Poems

Conversations

Posted on by A. Long

It was one of those mornings. You know the kind, where you wake still tired because you were crying and the cat tried to suffocate you in the night

your shirt ripped

tripped over your shoes

your knees sing the blues running for the bus

forgot to eat breakfast

so far nothing can go right, kind of mornings

I’m on my daily commute…upset, marveling at the homeless war vet stretched across four seats when this guy floats next to me. Feeling nothing but energy, I peer left and right, wondering what’s calling me out of the morning funk. It whispers a small command to smile

which I ignore.

Then my shoulder feels a gaze that’s uncharacteristically heavy. There he is scrounged in the corner, waiting for me to break the levy.

‘Hi’ spills out awkwardly to which he replied with a giant grin, eyes lighting up like Christmas

‘I was sending out the vibes, praying you weren’t hiding today’

as the thought of stalker creeps around the back of my brain, he had a   sip my my herbal tea in a dashiki when no one’s looking ambiance

hopscotch back to the gurgling in my stomach

he flips his dreads every couple of minutes so they cascade away from his face

In haste, he says ‘I’m getting off soon’.

I’m not.

He’ll be on in the afternoon.

I wont.

‘What do you do?’

I work on a corporate plantation. He laughed, heartily, enjoying the satire

saying that’s why he’s a kindergarten teacher

diving head first into political views and inside jokes like we were best friends and I had known him for years

He missed three whole stops that day just for a conversation…

 

 

 

Districts Of Immersion

Posted on by A. Long

 

Long after the mothers uncross

their arms and the children who huddle

and wrap their shoulders in towels

stop shivering, when atop the tower the lifeguard collapses his red umbrella,

the beach is shorn of leisure and the colossal night is a call to worship for the anchorite

who heaves churns and roars against the planet’s decree as it prays,

and leaning in me you ask what could a sea this terrible and perfect possibly ever pray for:

waves smack in the jetty again and again and again as if asking for one thing.

We draw our blankets tight.

More and more we think we hear it.

by John Ebersole

To Tin Men

Posted on by A. Long

To the man who made

the tin men with no hearts

you tinkerer

no love of your own

so you built them to entertain you with pretty lies

and oily smiles

but the glassy wax on his eyes

gives away the show

what if one had went rogue and ripped out Dorothy’s

while she was still breathing

so desperate from his manufactured affection

like food he swallows

or the words he mechanically bellows

all hollow

To the builder bent over

precariously at his bench making metal men in

his own image

to pry open the ribs of others

and take love wherever given

how dare you force life on

this dead scrap of bolts

then bid him sing and dance

 

37. Aluminum Oxide

Posted on by A. Long

No one offered you a courtyard

where sometimes you’d see

pin-headed soldiers

standing beneath the trees

Apples fallen everywhere

A good many women

in seemingly good spirits

speak incomprehensibly

jabbering as they pass by

legs reflected in the water

Many flowers

two buds

by Gu Cheng, China

 

On Returning Home To Nana’s

Posted on by A. Long

a small hair sprouts

defying the odds

bursting through the surface

only to crinkle and bend

like palm trees in the wind

coconut oil eases the shaft

from root to ends

smooth, dipping my curls

into the Atlantic

becoming one with the island

and the wave

and the nappiness

of my kitchen

the way she might have as a child on family vacations

her thick black locs hang

like freedom

and nooses

and mangoes

strong and sweet as sugarcane

standing up

resisting gravity

and the box that bottles beauty

Blue In Green

Posted on by A. Long

i fell in love with my bestfriend

where the tall grass grows

in the shadows

that which we call friend

by any other name is as sweet

so we played hide and seek 

with our hearts

until the colors ran out of time

drowned in an awkward silence

i walk about my emotions

he ran

into my arms

warm

as the ground after a sand storm

bitter jazz

dripped from his cheek

as we speak of 

the first days spinning into ever

fades the call of the trumpet

for something new

not friendship but the best of us

hidden

like a foreign constellation

among galaxies

colliding

syncopating 

burning our music into existence

from humble beginnings

we danced

the world into a circle on its axis 

History

Posted on by A. Long

 
Where cloudbursts tore a gash
in the shoulder of the ridge,
uprooting ferns and hedge,
a maple and an ash,
a honeysuckle vine
and wires of gold ground pine,
the slide exposed a vein
of mica, groundhog den,
a zone of luminous clay,
revealing rocks like teeth,
a seam of yellow earth,
and brought to light of noon,
after half a millennium,
there in the mud, a shining
coin of the Spanish king.
by Robert Morgan

Paperboy

Posted on by A. Long

Disabled,
out of work,
out of workman’s compensation,
he works a paper route.
Seven days a week at six a.m.,
he places the papers gently.
Never lobs them,
never leaves them in the dewy lawn .
He abides every instruction:
 
      If the Buick is gone, leave the paper on the porch.
      Throw it over the dogs, if they’re out.
      Come on in, help yourself to some coffee.
 
He delivers his papers to people:
Dusty. Double D. Agnes. Herbie.
He knows about their kids–
how many they have,
how often they visit.
They know how he takes his coffee, black.
 
Tony Mac.
Husband of Sue.
Father of three.
Retired machine operator,
with bad back, neck, knees.
Their paperboy,
a man measured in more than column inches, rides a Harley without a helmet, drives his mother to her appointments, and has two Shih Tzu, Zed and Dude.
 
Little do they know
about the Thursdays
before the dumpsters roll through,
when he works over the trash waiting to be collected.
He collects the remnants of lives discarded, and leaves newspapers in exchange for their VCRs, lawn chairs, trinkets.
He takes his coffee black and quick
and returns to his route. He’s home by 7 to help his wife off to work.
In with her sandwich, a note
scratched out on a purple Post-it:
Tonight, you will have a present waiting, my love.
by Autumn Konopka

Hearts Weren’t Born Broken

Posted on by A. Long

broken winged

an eagle could not fly

so she dove down to earth

caught the pharoah’s eye

he liked the hurt bird

and without a word

ordered her taken care of

 

nights they’d watch

the moon unfurl

itself from the sky

his love healed her heart

but still she could not fly

 

deep in the darkness a coup

burnt his palace to the ground

and slaughtered his child

dethroned

he wandered

the desert alone

 

broken hearted

the king could not sing

so he laid

in the salt to die

 

above the cloud

he heard his eagle cry

with swift wings

she brings

a sack of water and gold

 

days went by

and the water went dry

fearing for her life

he left

while she slept

plunging into the depth

of the sun

he bargained his soul for her to be spared

 

where she lay in the sands

rose a lush mountain

she screamed to the heavens

abandoned

lonely

until her claws were stone

awaiting his return.