Durable Goods Issue Twenty
Featured Writers:
Shawn Misener
Nathan Graziano
Aleathia Drehmer
On the ether of dreams floats these words to: Michigan, New Hampshire, California, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, New Jersey, Missouri, Mississippi, Washington, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Oregon, Louisiana, Texas, Massachussets, Alaska, Indiana, England, Wales, Germany and India.
Read. Write.
Support Small Press.
Be Kind to Each Other.
Aleathia
Dear Aleathia Drehmer,
ReplyDeleteThis comment is not for publication under the comment section--I just want to introduce myself with some poetry in the hope that you invite me to submit to your blog. Of course, if you like this selection, I would be most flattered if you used them. My email address is below.
Jeff Fleming of Nibbles has sent me your microzine a few times and I always wanted to be a part of it. So...below is a sampling of my writing.
Thank you.
Michael H. Brownstein
mhbrownstein@ymail.com
Buddha Comes to Highland Park to Visit a Tree
When the Sorokku tree came to us—
dead?—half dead?—panting?
was it the change of air, the foreign soil,
the strange language we used around it?
We anchored it with a ring of candles,
jasmine and sunshine, the greenhouse
blossoming with leaf and hornet,
flower and beneficial. The tree held
its breath. We researched, googled, asked
young girls to take turns kicking its bark (and when my wife joined the line,
heard a no from somewhere, a you’re too old,
and she stepped away). The greenhouse
gathered moisture, let insects lay eggs
on scale and mites, welcomed butterflies,
beetles, ladybugs, the smell of soap,
sandalwood, peppermint, pickle juice.
Still the tree refused to breathe,
and so we talked to it, stood before it,
and finally listened. It was then we found
the piece of crystal, small and inexact,
with just a hint of the Buddha shape.
We buried it between roots and trunk
and soon, first leaves, new shoots,
and we celebrated, offering more candles,
spices and sugar, water from the homeland,
young girls with broad feet and we thought
to bury another crystal, but did not
understanding now the value of understanding.
The tree, satiated at last, let its leaves flow
to their length, and we began to feel its breath,
marveled at the way it held itself as if in prayer,
its leaves the palms of hands rejoicing
as if it too had need of reverence.
A DAY OF GRAVEL AND SEEDS
My world slams into the ridge of my left shoulder blade,
bodily harm, grit and greasy.
When a sailor ties a knot,
it is meant to not be easily untied.
The raccoon in the city understands a lack of compassion,
the hand of the homeless, thorns, garbage growing older.
They say there is one runner left and we should see him.
They say he has no legs, but his hands are strong.
This is why the last car of the train is as important as the first
and why my babies will be born wearing tee shirts and jeans,
and we ride the alligator on the way to sleep,
the dream of dreaming, the waters too deep.
SNOW DAY FOR MY CHILDREN, BUT I HAVE TO GO TO WORK
I went to see how wide awake the highway is,
How quietly salt melts snow.
I wish to know the explosion of cloud over Lake Michigan:
The sudden wind of heavy sleet dropping its feathers to the east.
You wake after a long sleep and the world is no longer familiar
Everything clean like bleached linen and bone.
All things strong as I want them to be
And so I go into the heated place to begin where I left off.
The snow falls and continues to fall
And the city allows itself to welcome its embrace.
ON THE SUBJECT OF A DEARTH OF THINGS
It is always coldest near the room of death.
Ron Santos buried his legs, Stonewall Jackson somewhere his arm
And Robert Frost, after the loss of his fifth child, could only shiver
Into a sludge of goose bumps outside the door of his wife’s deathbed.
When your father fell to a terrible accident,
You stormed the hospital,
Refused the demands of the chief surgeon
And tickled his left foot because left handedness always brought luck.
It was not his time.
Things aren’t always that simple, that sad, that tiresome.
Someone turn up the heat. It is freezing in the hallway.