Poetry Life and Times: Featured Poets

Featured Poets this month include: Sara L Russell, Gillian Stokes,Zayra Yves, Barbara Crooker, Anne Busby, Kerryn Munday and Taylor Graham.

Many thanks to all contributors.

SARA L. RUSSELL

Poet, cartoonist and short story writer. Founder of Poetry Life & Times.
Newsgroup signature was originally 'Pinky Andrexa, Last Of The Cyber Vixen Poets From Outer Space'. Won Internet Arts Award from Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press. Runner-up in Capricorn International Love Poetry competition 1998. Her website Poetry Life & Times recently won the Alpha Poets' Poetic Eyes web award. Won Poet of the Week in the Poetry For Thought group (The Globe groups) for the week April 28-May 4th, 2001, with the poem "If You Were Mine". Inducted into The Poets' Hall of Fame, 2001, and included in its anthology for that year.
5 illustrated e-books published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press (most recent first): Worlds Inside The Head, Quickies, Spiders And Gliders, A Way With Words (in collaboration with four other poets) and Pinky's Little Book of Shadows.Also published in several Kedco e-book anthologies and Forward Press bound book anthologies.

Sara L. Russell

Romantic Writer(2006)

The pen descends to kiss the virgin page.
I wonder what the muse will bring today?
Beset by random thoughts at every stage,
And butterfly ideas that fly away.

The fluctuating dalliance of dreams,
Dealing in light transgressions of the mind,
Drawn into mischief, as into bright streams;
Cool, soothing fantasies of every kind.

The pen descends to kiss the virgin page:
"He leans down to caress the woman's cheek;
The lovers' lips deliciously engage,
Transcending all necessity to speak."

All names are changed, in false identity;
No-one may trace the heroine to me.

(Sonnet inspired by "Reader, I Married Him" documentary, BBC4)

Ode to John Lennon (2006)

Are you craving a solution to political confusion?
Do you dream of revolution in your palaces of cloud?
Do you know how much we miss you (memory is mere illusion),
Or how many times your woman burns to call your name aloud?

Colour the academic with the spice of psychedelic,
Let Shankar play the sitar for a cavalcade of stars.
The present is the gift of Now, the past only a relic,
Let rich dudes shake their jewellery through the sunroofs of their cars.

Do you still dream of the vision of an end to all religion?
Are there quasars in your eyes as you relax and float downstream,
Imagining a world living in peace, without submission,
Can Yes still be the answer, for a man who dares to dream?

We are lost in introspection in a world of imperfection,
Waiting for the resurrection of the loved and left-behind,
We are wading through the vestige of a shimmering reflection
Of tomorrows never lying, in backwaters of the mind.

You were love’s emancipation, sweet desire’s anticipation,
You were heavenly elation deep in Yoko’s half-moon eyes.
No man of clay were you, but spun of rich imagination;
You’re heroic in the minds of fans, where all fantasy flies.

We are deep in contemplating an eternity of waiting,
We are skating on uncertainty through worlds of distant past;
Your muse whispered of love when hate’s protagonists were prating;
You went the way of everything too beautiful to last.

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ANNE BUSBY

Ann lives and works in North Wales, taking inspiration from the unspoilt beauty of the hills and coast.
She has been writing for three years and has written numerous poems and a children’s book, ‘The Ghost of El Chamy, which was ‘long listed’ in the UK Authors ‘Opening Pages Competition, 2005’.
She is currently putting the finishing touches to it.
She has been published in ‘Gold Dust’ Magazine and has contributed two poems to a forthcoming children’s poetry anthology.
She describes herself as a poet who likes to try different styles and hates the thought of being typecast.
She submits poetry and prose to UK Authors, where she is known as Red-Dragon, and poetry to the BBC Poetry website, as Ann B.
Ann loves her job in Adult Education, and lives with her husband, son, two crazy dogs and a daft cat. She would love her own website – but maintains that she is too busy to devote the time to it.
Instead, she says, she writes about life and enjoys living it.

