In the brackish marsh, I am a dog in a duck’s eye, more jester than jockey, more joker than juror. When beavers dance I am a goat in a goose’s dream, at water’s edge I am a freak in a frog’s leap, a madman in a muskrat’s march, a monster in a mallard’s mind. More clumsy than careful, more cartoon than contender.
Chromatic
Chromatic the light on the breathing lake, on the leaning bark, on the biting bird.
Chromatic the light on the leaning lake, on the breathing bark, on the bouncing bird.
Chromatic the light on the laughing lake, on the biting bark, on the barking bird.
Chromatic the light on the barking lake, on the bouncing bark, on the laughing bird.
The Meaning
The meaning of the sun is the shape of the trees.
The meaning of the moon is the color of the night.
The meaning of the sea is the path on the shore.
The meaning of the land is the forest where I walk.
Clifford Bernier is the author of three poetry collections; he has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and his “The Silent Art” won the Gival Press Poetry Award. He appears on harmonica in the Accumulated Dust world music series and is featured on the EP Post-Columbian America. A member of the Washington Writers Collection, he has featured on NPR’s The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Image: Photograph by Eric Koppel. User:EKoppel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
It is not quite accurate to say Lola is growing old for she has always been old, teetering in and out of lifetimes. Each morning she wraps her head in a sapphire headdress and becomes more beautiful.
Whole forests redden and wither. Mountainsides succumb.
Lola is whispering bluets, lamb’s ear. I roll her lips between my fingers, touch the broken fragment of her eye. Whose name means sorrow, Lola counts the baby’s toes.
Each time she closes and opens her eyes, the field is full of painted ladies.
The air around her body shimmers.
She hands me a small box lined with silk and rice paper. I turn it in my hand. Lola which also means luscious of the rains in right proportion.
July, her olive trees, switchgrass, and broken rock
outstretched beneath the trees, she is the color of sleep yarrow, madder root the dream I came to dream
tell me, my daylight, my atmosphere
along the widening pool of her
may I from mountain hut to mountain hut reflection of sky step through
* * * * * *
I take the world that I built in the upper loft of my mind and set it before me. Diebenkorn canvases next to a handful of larkspur seed rattling in a paper bag.
the arched opening through which only portions of the imagination are visible. a movable cropping effect.
the space of the opening as distinct from the frame of the opening. the simultaneous continuity and differentiation of spaces created by a doorway.
this side and that side
My brother stands beside a bare water oak. His glasses, thick and crooked and his hat, bahama straw. His hands waft and wave, let loose his conversation with the air.
under the benevolent swaying pines. soft edge. hard edge. dissolving edge. white space on either side of the line.
wed. of water and wet. root of wend, winter.
wed. to speak the way water speaks. aidein, to sing. aoide, ode or song.
wei which turns and twists. of the wind. first motion. source of madness, wildwood rage
gives rise to weak, as in the suppleness of thread. a sea-wire seaweed garland made. bracelet. verse. a wreath of sacred foliage. a magic-wheel.
* * * * * *
I fold the page. I’m repairing the inner layer of the inner layer.
Maybe we are buried like seeds, my brother and I, frozen under the ground. A long wait ahead. Maybe there are things with which the gods, even in their deepest kindness, cannot interfere.
Go back to the beginning. The auspice of a tortoise shell. The jaws of a pre-historic fish.
A storm is coming and the cows are grazing and my brother is scared of bees. Honeycomb. Zig-zag. Pincer grasp. Whorl of clicks, whistles, and taps. Every sensation has a shadow sensation. I make my line of sound.
* * * * * *
I’m looking for you, brother.
I in my papery skin. I a small pot of ash. I running without speech, refuge along the river. A cornflower blue next to silver hashmarks.
Almond eyes peer through the iris. I made of sparks a script. Flower of all the dreams. Ash. Steel. Bordering emptiness. The ink smears.
Swevn means first to sleep, a sleeping vision, Old Saxon drom.
My brother disappears around the corner. He will plant asters and anemone, the light slate grey. He still has bad dreams. I am not a bad person, he says, drunk on something unseen.
To listen is to make a small chamber.
