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The soul within me longs to be a part of you.

It chafes at it's chains

And stretches out

It's bindings.

Foolish child! It will not know

That I have bound it

Only

To perceive it.

As it cries out to me, I punish it -

Reduce it to tears

And small,

Keening

Wimpers

Of longing.

Teri Sweeney

For Maisie

If ever I had taken pains to look

I might have seen the dark behind the smile.

Have read the sadness in your face's book

And stopped, to sit and chat a little while.

I might have seen the shadow o'er the sun

Of bright delight that filled those deep blue eyes.

Upon my coming - stayed instead of gone

And listened to the fond and endless stories

Of triumphs past, of bygone, halcyon days

When every crown was yours! You basked in praise,

But scorned to meet your sister's envious eye

Till all the clapping hands were quiet, still,

And you were left - alone, and old, and ill.

Terri Sweeney 

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Miss White's Heart

We learned to write fat red pencils,

write ABC's in wobbly manuscript,

read stories of Dick and Jane and Spot,

count by tens, add, and subtract.

Miss white also taught us

to weave heart baskets

guiding our little fingers

again and again

to go around and through

not over and under

turning ordinary paper into treasures.

Now over half a century later

And as my fingers guide paper strips

around and through

I marvel at her patience

and remember her loving heart.

Carol Robbins Hull, 2007

The Opposite of Love

In preparing for tests

we were reminded

that antonyms were oposites,

hot/cold, high/low, love/hate,

Always the questioner, I asked

"How hot? How cold?"

Was hate really the opposite of love?

The teacher replied "Life has its lessons."

The love I thought would last

longer than forever eroded

bit by bit with every hurtful deed.

then came his crushing final words

that left my heart hollow,

yet heavy as a stone.

The place that had been my heart

like a black hold devoured itself

leaving in its place not hate

but nothingness, an emptiness

that seemed not the absence,

but the opposite of love,

"I just don't love you anymore."

Carol Robbins Hull

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The Clock Dreams on my Birthday

Above the stove the clock calls

eleven fifty. I add a.m.

although the clock doesn't care

if it's morning or evening,

midnight or noon.

In the back bedroom

Mother sleeps, not caring either

when morning becomes noon,

afternoon, night,

her body under the flowered sheets

the frame of an ancient child

slipped to bone and skin.

But in the kitchen now Eva stands

mixing flour and lard

with her two smart hands.

The blue and yellow kitchen

dreams Eva alive

as she is in the watercolor

painted by my sister.

Next I know Eva

will step out of the painting,

knead the biscuit dough,

roll onto a floured board,

shape precisely with a rounded tin,

my father untangles his long legs,

rises from his dented Chevy,

settles into the mahogany armchair

reserved for him,

her auburn hair pulled

to a woven chignon, Mother

sets the dining room table

with Grandmother's cold sterling,

rings the brass bell for lunch.

The hands of the clock

read August 7th, 1950.

Ann Cope Wallace

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Haiku Yearly Cycle

Steel blue Winter dawn

Freezed twigs in crystal grip,

Far off smoke won't rise.

Crocus bold erupts

Robin stops and broods, that Spring

as all things, must pass.

Deep blue sea shimmers,

Wind blown sail heels into foam,

Then takes wing - a Gull!

Look! The Phoenix Pear

Tree flames once more at dusk - Yes!

We live forever.

Samurai Hara Kiri

Cherry blossoms fall.

Sword and death poem polished.

Next life hopes give joy.

Haiku - Humming Bird

Dance, Ruby throat, whirr.

Suck broods sup. But look, stars rise!

Nested, what is joy?

Haiku, Reflecting Pool

Mist elopes with wind.

Stork legs sway. On shore, worn rough

pillars give no ground.

Haiku - Dying Bud - Version Two

Moon bud falls in pond.

Crimson waves set night aglow.

All life cries, "too young!"

Haiku - Rose in Crystal Vase

Luscious red cut rose;

Vases of endless starry lights.

Tearful petals fall.

georgiawill

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The Nature of the Dog

Loyalty, the vibrant nature of the casual dog.

Know forth by the destitute and common mortality

of the daily friend.  Man's best friend resides in a dog

for it grows by heritage like a small child flamed with

a passion for a purpose, yet chilled witht the persistent

wait to arise. Ageless, the child grows and comes

to age for that purpose and wakes as being first born.

Thus is the nature of the dog.