ANNE BUSBY

Marking Time

Seize the moment - hold it fast,
suspend it, like a drop of rain
that shimmers in the lupin’s leaf,
before it trickles down the drain.
Capture it in celluloid,
freeze it on a coloured page;
an image from infinity
belonging to another age.

The paradox of time may seem
to slow at distance far;
a second is forever caught
by each imploding star.
The sun will rise upon her path,
as daily sets the silvered moon;
no metered beat or baton
can improve on nature's tune.

Time is but a ticking clock,
a shadow on a sundial,
marking minutes, hours and days
as they march in single file.
It is our master, we the slaves,
mere puppets of our Time,
which moves with great precision
accompanied by bell and chime.

Old men with withered faces,
once babes in Mothers’ arms,
recount the tales of war and horror
and of beguiling women's charms.
It is our lifetime we remember,
etched in lines for all to see;
we are pieces in the puzzle
that is the world's eternity.

Wireless in Venice

At ten, she boards the 82,
purring up the Grand Canal,
while bobbing black gondolas,
await the preening punters of
another bright Venetian morning.
Alighting at the Rialto, she picks her way
through lapping lagoon tides,
(delicately avoiding human detritus)
into the web of alleyways; the
gentle dusk envelops her,
while the cacophony of clandestine kisses
echoes through the Fondaco dei Tedeschi,
ghosts of lovers past.

She is of noble blood: the city is hers.
While it slumbers, she is Cattus.

Regina.

Wireless in Venice,
she lopes home to her hungry litter,
tomorrow's queens, as yet uncrowned
in the jungle of mice and men.

Tempus fugit, thinks Cattus,
knowing the value of mice.

SPEAKING VOLUMES

Hidden, in perverse insignificance,
amongst the lexicons and histories,
manuals and trivia, a slim book
containing unknown mysteries.
All others look well thumbed and worn,
but this retains a layer of dust,
and, as I remove it from the shelf,
I feel a deceiver, breaking trust.

Black, leather bound, with gold upon the front,
it fits snugly in my shaking hand.
Inside, in neat italics, accounts
for building bricks, cement and sharp sand.
I feel relieved; nothing personal here.
No interloper now, I check the rest
until, at the back and upside down,
I find a gamut of such youthful zest.

The joy of love for Mum leaps out,
swirling me to depths unknown.
Faces young, still innocent
expressing passions never shown.
Faded sepia forties poses!
Pouting kisses, a friendly clutch,
but, hidden under camouflage,
breasts straining for a tender touch.

There’s my first mention in the world!
A small caption, ‘First day on earth’
beneath a blurry photo, stuck with tape,
proclaims, proudly, I was given birth.
A lock of hair, my baby teeth,
a memory of infant milk;
my early words, my first report,
a waft of Mum’s soft skin of silk.

And there it ended. Life got in the way.
No more that laughing, carefree lad
The writer, recently departed,
was my own, much cherished, dad.
Had he left it there for me to see?
saying, “I wasn’t always old and grey.”
Or did he forget those early years with Mum
when they were busy making hay?

SUMMER SONNET

In golden splendour, Summer struts
her blousy strumpet-scented blooms
to passing nectar-laden bees,
in search of honey-combed cocoons.

Nature, showing off her colours,
is measuring the nights and days,
fecund, as she swells for Autumn,
wrapped in early morning haze.

Drought beguiled and stripped of youth,
she waits for early frosts to nip
juicy fruits of sunny labours -

black berry, sour sloe and rose hip.
As days grow short, she slips from view
with parting gift of russet hue.

T.W.O.C.

Taken without consent
when my back was turned,
you fuelled my heart with passion.
Laughing, you took it for a joy-ride,
made it sing and I,
living for the moment,
was your pillion,
as we toured the starry skies.

Taken without consent
then returned,
damaged beyond repair.
You left it, stone cold,
on my doorstep,
wrapped in a curt note.
I cooked it
and gave it to the dog,
as it was of no further use
to me.

Copyright © Anne Busby 2006.

