A Poem by Joanna M. Weston
do I rant of goldenrod and roses
broken by thunderous clouds?
and will rain answer with whispers
dripped from bare twigs?
rather I bend into a shout of wind
catch the sting of words on my skin
run for the shelter of a wall
where I murmur to a coming shower
of green and rising flowers
that know the urgency of April
and the weep of winter’s end.
A Poem by Anon ymous
Still life hangs in the hallway: ashtray, chair, table, empty
bowl [in the name of the father and the son and the holy
ghost]. My un-opened letters bound by string, in a basket;
I remember her favorite dress; pale blue, [I used to hold
her hand] one button gone. I miss the smell of coffee,
the jangle of car keys, the quiet way her voice tightened
when she was nervous; [in the city we die fast, out here
it’s so slow]. My fitted shirt is wrinkled, we need rain;
first time in years the river has crested but not flooded.
A Video of Poetry by Pamela Larson
What is The Exquisite Corpse? A surrealist game played this time via email. One line was emailed to the poet. The poet came up with 4 new lines based on that one line and returned to a central email. The last line of that poet’s 4 lines was emailed to the next poet creating a secret chain of lines. 32 poets participated and no one knew the collaborative poem until this performance. The very last line submitted was used as the title. Thank you to all that participated and to the Highland Park Library for hosting the reading. Special thanks to Jennifer Dotson for all you do for poets and poetry.
A Poem by Joanna M. Weston
stands on a misted hill
under lowering clouds upheld
by evergreens
an elderly priest built it
by selling butter from his own cow
now the church faces a metallic bay
and frowns behind a poster
for the local craft fair
rain darkens the parking lot
A Video Uploaded by cherchante
A Video Uploaded by 676films
A Video by the Harlem Globetrotters
A Video by Greenpeace
A Poem by Anon ymous
I will write her a letter; fold it into a map, an antidote to loss.
If it is good enough it will capture the sound of birds in flight,
the smell of fresh cut wood. My youth was misspent on bare
floors and gravel roads. She was nineteen; fiancé in Rochester,
sneaked her mom’s smokes, wore glasses; was pretty in an
un-pretty kind of way. I was a crow with tattooed wings, sitting
tight in a high back chair on the wire between sober and drunk;
it was wrong, all wrong all the time; right up to the very end.
A Poem by Anon ymous
It’s spring; first we’ll find a nice quiet spot in the woods
[no, let’s back up a few steps] there should be candles.
Not the long tapered kind or tea light; not scented either
but clean, maybe blood red [you tell me how you like
the feel of wax against your skin]. There will be ribbon,
also red; I could wash your hair [we would create a ritual]
you would lay out my clothes, make coffee. We’ll search
for a clearing, midday [or better, late afternoon], a murmur
of rain; the physics of silence folds the sky in two.
A Photo by John Stuart Reid
.jpg "Image credit: John Stuart Reid")
Image credit: John Stuart Reid
A Very Short Prose Piece by PC.
Today, I went to the beachfront with my children. I found a seashell and gave it to my four year old daughter. “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear,” I told her. She put the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her earlobe. She never wants to go back.
And then my son navigating in two feet of water felt a tug at his leg. “Sharks,” he screamed and raced out of the water. We were on the beach of a fresh water lake—no sharks anywhere, but probably nice sized fish (though I don’t think any would swim that close to shore.) I guess we’ll never know what really happened out there, but he too never wants to go back.
Some of the time you just have to write down everything that happens in an instant because you know you have a need to let everyone know.
A quote by Jay Leno
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes. Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, From one bottle and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren’t overweight.
WHY?
Because we were always outside playing…that’s why! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?
A Photograph by Korey J. Brownstein
Photo by Korey J. Brownstein
A Poem by Anon ymous, Occupy Chicago Poetry
Nuestra primera noche juntos, la luna es tímido,
las estrellas se convierten en nuestros manta.
Los cambios de voz como usted están a punto
de quedarse dormido.
Ask me. Anything. Every lie has already
been spent. I am from the North Country.
Used to cold shoulders and winds that tame
blue waters. There was homemade soda pop
and ice cream freezers. Rubber band guns;
warm, sweet beer and dust from rusty rails
on the bottom of our shoes. There was Deb,
Teresa, a transfer student named Magdalena,
Julie, Julia and Liz. 99 lines for 35 women.
It was the end of the line. The beginning
of time. Fell in love. She had small breasts,
artist hands. She loved spring, played soccer.
Told me I was a river. She wanted to paint.
Felt boxed in. I promised to round the sharp
edges. Took my ’70 Impala to the skyline,
made out by the reservoir. Locked ourselves
out one night. Late for curfew. Even after
breaking the wing window and doing ninety
down Becks Road. One summer in a St. Paul
park she found a stray dog. Spackled white
with one ragged ear. Took it home. We broke
up three months later. Told me I had made
a habit of losing her. She couldn’t hold on to
shadows and broken lines. She has a husband,
two boys, a dog named Otto. Paints still life,
writes true stories. Loves yellow crocuses.
