Who We Were Then, by R. Gerry Fabian

Who We Were Then
by R. Gerry Fabian

A time of t-shirts and faded patched jeans
with vegetable smells from old vendors
who would curse as we swiped lima beans
to make that terrible lima potato soup.
We would walk at all hours of the night
because the heat forced us to be outside lovers
and listen to the Italian girls hiss and fight.
I was Marco and you were Polo with beer breath
from cheap basement bars whose slow songs
became our anthems to be sung over and over.
Both of us going nowhere and trying our best
to be one with the soggy asphalt streets;
to ignore the present, snub the future
and nightly retrace the subway retreats.

You envied the Chinese girls with silken smiles
who drank rice wine from painted bowls.
The telephone would ring and ring and ring
until finally the wires recoiled from denial words.
The black girls would dance and I would dance
and together we danced to the songs of Motown monsters.
Finally, back together, as if at a bus stop,
we would travel without words until dawn’s arrival
sent us scurrying to find shadow sleep.

R. Gerry Fabian is a published writer and poet from Doylestown, PA. He has published seven books of poetry: Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts, Wildflower Women, Pilfered Circadian Rhythm, Hidden Danger, including his poetry baseball book, Ball On The Mound.

Spring Cleansing, by R. Gerry Fabian

Spring Cleansing

by R. Gerry Fabian

There is a ritual to perform.
My mouth is dry, my lips chapped
from harsh, hard hollow winter words.

Now the sounds should be soft and lush;
a supple green color;
as for the touch,
it must be a cleansing warm, wet mist
and smell of late April lilacs.
It should taste of cool honey water.

And the fences should be mended
and coated with
a durable white satin paint.

R. Gerry Fabian is a published writer and poet from Doylestown, PA. He has published seven books of poetry: Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts, Wildflower Women, Pilfered Circadian Rhythm, Hidden Danger, including his poetry baseball book, Ball On The Mound.

A Gift for You, By Danny P. Barbare

A Gift for You
By Danny P. Barbare

From place to place I’m writing a poem,
a Santa Claus
poet—words
wrapped in a box
a ribbon, a bow
over the hills
and through the
woods down
Woodruff Road
to you,
a name tag
a rattle ripped
open a Pushcart Prize or Pulitzer for you.

Danny P. Barbare has been published widely. His award winning poetry has appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal as well as abroad. He has been writing poetry for 44 years. He likes to travel in the Blue Ridge and the lowlands of Charleston, SC. He lives with his wife in Greenville, SC with his sweet dog Oliver.

Christmas Poem, By Danny P. Barbare

 

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Christmas Poem
By Danny P. Barbare

A poem
a happy one
I would like to share
presents under the Christmas tree
a fireplace in the den
family all the time
friends everywhere
like now
forever Santa Claus is real.

Danny P. Barbare has been published widely. His award winning poetry has appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal as well as abroad. He has been writing poetry for 44 years. He likes to travel in the Blue Ridge and the lowlands of Charleston, SC. He lives with his wife in Greenville, SC with his sweet dog Oliver.

Three Score and Ten, By Ralph Stevens

Three Score and Ten
By Ralph Stevens

I was reading Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf,
The prologue, where Shield Sheafson, having wrecked
Mead benches, made his force felt far and wide,
And earned the loyalty of like-minded men,
Changed his condition for the spiritual.
The poet seems to think Shield simply sailed,
As he had come, across the wide whale-road,
Into a place he calls “the Lord’s keeping,”
And who am I to say it wasn’t so?
Yet what those warriors thought who buried him
Beneath a pile of treasure in a ship
Ice-clad, as Seamus tells it, and ring-whorled,
As they stood on the rocks and watched that dead
King’s floating coffin drift off on the tide—
What hardened axe-men fancied would become
Of mortal flesh left rotting all alone
With nothing but a heap of gold to keep
It company is no less dark to me
Than my own musings on what might be done
With my remains when that day comes for me
As came for Shield. I doubt my kith and kin
Would ship me seaward from my island home
Surrounded by what weapons I have used
To fight the darkness of a mortal life,
The books of poetry, those few novels
That prompted me to keep alive a creed
Of reason and compassion.