Barbara Crooker

Barbara Crooker's book, Radiance, won the Word Press First Book Award in 2005, and was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. ( http://www.word-press.com/crooker.html). Her work has been featured nine times on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac.

Barbara Crooker
7928 Woodsbluff Run
Fogelsville, PA 18051

Barbara Crooker

Snow White Turns Sixty...
and doesn’t care any
more about what the neighbors
think. The prince just
sits there, in his recliner,
flicking channels, popping
brewskis. Belches. He got down-
sized last year from The Royal
Kingdom. Too young
for social security; too old
for another career. She just
doesn’t care. They haven’t touched
in years. The kids are grown,
the house runs itself, and who wants
to go to another ball or support
another charity? She’s into:
yoga, organic gardening, book club.
She’s highlighting her hair, lifting
weights, feels better about her body
than she has in years. She sees
the future roll out ahead, a road
through the woods in autumn, yellow
leaves scattered on the ground. There
might be a snug little cottage, just for one.
Maybe a cat curled by the chimney, soft
as smoke. And a kettle on for tea.
Pull up a chair and listen. You won’t
believe her story.

Ardent

THE MAP OF THE WORLD, 1630, by Henricus Hondius

Here, the new world does not exist, lies somewhere
beyond the borders of vegetation, globed fruits:
grapes, melons, apples, the known demarcations.
Somewhere in Corsica, my ancestors
work the land, raise olives, picking them by hand
from twisted trees. Time’s cartographer has been at work
on the parchment of their skin; rivers and their tributaries
run blue towards the sea down the delta of their hands.
He has etched the province of their mouths and the forehead’s terrain
with parallel lines, prime meridians. Their world does not extend
beyond day’s end, the glass of grappa, food put by for winter,
burlap sacks of chestnuts resting by the stove. How could they imagine
a passport, red and gold, the towering stone forests of the terra nova
that would one day fill the horizon past the railing of the SS Nord America,
where a small eleven-year-old girl, my grandmother, recorded only
as part of the baggage of her uncle Gaetano, finally reaches the shore.

The MacGuffin

PLAYING CARDS IN HEAVEN

There’s a card game in heaven, where our mothers sit
at square card tables, on folding chairs, with cross-stitched
tablecloths, party favors, pastel mints.
The sibilance of shuffles, the triumphant slap
of a trump card well-played.
Dollie, Izzy, and Tan are sitting at poker,
fan their cards, their laughter making them young again,
housewives with small children, who are, down here,
accountants, teachers, priests.
They break for dessert: tiny marshmallows and fruit cocktail
suspended in jello, mixed nuts, Winnie’s lopdippy cake,
rich mahogany devil’s food, boiled icing.
They pass to the dealer, cut the deck, start a new hand.

The Cresset

ODE TO CHOCOLATE

I hate milk chocolate, don’t want clouds
of cream diluting the dark night sky,
don’t want pralines or raisins, rubble
in this smooth plateau. I like my coffee
black, my beer from Germany, wine
from Burgundy, the darker, the better.
I like my heroes complicated and brooding,
James Dean in oiled leather, leaning
on a motorcycle. You know the color.

Oh, chocolate! From the spice bazaars
of Africa, hulled in mills, beaten,
pressed in bars. The cold slab of a cave’s
interior, when all the stars
have gone to sleep.

Chocolate strolls up to the microphone
and plays jazz at midnight, the low slow
notes of a bass clarinet. Chocolate saunters
down the runway, slouches in quaint
boutiques; its style is je ne sais quois.
Chocolate stays up late and gambles,
likes roulette. Always bets
on the noir.

The MacGuffin

AFTER ROTATOR CUFF SURGERY

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better to lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Matthew 5: 3

The weather of my shoulder:
a sunset of bruises,
occluding the skin, forming
storm clouds, a formidable line
of squalls. Royal purple.
Blue black. My arm, my hockey-
playing right wing, hangs limply
at my side, a dumb sausage,
or swings at right angles
in its canvas sling.
The starboard side
has listed to port.

