Contest Poems in Long River Run are listed on the bottom of the contest page at: Contests

Pages 60 to 79

Jack Powers, Fairfield

 

To My Trigonometry Teacher

 

I’m sorry, Mr. Fiamaro.

You tried to teach us the order of the world:

through Math, of Math, in Math:

discipline, order, correctness.

 

I’m sorry I challenged your authority

as you stood tall (all 5’1” of you):

the Math General with your right hand

slipped between the buttons of your coat.

 

I understand sine now, and cosine and the rest.

The sine of three is .0523359, not seven like I said.

(I was just kidding.)

 

I can still see the problem written backwards

faintly in chalk, on the back

of your brown tweed sport coat.

 

I also see the clarity of mathematics now:

the harmony. the balance, even the therapy.

(But not the tyranny.)

 

I’m sorry I called you Mr. Mia Farrow,

and then denied it.

 

I was out of order;

I violated the properties of your class.

 

Please forgive me.

 

 

Ray Rauth, Weston

 

Pennsylvania Dawn

 

Fog sloshed in the valley

like milk in a pail.

 

We sat on the porch watching,

an old man and I,

as the incandescent sun crested

the hills. It burned

like steel from a furnace.

 

The old man sipped his coffee,

steam rising from the cup.

 

“It’s gonna be a hotter,”

he proclaimed.

Sweat formed

in the tangle of veins

on his temples.

 

“Yes,” I replied.

“A hotter.”

 

Across the stripped-mined ruin

of the mountain you could hear the

great coal trucks as they

whined over the pass and

plunged blindly

into the fog.

 

Lucinda Sands, Norwalk

 

How to Let Go of My Youngest Son

 

I hold his face in my hands

my palms fully on his cheeks

where his bones are most like mine.

And I see, really see beyond

those extraordinary khaki eyes.

They are still before impatience,

filled with the innocence of twenty-one.

 

I place a kiss, a blessing, on his forehead,

as if he were Homer’s Odysseus.

This, even though his journey

will take him barely six hours from here,

even though he has not yet learned to sail,

even though he can always fly home.

 

I am humbled and proud,

not because he is a master potter

of sorts, but because he is a masterpiece

of humankind, because he has been my teacher

all along, even though this I not always knew,

even though I cannot remember a first lesson.

 

What I do recall, what I know,

is the scent of his hair, his toddler hands

as together we perused a fresh book.

And that he questioned what he saw

with naïve fingers and the words I read

with uncomplicated reaction.

Now, he questions doctrine, systems, principles.

 

I give him one more of many hugs,

and a half-smile before he goes,

knowing his return will be different

yet so much the same, knowing the lessons

will continue, knowing he knows

the harbor will remain open.

 

 

Charles Schenkel, Thomaston

 

Save Our Planet

 

What a sacred gift we have been given.

This beautiful world that is our haven.

Do we hold it dear to our heart and mind?

Or do we take it for granted, mankind?

 

What is happening to our world today?

Ethics, put aside for greed every day.

Earth is a sacred place, covered with air.

A cloak that protects us from the sun’s glare.

 

We have abused the air, water and the soil.

Pollutants, trash; Earth is in a turmoil.

Forests burnt, cities built, new skylines.

Strip-mines, drilling for oil, and Earth declines.

 

Our cloak of protection is fading fast.

What do we hold dear, will we live, or last?

Will we change our consciousness and survive?

Be better stewards, let the Earth revive?

 

Love our neighbors, no boundaries, no fear.

Live in oneness, peace and love always near.

Let us heal the Earth with peace and love.

Listen to our minds, hearts, and God above.

 

Corrine hg Schlessel, Woodbridge

 

Braves of Yesteryear

Spread everywhere my eye can see

on fertile lands ignobly gained,

wind-swirled dust of tribes once proud

spawn fruitful fields on greening plains.

 

Guilt’s legacy we’ll not neglect

your memory shall persevere,

within all hearts that stream respect,

we’ll ever hold a vigil there.

Sleep tranquilly in martyrs’ graves,

brave warriors of a fallen cause!

No half mast flags of sorrow wave,

still passive pilgrims grieve and pause.

In seeds of laurel in the earth,

green garlands of your valor’s sown;

and somewhere waiting for rebirth,

is honor, withered dry as stone.

Stoop mournful angels from the sky;

to touch with ever sacred crown;

where braves defeated valor lies,

within this grief filled holy ground.

 

Brave apparition through the years,

safe hold your trust of storied tomb,

spread all they now can give, their tears,

upon the seed that's yet to bloom.

Proclaiming all who visit here,

to shed new tears for old misdeeds,

upon proud braves of yesteryear,

long laid in earth of laurel seeds.

Alexandrina Sergio, Glastonbury

 

Thanking the Lesser-Known Poets

 

I most enjoy the programs

Where people read their favorite poems.