Phillip Hall

Poetry, the Gay Science

Poetry, mockingly called "the gay science" for it's whimsical

stance of ideas for fancy and toil is likely so called, for the

whimsical way they toss as if some blatant scribble from an

internet blog. When in the past they were used to move nations

with the fever of grand speech and talk. Yet saw so many men

those days that stood against them, discard each as easily

as before by our present mention. Perhaps the men of old

had colder hearts, so perhaps they had the brains of the so

called adolescents, so vain in their strain of thought, 

to dissuade  any and all that which doesn't meet it.

Phillip Hall

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The Joint Chiefs

The joint chiefs are stirring,

their blood, coarsing with hope

and justice.

They wake and recognize.

The joint chiefs can see

around corners.

They are the warmed up droplets

of water coarsing through the

iceberg, picking up water droplets

melting the freeze.

Heart of a lion,

They commence.

Amina Kilgore Hall

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HAIKU

A bird suspended

overhead in midst of flight

seemingly stops time.

A child without love

is a flower without soil

It withers and dies.

Born into this world

with bald heads and round bellies,

leaving the same way.

I stood behind you.

While I stood in you shadow

You stood in my light.

Loretta Bacon

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           Voices

The roundness of a river stone

forms upon the river foam

a small oh,

and that is all it speaks.

Above the marsh

one low cloud

follows a tidal path

and makes no sound.

A curling leaf loops down,

touches the ground

and settles with a whisper

so quiet only grass can hear.

On winter shafts of air

when wind lifts fallen snow

to rise again, we cannot know

what seeds are speaking

what prayers.

Sue Scalf

The Children of Summer        

         "We write to taste life twice." - Anais Nin         

White banks of clover

draw them like bees.

A welter of scratches

and skinned knees, children

know the bliss of running.

choosing sides, choosing friends,

making a chain of flowers,

patting out mud pies.

Dirt-smeared and sweaty,

they taste sour grass,

split maypops and hold

on their tongues the fleshy seeds,

pick passionflowers

that wind along the fence,

sip nectar from honeysuckle.

Making pacts, telling secrets,

they climb trees,

bombard their enemies

with pawpaws and chinaberries,

take prisoners, make treaties,

tumble and get up again,

cry and sing until the sun sets

and fireflies appear;

then heavy-limbed and sleepy,

children watch the moon,

a silver quarter they're too tired to spend

instead, they tuck it away 

like a coin tied in a handkerchief

kept for ice cream.

Sue Scalf

Reprinted from What the Moon Knows 

Christina's World

Alone is a word that stalls on the tongue,

chokes the throat; it is beyond solitude,

for it offers no choices. It is a landscape

barren and bleak, gone brown

with the last of the hay,

winter soon to come. Here she sits,

crippled, hair disheveled, one hand

clawing upward toward the house

on top of the treeless hill.

there is no sound but the wind,

the whirr of grasshoppers.

Gray as the empty sky, the house

with its open dooor calls her in.

Ladders lean against the roof.

She knows each room, the barn,

the clothesline, the world

from her window.

All is clean, scoured with light.

In the night, boards crack,

clapboards ring with cold.

Day and night her bones ache

with a namesless desire.

Sue Scalf

Reprinted from What the Moon Knows

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E.K. Daufin

Approval Addiction

Addicted to approval,

Looking for a hit,

Your flattery soothes me,

Your criticism - - the pits.

Most of us got too little of it,

As we were raised or grew up,

Cut to pieces by the belittling

beast,

Criticism,

Was my family's forte,

Our July 4th,

First through 31st,

through next June's

holiday feast.

I pick myself apart nightly,

And all through the day,

So no need to add

your negative opinion,

I'm already working to do things

the impossibly perfect, right

way,

Never get there,

But make a hell of a lot of

headway.

Tell me I'm pretty,

Brilliant,

Dazzling and Smart,

Tell me I've got the brains and

beauty,

To match my kind and wise heart,

that crack-quality,

Compliment- high,

Doesn't last long,

"You did all right,"

Is skanky methadone,

Instead of sprinkling me

liberally with Angel Dust

decadent description of high

laurel and sparkly purity.

Don't pimp me for a hit,

Just cause you know how

desperate approval addicts can

git.

Bring home and fry up the bacon,

As well as lick the hot, greased

pan.

Wish I were cool and clean,

Didn't care one way or d'other,

If you though me worthy,

or just another motha',

 I feel the withdrawal shivers,

When a foot is up my ass,

Giving me shit about,

What I didn't do perfectly last.

Know:

You're a dirty dealer;

When you up the ante,

Demand some panty,

For some praise,

Or to turn away the critical eye,

Or that harsh gaze.