I can not:
line my eyes with carbon brown,
buckle my sandals, or clasp
my watch. Can’t drive stick
shift, cut up steak, dead
head roses, swipe the cool
ball of deodorant under
my arms. Lift a kettle
of water to boil for sweet corn.
I’m a wreck on the recto side.
But at least I’ve never voted
for a right-winger, and I do
know my right hand from my left,
and my hat from my glove.

I go back to cataloguing
bruises: swirls of magenta
and burgundy blooming
into hideous roses.
I sink back in the recliner,
hugging the ice bag, high
on percoset, rocking
in the waters
of the sweet black night.

Nimrod

© 2006 Barbara Crooker.

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Gillian Stokes

It seems that I am incapable of giving a "bio" of myself that does not revolve around words; written, sung, read, or spoken. I have always composed either in my head or with doodling and writing, or even transporting myself from a situation and creating a "script" in my head on how I would resolve things. It is how I deal with situations in my life. Most of my doodling etc have though been discarded as silly nonsense on completion (to my regret) and it is only in the last 3 years that I have been encouraged by good friends to take my writing seriously and to even consider the possibility that there might perchance be a glimmer of talent. My family and my varied background have had a profound influence on me. As has the wonderful escapist fantasy world of books. My life experiences, my highs and lows and tragedies are dealt with by writing about them. My writing is my therapist, my confidante, and my friend. I am an avid bookworm, my tastes running from the classics, to dictionaries and encyclopedias, to "bodice ripper" or thriller novels. Then of course there is poetry!! My love, my life's blood. Again varied tastes from Wordsworth & Tennyson to Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. My bedside table always has a mountain of different books piled on it that I never seem able to put away!!

Gillian Stokes

THE SENSATIONS YOU AROUSE YOU ARE MY SENSATION

You are a war in which all my senses engage in equal eagerness and anticipation. My eyes settle on you. It is a lasered gaze, revealing your all. The little imperfections as well as the grand glory of you. You are an object of beauty to me do you know that? You are a beautiful man.

I take in your features, your build, all the parts of you in their infinite and sensual variety. I gaze on you with a voyeurs' need, this is the start of my titillation, and I am hungry for you. Your hair, so rich and thick I want to bury my hands in it. Your eyes, wise bright eyes, deep pools framed by the myriad tiny lines of wisdom that you have earned through the years. Your nose. A roman nose hooked, imperious. Your mouth, Oh God that mouth! I have lost myself in that mouth. Your ears, hmm I have nuzzled there too.

The cords of your neck. The fine hair all over you. The sinuous length and breadth of you. All muscle and sinew and bones (fine bones) and tension. I love the ropy veins that pulse in your arms. Yet, you are not all hardness. There is softness and silkiness too. You are velvet do you know that? There are parts of you that arouse the same sensations in me as rubbing my hand across velvet.

Touching is a difficult one for me, because I want to touch you with my all. My skin, my lips, my fingers, my whole body. I want to feel the sensation that is you so deeply that if I closed my eyes and shut off my hearing I would still "know" you from your "feel.” My tongue, ahh such a sensitive part of me. I want to taste and feel all of you with my tongue, get to know your textures. I love the smell of you, your man's scent. If they could bottle the essence that is you, they would make a fortune. I like to snuffle at you much as an eager puppy would. Even in your quietness, I hear you. Your breathing laboured or at rest. The beat of your heart, the gurgles in your tummy when I lay my head on you.

Every time I am with you, you arouse the need in me to use all my senses, to try them, to stretch them to their utmost capacity. If you leave my presence, they are all bereft. When you approach, I am not sure which of my senses notices you first. Do I hear you, do I feel you do I smell you. Most of all though you are in my mind, a part of the thinking of me. You are my sixth sense you know?
YOU COMPLETE ME.

WITH YOU

(For my little niece Erin Sian Wright)

You are
entrancing
bewitching
refreshing
uninhibited

With you I can run races down the concourse of
a busy airport, shrieking with laughter, not
caring what those around me think; Just because
I am having fun and am not intimidated by my
surroundings.