There was a time when talking was more like singing. The night is not as dark as it once was, the winter not as cold.
One side of the page, and half the planet burning.
* * * * * *
My brother stands still just long enough for the camera to click. Then he takes off. I can’t see where he goes. My view littered with tulip magnolia. Blossom white. Red brick chimneys.
before the world ancient beehive
My brother asks is it chatter or sutra ursa minor casts from the night sky.
* * * * * *
Anne Dykers is a poet and book artist in Silver Spring, MD. Her poems have appeared in Green Mountains Review, Ashen Meal (edited by David Gansz), Bourgeon, and The Great World of Days, an anthology of DC area writers and artists. She has participated in multiple readings and collaborative projects sponsored by The Takoma Park Community Center, and her handmade books have been included in member exhibitions of the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center. Anne is also a body-centered psychotherapist in private practice in Silver Spring.
Before sin there was cocaine. Coca leaves spread like a carpet
on lush clearings and golden paths in the Garden of Eden.
Creation was born with a habit. I was born addicted.
The demon sinfully attached itself to my mother’s placenta
snaking around my embryonic swim. I was yanked out
into the light of tragedy. My hazel-to-be-eyes would never
see the straight way. My body, small & vulnerable, would never
know maturity and after ten slaps on the butt, the surgeon relented.
She couldn’t make me cry.
But keep coming back to these rooms & you won’t
be alone, dead, or in jail, I was told.
Only in these rooms will you find French poets,
celebrities, ministers & auto mechanics –
everyone equally bent on self-destruction. .
Withdrawals emerged in the first week. Soon
You are riding on the moon every night, painting
graveyards on the walls with a palette of fresh vomit.
It’s simple really. You cope, shake, crave, curse, knit,
write, exist inside this salvage tanker of a facility
that’s carrying broken souls and you get clean or die.
By the second week your piss will clear up
& your mom is proud of her little pig that can fly.
You get a chip for not killing anyone. Next week
it’s your turn to rip out someone’s heart, sauté it
medium rare. Relax, relax, God didn’t make junk
so try not to act like a conceited piece of shit.
A new best friend will arrive – Superhyperparanoia
and rooms with you. He has paperbacks confirming the scam.
You’re never leaving. You’ll never get out of here!
It’s all a fucked-up mess. You believe Shakespeare
was really Japanese. The USA invaded Germany
in search of Einstein’s brain cells. Charles Bukowski
threw up on his editor. It’s all a scam. You paranoid bitch.
Stop pretending you’re young & innocent. This
is war and like any war,
the agony has a way of dropping your balls so low
in the blues, you can only masturbate holding an AK-47.
If only I could remember things without writing
them down. If only I could remember. Remember.
You are not alone. If you keep coming
back you’ll not end up on a gurney, lifeless,
easily disposed of. On the last night, your soul
wraps its chains around you. Bound and gagged
you’ll sink deep in a cold sea. Drowning. Dying.
But ready to surrender to swim another day. The
water bubbles escaping your lips whisper, Please God.
So you surrender. Run from people in dark places. Change
those things that planted stinking thinking
in your fucked-up brain. Day 27 arrives like the nightmare
before Christmas and all through the rooms, not a lung
was heaving, not a head off its swivel. Listen. You can
hear – the unemployed mom. The stage magician. The
urban cowboy. The maniac with an ice pick. Teenager
with powers of prestidigitation. The nymph in a low-cut.
The quiet one with bulging eyes. Everyone is a story.
Every story sucks. Tears are common but not required.
Keep coming back to these rooms. As long as it takes.
Until the clouds turn blue. Until you kick the door open
& it hits you between the eyes and you realize – damn!
It only takes twelve easy steps to find Love
WHERE HAVE THE WATERBOYS GONE?
(A pantoum)
This Is The Sea (album) 1991
The Whole Of The Moon (single)
The Waterboys
My dreams have no season
disappearing too close to heaven
like a river that was the sea.
rolling stars into a ball!
disappearing too close to heaven
by a drum that bangs the ear
rolling stars into a ball!
the whole moon is seen in her tear
high above the urban noises
folded in the breath of spring
the whole moon is seen in her tear
dreams speak in smiles to me.
folded in the breath of spring
how long will I love you?
dreams speak in smiles to me
as long as there are stars above you
How long will I love you?
