Sample Poems: Volume 24, Numbers 1 and 2

"Love"

By Michele Wyrebek


It starts with stripping,

layer after layer
getting as bare as possible

the surface - it's necessary

for preservation
to treat the wood first

before restoring it - for hours

he can sand and scrape
in silence.

Something is wrong

with me, according to him,
and he's right, of course -

I have yet to get the hang of it,

life, I mean - the living of it
happily.

We are breaking up. He says

he doesn't tear down walls
he deconstructs them -

he builds and repairs, has a gift

for resilience - things improve
in his hands. Except me -

I see suffering's

blueprints wherever I go
and I can't help

wandering through

the plans it devises,
lingering in the details -

simple homes

with plain rooms
and little storage

or intricate structures

with ample space and built-in
shelving - the layouts

for harm are infinite - multi-floored

with well-placed landings
or one-storied open foyers

that welcome hopelessness

and long hallways
that lengthen pain.


Editor's note: This poem was sent to me in September of 1995. Michele had moved to Arlington (MA) but was still attending the Princeton writers group when she could. In her letter, she said, "The poem has gone through many transformations - especially with regard to the title (and I'm not sure "Love" is the best one...)."

Filling My Pen For Action

By Sam Hazo

 

 

I thumb the plunger down

  and siphon black ink up

  the way a hypodermic needle

  siphons plasma from a vein.

My ink of choice is ebony

  because it promises to last.

But last as what?

                              Notations,

  doodles, letters, labels,

  numbers, signatures on checks

  or shopping lists?

                              History's

  no guide.

                   Our circumstances

  change.

                Regardless, writing

  what we think makes thinking

  truer when we see it written down.

The bravest pages of a poem

  or a book began as blanks

  that craved the consecration of a pen.

And written words increase

  in value over time.

                              Shakespeare's

  one surviving letter ( a request

  for money from a lord ) now seems

  as holy as the hairlock of a saint.

The same applies to Jefferson's

  hand-written declaration, Whitman's

  jottings, and ( for me ) my mother's

  letters in a hatbox or my aunt's

  last sentence on an index card....

Recalling this, I watch my nib

  change ink-blood into words

  across this very page to show

  why every word should be as sacred

  as the final word I'll write.

 

 

 

Letter to a Son at War

By Robert Duffy


I thought of you this morning, no

you needn't answer, it's just that
I thought of you. I was in the loft
to throw down the hay; the first
bale broke and blossomed wide
as if flowers dead and pressed
inside had come to life again.
Dust rose on the air and the sun
struck swords of light through knots
and gaps between the boards, and then
I saw you. Kneeling
in the ghastly white of slow
descending flares, your many
shadows shifting dancing on
the rhythm of the fall, your face
as fragile and dangerous
as a looking glass.
I threw down two more bales
and looked again, but the salt wave
of distance troubled my eye like heat
above a pavement. So I went down
the ladder to finish the chores,
chores I would have sent you to do,
if you were still here. The cows all turned
their tan-dark eyes to see their hay,
or perhaps to see if I were you.
Or if you were me. Cows, who's to say?
I'm told they're worshipped
in some places, and I wondered
half-seriously if I might try
to pray to them, except
I couldn't imagine what I ought to say.
Thinking now, something simple,
perhaps a bedtime prayer
from childhood might even be enough.
Do you know one?
There, you see? This
is what it comes to: foolish notions
carefully packaged and sent away,
not knowing whether they'll arrive
or what they'll mean if they do arrive.
Except I know I never meant this,
I never meant to send any
complaints into a desperate war,
one labored page then waking late
to wonder, whatever did I intend?
Let me offer this instead, a bargain
of sorts: If you will find me
changed when you return,
only this, nothing more, nothing
difficult like love; if you will do it,
I will engage to search your face
for wounds to be regretful of.