Poetry While You Wait: National Poetry Month 2016



  Published by Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Project

  Copyright 2016 Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Project

  Cover Photo

  Dawn Bergacker photograph,

  Special Collections,

  Pikes Peak Library District (379-421)

  THE GIRL I USED TO BE - Janice Gould

  I was the girl who backed into life,

  got lost, then disappeared again

  under tables and in drawers,

  between unused tools hung

  on dusty pegs, among red lines

  etched on imaginary maps.

  In Spring I watched waxwings sway

  drunkenly among sour berries

  and found myself pushed north with them

  in torn clouds, landing where rhododendrons grow

  on wet hillsides, and larkspur pokes

  from granite waving small blue flags.

  I was the girl who bucked hay, split wood,

  tore the ragged face of earth with the harrow’s teeth,

  who tried to toughen up in leather boots and haying chaps,

  who disappeared in snow or rain,

  beat her fists on windshields, but

  survived by singing late into the night,

  driving deserted streets

  while everyone else was wasted.

  I was the girl who seldom spoke,

  who slept alone fully clothed, ready to bolt

  into the startled dawn. I was the girl who,

  enticed by stones, one day plunged into

  a clear Sierra creek, and rose gasping

  from that brutal stream, terrified,

  but absolutely clean.

  Janice Gould was the 2014-2016 Pikes Peak Poet Laureate

  PRECIOUS OTHER - Price Strobridge

  Precious Other,

  consider no contest between You and Me―

  never was, nor

  can ever be―

  you see,

  Uncle Walt's third line

  ―shines on:

  “for every atom

  belonging to me

  as good belongs to you”.

  So, Precious Other,

  every star that's ever shone

  burned brightly only

  in its unique integrity―

  no contests,

  only contrasts

  shining separately

  yet ultimately

  (in this capacious sky)

  ―as One,

  which certainly

  will outlast any

  singular – brief – petty –

  egoistical – statistical

  ―blast.

  Price Strobridge was the 2012-2014 Pikes Peak Poet Laureate. He keeps busy eating poems.

  CAT AT THE ALZHEIMER’S RESIDENCE - Mari Lidmark

  The orange cat earns his stripes;

  he tracks paisley halls, a fire-lunged train.

  Residents are burning Menorah candles,

  but death’s black hole vacuums cobweb breaths

  all eight days,

  testing his faith in his faithfulness.

  He brushes dozens of resting, restless ankles

  but does not pause to be petted.

  Waiting is the babushka doll

  with ivory pick fingers chipping

  at tea-stained china teeth

  and the Emerson man

  with knees bulbous from bowing to gardens.

  This man’s brain buffers,

  processing how weeds are scratched into piles

  and stuffed into black bags.

  He knows the sound of roots snapping.

  But the orange cat purrs, promising

  ‘I will wrap your memories in strings of linen.’

  The forgetful will not be forgotten.

  They are lightning bugs jarred

  in his glassy eyes.

  Mari Lidmark is blessed to be the mommy of an agel, wife of a hero and an English teacher at CSEC.

  A NEEDED VISIT TO A BRICKLAYER - Paul Kellen

  One afternoon about two-thirty or three

  A lady bug came and landed on me.

  I had been yearning for a workdays end

  ‘Cause it was so humid hot we could hardly see

  We were ready for our homeward journey’s wend.

  I looked at the ladybug and had to smile –

  Somehow strength came back for a while :

  Black dots on two red shells concealing wings

  That take this visitor daily more than miles

  To make several of these innocent callings

  Was more than I could handle without a chuckle

  I knew my knees would no longer buckle

  I knew the day would shortly be completed

  Then I watched her lift away off my knuckle

  It was just the kind of visit I needed.

  Paul Kellen was a bricklayer and landscaper by vocation, but is a learner and poet by necessity.

  TABLE TENNIS, ANYONE? - Laura London

  Memories of us

  Drift through my subconscious

  You draw near

  You pull away

  I draw near

  I pull away

  We come together, over and over and over

  We pull apart -- never again, we cry!

  Hi. How have you been?

  Laura London is proud of very few things: her kids, hiking Pikes Peak and serving in the Peace Corps (twice).

  DID WE? - Jane Morton

  I wish just once

  Dad might have said,

  to his daughter, or his son

  Good Job, Thanks, Well Done.

  We must not have measured up,

  or if we did, he never said,

  so we will never know,

  but we will always wonder.

  Did we?

  Jane Morton says, “My dad never did use two words when he thought that one would do”.