With you I can stop and gaze at a dragonfly in
awe then chase after it inviting it to "come" and
sit on my hand; Just because I am curious and
find nothing to be afraid of in one of God's little
creatures.

With you I can smile and say hello to a stranger,
hold out my hand and touch someone outside of my
ken; Just because they are new and different and I
want to draw them into my world.

With you I can run along the beach with my jeans
rolled up and my shoes off trying to evade the waves
and catch the seagulls; Just because I am free and
unfettered and because I can.

You are
adventurous
confident
demanding
determined

With you I can get down on my hands and knees and
crawl in and out of the bushes and shrubs in the
garden; Just because I don't see the point of or
the need for the tidy set little pathways.

With you I can launch myself off steps, swing from
railings and slide down poles; Just because it has
never crossed my mind that I might fall or that there
might not be someone there to catch me.

With you I can openly demand cookies and chippies and
"milky juice" instead of my meat and vegetables; Just
because I want to eat something that appeals to me not
because of any nutritional factors.

With you I can wake up at four in the morning, switching
on the lights and the TV; Just because if I am awake then
I must have had enough sleep, ergo it is time to play. I
don't need an alarm clock to tell me this.

You are my delight and my salvation and I treasure you for this. In time spent with you I can forget about my woes and my worries, norms and standards and what is expected of me in terms of the fraught frustrated fast pace adult world in which I operate. In my time spent with you my angel, I see the world through the eyes of a child and it is not such a bad place after all. You are the memory of good things that were and the hope of good things to come. The gifts that you have given me are love and acceptance for the present and anticipation and excitement for the future. For this I will be indebted to you forever.

My Africa

Come to my land to feel her warmth.
Come to my land to hear her myriad voices.
Come to my land to see her many magical colours.
Africa the shape changer, the chameleon,
Africa, different things to different people
Never ever dull or commonplace.

Merge with her, become one with her
Feel her joys and her sorrows
Feed on her abundances and
Weep at her devastation and famine.
She is the mother of mankind
The cradle of civilisation.

A multi-layered lady, feel her deep rhythms
Her primordial throb as vital as a heart beat.
Hear her sound images vibrating.
Smell her odours, from the seashore
To the deserts, to the lush green rain forests,
To the high snow capped mountain ranges.

She is a wanton, fickle, ever changing mistress.
She will seduce you, draw you in and
Enslave you forever. The call of Africa is
A siren’s call, savannah lore lei.
She has bartered for the souls of mankind
Since the world evolved and time began.

The promise of land, the lure of precious
Metals and gems, the domination of the beasts,
The beckoning of vast uninhabited spaces.
Man has come to conquer her, make her his.
Instead she enters your blood like a fever,
A sickness that will never leave,

No matter how far you travel from her,
And no matter how you try to leave her behind,
Wherever you roam, she will forever more
Call to you to return to her embrace.
This Africa is life; she is the alpha and omega,
This is my Africa

SOFT THINGS

A whispered voice like a soft caress
Can calm a spirit in distress
Can touch and heal.
Soft satin flows over a fevered skin
Awakes sensations deep within
My senses reel.

A gentle breeze on a balmy night
Can put a restless sleep to right
Can quiet the soul.
The tender kiss of a little child
An anointing so undefiled
This makes me whole.

A bow pulled soft across a string
With tempered resonance echoing
Delights my mind.
A fleeting fragrance in the air
A little nudge that you are near
My heaven I find.

Copyright © by Gillian Stokes

Zayra Yves

Zayra Yves is a poet and spoken word artist that lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She recently released Crowned Compassion a poetry CD. She is published in The Zimbabwe Situation, The Panhandler Quarterly, Voices for Africa, Eyes of the Poet, Reflections IIT Madras (India). More of her poetry is upcoming in Astropoetic and Alehouse Press. She has been the featured guest on the West Marin Community Radio for ""House of the Poet"" and on SW Radio Africa.

