Journal

Empty

On the birdless day at the refuge
the morning was lento
cattails barely moving in breeze.

The canal twisted
dreaming
its dream paired with cumulous clouds above
trees knocking in wind: their colloquial speech
noon in parentheses
landscape absent of narrative drive.

no songs

Just the day before I’d mentioned to a friend
minimal differences: beak size
feather pattern
stance on branch
white eye-ring circling eye.

But birds molt in secret come summer
begin looking messy, away from inquisitive eyes and field guides
missing and growing feathers create gaps in wing
sometime even a missing tail
pre-basic molt, summer plumage
each feather formed in a horney sheath.

With no birds
innocence dried and stilled
like a fermata of Shubert’s held extra long.

Absent common tern, cliff swallow and sparrow
only bush shadows nod and azure sky.

 

Liz Nakazawa is the editor of Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon (Ooligan Press), a collection of nature poems by 33 Oregon poets. It was designated one of the Best 100 Books about Oregon in the last 100 Years by the Oregon State Librarian. It was also a
Best Picks of Powell’s. She also edited The Knotted Bond: Oregon Poets Speak of Their Sisters (Uttered Chaos Press). Her own poems have appeared in Turn, The Timberline Review and The Poeming Pigeon journals and her haiku has appeared in ahundredgourds. She has published a chapbook of her poems, entitled, “Painting the Heart Open.”

 

 

Revealing, Concealing

Exercises in journal-keeping and notes
in the margins of long-shelved or cherished books
always manage, somehow, to embarrass me.
And I’m not willing to do the therapy
to understand that better. I don’t keep raw
notes of all these, either—which might be a loss.
I prefer the cabinetry of poems,
selecting pieces for or against the grain,
measuring twice or more, then cutting many
times. I like the search for knobs, attaching them,
pulling them out, looking, pushing them back in

 

Dan Overgaard was born and raised in Thailand. He attended Westmont College, dropped out, moved to Seattle, became a transit operator, then managed transit technology projects and programs. He’s now retired, and his poems have appeared in As It Ought To Be Magazine, The High Window, Glass Poetry: Poets Resist, and elsewhere. Read more at: danovergaard.com.

the dog’s job

the dog jumped off the bed last night & ran
barking into the dark I followed
because someone stole the battery
from my neighbor’s car last week
& because it was hot & all our windows
open I didn’t know exactly
what I’d do if I came face
to face with a thief my fighting
days long over but there was no one
in the darkness & all that was stolen
was precious sleep & my place
in bed where the dog her work complete
quickly returned through the dark
unseen & lay curled
on my cool
pillow

 

Frank Rossini grew up in New York City and moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1972, where he
taught at the University of Oregon and Lane Community College for forty years. He has
published poems in various magazines including Chiron Review, Raven Chronicles, and
Paterson Literary Review. sight | for | sight books will publish a new book of his poems,
last confession, in February 2021.

COUNTRYSIDE IN REVERSE
       thou hast thy music too,—
       from “To Autumn” by John Keats                                                                                          

Last year the apple tree bore no fruit; source? Slow growth.
This year, branches hang to the ground, globes of slow growth.

As always, many of these apples are knuckled,
but this year many are perfect, orbs of slow growth.

Memory you crumble the distance, then to now;
random apple trees in the woods – souls of slow growth.

The garden is a tousled bounty of peppers;
Cherry, Marconi, Cubanelle – corps of slow growth.

The land, desiccated and cooling, can barely
expunge the butternut’s leaves, those robes of slow growth.

Grandfather, please limp to me, holding out a bean,
or a potato, a golden stone of slow growth.

The rogue tomato in the geraniums is
the diadem of all the plants — verb of slow growth.

Even the asters, closers of fall, move backwards,
The entire countryside a harp of slow growth.

 

John L. Stanizzi is author of the collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, Sundowning, and POND.  John’s poems have been widely published and have appeared in Praxis, Prairie Schooner, The Cortland Review, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, and many others.  His work has been translated into Italian and appeared in El Ghibli, and others. John, a former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, and New England Poet of the Year, is the Flash Fiction Editor of Abstract Magazine TV, John teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.  https://www.johnlstanizzi.com.

The Shape Of A Universe

while I was incarcerated
for a crime I did not commit
I enrolled in a correspondence course
and became an origami master
when my yearning for release
was great enough to consume me
and I became so small
I could be filled by just one thing
I fashioned the tiniest
working ship in the world
out of a postage stamp
and sailed away
across the seven waters
I met countless escapees
a flotilla of well-lit liners
dancing like pin heads
which I joined naturally
bobbing about waiting
for condensation to lift us
up into the stars

 

Suzanne Verrall lives in Adelaide, Australia. Her flash fiction, essays and poetry appear in various publications including The Interpreter’s House, Australian Poetry Journal and the Southampton Review. For links to her work go to www.suzanneverrall.com.

Artist Statement:

During the fifty years I’ve lived in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, I’ve avoided painting
landscapes. I prefer the more domestic scenes – rooms, chairs, sunlight on rugs and
flowers, portraits of people dear to me, and still life paintings of my daily
surroundings. But in 2018, I began a series of paintings based on the view of Cook
Inlet that I see when I walk on the nearby Coastal Trail. Across the mudflats and the
water is a distant view of the Alaska Range, Mount Susitna, Fire Island, and Point
Woronzof. Some days I hurry out onto the trail to see the color from the sunset or
the darkness of a coming storm. In every season, the sunlight and cloud formations
bring this landscape to life. It is always changing and always dramatic. When I look
into the distance, I feel like I’m standing at the edge of the world.

Carol Crump Bryner was born in Connecticut at the end of World War II on the winter
solstice. Her mother was an artist, so she started learning about art as soon as she could
hold a crayon. When she was in graduate school at Stanford, her lithography teacher
had them visit his painting studio. From that day on, she wanted an artist’s life – days
spent in a studio with paints, a paintbrush, and the concentration that comes with
bringing a blank canvas to life. It’s often been a struggle to maintain this career, but
after so many years of making art and putting it out into the world, She is still really
happy with her choice. More about her at carolcrumpbryner.com.