, wading through dirt and loosened stones

        but where the symphony of roots has bound them

in a coil of growth they hesitate, caught
up in the coming storm of leaf and branch and flower.

Sometimes they slip away

in pairs, lovers

        from an old film, long, gray coats and a fedora

slanting out into sullen wind.

I have heard them whispering in a taxi or jogging

        to catch a plane, weaving

through moving walkways, spilling

        coffee from Styrofoam cups, committed

to the journey
now, willing to open the welcoming gate.

        And I have known them to dig down into fence posts

grip the wood in their devils’ teeth
pour their sinuous, frozen bodies into clinging pools of wet cement.

Sometimes vague taste of spring catches in their throats, a warm

fist, a warning in the dire air, a syncopation

        of ice

turning to rain, pelting the windows with slippery

        lozenges, loosening a hard grip on muted and tentative grass.

by Steve Klepetar