April Selection #3

Paseo Impromptu

On the first revolution
you caught my eye.
On the third revolution
I caught yours.
And in the long walk
around the square,
men clockwise, women
counter, I married you,
passionately penetrated your body,
had children with you,
and grew old, sweetly,
sweetly. On the
fifth and final revolution
I'd had enough.
And I wondered if--
no, I was certain--
that you too
had noticed how
your sister's beauty
sears the night.

--Amos Clifford

April Selection #4

Insomnio Lunar

Qué resonancias provocas
con esa belleza tan inalcanzable.
Qué sintonía de diosas
emerge en silencio de tu omnipresencia.
Qué suena hueco en mi pecho
cuando en todo el firmameno no te encuentro,
cuando sé que estás pero no puedo mirarte,
cuando el sol que te ilumina
no llega hasta mis ojos,
cuando tu luz no me toca la piel
cuando tu color de estepa se me escapa
cuando tu guiño no existe
cuando tu sonrisa evade
cuando te vas, como siempre,
para volver más tarde
y sonreirme.

--Lilyan de la Vega


Lunar Insomnia

What resonances you provoke
with this so unreachable beauty.
What a harmony of goddesses
emerges from your omnipresent silence.
What vain dreams in my breast
when in all the firmament I cannot find you,
when I know you are, but I can't see you,
when the sun that illumines you
does not reach to my eyes,
when your light does not touch my skin,
when your vast and treeless color escapes me
when your wink doesn't exist
when your smile evades
when you go, like always,
to return later,
smiling as you go.

- - Lilyan de la Vega, translated by Deanna Hopper

April Selection #5

We heard your breast on the glass
The smallest light down
circling
where you’d been in rust
and cream
We looked for you
in the grass, hoping
you’d be dead
but we found you
with that inexpressible
liquid, the mouth moving
rapidly
as a truck rolled by.
I waited, watching
a bird land on
the same lawn and not
notice
how painful it is.
Huddled and breathing low
to the ground
your eyes deform before me.
There are sirens sounding in flight
but I cannot bury you yet,
there are too many birds
drinking that blue juice
in the trees.
Singing
like you must have been
the day the privet
ripened.

--Michelle Brandt

March Selections 1 & 2

Night lingers endless,
Moonlight illuminates
The curtains of my room.
A single bird sings
Startling the silence,
Promising.

--Patrick Mizelle



First Walk With You

Long trees slender lean their distant heads upon the sky
Clouds gather there and breathe above the glade
Where you and I have lain upon the cool pine-leaf
Scattered turf, and look aloft, beyond, above our
Rain-damped place on earth.

Dark birds wheel and wandering turn
Their spiral roads; the morning breeze stirs
Long pines' leaves and sends soft scents below.
Dizzy is this time of waiting, silent turning
Strong hearts beating; Waiting, listening, silent seeing
Long trees pray their morning greeting.

--Amos Clifford

March Selection #3

Before Departure

Now to be gone, as will I go
And gather with the gathered be
Make be the road my rosary
The road be beads and time be string
Small graces southward carry me
Templed stones soft song their sing:

make long a string of slow
past things
make far the string of brief
life's beads

Spired stones praise skywardly
Patient stones be calling me
And morning songs of joyous trees
Sacred hymns of morning trees
Even now they whisper me
Even now, before I leave

they whisper me
they whisper me

--Amos Clifford

March Selection #4

Fissures

That room,
in which a mother bathes an infant,
and nothing happens,
only sunlight falls,
or a kettle steams,
there is the root, the origin, the memory.

By every tiny, hidden, path,
invisibly, in crevices,
through watery fissures numerous as hairs,
our longing seeps and trickles to that core,
in and down,
urgently returning,
oh to return,
return complete, illumined,
child and adult at once,
triumphant, golden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

as if there were no shadows in the mind.

Polluted water rims the river bank.
Brambles overwhelm a rusted pump.
A tired cop is writing with a pen;
the tow guy scratches, ratches up his chain,
and you and I trade vicious looks again.

Just then a dirty cat peeks out of weeds
and one of us uplifts it and you say - or is it me -
put down that fucking thing and wipe your hands,

and I remember - as I turn around -
the trickling of sweet water
underground -

--Deanna Hopper

March Selection # 5

Western Dragon

If, from your office window,
at the edge of sight,
a small brown bird steps lightly
from a flagpole;

if the redbearded prosecutor demands
that you show a precedent;

if the half-empty glass bursts into song,
and the shivering child throws you one clear-eyed glance;

if, at the sound of the temple bell,
both halves of the cat will serve on the jury,
and yet no verdict is reached;

if the dragon that rises, wet and new,
from the urban dawn, is pink and gold;

if the dragon that rises, haggard and hoary,
from the smoky dusk, is clothed in somber joy;

Then peace, that drunken mariachi band,
balancing a pitcher of sangria,
will screech and stagger its way down your street,
gallantly lifting horns to the teen
walking with her grandfather

appearing in your sideview mirror
as maybe only a couple of vatos in baggies

and dwindling at last
to the leaves and discarded wrappers
that rest against
the wheel of your car.

Your morning begins.
You turn the key, head west.
Power flows in every direction.

- - Deanna Hopper