                               We’ve made death—
Or should I say the “other world,” that place
Of Nordic warriors, Egyptian kings—
Too distant and abstract for artifacts
From this world. All that’s left to me by way
Of exit is a furnace, then an urn,
Unless I would prefer a six foot hole,
A silk-lined box preceded by a dose
Of chemicals the Danes, drinking their mead,
Would not have understood.
                               I think for them—
And this, please note, is my imagining—
The world we call the “other,” Hamlet’s dread
From which no traveler returns, was like
A room down at the end of winding halls,
Locked up yet still part of the same fabric
Of timber, family, clan—a room behind
Whose doors the laughter of dead warriors,
The bard’s chanted stories were sometimes heard
When every other corner of the house
Was ghostly still. For them, death’s long sea road,
As I would have it, ended on a shore
Not different from this one though unknown
Except to those who, as we say, have gone
Before, as scouts perhaps who might prepare
The place for us, and while they wait enjoy
The treasure we sent with them. No such bond
Of flesh to spirit through the things we love
Remains to us who somehow think a suit
Of one’s best clothes to dress the body up
As if to party then be put to sleep
Flat on its back for family, friends to say
Goodbye is all that can be done to keep
Some semblance of connection to the dead.

 

What should I tell my people, what commands
Should leave to those who must decide the fate
Of tired flesh, of joints that more and more
Ache when I try to stand, walk down the stairs,
As if to say, “That’s it; we’ve served our turn,”
While stretches out before me the white mist
Of fields untilled, light shining from beneath
A door I’ve not yet opened. Let this be
Enough, that in this moment I can sit
And let what words will come serve as
My navigators through the realms of all
The dead, whether of kings entombed, of Danes
Put out to sea in treasure ships; what ties
Me to this world will some day be transformed
And follow on the flood that bears me home.

Ralph Stevens’ latest poetry collection, Somehow Balanced, is now available from Kelsay Books and at Amazon.com.

Brothers, By Tony Beyer

Brothers
By Tony Beyer

I used to steal the cord
from his pyjama pants
if mine was broken
and had to be wary of him
in opposite circumstances

we made bows and arrows
together out of peach wood
and hung tea towels
on the front of our togs
to resemble loincloths

to greet him now
an old man as I am
altered but wholly familiar
is one of this life’s
indisputable privileges

Tony Beyer writes in Taranaki, New Zealand. His print titles include Dream Boat: selected poems (HeadworX) and Anchor Stone (Cold Hub Press). The latter was a New Zealand Book Awards poetry category finalist.

My granddaughter’s daughter, By Tony Beyer

My granddaughter’s daughter
By Tony Beyer

what she remembers of me
will be for her to determine

I notice first her creased fingers
with their already perfected nails

and feet that fight the restraining cloth
to stretch towards the earth

according to the women of the family
resemblances are a series of stages

dynamic rather than static
but never for a moment forgotten

she will reach my age at the turn
of another new century

the torch of her small life
passed on through many hands

Tony Beyer writes in Taranaki, New Zealand. His print titles include Dream Boat: selected poems (HeadworX) and Anchor Stone (Cold Hub Press). The latter was a New Zealand Book Awards poetry category finalist.

One wish, By Tony Beyer

One wish
By Tony Beyer

if I came back
it would be as a bird
intense and instantaneous

without fear for tomorrow
or even thinking
there’ll be a tomorrow

each moment of daylight
taken up in flying
feeding and nurturing

each night like the last
deep and eventless
as death inescapably is

only mischance could hinder me
replete with being
to the least feather tip

then those resplendent dawns
among peers and rivals
full-throated in celebration

Tony Beyer writes in Taranaki, New Zealand. His print titles include Dream Boat: selected poems (HeadworX) and Anchor Stone (Cold Hub Press). The latter was a New Zealand Book Awards poetry category finalist.

In the Darien, By John Drudge

In the Darien
By John Drudge

We came upriver
Through the subtle movement
Of the canopy
Where the light leaned in sideways
And the air held
The secrets of the old world
As they met us
In colours that spoke before words
And with smiles
Deepened by patience
Barefoot and watching
As if they’d seen us before
In a dream the elders
Had forgotten
Where nothing marked time
But the bark of the ceiba
The smell of smoke from lunch
And the slow art of stitching stories
Into skin
Where nothing is hurried
Because nothing is lost
Then one man
Older than the trees
Who said nothing for hours
Suddenly pointed
To the clear blue sky
And the cloud that broke it
As if to say
That everything comes
And everything goes
And later I sat beside a woman
Shells in her hair
Hands pulling at plant fibres
Twisting them into string
She didn’t look up
But I knew
I was being taught
Not about time
But about staying
Without the need
To leave a mark

John Drudge is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology.  He is the author of eight books of poetry: March (2019), The Seasons of Us (2019), New Days (2020), Fragments (2021), A Long Walk (2023), A Curious Art (2024), Sojourns (2024), and Too Close to the Shore (2025). His work has appeared widely in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.