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Poems by ISPS Members December 2000

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More ISPS Poems Poems on this Page: Getting Ready To Move On by Jared Smith Qat by Steven Michael Kellogg Storm by Alan Harris Pressure As an Artist Juggles Art and Daily Life by Mardelle Fortier Requiem by Tom Roby Ocean by Bob McCarthy On the Way to Wisconsin by Sally Calhoun Getting Ready To Move On by Jared Smith The last flowers blaze their dry color like Easter baskets left outside all year into the first freeze of autumn, their reds and oranges flaming from dry frost-bit stalks. This is the last day after sixteen years we will tend them. In the spring rains, a new enormous house of fieldstone will fill this garden with its family of four and three car garage. This is the garden that glowed the golden color of my wife's hair, gone cold now with memory and the need to be elsewhere. We will not be here, having followed the leaves in their last ecstasy. The empty rooms of our children will have been torn down: our children will be lying with their own in other beds. They will come and go with the turning of books in far away towns. I think, if we are lucky, the photographs from inside our house will be carried on a coyote's wail into the night of western mountains. There will be parties by candlelight on desert slopes with desert friends. There will be winter streams that lay a black ice over these years so that we can skate over them dancing above our aging friends. If we are lucky, there will be no pain in letting go. Qat by Steven Michael Kellogg Land of the Berbers Blast furnace of a place No two story buildings Midday heat by dawn. Blasted furnace of a place Bundles of leaves on the ground Midday heat all day Camels walked the street. Leaves had been on the ground Chew the bundles of leaves Where the Camels had walked Make the leaves into tea. Chewed leaves all day Society began at dusk Drink the tea from the leaves But no beer for sailors. Women emerged at dark Curfew for sailors at sunset With no beer at all God forbid my return. No women for sailors No beer for sailors; God forbid my return To the Land of the Berbers. Storm by Alan Harris when the storm comes     aprons turn into kites     and meadows roll up their grass     as you hang on tight to unknowing when the storm comes     all sayings gain great meaning     aha is as real as rocks     but the gale isn't hearing you when the storm comes     the mast breaks away and floats off     before you can lash yourself to it     and the sirens won't stay on the shore when the storm comes     the moon jumps under the cow     and laughs at the little dog     then takes back the spoon and the dish when the storm comes     all yes becomes quite maybe     all no seems not so bad     as you hang on tight to unknowing when the storm comes     flowers recite scripture     trees are genuflecting     and logic's good for a laugh when the storm comes     all history rolls up in a ball     all tomorrow was never heard of     and the now impossibly grins when the storm comes     thunder and winter both weep     clouds seem turned by a crank     the crank turned by an ogre                     * * * when the storm abates     the waves all merge into one     which is as good as calm     but you hang on tight to unknowing when the storm is all over     the sun is back in its place     everything is everywhere again     but you're still not sure moons don't laugh Pressure As an Artist Juggles Art and Daily Life by Mardelle Fortier I felt like an egg boiling in water. My head banged the edge of the steel pan. Lid was tight. I boiled at a faster rate. Heavy steam--could not escape. Rescued. Cool air. Pounding gone. I breathe again. I wait in my thin skin. (Printed in ByLine, Summer 2000) Requiem by Tom Roby Only with you do I hold the hour's peace recalling our poems in the rainy Italian graveyard bright with neverfalling flows of flowers; on the dry steps of the Bona's chapel do I hear canticle birds trade tunes with vesper bells that clang out Catholic hymns known to your youth; do I watch replanters water memories that slip past formal oval portraits to a grin reflected in a glass of wine. Only you said that time had come to trade poetry for dinner, just as my soft electric candles began to cheer our damp twilight; then I remembered how I hate to leave any place, and you reminded me we will have our turn when we won't have to leave. Ocean by Bob McCarthy I sit on the sandy shore waves rumble in then out again the sky is a light pitch of blue the sun is high and bright I hear seagulls squawking I feel a warm salty breeze ocean debris is on the shore On the Way to Wisconsin by Sally Calhoun On the way to Wisconsin there were thick black hours at first, darker than death except for the headlights, because we got up at three or four in the morning so that my father could beat the traffic and get ahead of the boxcar trucks on the two-lane roads. This was long before I-94. In Ann Arbor there was rain on the darkened pavement, and the lonely traffic lights played to an audience of one. Red, yellow, and green. It seemed nonsensical, and little did I know at the time that I would spend six years in that city someday and (briefly) wonder if life was worth living because of the machinations of a young man there who barely knew what he was doing, and because I was young and vulnerable. Also naive. Beyond Ann Arbor there were farms, and no rain, but there were lights in the barns. The farmers were always up at the crack of dawn, or even before. Telephone poles hustled in even, steady rows past the windows of the car. The boxcars were not moving yet. We watched to see who would observe the first white horse. Late in the morning it was hot. The heat rose around us like vapor from steampipes, and we stopped at a roadside picnic table to eat. We drank milk from paper cups, and ate bologna sandwiches, devilled eggs, and cookies, also carrot sticks. There was a fence, blue cornflowers, and tall grass. The telephone poles stopped hustling for awhile, and the boxcars came trundling by. In the car my father broke into song sporadically while he drove. "Shine on Harvest Moon" was one of his favorites. When we crossed the Indiana state line, he sang "Back Home Again in Indiana!" Then I knew we were getting somewhere. Then, and when we saw the enormous Rinso box on the top of some tall, gray building, probably a factory. Gary and Hammond smelled bad. (We usually circumvented Chicago, but once, just once, we were on Lake Shore Drive at night, and I saw glowing globes of light lining the curbs like a fairyland. It was beyond imagining that this would be my home when I grew up.) Across the Wisconsin state line we watched for Yerkes in the distance. It was hard to spot; it showed up in just one place over the hills. Then, when we saw its silver dome glinting in the sun, we knew that we were almost there. Almost there! Where the pies were baked, and Grandma Congdon waited in the kitchen, wearing the little metal curlers in the white wisps of curls on her forehead, and her white apron, and her blue dress! This was the heartland, the gentlest heartbeat of the family, where there were many relatives, and heaven on earth! A variety of rituals would proceed, Church together on Sundays, bouncing a softball against the side of the brown-shingled house, trips to the library in a yellow dress, sliding down the banister in the cool front hall, playing the music box. I savored it all every summer, clutching my happiness like a small stuffed doll, knowing in my small and almost stalwart heart what I knew all the way to Wisconsin, that everything would change, that someday she would be gone, and everything would be different, and I would be immersed in the mystery of the future, even though the Yerkes silvery dome would still rise, alone, above the hills. More ISPS Poems Copyright Notice: Copyrights for all of the above poems remain with the individual authors. No work here is to be reused without permission from its author.