Poetry Winter 2016 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Joel Filipe
Alexander McCoy
Questions to Ask a Mountain
& other poems
Alexandra Kamerling
Prairie
& other poems
Debbie Hall
She Walks Into Starbucks Carrying a 2 x 4
& other poems
Michael Fleming
Patience
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
Sheet and Exposed Feet
& other poems
Melissa Cantrell
Collision
& other poems
Martin Conte
Skin
& other poems
AJ Powell
The Road to Homer
& other poems
Paul W. Child
World Diverted
& other poems
Michael Eaton
Remembrances
& other poems
Lawrence Hayes
Walking the Earth
& other poems
Daniel Sinderson
Like a Bit of Harp and a Far Off Twinkle
& other poems
Sam Hersh
Las Trampas
& other poems
Margo Jodyne Dills
Babies and Young Lovers
& other poems
Nicole Anania
To the Dying Man's Daughter
& other poems
Lisa Zou
Under the Parlor
& other poems
Hazel Kight Witham
Hoofbeat Heartbeat
& other poems
Margaret Dawson
Daylily
& other poems
James Wolf
An Act of Kindness
& other poems
Jane A. Horvat
Psychedelic
& other poems
Bill Newby
Touring
& other poems
Jennifer Sclafani
Hindsight Twenty Twenty
& other poems
Lawrence Hayes
After a Ten Minute Silence for John Lennon, Snow
Just as the silence
in Central Park ended,
just as the heavens began
quilting our sighs—
rare moment of presence
on this nervous
bastard earth—
just then
from the sky
an empty silent sifting,
the kiss of a quiet
angel
who pities us our prayers,
white tears
setting down
on the cool bruised
cheek of the earth.
Walking the Earth
1.
A path curving
Into deep woods.
A silence so thick and ancient
it swallows trees as I go.
2.
The path twists
And thickens,
two-hundred year
hemlocks surround me,
a stand of native
beech saplings shiver.
In the darkest of these woods
I empty myself of seasons, turn
to the mute quivering lives
each silent step divides,
knowing myself neither
shunned nor needed here,
here in the depths
of a presence so strong
my breath is but a dampness
it takes back and gives,
a flower unfolding
each finger of grief,
unfurling in the mist
of whatever hush there was
before the earth knew itself
in my name,
before I walked these woods
carving myself in the wounds of an ancient tree,
relieved when finally the new healing
wood came to curl
over each slow
darkening letter,
knowing somehow it was
better this way,
wordless, covered,
walking the earth without a name.
Cousin Steve in Vietnam
for Steve Melnick
1.
When the full dressed
soldier showed up
at your mother Mary’s
door that day
she lost God
in half a minute,
collapsed into
a grief so deep
the family priest didn’t dare
meet her eyes.
2.
After the brutal burial,
after the empty echoes
of the gunshots
in the graveyard,
we reconvened at the house
where things quickly spun apart,
there being no center
to hold,
your girl bent
screaming in the kitchen,
animal anguish
so naked and pure
it stunned
everything into silence.
3.
At 22 you’d left
the States
like many your age,
never to return.
The sniper’s bullet
took you
a week before
your tour was done.
In the only picture
we have of you from that place
you’re grinning lightly in full camouflage gear,
a small monkey chattering on your shoulder.
4.
The black granite wall
in Washington holds your name now,
one among many
in the too long list of the dead.
Chiseled by human hands
your names will endure
perhaps a couple centuries
in the rain.
In the rain
another aunt, Eleanor, said
it looked as if the stone itself
was weeping.
Birth Song for Iris
1.
In the face
of such stark naked miracle
Your folks
must have choked
on the utter
wonder of it all
That moment
they first saw
you crowning
from your mother’s womb.
The midwives
must have gasped
and danced in tandem
to your perfect beauty
that hour you first emerged
bloody and bawling
ultimate gift of the gods
themselves astounded
by all that pink
grasping flesh of yours
new blood-rich being
swimming startled into warm arms
Iris wet and welcome
Juniper there beaming in her own skin
2.
The cold hard world
can be set aside tonight
that old bitter Dylan
put on hold forever.
Instead from his tower
Leonard’s calm hallelujahs
jai on endless repeat
your mama’s sweet milk
spilling on your tongue.
3.
This morning you are the only
being here on earth
Your father’s loveliest poem
dreamt at last into flesh
baby borne swaddled
in soft arms forever
your memory that song
your mother hummed you to sleep
in the womb all those nights
you tossed on your inner seas
your old dog Sophie finally settling now
with a grunty sigh on the front mat
her long watch finally done.
Melancholy
Autumn, of course
is its season, dusk
its time of day.
Anything fleet
and vanishing,
footprints
the red fox
etched an hour ago
in the morning dew.
It ripens into
the darkest of grapes,
into the deepest merlot,
sweet tears spilling
on the banks of regret,
that blessing you forgot
to give or receive.
Nectar of the poets,
empty nest still warm
in love leaving,
night train headed
through our bones in the dark.
Thumbnail moon
against a cobalt sky,
distant buoys tilting
to a foghorn out at sea.
All we love
or have loved in this life
tugging its sweet sad saxophone,
each riff a play
on time past
and time passing.
Late Prayer
Sometimes late at night,
lying wide awake
with you on the far edge of sleep,
all at once I feel your whole body
shudder, shifting through the slipping
transmission of dream,
as if something
deep inside of you
were breaking.
At times I get suddenly
frightened, pull myself
to you a little tighter,
wishing somehow
I could wake you
or pray,
or that, closing my eyes,
I might open some secret
other eye.
Sometimes that day in the rain
returns, and I remember thinking how
this should be enough—
the matted leaves shining on stone,
our history a small black cat
that shivers and settles between us.
Tonight, after work,
let’s talk to each other,
huddled in the dirty afghan.
In the dim light let’s close
the tired book between us,
imagine a new kinder ending
we’ll work on tomorrow.
Lawrence Hayes
is a writer, arborist, and deer fencer living in Pawling, NY. He studied with the poets Charles Simic and Mekeel McBride at the University of New Hampshire, where he received a Masters Degree in Poetry Writing in 1981. He has had his work published in The New York Times, Water Street Review, Aegis, and other small magazines.