There’s a brown bird, sits outside our window.
Tilts his head at the string of paper butterflies
that flutter from the ceiling. We are a secret.
We are a mournful song. We are the same
no longer; we are sea-washed and new.
Our first night together, the moon is shy,
stars become our blanket. Your voice changes
as you are about to fall asleep.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
The poems presented here constitute an original work and are part of a new initiative: Message in a Bottle.
The idea is basic: anyone who would like to join can send a poem, poems or collection to poetanony@gmail.com. Once it is recieved it will be submitted to blogs, ‘zines and journals. The same bio and mission statement is sent but depending on the poet the city/country will change.
Submissions are “blind” in the sense that a person who submits will never know where the poem is being sent or where it is posted or published. The hope is we can build a mailing list of subscribers for a monthy “Anonymous Poem” newsletter and also perhaps a Blog/Website of our own as well.
POET ANON
A resident of Chicago, Poet Anon says: You are encouraged to use this work in any way you see fit. Steal it, borrow it, take parts and make something new, rearrange it, riff on it, send it out over the internet, blog it, post it on telephone poles, throw it away. There is no copyright, no expectation of credit. Poetry should be free.)
Video Report by Sam Datta-Paulin
A Poem by Karen Kelsay
Jacques Cousteau would have loved
our living room, where Dad displayed his creepy
collection of sea creatures inside the dark
paneled den. In this grotto-shrine
there were no pictures of daughters
in frilly dresses on the mantleonly a looming
photo of an eel sliding from its cove,
with a sheepshead and giant grouper
making their debut over the sofa. By the door
a parrot and dolphin fish were hung.
Our coffee table had cork legs with crushed
abalone embedded in the surface
and a glass lamp above it, with a shade
made from boat canvas. Hammerhead
shark\’s teeth and sand dollars were wedged
between diving books on the shelves.
At age three Dad put a wetsuit on me.
Each summer I joined a swim team, snorkeled
and scuba dived. He helped make my surfboard
and cheered me on when I caught a wave.
One July I noticed bikinis looked more
appealing than a one piece that I liked eating ice cream
better than having a salt water-itch and sandy scalp.
I gave up diving gear and tackle boxes,
decided fish have a disgusting feel to them and that freaky
things lived in coral reefs. I realized jellyfish could sting,
sharks were ugly, wetsuits were uncomfortable
and people could run out of air using tanks.
I bought myself a little ruffled sundress and stretched
out in a chair by the pool. I slathered Coppertone
on my legs and put lemon in my hair. I stopped praying
I would grow fins and that my photo
would be hung on the wall.
A Poem by Karen Kelsay
We sit near the stream edge, under the pine’s
brittle fingers. Our collective breath
drapes between low branches
like a foggy sheet across autumn’s arms.
You spot a black bear in the distance;
I marvel how a sky so blue
can be so cold. Daylight has become
brief, the valley blurred into a ribbon
of frayed leaves. At dusk I see
Denali’s shadow from my balcony,
moose eat fuchsias by the backyard deck.
Stalks of rhubarb twist
and bend to earth, breathing
a chilly sigh. No matter how many
winters I greet, this place
will always seem foreign to me.
Everything lies exhausted, the beauty
too vast, God too near.
A Poem by Karen Kelsay
When I wake at three in the morning with stars
sprinkled between my curtains, and see
my old hat box wedged on the corner shelf
beneath scalloped shadows, I remember
its contents of unused wool from a needlepoint
canvas, colored pencils and the camera
with a broken lens. I recall a length of ribbon
too dark for my hair, business cards
that no longer matter, a plastic harmonica
from an amusement hall and an old monogrammed
handkerchief wrapped around a black and white
picture of you, leaning against a palm tree.
Back then, you were a transplanted Nebraskan
collecting San Diego summers in your pockets,
exploring tide pools and sailboats. Each Saturday
you rode the bus to Hotel Del Coronado
where big band music filled the Victorian ball room.
One night, you posed on the lawn in pearls and heels,
beneath a sand dollar moon embedded above the bay.
That was before you married dad and took trips
to Bermuda and Europe. Before mundane chores,
diapers, three children, bike rides and sewing classes.
Before trading the eucalyptus hills of Balboa Park
for an inland home in Orange County
and black lab who shed on your carpet.
Before illness.
When a slice of moon could sneak across
the Pacific and still glint in your eyes.
A Poem by M. Lapin
My father lives in a poverty of mission
losing his gasp on possibility when he confronts escalators, elevators,
ladders of any size.
My father does not do stairs,
everything ramped for him, curbs inappropriate, porches inaccessible.
My father lives in the garage behind the family brownstone.
He is not afraid of exits or entrance ways.
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