Alexandra Hohmann

The Writer in Repose

[Inspired by Sandra Cisneros’ “The Poet Reflects on Her Solitary Fate”]

After all the people have gone,

the laughter has faded
 
After she washes wine stains,
cigarette smoke
from her clothes
 
After she washes caked makeup,
man musk
from her body
 
She sits.
A desk. A chair. A tattered notebook.
 
The morning sun dances on her skin.
 
She scoops an ice cream sundae
of stories
from her soul.

Lalo Kikiriki

Poetrypalooza

Seven a.m. in L.A.

and all over the landscape
poets wake in various
situations,
heading for Winchell's
or Starbuck's
with notebooks and pencils
or laptops and tablets –
every backpack and pocket
bulging with potential
for changing the world
 
fedoras and baseball caps
slammed onto poetic heads
hold in the night's dreams
until they can get them down
coffee or tea
fueling their muses
from Venice to Claremont
from Long Beach to Hollywood

Lynne Bronstein

Every Day Another Miracle

               
I said to the man with the gnarled scarred leg
That he was lucky and he said
If I had been lucky
The accident would not have happened
It’s always the thing to say
For disasters avoided: you were lucky
God was on your side…..
And disaster is a thing of degree.
They will say it’s a miracle that we survive
And life is a miracle
And every day there’s a series of miracles
So when I get out of bed
If I can get from the bed to the bathroom
Without tripping on the floor and breaking my neck
It’s a miracle!
If I eat breakfast and don’t choke on the cereal
Or scald myself with the decaf-it’s a miracle!
If I go outside and walk cross the street
And a huge semi truck driven by a stoned
Hulky fellow who favors Playboy mud flaps
And who is rushing to make his delivery on time
So he can go to one of the Highway 101 bars
And throw back a few
Does not crash into me and run me over
It’s a friggin’ miracle!
My cat did not chew me to shreds today
When I fed her two meals instead of the
Inclusive Resort Five Meal a Day plan
She prefers to be on-
Miracle.
I did not leave my purse on the bus again-
Miracle.
Another month I haggled, bough the least expensive brands,
Did the maximum of work for the minimum of moola
And paid the rent down at the wire
Mira-incredi-fabulo-awesome-cle of miracles.
And still it’s not enough.
Have to pinch myself, startled by realization
That I’ve reached an unmentionable age
And that is supposed to be a miracle.
We never thought we’d make it here
The world was supposed to end
In 1962, 1964, 1968,
At the millennium and last month
But it hasn’t. MIRACLE.
The A Bomb, the H Bomb and the rest of
The alphabet weapons of mass uncertainty
Were supposed to ignite and obliterate
But they did not. A MIRACLE.
Thinking we wouldn’t be here, we lived
And used all our youth up early
Now we scramble to gather
Anything left, to hold it up like
Ragged paisley shawls
And look in the mirror and beg the image
To look back at us
With a miracle.
Out of the assorted adventures of my dreams
I wake up and stretch in bed
And think another morning
I’m alive and it’s a miracle
My task for the day
Is to pull small miracles
Out of the air
When needed
And many are needed
To get through a day
Anyone who looks at me
Should see
That for all the years
I have made it through
I represent the miracles
I have not walked on water
But I have walked successfully on land
I have not made a feast for thousands
But I have made some tasty meals
From what loaves and fishes I have found
To serve for myself and a few friends
I have not made rain fall on the dust bowl
And it has not rained gold sovereigns for me
But I survive every winter’s rain
To see another June with all the jacarandas
Even if I finish this poem
It is some kind of unnoticed and uncalled for
And hardly world shaking but somehow satisfying to me
Mini—teeny-tiny-miracle.

Mina Kirby

 

Learning

I am learning to walk
I did this once before
when I was much smaller
closer to the ground

One step
Fall down
Another one or two
Fall again

Always get back up
Try again
I should be able to do this again
But it is harder now

I think of taking a step
My feet feel
like magnets
hold them to the floor

With great effort I pick up my foot
The other leg
trembles in fear
Falling is no longer an option

One step
Two
My stomach flutters
from weakness

Lying back in my bed
as I have done for months
I close my eyes
and visualize myself walking

six steps… ten
all the way across the room
down to the end of my street
around the county fair

Do I dare dream
of climbing steps?
of scrambling up a mountain path
to marvel at the splendor below?

Tears gather beneath my eyelids
hot and liquid
They will spill over
if I open my eyes

I try to be brave
convince myself it is possible
I have to walk again
I am so afraid

Toti O’Brien

November

No we didn’t all come

with the same load
for some it was
heavier.
 
For some war never
stopped. Some
never stopped
running.
 
Always I’ve been
in arms brother I
struggled I left
behind
 
myself burning
ruins hardly
escaping the
chasms
 
‘n their jaws wide
open. Always
I felt the
enemy
 
close the iron
fist bound to
smother me
at once.
 
I’ve been scared
I confess although
I wore my mask
‘n my armor.
 
‘N the behaved
poise of the hero
that alas
I wasn’t.

Rosalee Thompson

Rite Aid, Whittier

I watched you walk by her round as sun baby belly

her 2 dirty crying children
You made her
invisible
She didn't speak American
Her rapid gestation of human life
reminds you of bus ads
Pray for Rosemary's baby
Seeing chemical red
you say you are pro life
Pray for Rosemary's baby
Is humankind dead
what is art
who are your neighbors
 
Without wings
a homeless bird still walks home from war

Gary Imperial

At His Desk

The air is thick with fate, a culmination yet to be.

Wadded paper in the fire scents the air.
Fingers tapping on the desk, a rolling beat of four.
He stares into the corners of his mind.
 