You are also invited to her Websites here:
http://www.zayrayves.com
http://cdbaby.com/cd/zayrayves

Zayra Yves

Bone is a Cruel Color

She is raped

while her mother watches
without recourse.

They slice her face
and her father has no choice
but to witness the claw
and scrape of flesh.

I am on the floor
with my legs crossed reading
the poem someone wrote
in her honor.

The lines blur
and blood drains
from the page.

Biography of a Stone

       She sits like a rock outside my office window
       between the glass and a trash can
       to shade herself from the sun.

       A conical tattered hat faded to a pale indigo
       limits her sight behind eyes pounded flat
       under the weight of opinions and pedantic ideas.

       Scars like coins and crumpled notes fall out of pockets.
       Streaked and riveted is her face into an _expression
       I do not have words for.

       Her knees are bent to her chest,
       with holes in checkered pants and dirty socks,
       exposed through ripped shoes, broken by miles.

       She speaks without words to a stash of sugar packages,
       and suddenly turns to look into the glass.
       Does she notice her reflection or feel mine?

       In her granite eyes, I see there are advantages
       to being a stone. Sleeping under rose bushes
       and fighting the god of unmerciful winds

       that carve her into beauty with shadow and light
       chiseled by asphalt pillows, and marked
       by the water of tears.

Painted like the interior of cave walls,
but young enough to someone's daughter,
she is the house of skulls and eternity.

Sleep in the Sea Tonight With Me

Sleep in the sea tonight with me
Let's spoon one another completely
It will not matter this talk of death

Sink like a kiss right into my last breath
Where we will have the muse of poetry
Sleep in the sea tonight with me

For you, I will give my body sweetly
And, weep like rain into the sandy depths
It will not matter this talk of death

In a cathedral of hearts we give meekly
As we caress the skin of Love's amends
Sleep in the sea tonight with me

Among ruins, star statues and controversy
Sacrifice your moans to my sutras indefinitely
It will not matter this talk of death

Give your body in prayer as it transcends
In our heavenly waters of haloed mystery
Sleep in the sea tonight with me
It will not matter this talk of death

Mercifully Hollow

Origami light of bird in the prayer
to sing of knobs, cicadas, and nothing
except pain closed in a casket
as it shut in your eyes of sky.

We settle for symmetry (not lack of touch).
And, I do not hope for you to return
or the other hundred emissaries for love
or the thousand champions of valentine.

Finally, someone must bend,
must accept the last fist full of dust
and let it fall where time begins,

then leave clutches, nets, and moonshine;
forget the comfort of smoke rolls and drop
into a sentence that never ends.

Into a grave on a humid day -
and I remember you said, never

forsake the kindness of a stranger
or the rustle of light as it touches

you unaware and licks the hot salt
off your lips before it disappears.

It is Always So, My Solitude

Silent as a shell in a dream
without the sky of salvation

I am touched by a fingerprint
in the hour of resolution

collecting lost tears in a puddle
over the bridge of nose
down into an ear.

Yesterday's pain of immortal numbers
is no more than a wrinkle
of what I give and what is taken.

In my geography of roots
where the wind of stopped sea
has planted itself in faith

and for no reason
I am at peace.

© All poems by Zayra Yves, 2006.

KERRYN MUNDAY

I am a mother of four, 2 boys and 2 girls, I design and handcraft leather belts and am also a webmaster.
I started writing in feb 05 and found the
response to my writings surprising and rewarding.
I know it's cliche but I had to go through many traumas to release this particuIar valve.
I really hope to write things to make people think,
and have an unusual and
I've been told original way of putting topics forth.

KERRYN MUNDAY

Writ

Never been that big on writing
far more apt at clear reciting
and weaving words with wicked flare
leaving most to stand and stare.

I've never liked to sign my name
fearing those who'd stake a claim
upon my spirit free of fetters
do not count on return letters.

I have had pen friends in the past
all I'd get is a long blast
Indignation at no reply.
It's not my fault thoughts just fly.

I've had a thing for station'ry
this whole time, I did not see
and words I love inherently
I guess I should write poetry.

