The Poetry Box

Pushcart Poems

Sheet Bend by Jonathan Glenn Travelstead

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“Sheet Bend” by Jonathan Glenn Travelstead, published in The Poeming Pigeon: Love Poems, to be released December 1, 2017 by The Poetry Box.

Sheet Bend

~ The sheet bend, or weaver’s knot,
connects two ropes of differing material & thickness.
It is commonly used for securing sails.

 

The instructions on Google begin, say Form a bight
in the thicker, blue rope, then pass the red,
thinner rope through, then behind the blue tail.

As soon as it’s read, I’ve forgotten all but the ropes’ color:
one red, the other blue as the fish in Dr Suess’ pond.
Their relationship, bipartisan

for how each body begins defi ning the other’s properties.
I don’t have ropes to practice, so I rewrite
the instructions in a way I will remember later:

Make a ‘J’ from the larger of two ropes, pass the little ‘j’
through the closed hook … walk the rabbit
‘round the tree.

Note: Lacking tension, lovers & sheet bends slip,
work loose of their promises. Like Frost’s farmers who meet
once each year to mend the frayed boundaries

between their lands, we make routine the repair
of our bends, lace them tight as one sensimilla vine
snugging another. Sisal, kernmantle, hemp, & nylon.

Our heart’s knots require dressing. Your own name
& the name you take needs tending to with loving care.
Every pairing, every doubled strand.

Every coupled thing needs four hands for going over
every woven thing.

Even Death by Jane Yolen

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“Even Death” by Jane Yolen, published in The Poeming Pigeon: Love Poems, to be released December 1, 2017 by The Poetry Box.

Even Death

Even death’s bone hand
over your mouth
has not stopped that converse.

Even the years without you
have not limited
what we say to one another,

Even the nights alone
have not put full stop
to our sentences.

Even a bird in its ellipses,
unseen by your field glasses,
remains in our exchanges.

Even my death will not cut off
the love that lingers still
in our mouths.

Even.

The Chubby Buddhist Monk of Trout Lake Abbey by Tricia Knoll

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“The Chubby Buddhist Monk of Trout Lake Abbey” by Tricia Knoll, published in Broadfork Farm, released in July 2017 by The Poetry Box.

The Chubby Buddhist Monk of Trout Lake Abbey

His abbey sits in fields of echinacea and lavender
beyond the llama pasture, surrounded in sunfl owers.
The summer winds stir a dozen temple bells.

He wears robes of brown and melon orange,
grows huge helianthus, nurtures barn bats, tends
a garden of one hundred Buddhas.

Kozen, the man, trains his rollicking mutts.
He stopped in the small town across the Columbia
to let them sniff and express dog-nature

when a man assaulted him screaming epithets
against Muslims, cut his face, kicked his car door
and fled. A hate crime on the police sheet.

Kozen to the TV camera: You are completely forgiven.
The Buddha tells us all of our suffering
comes from anger, desire and ignorance.

At home, prayer wheels and wind chimes
play in limbs of trees near the end of their time.
Long grasses in the mountain’s breath.

Chamomile for the Molokans by Katy Brown

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“Chamomile for the Molokans” by Katy Brown, published in The Poeming Pigeon: Poems from the Garden, released in May 2017 by The Poetry Box.

Chamomile for the Molokans

The spider checks her web for moths
that might have strayed in dim starlight
into sticky death. She lives in the corner
above my doorway: a reminder for me
of the cycle of all things.

I watch her patch a ragged hole,
then take my shears and make my way
into the fields beyond the last porch light.
Here, the wild and tame have grown together.
Here the owl patrols on silent wings.

I’ve been harvesting sorrow this month,
a task best done by the dark of the moon:
angelica for protection and myrrh for mourning,
rosemary to remember, snowdrops for consolation.
And chamomile for the Molokans.

Which plant, which root or stem or flower
will give my heart song, again? Which is the herb
for breath? for moving-on?
What wreath or tea or infusion will bring about
redemption — will make up for unsaid things —
will bring back the moments, lost forever?

The light is coming up, again, turning pearl
behind the western mountains. It is time
to give-way to dawn, to return home.
Enough gathering of sorrow for one night.

Lilith by Brittney Corrigan

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“Lilith” by Brittney Corrigan published in The Poeming Pigeon: Poems from the Garden, released in May 2017 by The Poetry Box.