The inky nonchalance of the sky
as long as there are stars above you
blue eyes winking on the moon
The inky nonchalance of the sky
lyrics once bright as Orion’s belt
blue eyes winking on the moon
The Waterboys popped the Milky Way
lyrics once bright as Orion’s belt
because now and then they play
The Waterboys popped the Milky Way
landing rhymes on silver spoons
because now and then they play
like a river that was the sea
landing rhymes on silver spoons
my dreams have no season
A Pretty Room For My Books
where dust settles on the fresh angles of new authors and cracked binders catch the golden flecks from the sun.
where timeless sonnets occupy dog-eared pages in the joyful presence of sweet evening shadows.
where high windows face the frowning lawns scuffed by likable children. A simple room.
the finest oak shelving to bear the weight of hurtful words or plots foretelling tipsy seduction.
a fine place to suffer escalating drama after drama. a kind place of the heart is what I want, where
indifference is swept under the rug & humor softens the four hard walls. where Roald and Seuss
are suitably squeezed between Saroyan and Ellison. Where heartaches lean into carnivals on sanded cherrywood
and gently wake young minds ignorantly orbiting a world of vanity and unpredictability. where
lasting tomes of different lengths and dignity occupy a boardroom papered by fabric myths large enough
to embrace the aesthetic of solitude but not so big I tire dusting the thick editions of deceit and avarice.
where pages stickied by finger licks and time, reside side-by-side with movies-to-be and emotional colloquy
to be read in fire-orange faces hot by perspired anticipation. Allow here a yellow bulb to hang above the reader’s eyes
and make silky the light on chapters written out of love although hate remains the frequent mouse skittering about.
I want a pretty room to harbor a multitude of chronicles regaling history; of treacherous worlds gone mad and
gone by. Perhaps a unique bedside shelf, appeasing the limited edition of my own journey carousing
various highways and small roads into neon cities high on hash or clean and sober times across amber plains of grain.
this pretty room, a book’s castle, you might say, may entice a frequent Scotch or merlot drinker with delicious expectations.
who can tell what the final chapter will bring in this humble room hung by the long drapes of pages
from Nobel novelists inviting the moon to pierce their sentences for learned eyes to only see its history
by squinting. There’ll be no heavy shroud in my pretty room where the air of whimsy permeates a space once heavy with boredom.
Allan is a (baby) Boomer who at 70 years old and fighting cancer tries to remain relevant in the world, as all Boomers can still be. He’s written poetry for many many years but only during the COVID pandemic did he seriously pursue this wonderful craft. He’s published a few poems here and there and is currently trying to finish up a book of poetry. The poems included herein reflect both his experiences and his whimsical imagination.
Image: Attributed to William Notman, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
I am standing on the corner of Christian at 16th street
watching and waiting for the No. 2 bus
to take me uptown where I need to go.
Walked pass Miss Lee’s house
down to Tommy’s Barbershop
turned left onto Christian
by the 7th Day Adventists’
walked up to 16th street
straight and tall like I’ve been told
now I’m waiting on the corner
for the No. 2 bus.
Miss Lee was sitting in the window
when I passed her house this morning
pretending to read the daily newspaper.
Miss Lee is always pretending
to read the daily paper
while she watches the block
for the coming and the going.
A dog was barking in the alley.
A dog is always barking in the alley.
Down at Tommy’s Barbershop
the men are gathered on the doorstep
just like they gather every morning
seems like they have no place to go.
They call to me by my family name
since they’ve known me from a little girl.
Some say the men are trifling,
but some say my family’s “striving”
so I pay what some say no mind at all.
Walking to the bus stop
I carry the briefcase Daddy bought me
a big leather Samsonite
like one he always longed to carry
he says I will grow into it.
Mommy washed and pressed
my hair last night
and curled it into a page-boy style
using strips cut from a brown paper bag
black magic passed down
from generation to generation.
Mommy tells me that I’m beautiful,
and just as smart as the white kids
who already go to the uptown school,
that should be all that matters, she says.