Food

Watched a wasp one day
stun a spider
twice it's size
lumbered under the weight
but lifted nonetheless
slow motion movement

ran for a jar
they hadn't gone far
a study of poisons
one smaller than it's foe

Battle a few days
with no victor
so for both;
Freedom

wasp departed in a wink
spider deposited on footpath
where a bird
promptly swooped
and ate it

either way spider's
destiny
was 'supper'

Gulp

Swallow in a darkness

No light

Is the swallow consumed

By night

Is the swallow conscious

Of flight

No light in darkness

A swallow

Carousel

Carnival of frozen light
Festoon the scene before my sight
Flees from me in pure delight
And leaves the scent of surreal height
As but a memory

Carnival of orb so bright
Absorb the black hearth in mid flight
Purge the dawn from lands of night
Subtle in your power and might
No currents ever flee

Carnival of life ignite
Swathe me in your sweet respite
The gentle gauze that you recite
To wrap around the worst of plights
Will set the spirit free

© All poems by Kerryn Munday

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Taylor Graham

Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada of California, and also helps her husband (a retired forester/wildlife biologist) with his field projects. A native Californian, she studied for a year in Germany and has also lived in Alaska and Virginia. She and her husband responded with their trained dogs to the Mexico City earthquake of 1985.

Her poems have appeared widely, including America, Grand Street, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, and Southern Humanities Review, and she’s included in the anthology, California Poetry: Gold Rush to the Present. Her newest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), is winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize.

Thank you for reading,

Taylor Graham
Somerset, CA USA

Taylor Graham

THE OLD PIONEER CEMETERY

Phoebe Infant Daughter Aged 3 Months & 14 Days.
A stone-gray dove sits mourning on her grave.
Oliver Davies Died Sept. 20, 1863 Aged 7 Days.
S.C., a simple granite without dates or age.
These family headstones catch the morning rays.
And at the edge, shadowed under twisted bay,
stand six wood planks once arched and planed
but weathered so I can’t make out the names
of those returned now to the nameless clay.

HYGIENIST

She’s always got her fingers
in somebody’s mouth, picking,
pocketing, probing for the root
of rot.

People walk in smiling
of decay. They close their eyes
and let her linger over a
limp mouth.

After she’s scraped away
their lunches
and so much of leftover
hungers,

she sends them off
with an appointment
for the future. Four months,

six months hence.
And then she strips off gloves,
swirls clean water
in the basin,

and walks out as if
there were always
tomorrow.

UNDER THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS

Again tonight I’m not going with you
to Venice. So much swamp water
has passed, after all these years,
under the Ponte di Rialto, as lovers
gaze up eternally from their romantic
craft. Ah those gondolas. How they
weather as they slip those love songs
in a liquid tongue. How this city
survives on impossibilities, as if
half-drunk with drowning, the way
you keep going back to the too-much
of it. Again tonight, you don’t take
me along. But I see you, forty years
older, in your corduroy jacket still
debonair, pausing for a camera moment
before the Piazza San Marco. So many
churches! S. Stefano. Chiesa dei
Servi di Maria (you never were one
for genuflecting). But since we’re
in the neighborhood, let me stand
here below the Ponte dei Sospiri, not
far from the Parco delle Rimembranze
(see how I’ve slipped into your trip),
and meditate on sighs, remembrance,
and the other things you left me
when you went again to Venice.

ROSES FOR YOUR WEDDING

It’s a wardrobe in itself, this bower
of passion-colored roses, crimson flowers
stitched into black silk. And fringes!
Longer than I can twine about my fingers.
I drape myself in a whole garden’s dew,
a summer harvest of petals. And you,
about to become someone else’s stalk
and root and stamen. It’s a long walk
of etiquette for this tarantella of
a shawl, this opera that begs encore
and flings its flamencos of love
before you like Carmen on the floor.
Darling, bizarre this may well be;
I guarantee, you’ll remember me.

© Copyright 2006 by Taylor Graham

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