Online Poetry & Art
Our 4th issue includes the poem prompt from Poet Laureate Samuel Green as well as the editor's invitation to address an author or character that has stayed with you. Three local artists have been selected to enliven the pages of poems with their original works.
Page One: Willamina Anagama (cover art) Notes from the Editor Yvonne Amey Frank Babcock Louise Barden Alice Martin-Kunkle
Page Two: Tim Barnes Joe Bisicchia Dale Champlin Betty Turbo Merridawn Duckler Judith Edelstein
Page Three: Alexis Rhone Fancher Brady Chambers Brigitte Goetze Erica Goss Samuel Green John Grey
Page Four: Marilyn Johnston Alice Marin-Kunkle Karen Jones Bruce McRae Josh Medsker Amy Miller
Page Five: Betty Turbo Diarmuid ó Maolalaí George Perrault Grace Richards Ben Sloan Daphne Elizabeth Stanford
Page Six: Alice Martin-Kunkle Doug Stone Mary Ellen Talley Elijah Welter Cristina Luisa White Back Page--Willamina Anagama with Alice Martin-Kunkle and Company
This is Alice Martin-Kunkle‘s favorite piece from the anagama firing as she was able to lay it on its side so that the wood ash is dripping sideways around the pot. You can also see impressions of shells which were embedded in clay wadding to lift the ware off the shelf during the firing. Newport’s For ArtSake Gallery (Nye Beach) is your best bet for encountering this northwest artist and more of her work in clay and photography.
What happened here, already forgotten.
Did we win or lose? I don’t know.
So many battles cloud the memory.
Scattered bones as far as I can see.
A brood of baby rabbits shiver in the rib cage
of a horse where his heart should be.
I wonder if the ghost of this war horse
feels that quiver of life in his chest
as he gallops across the fields of heaven.
Doug Stone lives in Albany, Oregon. His chapbook, In the Season of Distress and Clarity (Finishing Line Press) came out in 2017. His poems have been published in numerous journals and in the anthology, A Ritual To Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford.
A black dog smaller than her own
sleeps nearby without licking her face
to wake her come morning.
A toddler plays quietly in a toy kitchen
then speaks in sentences
about making the family a picnic lunch
and wearing big boy pants.
Assorted mothers order her signature cakes
with intricately laced butter cream flowers
cascading layers during these wee hours
now ready for home delivery in glitter boxes.
The computer shames viruses
into remission and creates instant digital scrapbooks
ready for printing.
A beautician visits her house
to shape eyebrows and add foil highlights
to brunette tresses flung across the pillow.
The good fairy uses her wand
to fold baskets of clean clothes
and fly each piece to its drawer.
The camouflage clad husband returns from the hunt
with venison already packaged and labeled
for the freezer.
He prepares a breakfast of Belgian waffles
laden with strawberries and whipped cream
and takes the crepe myrtle to task
for not shading his young wife’s window.
Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have recently been published in Raven Chronicles, U City Review and Ekphrastic Review as well as in the anthologies, All We Can Hold and Ice Cream Poems. Her poetry has received two Pushcart Nominations.
there is a raven that watches, that holds
all in its black eye. Sun gathers
where you stood
on the thawed, green patch.
I watch and, with the cold,
am the hard shimmer of ice layering
the apple branches.
Those times under cathedral
eaves, they speak to me
of graves, but they are not dead.
They do not know the feel of earth.
Squirrels a dry rustle through the branches,
falling beneath piano keys, the crushing
black and white of sky. The cold
falls closer and I move to stand
where you were,
feet wet in the melting grass.
Elijah Welter graduated recently from Corban University with a B.S. in Humanities. Currently living near the gray banks of the North Santiam, he finds inspiration in the works of W.S. Merwin, T.S. Eliot, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
In the great beyond, that other world
where we must all begin
another life
I hope to meet Georges Simenon
and also Oscar Wilde.
It would be odd to see them both
in the same place, at the same time,
these men, so different
in manner and attire.
Georges, with his pipe,
like his Inspector Maigret,
in suit and tie, or open collar,
always honest, and direct.
And Oscar, ever-elegant,
the ready wit,
the cigarette
perfectly held, his wrist bent.
Gentlemen, I will say, welcome,
welcome to my table. Please, take a chair.
There’s bread and cheese,
there’s fruit and cake,
and refreshment
I thought you each might like.
For you, Monsieur Simenon, some calvados
and, of course, champagne for Mister Wilde.
As for me, I’ll light this slender joint,
the best maui zowie green,
and in this crystal glass, I’ll mix
calvados and champagne.
What grace, this pleasure,
to while away the hours
with Simenon and Wilde, you,
who filled me to the brim,
my mind and heart and soul;
you left me awed and always glad
to have known you in your work.
Let’s drink to writers,
to women, men,
to love and life,
then let us hear that chime once more
and drink to language, music,
poets, poetry
and this poem
that brought you, and you, and me
together, here
in this circle of infinity.
Cristina Luisa White is a life-long reader, writer, and artist. Her most recent book is Sex and Soul: A Memoir of Salvation. She writes and tends a small garden in Corvallis, Oregon, where she lives with her wife and innumerable books. You can see more of her work at www.cristinalwhite.com
