Poetry Summer 2023 fiction all issues
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Cover
Joel Filipe
Kristina Cecka
Rabble
& other poems
Gillian Freebody
The Uncivil War of Love
& other poems
LuAnn Keener-Mikenas
Skunks at Twilight
& other poems
Alyssa Sego
Passage
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Forest of One
& other poems
Brent M. Foster
Ode to Darwin
& other poems
Jack Giaour
trans man is feeling blue
& other poems
Alan Gann
how strange
& other poems
Richard Baldo
The Privilege
& other poems
Michael Fleming
In
& other poems
Holly York
As it turned out, there was no bomb on board
& other poems
Celeste Briefs
Late Poppies
& other poems
Kayla E.L. Ybarra
Goose Song
& other poems
S.E. Ingraham
Leaving to Arrive
& other poems
Rachel Robb
Molting Scarlet Tanager
& other poems
Bruce Marsland
Sauna by a Finnish lake at Midsummer
& other poems
Ellen Romano
Seven Sisters
& other poems
Greg Hart
False Coordinates
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
Shanksville
& other poems
Corinne Walsh
Southern Charm
& other poems
Alan Gann
Why Apples Fall
I The Blue Jay Told Me
The Blue Jay told me it is true
I too was once nothing
more than a tiny bud that bloomed
and visited by bees
many times before petals shed
But all I recall are endless days
sun or rain
feeling crisp and juicy
never noticing increments of girth
At night we whispered
speculating what might be in store
Some claimed it was all about letting go
first unfettered moment
while others worshiped the rush
topsy-turvy feeling in your pit
But I always craved impact
umph and ecstasy
of accomplishment of knowing the light
is neither beginning nor end
II Newton’s Song
My mother says
most behaviors are learned
by imitation so the apple falls tomorrow
because it watched
all the apples falling today
who fall because of what they saw
who fall because of what they saw
who fall all the way back
to our first fall and back again
to the first angel falling away
But my father believes falling
is the inevitable result of rising
striving to achieve escape velocity
ad astra and beyond
thermodynamics of capitalism
My sister the gardener lives in a world
filled with green songs
suggests apples fall
because dewy grass
sings as a siren
come come whomever you are
All Newton could calculate was force
of an apple’s attraction to the earth
how fast and hard
shallow understanding
but I grok seeds need dirt
and when they finally learn to take root
in the empty air of existence
apples will fly
one day apples will fly
III Fumbling into the Future
Because everyone craves
a kiss that addles
and the radio is filled with static
Because we are trapped
between curiosity
the reaper and beauty
is a blue dancer cast in bronze
Because momentum is a dragon
and the carriage pointed
toward eternity
Because we are condemned
to fall into the future
fumbling among the aliens
Because we are blessed
to fall into the future
thinking thoughts never thunk
Because we’ll never know
who wound the clock
if they are spying or not
and somehow planets keep on spinning
Because spokes roll with the wheel
and every unfurling sprout
challenges entropy’s dominion
Because Granny Smith cooks
while Pink Ladies flirt
and a crisp clean bite
leaves both of us weak in the knees
Because a double-helixed chain
crawled from the ooze
and it is an astonishing thing to be alive
sixtieth birthday poem
for Indigo
twenty-one thousand nine hundred fifteen chances to be
a buoyant plum
purple orb against a field of waterlilies
blooming under a cloudless
somebody-take-a-photograph sky
kissed by perfect twin
floating beneath the surface
and she said
do not be a buddhist
be the center of stillness
do not dance for the goddess
but be her forests, oceans, skies
and all the wild things
do not be a Christian
be the loaves that feed the masses
then she asked what if
the plum is too sweet?
nearly twenty-two thousand chances
to explode brighter than superest nova
fill the air with a song
that makes all the other songs
jealous and squandered
how many?
watching reruns
aunt bea and gilligan
clicking widgets
as if the world needed faster
shinier more expensive
ways to kill itself
how many frittered away
worrying
which squirrel will win the race
and the bending
of palms in a hurricane
she said do not be
an artist be the fire
do not be a dancer
but the space between leap
and falling star
do not be a writer be the phrase
that turns laughter to wine
then bleeds
never regret
infatuations
polkas twists and cha-chas
the unexpected hallelujah
search for mythical cities
bushwhack through jungles
golden spires a machete slash from reality
and remember to converse with quarks
to shudder as needed
with grief
still she said do not invest too much
in even my most tender trace
ecstatic twining of our bodies
remember the star exploding
vanishing of nanoseconds and millimeters?
because even deepest namaste
is a cluttered desk
punctured radial
out-of-tune piano
twenty-two thousand galaxies away
from the astonishing plum
how strange
for Carol Coffee Reposa
how strange
that I am forever
wandering the halls as if life
were an art museum
and my job
to bestow meaning
upon color and form
how strange
that I am forever
listening in as Cezanne’s apples
whisper to the blue dancer
relax
there is nothing beyond us
worth reaching for
how strange
not that you should die
but the shapeless gray of your absence
my inability to cadge meaning
from a swollen tumor
how strange
but perhaps less strange
than Werner Heisenberg
teaching that we cannot know
a bullet’s speed or heart
without changing its impact
that certainty
is either velocity or acceleration
never both
and even though the cat is both
dead and alive
winter still gives way
and bees still choose flowers
so one ripe June morning I will
think of you before biting into
the sweetest sweetest strawberry
how strange
I am not an avocado
no oily pulp
beneath leathery green skin
nothing to spread
on morning toast
only disappointment
when mixed with onions
diced tomatoes
lime cilantro
and cayenne
nor am I the squawking
parrots flying free
carrying soft grass
across the river
as if there is no border
I could possibly be
steam rising
from a hot pool
opaque
a fog beautiful
for what remains
unseen or a dream
of snow—shroud for
forgotten graves
or regrets
of an old man
after toasting
a change of calendars
checking email
to find a note
from the girl unkissed
so many
champagne corks ago
Alan Gann
, a teaching artist-poet, tutors and facilitates writing workshops for at-risk youth. His newest collection of poems, Better Ways to See from Assure Press, features nature and ekphrastic poems celebrating the wonder-filled attitude his parents instilled in him and his sister. Other publications include 2 volumes of poetry: That’s Entertainment (Lamar University Press), and Adventures of the Clumsy Juggler (Inkbrush Press), plus DaVerse Works, Big Thought’s performance poetry curriculum.