 

When they finally ask me to read

I will read the gift words of my friends,

poets who will be surprised that I have stored their lines

where I can frequently lift them out

to rub against my cheek, hold like a beach treasure to my ear.

I’ll tell the poem of the high school chum fifty years ago

who wrote that her brilliant world turned into mocking pastels

when her lover left:

I’m a winner just the same,

my life was gray before you came;

Or Karen’s story of transplanting her life

along with the seedlings she had gathered from those she loved:

Now everywhere my life is rooting, sinking deep into old soil.

 

Some words have vanished,

but I still hold the pictures:

A pal’s wet footprints trailing her on the tile

as she walked into Liz’s house after a swim,

the screeching greasy crows despised by Shayna,

whose poem forever altered my concept of the gleaming birds.

Sometimes the poet is one with the poem, and I recite

the sweet comfortable woman

silhouetted before me on the path, holding hands with her husband

who had come to take her home after she read a poem about her son,

her boy who now lives in starlight and shines on her.

 

Ravi Shankar, Chester

 

Heron

 

Endued in shadow, still upon a complacent

pond-surface flecked with mid-afternoon,

stippled in the negative space of branches

 

branching, we nearly overlook your berth

on banks that emerge into the Blue Ridge

eventually. Quiescent, born into slower

 

time than flitting gaze, not yet croaking

quark-quark-quark to celebrate nightfall,

gradual as a coastal shelf, you readjust

 

a long neck, slim beak, settle in to stalk

the water. Inscrutable even before suddenly,

dart-quick, your neck unreels to stab a fish.

 

Lisa L Siedlarz, New Haven

 

After Dad’s Call

 

Your voice lingers like

a crack of a lightning.

If I could break off

a piece of cloud, place

it in my mouth,

would it cool the shock

that makes my tongue

heavy and dry?

 

I hang up the phone,

knees butter in sun.

My neighbor weeds her

flowerbed. A sprinkler’s

tick fights to keep lawn

from browning. My

hammock sways. A jet

slices sky left to right,

 

engines roaring like a

sea shell pressed against

my ear. Cancer drones,

a wasp that stings with no

way to crush it. A rush

of burn and throb, ice in

my tea no match for

this unexpected word.

 

Joan Seliger Sidney, Storrs

 

Missiles Near Our Village, Ramat Yishai

 

July 16, 2006

Dear Ralph,

I want to tell you some things that happened:

Haifa absorbed missiles, this morning the radio said.

Immediately the alarm. I called my brother-in-law

and while we spoke I heard Katushas. He hurried

to the shelter in his house. I thought I’m going to die!

Later, few times, the siren from Tiveon. Missiles

fall down in Haifa Bay. Now, at 23:15, the siren’s here,

in our village. Missiles came to Nazareth, Migdal H’emek,

Afulla, the radio said. My skin becomes like duck.

Nadav jump from our bed, very weak, white. Tomorrow

he goes to the military reserve.

Liela tov ,

Edna

 

 

Martha Simpson, Windsor

Lofty Desire

The three giraffes lingered together

longingly.

Was it the reach of green leaves above those

most gentle of heads,

long tongues swishing the branches

luring them closer,

or the scent of the female,

always being pursued, her coat swathed in sweat as she

hinted at reluctance from her pursuer.

In circles they patterned a dance,

she hesitating,

he scenting her indifference, fear...

a haunting melody of love.

The babe did not care.

He thrust his tongue without thought,

enduring lack of touch,

scaling branches with no leaves.

His desire was uncloaked in persistence and the eternal

calling of continuance, regeneration.

 

Guss Stepp, Jr. Wilton, CT

 

The Hawk 

 

The hawk

Was the bird I watched, perched

In a tree during a light summer rain.

The drip, drip of water

From his curved beak

Was a visual metronome that matched my heartbeat.

 

And his rain soaked feathers

Were slick, slick like a little boys hair under his

Stocking cap

As he prepared for church in the summer of ’35.

 

The hawk

Was the razor sharp wind on Chicago’s south side,

Cutting stinking rags off stockyard butchers, as they left

The El for Upton’s Jungle.

 

It was, Coleman Hawkins,

Or Bean, if you will,

At a 47 th Street bar blowing

His honey sweet sax sound, across Midwestern flatlands,

Pushing tumbleweeds, blasting rusted model “Ts”

With Steinbeck’s wrath, and soothing

A child’s consumptive cough.

 

The hawk

Was that swooping glide, seeking chipmunks

Chirping in dissonance time.

 

The hawk

Was the knotting hunger

Of a young boy caressing a dead weasel

While his soup bowl stares empty.

 

Jean Tupper, Wrentham, MA

 

Staying Put in New Orleans

 

Coaxing the elderly Sadie Hulbert to evacuate proved

difficult. She said, “No thank you. I trust in God.”

Michael M. Phillips, Wall St. Journal

 

 

Oh Sadie,

it’s been weeks

since you came to me.