Know:

I'm an approval addict,

Who doesn't know where the next

hit will come from,

I don't want to die,

But don't mistake me for a street

bum,

I do want you to like me,

Without having to lie,

But now,

Barely in recovery,

I don't always still pay

the inflated street price,

For a piece of my sweet jones - -

approval pie slice,

Now say somethin' nice,

To me daddy,

Ooooooh,

Found my insecurity spot,

In my fecund, got-to-have-that-

stroke,

Sweet rice approval patty.

E. K. Daufin

Charlie Suhor

That Old Feelin'

Sixteen old farts playing 40's charts--

Miller, Basie, the Dorseys, Goodman, Shaw--

strictly recreation,

beenthere/donethat a thousand times,

a bit worn now and not so hot, and yet

nostalgia is not lost on them.

In

walks

chick vocalist,

damn, the niftiest fifty you ever saw,

oozing & bluesing premenopausal charisma,

yeah very hot yet somehow very cool,

and then, a tension arises, attention arises

like an old pecker gone suddenly stiff,

and eyes go flashing, cymbals crashing

hormones kindling harmony,

band swinging out above all clefs,

They find in the music/

the music finds in them

a re-creation,

some new it, or some old feeling

that's never old, and will not ever be--

It's what the music sings about

when music is set free.

Comes the Duke

What do I know of these things?

I'm five years old and working a hand-cranked Victrola

with some brittle records sent over by Nannainne.

What I know is a Ninth Ward shotgun double

and swampy August air that settles on New Orleans

like roux-rich gumbo heaped on rice.

Everything is fresh and baby-bald to me.

Here's “Lombardo” with a languid song of Indian braves and squaws.

Here's a limping something from “Boyd Senter and his Senterpedes”

Here's a Bluebird side that asks, with some appeal,

Why don't we do this more often?

Just what we're doing tonight?

(Nannainne calls that one “zippy.”)

Here's Sharkey Bonano, more like it, with High Society

and on the flipside someone plays a penny-whistle blues.

And then, exotic and luminous a visit from robed royalty

bursting through a louvered door,

comes the Duke: I Can't Give You Anything But Love.

To sort it out in kid-mind isn't easy.

Hey, the saxes there are moving in a different sort of way.

A singer who sounds a lot like Morton Downey

is floating atop a dance-me rhythm.

And then, what's this? It's hard to say--

a muted trumpet, maybe, or gravel-voiced scatman--

some happy guttural thing that wants to jump the grooves, for sure,

and new parts of my body holler, Yes,

You can leap free with this jazz,

This swingout, bounceback man called Duke.

Decades later, stacks of 78s and 45s and LPs and CDs later,

after how many gigs and reads and writes

and all-night jams and conversations later,

after all that and this morning, too, what do I know of these things?

Only that nothing is more true or joyful than lessons learned

with the first coming of the Duke:

Leap free, mes amis, with love and swing,

with the saxes and singers and growling things of jazz.

Charlie Suhor

Published in Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature (Winter 2002)

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              These Gifts

To see some truth in a stranger's eyes

I feel his mind, but I can't speak it.

The green light from April leaves

That soothes my thoughts, but cannot be translated

The easy, slinking, wariness of the feral cat.

The gypsy dance of the wind in the birch

The echo of the mourning dove

from the white-washed wall of the church on the hill.

These gifts are the hoarded treasure

in this dragon's cave.

When I fly at night, I am searching for the tale-teller

who will sing my trinkets to the world

But I fear his voice will be cold and weak.

And so I fear the cave will fill 'till it's choked...

But the sweet gifts just melt into my mountainous heart.

I gaze at the clouds and valleys,

At the cypress and the sea

And listen

In the hope that someday what I hear

Will not be me

But just an empty boat, adrift

On still water.

Kevin A. Shuey

       We Shall See

There is no place, perhaps

Where you and I

Can both see love the same

But then, the light and shadows

Play their differenct games

Across the garden

Yet share their father sun

And when the moon

Ducks now beneath a cloud....

Or is seen through the upstairs window

Rather than with branches laced

As in the quiet yard

It's safe to say

There is but one soft silvery orb.

Kevin A. Shuey

          We Dance

We dance in unbridled joy

     Then try to draw the steps

     Upon the floor

     Pointing with zeal

     At painted feet on stone

     We extol the virtue of such steps

But where is the joy?

From whence has it come?

While walking on a certain road

The light of perfect love

Dawns in our heart.

     We note the spot, the day, the time

     And of that place would make a shrine

Does His love shine on this road only?

When the light, the order, the clarity...

When the joy of Truth shines forth

     We cling to the shadows it casts.

Listen to Rumi.

His new rule is:

"Break the wine glass, and fall toward the glassblower's breath."

Kevin A. Shuey

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