Temporal Entanglement

 

Who knows where the end should be

It was my turn

I swallowed the rosy-red moon

She lingered in the pit of my throat

Hovered in my chest

Then emitted gentle pulses

To all my flaccid limbs

Imbedded memories begged for my attention

 

Copious verses

For parents departed

A cousin and auntie chat fest

Extended beyond the dusty dawn

Maybe it ends here

 

Bridal trousseau in leather case

Carefully curated

Little girl in blue frilly dress

Oversized binoculars on her neck

Maybe it ends here

 

India ink-stained fingers

Wielding a bamboo reed pen

Polaroid portrait snapped

With Daisy the blue parakeet

Maybe it ends here

 

After school splash time in the crick

Playmate’s orange muddied feet and hands

Her mom’s creamy banana pudding

Tops my sister’s soggy rendering

Maybe it ends here

 

Restful sleep attainable

Only with Dad’s water buffalo bedtime stories

And a bellyful of Mom’s sugar stuffed paratha

Dipped into sweetened yogurt

Maybe it ends here

 

Maybe where the end should be

Is where it all started

By Tabassam Shah, Clarion, PA

Frontage Road

Rather than interstate 85

I preferred to take the frontage road

To and from school

It was wild and hilly

Stained burnt orange

From frequent downpours

That Piedmont dirt bled everywhere

The kudzu was dangling

From skeleton trees

A loveseat in a 1960s technicolor

Green and brown fade

Was in the shoulder

At the lowest dip in the road

Before the sun-bleached stop sign

 

I pulled over to take a snap

With my daddy’s 35 mm Pentax

How satisfying it was to press the shutter release

And to hear the click

As my thumb advanced the film

Which was cradled below

Safely encased in its spool

 

Sometimes I would circuit

The whole frontage road

Between my exit and the school

Just to pay my respects

To the giant peachoid watertank

And to the Possum Trot one room schoolhouse

Such exotic roadside attractions

Piqued the mind and eyes of this

New Jersey-born but southern girl.

 

By Tabassam Shah, Clarion PA

Just Before

 I feel sigh after sigh arising, 

moving in a slow spring breeze

that will not let them leave,

caught in a crosswind that makes

now feel like forever.  And sigh

again.  The sources of longing 

and loss hidden.  I want to hear 

some blues about love lost and found

some blending of pain and gain

on a guitar string that almost breaks,

some voice that knows the depth I 

need to reach before l can breathe

again, that knows that life doesn’t 

begin with a cry but a sigh just 

before the crying begins.

- Byron Hoot

https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/

She Read Maya Angelou

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

Chalk Eye

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

Advice from that One-Way Back Street

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 

Blessings from the Last Full-Service Station in Town

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 

And What Is Decided

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

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

Sentiment And Retrospect

1
The last ray of twilight has faded, the moon's silver light shines instead:
And yet, though all worn out and jaded, sleep forsakes my lone pillow and bed.
2
As I wander alone in the moonlight, looking into far azure blue.
Hark! The clock strikes the hour of midnight: I was thinking my heart's love,
of you.
3
Does life's retrospect leap time and distance, back from Heaven to Earth's
transient home?
Yes, the saints ne'er forget the existence of the dear ones they've left here to
roam.
4
Is it wrong to think of the love dreams that brightened our pathway in youth?
Is it wrong to cherish their memory, since forgetting will not alter truth.
5
Backward o'er times fleeting cycles to the days when hope's star shone most
bright,
Fond memory bids me to linger, and ask you to join me tonight.
6
Come then, let us sit by the river, when vesper brings Venus to view;
For Cupid has darts in his quiver. I'll reveal the glad secret- to you.
7
When at last we shall meet by the river. Life's river that flows by the throne,
I'll thank Cupid's dart and his quiver, and claim you again for my own.

-Walter C. Harris
Limestone, Tenn.
January 4th, 1922

https://sites.google.com/view/waltercharris/