I hope that she is right.
Now I’m standing on the corner
of Christian at 16th street
watching and waiting for the No.2 bus
to take me uptown where I need to go.
I’m only two blocks from home
but already I am lost, and wondering
how long it will take me
to grow into this briefcase.
The Scalding
Even then, as now
Me,
running towards affection, with
no regard for blistering waters
no regard for consequences
of burning love.
You,
always across the room
always too far away
even now, as then
busy with the this and that
of life
the women’s work of
babies, and
baths, and
water carried hot
across a room
from stove
to pot
to tub.
Who can even know
what happened next,
though lore’s been passed
from kin to kin
even then, as now.
Me,
they say, a horror of skin
falling free from baby bone
You,
stunned first
into hollow silence
before the howls toward heaven.
Oh, what is pain but love
and love but pain.
Prior to taking a serious interest in poetry, Bernardine (Dine) Watson worked as a social policy writer for major foundations, nonprofits, and media organizations. She has written for The Washington Post, The Ford Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Stoneleigh Foundation. Dine’s poetry has been published in the Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Indian River Review,by Darkhouse Books, and by the Painted Bride Art Center. She was a member of 2015-16 class of The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ the Poet in Progress Program, and the 2017 and 2018 classes of the Hurston Wright Foundation’s Summer Writers Week. Dine serves on DC’s Ward 4 Arts and Humanities Committee and on the selection committee for the Takoma Park Third Thursday poetry reading series. She’s read her poetry in venues throughout the DC metropolitan area with More Than A Drum Percussion Ensemble. Dine sits on the board of Day Eight Arts. Her book, Transplant: A Memoir, won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House 2023 nonfiction prize and will be published in October 2023.
Who will be my husband’s next lover? When we sign our names, releasing each other from responsibility of each other’s choices, and dinners, and car insurance— Will he lay her pretty head on the mattress we sent back to the manufacturer three times? Never quite right— too firm, sagging before its time, an odiferous off-gassing that would not go away—
Will she leave her toothbrush in the cup by the sink where mine now stands beside my daughter’s? Will the morning birds herald her every awakening? Or, will his lover take his coffee black and his oats sweet with honey while reading the Sunday post at my place in the breakfast nook?
They’ll not have to pull their hair over our daughter’s withdrawn countenance, nor mourn the peonies missing their opportunity to bloom, having been planted in the wrong place in our yard, too much in shadow. They won’t remember the weight of lost parents, of disappointment, of sacrifices too big to bear, borne again and again.
Holidays will be all champagne and clean shirts, tidy spreads of charcuterie, folding the good linen napkins crisp on trim tailored laps, fine china, not my grandmother’s. They won’t get lost in the mist and cloud of tiny fingerprint reindeer ornaments, pulling the treasured trimming from the same old box, scarlet ribbon and evergreen.
Remembering when our children were small, our lives so compact on soft Saturday mornings when they crept into our bed and all our legs tangled the sheets, captivity that felt safe and kept us from running too quickly to escape to our posts in the breakfast nook.
Family Heirloom Ghazal
With this ring, I thee wed…under myth, under blue sky; this ring I now turn over and over in the palm of my hand. This ring
has trenched an infinite path around my finger; a journey cutting circles around home. This ring
taunts me with its shine. Each faceted glimmer fragmenting time, the years flashes of light– there, while tending the pot, while hand to heart in prayer. This ring
didn’t lie but didn’t exactly tell the truth. Bound and buried with feathers and a jar of tears beneath the floorboard, this ring
still beckons. Urgent faithless rhythm, its Telltale Heart calling, a ringing in my ears. I long to return it, this ring that did not know me, this ring
that can’t be disposed of. This ring now a family heirloom to remind our children of sorrows and song and flight. A golden ring,
palm-side band worn thin. With this ring, I thee wed– you said my name and placed on my finger a thing with wings, only a ring.
Shannon Cody is a writer, mother, and yoga teacher from Virginia. Her work explores themes of memory, family, and the convergence of the natural and personal. She spends her free time reading, writing, standing on her head, forest bathing, singing to her dogs, and dreaming of all the wonderful food she’ll eat on her next travels.