  CRUISERS - Ron Truax

  In the street

  this cadre struts its roar

  interchangeable in black leathers

  beards and headwraps

  tattoos and decals proclaiming

  various freedoms, yet identical

  in rank and file, metronomic motor revs

  slow synergetic speeds so like

  polar penguins approaching the sea

  safely concordant

  in the shell of sameness.

  Ron Truax is an award-winning photographer and poet who lives in Colorado Springs.

  TIME WAS - Ron Truax

  Well, it's a different time now, ain't it

  since Gertrude Stein wrote such babble

  while men punched time cards,

  hoisted lunch buckets and walked

  from Ford plants against the Detroit River wind.

  INDIGO, INDIGOING, INDIGONE - Susan M. Peiffer

  God utters me like a

  Word

  containing partial

  thought of himself—

  a word

  that will never comprehend

  the voice

  who utters it—

  a word that will always wonder

  why it was said

  Susan M. Peiffer is Program Director of Hear Here. She actively encourages every individual to listen, write and share.

  Mother nature’s honey

  nectarous and sweet

  morning dew

  Sage Reynolds

  15-year-old Sage Reynolds enjoys hiking, pressing flowers in books and writing.

  WALDO REDUX - Teever Handal

  Haze, smoke from a thousand miles away

  covering our f
oot hills and mountains

  still populated by charred skeletal trees

  shrubs and grasses only just returning.

  Fires in Washington, Oregon, California

  their ghosts long preceding their deaths

  stirring memories from 2012 not yet resting

  eyes turning to scarred mountain landscapes

  hearts turning to scarred inner landscapes.

  Fire, fear, friends put out and fleeing

  dark days of raining ash in the fire’s reign

  the sky a black roof of smoke

  the sun a swollen red eye at its heart

  the nights glowing unnaturally to the west

  as if dragons slept there, breathing flame

  ready to rage, and burn, and feast.

  Dry acidic air stinging eyes and throat

  making lungs rasp and cough.

  Windows and doors shut tightly to fear

  as if denial would win the moment

  and in its smoldering wake

  nature reminds us of flames with water

  flash floods off naked hills

  a crying land, a damaged people.

  Improvement slow but coming, and now

  haze, smoke from a thousand miles away

  Teever Handal is a mechanical engineer who is old to the call of writing, new to answering to it.

  LEAP - Emily Forand

  The creek cut a trench

  wider than her jump

  and yet

  there she stood

  by the leach-laden water

  and the tree root,

  toe pointed toward the bank.

  I held my hand out to her,

  but she is five

  and full of fire

  and has no need for a mama.

  Brand new sneakers,

  bisque baby face,

  and two adult teeth,

  teetering

  until she leaps!

  At least four parts of her perfect

  body betray her on the bank.

  I rub the mud from her nose,

  scrape the dirt from her knee

  and before the fresh plaster of fear

  can set,

  I place her back on her perch

  and teach her to try again.

  Emily Forand is a wife, mother and teacher of English.

  STRUCK - Andrew Ziegler

  He stood on the precipice with fist

  flirting with the air around it. It kissed

  as it cut through space. Like love and falling, the

  impact wouldn't be felt instantly. He told

  the shoulder on which his rock-like knuckles landed that

  it would have to learn how to take a hit.

  He told a lie to justify the next open hand slap

  which landed on his son's face. Someday, I

  fear that the son will hold his hands to the sky

  as though trying to grasp at a reason why, clench

  his fists because his jaw aches from his father's kiss and look

  back on this as the lesson that first informed him

  of how to be a man. And I hate

  the lie that this man has just spoken to his son.

  He has made affection out to be knuckles in motion; he

  has stamped love on the back of his hands, making

  contact with the flesh of flesh and blood, he

  has made his son connect the back of his hands

  with love so, one day, when his son tries to understand love

  like the back of his hand, it'll be kissed with welted red. This

  is no way to teach.

  I want to tell him that teaching a man to take a punch

  is to internalize a fist. I

  want to tell him that his son will choke on his own knuckles, won't

  ever know that his heart is the same size as his fists and that

  there won't be enough room to heave his heart into his mouth, that

  his body will perform all of his words, and he will never know the power

  of a whisper.

  Andrew Ziegler is a poet who performs on stage when he is not teaching.

