Kasey's March poem

Inverting the Winter

with lines by Louise Bourgeois

For a lifetime I have wanted

to say the same thing. Daubing red

paint against the sky, taking it away

in a different print. More blue then.

Laid down amid the shapes that mean

lake, mountain, house until the spaces

between them tremble and flush

with color. Over and over

the etched plate pressed to paper. Nothing

is lost. Inverting the winter tree

so branches become roots, burrowing

the mute earth. So roots become

branches, cradling a woman’s face.

Breasts press outward from

the trunk, her pelvis nestles where roots

descend. It was a subterranean,

unconscious land that I longed for.

Over and over the paper’s thirsty skin

opens to drink in pigment, ink. Over

and over the tree’s stripped limbs

stroked with crimson. Now they reach

in every direction, rouged. Now

for the sky behind them. Now for the blue.

Vasiliki's March Poem

Dovecote

in a frame above the stairs
ink sketch of a Greek soubrette
in feathered hat and fur muffler

she looks away—

so far away
her features cannot be gathered back
lovingly nor made out

her expression is a dove
flown so far ahead of us

its shadow has returned to perch
here

 peristerióna
            dovecote

you who flit and fly
alongside

such eyes
you never meet
but in this niche

rise

above the white hills of the island

Claire's March Poem

THE TERRITORY AHEAD

[with apologies to the copywriters!]

Even without the Call of the Road Shirt, rich lingo

of distant highways woven into its cool-looking crosshair

plaid, you managed to get there. Without a Cut to the

Chaise Pullover, crafted of dual-colored, cotton-blend yarns,

wrapped, looped or twisted into an ultrasoft, buoyantly

textured fabric or, God forbid, the Permanent Vacation Shirt

(here the copywriter takes the easy way out with multicolor—

why not mango swirled with cabernet?). In the right mood, you might have

pulled off the Social Animal Shirt with coconut-style buttons, large

tropical leaves. And had you ever mail-ordered the Light Duty
Canvas Pants, the Anglophile in you would have specified
them in British Khaki, saved the trousers for your next visit to Tante

Yvette in the “Capital of All Capitals,” for a stroll along the Thames.

Now that you have travelled to that territory far ahead of us, I like

to picture you enjoying the Anti-Tribulation Work Shirt, perhaps

a pair of Big Dippers trunks, soft, amphibious, super light.

The Territory Ahead has been creating “Exceptional Clothing for Life's Adventures” (for men) since 1989.

Shannon's March Poem

Coconut Ice Cream

When it hits your tongue,
it tastes like somersaults or
skipping down a big dirt road
when the sun is shining so
brightly you can only see
the day in pieces or patches.

Or maybe it’s more like a tapestry.

Of silk, of laughter,
like full belly laughs.
Like that time you ran so fast

down an icy hill you thought

you were flying. Yes, coconut is

like that too, sometimes.

Like that time you slipped honey

into your pocket and felt

sticky sweet between your fingers.

Somehow, you felt so close to it all—

To the farm where the cows live

that made the milk, to the well where

water was taken and frozen

and to the bucket were it all churned.

To the cold metal crank you

can almost feel churning,

churning. This slow, steady, delicious,

drawn out rotations of the hand,

of muscle, and tongue.

Wouldn’t it be great if we, too, could be

made and remade like this?

individual poems vs. poems in a collection...

Vasiliki ends her great comments about the poem I posted with some questions: "Sometimes, I wonder whether I expect too much from any single poem... How does everyone weigh this? A single poem and the amount of context it needs? Esp. when sending out poems for publication... I have many very short poems that perhaps make more sense in a bigger grouping." I have that question, often, about my own work. And lately I've been thinking about this esp. while reading Dargie's poems, which I know are from a manuscript and which speak to each other around the experience of living in Kansas. Dargie's poems are maybe not the best way to address the question, though, because I think they're successful in both standing on their own and speaking back and forth to each other. I guess that is the ideal? (Or at least my ideal) That each poem provides enough to stand by itself and that it can be in conversation with other poems that might surround it in a book. But then there's the question of what "enough" is - different for everyone.

I tend to write poem-by-poem even when I'm trying to work on an m.s., so I think for me the individual poem comes first - but I suspect that for others it might the opposite, or that those things might weigh equally.