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.