  THE SKATER - Mark Cooney

  Soaring like an eagle

  she glides over the ice

  skyward gyrating she flies

  then like a twister

  spirals down

  laws of physics binding common folk

  bend before her power

  Now she squats statue-like

  the posture of a frog

  then swaying slowly rises up

  with grace of a charmed serpent

  and again smoothly slides off

  in dance of liquid flow

  to and fro

  appearance of flitting butterfly

  Her ice time is her freedom

  her art to express

  minds of fans she leaves in awe

  and sets them free with her

  Mark Cooney was inspired by figure skaters at the old Broadmoor World Arena.

  FOREIGN LANGUAGE - David Reynolds

  Here in the back of the Wellfleet library

  a woman speaks Polish on the phone

  or, perhaps, Skypes to a loved one far away.

  She does not whisper;

  she speaks in full syllabic throttle

  with ricocheting “ish’s” and “off’s.”

  She makes sounds with her tongue and mouth

  that leave me blank.

  Listening to her reminds me

  of men listening to women.

  They hear the sound;

  they sense the rise and fall;

  the timbre of surprise

  and the hush of rumor.

  But, essentially, they do not understand.

  They comprehend when a woman speaks.

  They can tell if it’s a tragedy or a comedy,

  but they fall asleep before intermission.

  Likewise, I can tell this woman speaks with a friend or mother

  about her summer here at the edge of the ocean.

  But I cannot tell is she has been floating

  on her back or drowning.

  Dave Reynolds chairs the English Department at the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs. He loves words, hiking, squash and orchids.

  Listening – Doris Gardner-McCraw

  Listening is art

  Understanding each brushstroke

  Like high winds and breeze

  Doris Gardner-McGraw writes haiku which she posts with her photos.

  50 SHADES OF EMBARRASSMENT - Addie Forand

  The day 50 shades of embarrassment waltzed across my cheeks

  when a sob choking me,

  nestled in my throat threatened to burst free

  my teacher's words like a whip,

  replayed over and over again

  every student's eyes piercing my skin

  with that accusing gaze reserved for the naughty ones

  "Never again." I told myself.

  I must have looked

  as embarrassed as the word itself

  "Never again."

  Adeline Forand loves writing and animals. She attends Colorado Springs Charter Academy.

  INSTRUMENTAL CHILDREN – Julianza Shavin

  At the concert, I saw the tiniest girl

  on violin and thought,

  do we create children

  so our instruments

  will have something to play?

  I had a piano before a child.

  Did its little felt hammers

  need something to tickle to giggles?

  Did the guitar need something to strum

  and demand the son?

  Did the harp need some ringlet angel to pluck?

  Did the children come

  because the instruments were lonely

  when we were busy with fights and pets

  and gardens made of words?

  If children are our immortality

  then do we have them

/>   so our songs of joy, our dirges

  will have bodies to bow them

  breathe them

  tune them to wind water and sky?

  All those boys and girls

  and all in black

  as if it were a funeral for us old folk

  all in somber rhythm

  like an accidental section

  wired by design.

  Jusianza Shavin’s fourth book, “This Grave Oasis,” had as a working-for-a-day title, “Octave Desperation,” which she felt sounded too needy.

  DARKER - Susan Hammond

  It’s darker now cooler too,

  and I worry about bears

  as dog and I make our early morning rounds.

  A school bus passes

  and I remember when our kids were on that bus

  and I was young;

  you were still alive,

  and I didn’t worry about bears.

  Susan Hammond has spent half of her life in the public library and the other half walking.

  DOS MADRES - Rachael Melat-Robnett

  I wrapped each Mexican glass in newspaper,

  then in dishrags, laid them carefully in boxes.

  I was ten maybe, my father had left by then,

  (this is a way I can place the memories),

  and moving was how we knew who we were.

  My mother called to me from the courtyard,

  she was barefoot on the flagstones, flushed.

  She’d pulled a clay sun off the cracked stucco wall,

  held it with both hands, Aztec face in her palms.

  In the concave back, a glossy black widow

  shielded an egg-sac. Isn’t she beautiful?

  My mother smiled, her lashes wet. I’m not afraid.

  The spider crouched on the pottery, desert sun

  flashing on its body. Manuel from town,

  whom my mother hired to help with the move,

  stepped between us and, with needle-nose pliers,

  gently plucked the creature, turning it over

  to show us the hourglass on its abdomen—

  the color of ripe red chilies, of blood.

  After releasing the spider in chamisa grass,

  he burned the white eggs with a match.

  Rachael Melat-Robnett is a Colorado Springs native and a local business owner.

  SUMMER OPENING

  after Eunice Tietjens - Amie Sharp