BELOW THE HULL: STRAVROS NIARCHOS

Enjoy the Mediterranean light before sunset.

Talk among the crashing waves with equal abandon.

Dive in the sea with architect friends.

Why not enjoy both worlds of land and water at the edge of Athens?

I depart from the present on the ship;

travel the stairs to dinner,

hold woodgrain rail for balance.

I ran back to the upper deck of the Stavros Niarchos

in time to draw sailboats cruising on.

The waves are strong and full, 

reaching Piano's building;

Athen’s investment in the numbing sea, 

book volumes shift, swell, sink.

Find the ladder, slide it over,

reach the uppermost books before the hull cracks.

Library shelves float already on the perimeter; 

glass rails are invisible.

In both a library and a theater, the music rooms are alive 

with silence. Ensconced in the red velvet seats, 

every door opening surprises the senses, 

delightful, polished, curving wood. 

In the ballerina's box, the dancers unfold themselves, 

crane animals about to fly.

Smooth, not slick, like walking over a wave-crusted beach,

step aboard, the marble floor is sand.

The glass cantilever, the boom, extends the craft:

Five stories perched between the city and sea docks. 

What the water offers as new life, the building gives too.

Siggrou Avenue is the deck; 

the Greek street lifts at the bow and meets the water.

A building never visited becomes familiar. 

Everyone sees the ocean the same way, running to meet the waves. 

Over the port of Piraeus, the wire pulleys hold down the sail. 

The lines clank as the building moves -the sea view!

The aquamarine sky floats just below the surface. 

Cruising below the ship's vessel, 

the roof is the glistening white hull. 

There is great joy in finding the architect's secret. 

The Piano Workshop gave Athens a new building, 

a new Agora to mimic a cruise liner. 

I arrive at the upper deck and my friend grabs the rail, 

her long sun-streaked hair blowing to realize:  

This building is sailing.

-Kellie Cole

Kellie Cole is a licensed architect practicing in West Virginia who teaches architecture at Fairmont State University. Kellie's poetry has been published in Whetstone, Fairmont State University's publication, Voices From the Attic, and River and Stone Anthology of Short Stories.

ACROPOLIS MUSEUM, ATHENS, GREECE

Because men send their daughters away to marry great men

I never see Athena

But ancient Athens, galleries of sculpted busts 

a looming view of the Parthenon

twenty-first-century glass and steel, 

all architectural monuments that bow to corruption.

So does the entry canopy

a protruding trapezoid

itself lifted from the earth

a gem not pilfered.

The interior of the building left hollow

what's beneath this ground

the excavated remains on display

that lend truth to the myths.

The ancient goddess finds her way to the surface

face skyward to the open, airy heaven path

body trapped in a past, an unpredictable future.

Excavation proves centuries 

fixed as modern-day life moves.

Greek relics connect 

the once living stories 

with the here and now.

This museum is an inversion; the question, 

the inside of reason taken from the Acropolis

mounted by fluted stainless columns 

the carved marble metope stories

a young woman taking the virgin procession

moving with her peers toward a staged performance

honoring deities at their feet

catching a glimpse into the foothold.

-Kellie Cole

Kellie Cole is a licensed architect practicing in West Virginia who teaches architecture at Fairmont State University. Kellie's poetry has been published in Whetstone, Fairmont State University's publication, Voices From the Attic, and River and Stone Anthology of Short Stories.

Right Before

The wind among the trees,

the birds flying leaving 

and taking their shadows, 

here and now trying to keep

at bay there and then 

and the mystery how the two

need each other.  How I am 

nothing without you, you 

nothing without me,

how two make one,

the paradox of time

and eternity.  Suspect

the prayer – “Not my will

but thine” – has nothing 

to do with surrender but 

is a battle cry right

before a victory.

The way two make one

and nothing’s lost.

 

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

A Sunday Morning

That trap__

Shouldn’t have 

Checked it before heading 

Off to church, but we did.

No groundhog but worse,

A skunk, hind leg clasped

Firmly, stared with beady eyes

As we approached garden’s edge

Standing there in our wool

Suits knowing it inhumane 

To wait, Uncle Ralph said,

Sam, get the gun.

Meaning, of course,

An old Remington 22

By the fireplace_

The double barrel 

Was fetched instead.

Uncle Ralph glanced at his watch,

Shrugged his shoulders,

Reluctantly accepted the shotgun,

Turned, aimed and fired,

We’ll take care of it when we get back

For one eternal hour

Seated in the pews

Of that small church

An uncomfortable congregation 

Imagined the sulfurous 

Stench of hell was upon them….

We feigned innocence,

Knowing it was really upon us.

-Wayne H. Swanger

The Day The Aurora High School Burned Down

midnight sweat 

midnight vomit 

crying and clutching the trash can

no school for me

mother’s blanket-wrapped sadness 

predawn on the front porch

watching the school burn 

four fire departments couldn’t stop the blaze 

what could a woman in a blanket hope to do 

that they couldn’t?

“good news,” she whispers

smoothing back my tangled hair

wiping the fever away with a cool cloth

“no school for anyone”

-Melissa Reynolds

Where I’m From

I am from plant-scented candles

From yarn made for crocheting and jars of stored food

I am from a mix of red bricks and  tan parts etched into thick walls

With creaky halls moving on their own

I am from a quiet yet loud house echoing with sounds all too familiar

the old trees that don't go on for long 

Whose long-gone limbs I remember 

As if they were my own

I’m from modified passed-down recipes and dark-ish hair 

From Meghan, Evan, Rachel, Melissa, and Gorman 

I’m from overly cold rooms cold as a rainy autumn mornings

and messy closets brimming with random junk

And from skipping breakfasts 

I’m from stories told years later and the “scribble monster”

 and “beans beans The more you eat the more you toot” and patty cake

I’m from nothing specific 

I’m from Charleston, West Virginia and Cincinnati 

And skyline chili and sweet pepper-filled spaghetti

From my dad's first fight

ending with him crashing into a dumpster

with a bloody nose and a loud bang still going through his head

Magnets collected over the years some having family photos 

and others with small pretty rocks attached

Stuck to the side of the fridge 

By Iva Reynolds   Sep 15, 2023