I found a lipstick note
on the mirror
thanking Maya Angelou
for reminding
you to believe me
the first time
I showed you
who I was.
Deception reflects
lack of understanding,
yet discerning the truth
demands belief.
I wrote a return
note on the mirror
to you and Ms. Angelou:
Oscar Wilde told me
to tell you
that deceiving others is
called romance.
by: Greg Clary
First published by Off the Coast Magazine
Thoreau lived uncelebrated
and nearly broke.
Genius is often disguised when it walks among us.
It often dies unnoticed, like Hank Williams,
in the back of a 1952 Cadillac.
My old honcho, Chalk Eye,
cobalt blue eyes, long steely fingers,
made his living hustling
in juke joint pool halls.
He took me in saying,
“Kid, your next shot should
set up your next shot.
Never mistake bad play for bad luck.
Take a hangover to being served bad ice.”
Chalk Eye laughed, mostly at himself.
He drank too much.
He’d take your last dollar bet, then
give it back to you if he thought you needed it.
Like Thoreau, Chalk Eye preferred truth over money
That kind of pool player is rare.
That type of person is rarer.
Chalk Eye gave me Hank Williams.
Both were the rarest of all.
by: Greg Clary
First published in Sterling Clack Clack
If you are here, you are already going the wrong direction.
Watch the potholes. And the tree branches that reach out
to scratch your windows. Stare straight ahead.
Don’t look at what this neighborhood doesn’t want you to see:
peeling paint on back porches, clotheslines sagging,
lined with stiff jeans and ripped flannel shirts,
two overturned shopping cars, and a blue plastic wading pool,
water thick with green algae and faded beach toys.
Watch for the stray cats that tumble through garbage cans,
for the sparrows that may dart out in front of you,
the same ones nesting in the broken headlight of an Old Buick,
its windshield wipers half-cocked, front doors hanging wide open.
Inhale slowly. Listen for your own heartbeat. This way,
you won’t hear the Def Leppard music, or the worn way people
fight, when there is little fight left inside of them.
Don’t see that naked Barbie doll in the brush, her arms stretched
out in front of her, eyes wide, never blinking, her smile tight.
If she could talk, this is what she would say to you:
when you are heading the wrong way, sometimes, it’s easier
to keep going than try to find a way to turn around.
-Karen J. Weyant
First published in Evansville Review
When you come here, low fuel light flashing,
your windshield and headlights smudged with splattered gnats,
we will do more than check your oil or pump your gas.
If you are hungry, you can find cramped shelves
of sunflower seeds and potato chips, of candy bars and beef jerky.
If you are thirsty, we carry both Coke and Pepsi products,
We have coolers lined with Lipton Iced Tea. If you are tired,
we have pot-rot coffee, freshly brewed about eight hours before.
If you long for that last cigarette, the one you grounded out
twenty years ago, we have more stuffed behind the counter,
Camels, Pall Mall even Virginia Slims. If you are lost,
we may ask if you need directions and you will say yes,
there was a road out, a bridge closed, a missed turn,
when the truth is that you have gone the wrong way,
and you are not sure how it happened. We will find a map
from beneath the cash register, one creased white with wear.
We will show you where you are now and then outline a road.
Here, we will explain, this is how you will get home.
-Karen J. Weyant
First published in Chagrin River Review
The birds have decided not to sing
nor fly among the trees this morning.
The break of day has come and gone.
The hillsides a red hue. I long
for some sign though I don’t know
what I am longing for. Not spring, no;
it is here. Maybe what is inside spring,
that shoulder shudder revealing
what was thought to be hidden, the secret
within and within and within kept
unless dug up, hands in the ground
fingers reaching, reaching around.
The heart in every fingertip,
the right words finding my lips.
-Byron Hoot
