Four Poems by Douglas B. Vandergraph

 

The Choir Loft After Everyone Has Gone

The rafters hold the last note

longer than the singers do.

Below, a woman folds the chairs

by the door she used to avoid.

 

The hymn was about a river.

She has crossed no river today,

only the narrow distance

between the back pew and a stranger

who asked her to stay for tea.

 

In the kitchen someone counts cups.

A child drops a spoon.

The organist returns for her scarf

and leaves the loft dark.

 

Somewhere in the building

water warms without an audience.

The woman lifts a chair,

feels its surprising weight,

and carries it beside the others.

 

The Apron on the Hook

My grandmother's apron keeps

one yellow thread of flour

inside the seam,

though the flour is gone

and she is gone.

 

We spoke of her faith

as if it were something she kept

in the highest cupboard,

safe from the children.

 

But here is its shape:

a knot tied twice,

a pocket stretched by oranges,

a small scorch beside the waist

where she leaned against the oven

to listen while somebody cried.

 

The hook has bent

from years of holding nothing.

I take down the apron

and mend the broken hem

without finding a single answer.

 

What the Window Did

Every morning the eastern window

returns the same street

in a different weather.

 

The man downstairs says

God ought to be more obvious.

I have said the same

without speaking.

 

Today a delivery driver

sets two boxes at the wrong door,

then carries them back

against the rain.

 

No trumpet. No burning bush.

Just a person correcting

something small

when nobody is watching.

 

The window admits

what light is available.

It never calls that light

its own.

 

Inventory of Unfinished Things

One envelope without a stamp.

Two buttons waiting for the coat.

A note that begins Dear Father

and does not know the next word.

 

On the shelf, a cracked cup

holds the keys of people

who have not been home in years.

 

I used to call this failure:

the work not ended,

the prayer not fluent,

the table set for one too many.

 

Tonight I wash the cup

and leave the place beside it clear.

An empty space can be neglect.

It can also be welcome.

 

For now the lamp stays on,

and the unfinished letter

lies open to the ordinary air.

Douglas B. Vandergraph is a writer and Bible teacher based in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. His work explores the intersection of Christian faith, memory, everyday tenderness and resilience. He writes essays and literary reflections for a wide audience, and his work can be found at https://douglasvandergraph.com/.

Four Poems by Hedy Habra

 

Recurrent Dream

 

Anxiety erodes my sleep night after night

as memories and fantasies collide. Heartbeats

merge, projected onto a screen at full speed,

till my heart loses its elasticity, unable to

bounce back: a dull horizon appears flattening

waves and desert dunes, a serene landscape

without ups and downs nor a change of seasons,

till the screen erupts ablaze, we enter a country

 

torn by civil war, trapped in winding alleys

with checkpoints, danger lurking in every

corner. I am back wherefrom I fled decades

ago, and now, I’m lost, dream after dream in

the wrong neighborhood: I can’t ask for a ride

home, home is the enemy, can’t find my way back

to safety. Desperate, I realize I am getting closer

to the straight line that accompanies silence. 

 

First published by Mizna Literary Journal,

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019) 

 

Riding the Winged Tricycle 

 

When Saturn’s three crescent moons enter

their wild dance, I see myself riding

the winged tricycle of my youth towards

an open nave that grows into a caravel

flaunting my winged effigy on its prow,

a figurehead that appears as the centerpiece

of a gilded triptych while concentric dark

brushstrokes around my wide-open eyes

 

convert me into a revered icon, glowing

crescents hover above my head, halos

inscribed within the alignment of Orion’s

three stars, ominous signs tell me that age

is but an illusion, that I can ride that small

bike, soar, heady with my childhood

dreams, dizzy with the illusion that past,

present and future come together at once. 

 

First published by Anima Methodi Anthology

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019) 

 

Note

"Recurrent Dream" and “Riding the Winged Tricycle” follow the Anima Methodi form based on the Poetics of Mirroring. Conceived by Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé and Eric Tinsay Valles, the Anima Methodi is a 16-line poem, comprising two stanzas of eight lines each. Two words or phrases are repeated anywhere within the first binate octave, and the same mirroring effect is done for the second binate octave.

 

Hall of Mirrors 

 

First, there’s the mirror of memory: you only need

to refuel it with lies and illusions, project it onto a

screen, winding up sequences of animated scenes at will.

 

In the dormant well of memory

            you seek yourself and lose yourself,

 

sit for hours on the polished lip of the well as you

meditate over your lengthening shadow, perform a

makeover of your mind to erase the ravages of time:

 

a touch of blush over cheekbones blurs gravity lines,

tilts features upwards, and if this fails, a few hours

of sleep should put a glimmer in the eyes, redress

 

drooping eyelids, avoid the unsightly X-rays of your mortality.

 

 

Then comes the mirror of forgetfulness: swallowing bit

by bit your selective memory, stretching time and space,

a fluid mirror clouded with ripples, rippling memories

 

the elusive mirror in which

            you drown night after night

 

searching for answers to the same questions. You

wish to turn nightmares into paradise: sleep paralysis

overcomes you as past and future merge on their own

 

terms, choose their own colors, glide in swift motion,

deafening rhythmic steps resound in premonition,

emerge erratically from the recesses of your mind,

 

inaudible tunes fall, scatter like the last leaves of autumn. 