Cognac warms his tongue, still there are no words.
The quill is light in hand, it's freshly dipped.
Whisper from the dark, moves his hand to write.
Once upon a midnight dreary...

Denise Walsh (read by Julie Larson)

Meditation II. 

Mist surrounded mountains

at creation’s dawn,
what lies concealed beneath your veil?
The mystery of the making
before the eyes of awareness open,
before the moment the word is made light 
Teeming primordial soup
stirred in primeval calderas
What strange organic brew awaits
the unwary world? 
What life stirs beneath this gauze
poised to crawl upon terra firma
for the first time?
Silence, soon to be broken by
the choiring of multitudes

Thelma Reyna

 
Coming To Empty
 
It’s purpling time, the sun low above mountain ridges. My hand trembles with the front door key: for the first time in 19 years, silence awaits on the other side. My dog lay limp on linoleum at the vet’s, her feathered tail curled as it did in pain, amber eyes wide, marbles glinting back the ceiling lights, fear and surprise at how rapidly she died. 

I asked forgiveness as I stroked her fur, forgiveness for not letting go the month before, when she limped and fell and wheezed through midnight hours on the wooden floor. I held my Mica, cupped her head and praised her strength, her will, her loyalty, hanging on, holding on, though her body whimpered resignation.

I asked my Mica for forgiveness, swaddled her in the quilt she loved, carried her belated to my van like precious luggage. She panted on the floor, swollen tumors pressing, rippling up and down her back like stony paths. I asked my Mica for forgiveness as I knelt to hold her head while the needle pierced her hip.

At home, the stillness stabs. I gather Mica’s things: her leash, and hang it on the closet hook, not ready yet to let it go. The pink child’s brush with plastic tips I used to stroke her shoulders till her lids drooped shut. The heart-shaped ID tag she wore like a charm since just a pup. Her blue and white ceramic bowl on a rubber placemat by the sink. Just inside the kitchen door, a plastic bin filled to the brim with kibbles and organic treats for “senior vim and vigor.” Mica’s things.

I weep for Mica as I weep for me. We hang on to things like we hang on to life: afraid to see the end of purpose, afraid to phase out shards and broken bits, afraid to see how giving up is also love.

Lisa Marie Sandoval

Solomon’s Fly

I watch a fly fall into a flower,

a flaming crimson rose,
so slender and tall. She curtsies
with a flirtatious blossom bow.
Her lush fair face, her gathered siren skirt,
framing soft-pink folds open to
the fly. His deep black eyes see all
supple petals tittering at once.
He plunges pupils first into their center
with bottomless buzzing shudders,
bathed in the fragrant state of her
and spends his strength
in frenzied search of Babylon.

Lori Wall-Holloway

 

The Invader Returns

My home is nice despite a kid who comes
at times who bothered me as a kitten.
But I have no concerns because she fixates
on a computer whatsit or small phone
that sends a text thing and I am ignored.

Life is good
until the day a bad
dream becomes reality -

Meow! What do I do?

He is back! The Invader has returned!
He can almost touch the top of my cat
tree. He runs faster than I remember.
I play dead under a table and pray
something will divert him far away -

Horrors of horrors!
A little face with blond
curly hair comes!

Yeow! Don’t touch my tail!

She crawls after me here. She hunts me there.
Her little fingers poke instead of pet
and she disappears only to come back.
There is no way to evade her and hide
since bedroom doors are either shut or blocked!

Cornered, I caterwaul
with hopes my owner allows
me to escape

Help! Finally, I take cover

Out of sight
from Invader’s cohort they call
his little sister

42 poets being published in SGVPQ 55

MARIA A. ARANA
DAVID BORTIN
JACK G. BOWMAN
LYNNE BRONSTEIN
CALOKIE
DON KINGFISHER CAMPBELL
MICHAEL J. CLUFF
BARBARA COGSWELL
MARVIN DORSEY
IVAN DRYER
JOSEPH GARDNER
THOM GARZONE
CHARLES HARMON
EMILY HILL
LINDA MARIE HILTON
ALEXANDRA HOHMANN
ANITA HOLZBERG
GARY IMPERIAL
SANDRA IRWIN
JEFFREY JENSEN
BETH KARP
LALO KIKIRIKI
MINA KIRBY
MARIE LECRIVAIN
ELLARAINE LOCKIE
RADOMIR VOJTECH LUZA
KARINEH MAHDESSIAN
KATHERINE NORLAND
TOTI O'BRIEN
JONATHAN VOS POST
RAQUEL REYES-LOPEZ
THELMA REYNA
RYFKAH
LISA MARIE SANDOVAL
WANDA VANHOY SMITH
ROSALEE THOMPSON
TIM TIPTON
MAJA TROCHIMCZYK
LORI WALL-HOLLOWAY
DENISE WALSH
DOROTHY WIEBER
ROBERT WILSON

10 poets who read from SGVPQ 54

Charles Harmon

Political Haiku

ANGEL OR DEVIL

Right wing or Left wing?
Which shoulder arms will prevail?
The one that gets Fed….
 
GORDIAN KNOT
What tangled webs we weave.
Governmental gridlock…
How cut loose our noose?
 
QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS QUISLING?
Our keepers proclaim
Vegetarianism;
Practice vampirism.
 
SI VIS PACEM PARABELLUM
When the gloves come off,
Hands untied from behind backs,
Curtains pulled aside….
 
FIVE MILLION LAWS
From Ten Commandments
To five million lawyers
Made us all criminals….
 
THE YOKE IS ON YOU
Thought you were born free?
Lower your head, bend over,
Submit to harness.
 
PARASITISM
The more the starving victim
Works and eats, the more
Tapeworm engorges….
 
PRIVILEGE
Created equal
The high and mighty
More equal than I and Thou.