Since I taped you to my fridge.

Here you are:

brown and wizened, leaning on your balcony rail,

mother, grandmother of the world

in a pink flowered dressing gown and dirty white slippers.

Staring out at me

through those big old glasses.

Alone.

Hungry.

The last holdout.

Standing

as the river swirls under your feet

on a faith that can’t be washed away.

 

First appeared in The River, 2006

 

 

Peter Ulisse, Trumbull

 

Local

 

The speed train streaks

to its destination.

No stops, slick.

It arrives in focus,

on time.

 

We take the local

start stop

start again

meandering byways and sideways

swerving through tunnels and

backyards ball fields

rambling by rivers and cornfields

loving it all each and every

day

keeping on track knowing

ours is a long journey.

 

 

Faith Vicinanza, Marion

 

Druthers

 

I would prefer to loll away

the afternoon comfortably

reclined in, as yet, unrealized

green and stare up at cerulean

dappled with slate, a splatter

of off-white. Just before I’d close

my eyes, I’d scrunch these

failed attempts at poetry

into a sort of spherical catastrophe,

pitch the wad of it into a nearby

not-yet-spring pool of icy water,

make a mash of unrequited,

bury it beside the brambles,

then nap a while. I’d come back

this way in June just to see

what might have taken root.

 

Mario Vitale, Wolcott

 

The Passing Glance

 

As I looked outside at the lush

green grass.

 

Hearing of small talk while passerby’s

carry on with their daily chores.

 

A bright smile from an elderly

woman.

 

Sitting on a parked bench.

 

Popcorn bag fell to the ground.

 

Bird’s fight frantically to fill

their beaks.

 

A rose that was given to her so long

ago.

 

Certain things in life are

best to be left alone.

 

A silver streak in her hair.

 

Holding a small bible in her

arms.

 

Her beacon of hope.

 

The challenge to be free is a

question of time.

 

Suddenly a hand reaches out and

taps her shoulder.

 

The passing glance of love.

 

Send by an angel from heaven up

above.

 

 

 

Marylou Walsh, Guilford

 

Friendship

 

The bird-bath is filled

waiting for the wrens and cardinals

to swan dive together,

flap their feathers in applause,

gossip, strut their stuff

 

We, too. Still deep in our pool of life

so clear in June,

soon hung with August heat,

white-capped, now, in late September

how good it has been to swim with you

Tiffany Washington, Hartford

 

Posthumous Publication

Something for Sylvia

 

She wasted not a word,

but painted even strawberry fields with poetry.

 

Raw words – hardly thought before pen hits paper.

No second drafts.

No revisions.

Fuck the writing process.

Just thoughts, ink, paper –

Private.

Published without permission.

 

The evil dead father analyzed and cliff noted.

her poetry lost in lectures.

 

Desperate desires to be loved

tucked tightly between paragraphs of parties and partings.

 

Ted’s words lingered

in letters between them,

before (head, oven).

 

Minta White, Hartford

 

California

 

arching sounds

tease the sloppy ears

of their listeners, their takers-in.

 

ruffled sand

impressionist rocks

slamming froth

rushing away in a blue green

green blue rough melt.

 

shallow deep divide

trickster in shifting

always waiting.

 

Joan Heller Winokur, Norwalk

 

Widow’s Walk

 

We strolled the familiar beach,

hats down to our brows

to screen the Florida sun.

The sand massaged our soles,

Wrapped our toes, a warm blanket.

 

I sat on the shore, watched him

swim out to the coral reef –

a hundred times.

That time I saw his arms flailing

as the undertow sucked

him into a seaweed bed, covered

him with green foam.

I screamed and screamed,

but the ocean’s voice was much louder.

 

From my beach house balcony,

I stretch my eyes to the horizon

like the wives of old hoping

to see a returning ship.

When I walk, I keep my distance

from the devil waves. I wear

no hat – let the sun burn my flesh.

I’m already in Hell.

 

Elaine Zimmerman, Hamden

 

Digging Up

 

You left sneakers on the back porch, a trowel, some potting soil.

The fig plant was green as your thumb. Daylilies cradled amber

in white glossy petals. Five more gardenias blossomed from

the bush we planted together; the smell strong as the south itself

in summer. There were no gypsy moths hovering, but ghosts

in the magnolias. Branches hung low over tombs, the thick

mustard leaves choking someone long gone. After the burial,

farmer’s market seemed bold as sex with plums, fried pie,

cabbage big as melons. The air thick with red and pink hibiscus,

almost too much color for a day in your absence. Digging up

holes for your bones while so much goes on. Sunflowers reaching,

sprite cardinals snatching seed. The birdhouse sags with small

blue eggs, dried grass and silver hair; no doubt some of this

your legacy. Lightning bugs cast soft arcs of gold as the garden

waits for your turning of soil, braiding of stems, new rootings.