Lilith

Hell, they kicked me right out of the Bible.
No one wanted to hear how I made
a killer chocolate fondue and used to
handcuff Adam to the bed. He braided my hair
while I got my nipples pierced. I painted
his toenails as a sun was tattooed
on his back. He’s shy of that now, won’t show
anyone, but I know all about it. Oh, he won’t
tell you how we stayed up late talking, spiking
each other’s hair. How we popped corn
and threw it at the moon — and all those nights,
crows upon crows at our feet. He likes to forget
we used to make up songs together, flinging
lines at each other, splashing in the claw-foot tub.
We planted a garden that bloomed
unlikely things — the artichoke mingling
with the birds, the snap peas tangling threads
to spell out wishes. The weed I pulled and pulled
that wouldn’t give until I dug, found its claws
wrapped around a stone. Together we picked
tomatoes, green and young, watched them
turn somersaults in our wicker basket. Dreadlocked
carrots, weeping leeks, the pumpkin spreading
wider than our house! And how we cooked and cooked,
turned spices in butter, tamed vegetables, licked
the spoons, ate off each other’s plates. And always
the scent of lilacs, cherry blossoms, coaxing us
into the blue of night, the perfect relief of stars.
We’d walk the dogs down the road
to the abandoned silo, make love in the grain
until the sun slipped through the roof. Or
lie naked in the forgotten treehouse, listening
to acorns falling from the sky. It was all about
how much we wanted to slip inside each other,
find our way up and down our bodies’ bones.
Until I found the missing rib.
I noticed it gone, then saw he’d planted it
in the garden. She grew taller than the rhubarb,
taller than me. I put my hands on my hips
and hollered: Take her, but leave me
the dogs, leave me the garden.
You’ll never find this again.
But someday she’ll come walking, she’ll see
this garden and reach for something here.
I’ll watch her from the kitchen window.
I’ll let her take whatever she likes.
And when she does, you’ll crumble.
You’ll turn on your heels
and run.

Crossing by Lynn M. Knapp

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“Crossing” by Lynn M. Knapp, published in Giving Ground, released in February 2017 by The Poetry Box was nominated for Pushcart Prize in 2017.

Crossing

His mouth full
of broken syllables,
Mario dies a death
with each twisted word
he utters,
each turn of phrase,
a mark of difference.
Powerful in Spanish,
he is captive, subjugated
in manacles of English.
Still struggling
with his twenty-year adversary,
he asks me,
When you speak Spanish,
do you feel empty?
No, I say,
I feel full, llena de amor,
llena de posibilidades.
But I do not live or die,
drown or thrive,
by this language,
as he does by English.
I do not face daily
small humiliations.
I can cross the border
freely, sin pena.

Edward Albee Knew the Score by Christopher Luna

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“Edward Albee Knew the Score” by Christopher Luna, published in The Poeming Pigeon: Doobie or Not Doobie?, released April 20, 2016 by The Poetry Box

Edward Albee Knew the Score

an arousing nexus
of sex, weed,
and chocolate
holds unimagined rewards
for the brave traveler

a far better evening for
hardened hearts
to be coaxed open
the perfect moment
to pass through the portal

(rediscovered)

suddenly the shrieks of children
are indistinguishable from the birds’ cry

sorrow, laughter, and hunger
bubble up
to remind us
not to die
before we die

Sax Axis by Josh Gaines

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“Sax Axis” by Josh Gaines, published in The Poeming Pigeon: Poems about Music, released November 12, 2016 by The Poetry Box.

Sax Axis

Corner of
rooftop and jazz,
top of sound waves
the sweet of fresh baked,
earth of waking coffee pots
alarms foot tapping symbol crash
smack clack and flail,
the floor already
warming with vibration.

Deciding what makes
the world go round,
in the building where music lives,
everyone who wants to be
anyone worth remembering
chats up old timers
for trade secrets:
How he held the thing wrong
Even then wouldn’t touch the stuff
Covered his lips in Carmex
They pile on the how in the hell mystique,
Never owned a clock in his life and
never late for a gig.
Dizzy woke to imagination,
a reveille of Do-Be-Dat!
squeaking through his ears
like Beethoven’s brass
deaf to the sounds
of the day.

Today’s movement
plays off traffic horns’ jam,
trash can steel’s crashing battle,
the muted-piano pigeon coos
on a roof
with the band
who plays the sunrise
to the drowned by endless incandescence
halogen fluorescence
star sparse sky,
the hopes of immigrant shoulders
the promises of free flow
on a breeze of asphalt
and cherry blossoms.

A blackbird remains antenna perched
before a cloudless summer.
Before a trumpet no longer on a march,
time saunters.

By night, time and trombones slide
with bands’ howling midnight saxes,
a nightly practice of
feet pressing earth to music’s entrancing.
The world spins on its axis
because we keep dancing.