offers me a map of the forest
leads me through it in a sandpaper suit
where each tree seems to know a different language
the ground grows spongy, sinks and then drops away
just roots and rocks and odd dark pools
and the hawthorn bristles in broad Scots:
each berry o’ mine is a planet
and lower: this wood is not for you.
An ash-tree is a great silver-green god
but all the gods are dying
black-tipped stems only show
once the rot has the trunk.
Greensands, gault and kimmeridge clay.
No compass points, there’s no signal
the map leads us both scrambling
from one low ferned branch to another
tall black cypresses whisper in Occitan
the maples in maybe Croatian
slippery leaf-mould and hart’s-tongue ferns
foxgloves fringe a clearing
round a huge service-tree
in autumn crimson and hung with bletting fruit.…
...continue reading
The doctor points to my beating heart
on the ultrasound screen like I should know
by sight whether that dark, wet shape
looks healthy. Outside, the sun disappears.
I passed the people wearing polymer glasses
on my drive to the hospital. When the pain
started, I pissed myself. The doctor assures me
I’ve got a strong ticker. This, she implies,
is despite my choices. My hunger,
my bird-bones, my body unable to bleed each month.
I used to be a real person, I whisper, watching
the squelching heart speed up.
I kissed girls & ate cheese fries & ran
beside the Monongahela River & believed
I would see multiple eclipses, in my lifetime,
long as it would surely be.
– Megan Williams…
...continue reading
She deftly navigates the aisles of the flea market
without paying much attention to the furniture,
jewelry, rugs, posters, pottery, books, any of it.
Nibbling at a tissue-wrapped éclair in one hand,
she thumbs away at a cell phone game on the other
and, to the irritation of vendors and customers alike,
concurrently holds a conference call with speaker on.
She cuts deals, makes trades, accuses, cajoles.
A fluffy white Pomeranian on a leash of sapphire
beads is tethered to her gold lame belt. She lashes
out at Bob, Eveline, and Joanna, principals
at the main office in New York. Time is short…
...continue reading
Sometimes all you have
To write on is the receipt
Back for a pair
Of books you bought,
And lines of poetry
Shorten accordingly.
Sometimes, in the finale of
Winter, flaxen lawns,
Ashen trees beneath
Chimney smoke, and
Scoured sand are
All the colors seated
In your world, and you wonder
What’s the warmth you
Find in so small a palette.…
...continue reading
Grey walls, and cold fluorescent lights buzzing like bees
They sit there, rubber stamps in hand,
they are gods of small power and big and important paperwork
I smile through the glass at my own misery
Forms to fill,
……………….lines to stand in, and the hell questions
and these voices, each syllable is a nail driven into my patience
I see them shuffle their piles of nothingness, like poker players with a losing hand, but
they’re not bluffing
They do not laugh, but they do drink coffee because they are people too, and they need
sometimes to take a break from breaking the human souls
Coffee cups they clutch like trophies of their small evil victories
I stand there, like shit stinking, waiting for a nod, a wink, a sign that I exist
But the clock on the wall is the only one that moves, and its ticks are louder than my
thoughts
And when I finally reach the end of this line, this torture, I’ll be free!…
...continue reading
Forest roots
bulge through
the dirt road’s
four-wheel drive
tracks.
The homeless man
lies on the sidewalk
giving pedestrians
a few more steps
registered on pedometers.
– Diane Webster…
...continue reading
I sit in my room and watch the paint dry,
although it’s not wet. I wish it was
as that would be something to do
other than just sitting.
In the summer they wheel me outside
and I sit
smothered in sun tan lotion
in my straw hat and watch the grass grow.
My life has become slow,
each day sliding silently into the next
while I wait
for my last breath,
for the sun to go down
on this quiet solitude
where I am surrounded by kindness
and dying of boredom.
I used to be so busy
but now I must be content
with the grass and the paint.
As if old people did not need something to do
in their last years,
someone to talk to as their world shrinks
down to a room,
to a bed
and finally to a box
where there is nothing to do
but sleep.…
...continue reading