Full Moon Poetry Society News - Feb 2013

Full Moon Poetry Society News

Our December Selections concludes our collection of poems 2012. 

February 22nd, 2013. Full Moon Poetry Society is beginning its sixth year. This winter, we are  making a few changes, and we think you’ll like them, or at least, be intrigued. We are.
We accept submissions at all times. Whenever you feel the urge to submit, do.  Instead of selecting five poems monthly, we will select however few or many poems really please us. We will be posting our Selected Poems quarterly, not monthly. Our next chapbook, The Full Moon Poetry Society Selected Poems of 2012, will be available this summer, in electronic, rather than printed, form.
The actual full moon, that shiny rock in the sky, is a great rallying point, a symbol of awareness and of our group, but that doesn’t mean we want poems about it. We don’t. No poems about the moon, please. This time we really mean it!
What we are looking for is poetry that shows heightened awareness. Free verse and traditional forms are both welcome. Length, less than five hundred words.
Consider the spirit of “show, don’t tell.” We seek poems from Zen, and other Buddhist, practitioners. But we prefer poems to show the trials and fruits and whimsy of practice, rather than tell about them in specifically Buddhist terms.
And yes. . . there is a full moon coming on the 25th. . . there’s that rallying point! 

join our conversation at Full Moon Poetry Society under Groups at community.tricycle.com as well as on Facebook.

December 2012 Selected Poems #'s 1 & 2

leaves fall

the river reappears

there all the time

              --Patrick Mizelle

Example Case

Regret without wishing it otherwise, here’s an example.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you’re involved in the break-up, and

Let’s say that you determine that driving into the rice lands due West,

Even though the sun is below the Coast Range, is a good idea.

And so you do, and it is, and soon you’re strolling about on an irrigation road,

Alone except for hundreds of water fowl and their distant calls that

Stretch to the color of the sky, that in this bless-my-soul clear day, now

Hums an avocado hue, swear to god, and - of course -

Reflects in the flooded fields, in places the water and sky light nearly touching, equally bright.

And the moon is up and the birds are on wing,

And your heart is brimming – another field flooded with light.

So let’s say this is happening and you realize that the person you must leave,

First showed you that we all

Live in one vast heartland of the World - our native home.

The feeling that you might be having right then,

Might be an example of regret without wishing it otherwise.

I’ve learned from science instruction it’s best to provide an example case.

--Chris Gaffney

December 2012 Selected Poem #3

                                    Sleeping Under a Desk with Dog

In my mind’s eye, this night is the brightest
of the month; the full moon reflects the sun
and silvery shadow would normally calm the
quiet wood, allowing me to voyeur the nocturnal
happenings of animals normally only heard,
unseen; bear, coyote, owl.

In my mind’s eye, I hear the calm moon
light the sky in the night’s quiet.

Tonight, the moon is a tertiary
influence to the tumult around. We can see
nothing - nothing but the protected candlelight -
candlelight that penetrates the forest about
as well as the full moon.

Mother Nature trumps herself; we hear the
tumult of wind, the cracking of trees, windows
battered by lateral rain. Sandy blots out stars,
moon, creates her own night, her own nightmare
-- suggesting destruction with loud crashes barely
penetrating past the wind’s voice.

Sandy, Sandy, insists on upstaging coyotes and
owls. In the dark of her night, she rearranges
trees, stripping the fall of color, felling transformers
relegating us to days of darkness,
of imagination. It would be easy to give in to small
girl’s fears - dead branches against dark window.

The moon beyond watches in passive silence. It
is only by faith that I know it’s there.

In the clearing day, when gray gives way to color,
and wind has claimed its victim trees, we walk
inspecting her work. She has kindly felled a 2’
diameter tree, laying it precisely parallel to the
drive; a fresh cache of firewood for the coming
winter. A car hood from an unknown car
stands as tombstone.

--Stacey Knapp