 

First published by Ghost Town

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019)

I Always Knew I Was a Sibyl at Heart 

 

I have paid my dues and fought mood swings

before entering that stage of well-earned wisdom

preventing me from climbing over walls in midday,

pacing interminable labyrinthine pathways or drowning

in the deep wells of insomnia.

 

I’ve collected enough books to keep me company

till the day I die, stacked in double and triple rows,

in an arbitrary order they refute in unison. Each

volume stares at me with eyes shut, scrutinizes

my movements, tries to lure me into caressing

its spine, opening it like an I Ching.

 

Shouldn’t I, on account of my years, be granted

the Sight, recognize the rhythm of unspoken speech

in the folds of each palm, read the veins of each leaf

blown by the wind? I could be scrying in the moonlight,

eyes wide open like a wise owl sensing the slightest

reflection on still water. 

 

First published in Nazim Hikmet Fourth Annual International Poetry Festival Awards

Winners: A Chapbook of Talks and Poetry,

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019)

Hedy Habra is a poet, artist, and essayist. Her latest poetry collection, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?, won the International Poetry Book Awards and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer and USA Best Book Awards. The Taste of the Earth won the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Tea in Heliopolis won the Best Book Award, and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her book of criticism is Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa. She is a twenty-five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and a recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Award. https://www.hedyhabra.com/

 

Fairy Tale Fallout - Senryu Sequence by John H. Dromey

 

Art by John H. Dromey

Fairy Tale Fallout by John H. Dromey

 

a stroke of bad luck

Rapunzel’s tennis elbow

from brushing her hair

 

gingerbread-house witch

clue to her bad intentions

her Grimm expression

 

wannabe princes

kiss Snow White in cryo sleep

lots of frostbit lips

 

ominous plot twist

Goldilocks and three zombies

her brain is just right

 

Lil’ Red Riding Hood

meets a wolf in sleep’s clothing

her grandma’s nightgown

 

through the looking glass

Alice is a glass slipper

adventures await

 

role of frog prince when

princess withholds lip service

a palace toady

 

not very charming

her night in shining armor

for a lazy prince         

 

a scaled-down version

Little Mermaid is shorter

when she’s not part fish

 

Sleeping Beauty

face covered with a mud mask

prince walks right on by 

 

 

 

 

John H. Dromey was born in northeast Missouri. He enjoys reading—mysteries in particular—and writing in a variety of genres. His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter, Gumshoe Review, Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and elsewhere, as well as in numerous anthologies. He’s had poems in Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Scifaikuest, Jupiter’s Eye, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, View From Atlantis, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal (April 16, 2024), and the Dwarf Stars 2022 anthology.

 

 

Three Poems by Steve Klepetar

 

Blessings and Curses

The curse and the blessing

wear the same coat.

They knock at the same hour,

stamping snow from their boots,

asking to come in.

Once a bird flew through 

my kitchen

and I could not tell 

if it was luck or its opposite, 

only that it left a single feather 

on the table, gray as a question.

I bless the salt. I curse

the empty jar. I bless

the hands that filled it once

and curse the hour they grew still.

Somewhere my father is still walking

across a bridge I’ve never seen,

neither blessed nor cursed,

just walking, the way the dead do,

patient as weather,

waiting for the word that will let them rest.

Rules For Gamblers

Arrive believing the room was built for you.
The carpet's swirl of red and gold is a map
to somewhere in your darkest core.

Befriend the dealer. She has a daughter
in another city, a cold coffee, a thumb
worn smooth by the edges of cards.

Never count what you carried in.
Money is only weather, and tonight
the forecast promises a small, bright storm.

Superstition is a kind of prayer.
Wear the same blue shirt, touch the same
brass rail, whisper something kind to the wheel.

When the machine sings, don't listen.
It sings to everyone, a mother
crooning to children it will never feed.

Remember the night the moon fell
into your hands and left them full of silver.
Remember it often. Remember it wrong.

Time is a fiction of the clocks.
Here there are no windows, only
the long amber afternoon of chips.

Learn the names of the ghosts at the bar,
the man who lost a farm, the woman
who won a house and never found the door.

If luck turns her back, don't follow.
Let her walk the length of the casino
shedding sequins in her borrowed dress.

Phone Calls With the Dead

My mother calls from a city 

with no area code,

voice thin as the last light

over a field I have never seen.

She wants to know if I fed the cat,

though the cat has been ash 

for a decade, and I say yes, yes,

I fed him this morning,

I gave him the good food.

Behind her breathing, 

a train is always rushing away.

My uncle rings on Sundays,

tells the same joke about the horse.

When I was young I thought

the dead went quiet forever,

but now I know 

that somewhere a hand 

lifts a receiver made of nothing,

dialing, dialing, as if the past 

were only a number I forgot to save.

Steve Klepetar lives in the Shire (Berkshire County, in Massachusetts, that is). His work has appeared widely and has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. He is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Family Reunion and The Li Bo Poems.