Saturday, 8 February 2025

Five Poems by Wayne F. Burke

 






Sun Set on the Gulf

I slept from midnight to
8 a.m.
uninterrupted by nature
or telephone.
The ocean outside the hotel window
looks peaceful,
friendly even;
it's fury is all underneath, waiting
like the day
to emerge;
meanwhile, the
waves sweep in--
clear, translucent;
golden ripples on the seafloor, the
lattice work of sun and
green glass waters...
I cannot hear the sea roar
from where I sit
(11th floor)
only the hush
of white foam
soothing
as a lullaby.


Oh Radiance

a silver swath sword
cut across the
wide blue Gulf;
the wash of waves
working their way to shore--
sun rays like tentacles, the
sea darkening
dark,
sun dappled sparkle
cloud tops along horizon
lemon-yellow
the southern says
'hasta la vista'
from its cloudy bed.


Sunset # 12

lemon-yellow sun a dot
on the exclamation point of
a golden streak from
shore to horizon:
fool's gold, a dreamy end
of waves rolling home;
roar of the breakers and
silent sun; cobalt blue
sea a churned field of
divots, ripples, cross-
hatched wrinkles...
Molten yellow glob on the
horizon, coronation of
clouds in golden beams--
I give this sunset a '10.'
Now I have the sea;
fierce, unrelenting, and
never ending, unlike me.


Sunset # 17

green jade sea and
blue cloud scene
painted by Maxwell Parrish--
waves rolling, breaking
frothing onto shore
where a guy walks alone,as
another sits with upraised
fishing pole--a mauve background.
A trawler on the curved brim
of ocean, orange streak
by Clyfford Still and
touch of gold orange reflection
on Army green Navy
blue, red specks
in the cloudy seam:
the eyes of the sunset
looking back at me.


2nd cup of coffee

and the last morning
yawn
as the great spider shines down
silvering the skein of ocean
divot-ed by waves moving
leisurely across the Gulf
wide as the biggest mouth
ever opened
and talking in a megaphoned
whisper
that everyone hears
but none
understand.


Wayne F. Burke's poetry has been widely published in print and online (including in LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL). He has published 8 poetry collections and one book of short stories. He lives in Vermont.

Five Poems by Russell Rowland

 






 

 

What’s Going On?

 

 

Sparks flew  

as the shop clairvoyant sharpened my loppers. 

 

I asked him if the current proliferation of toads 

and mushrooms was an omen 

he cared to interpret.  He replied: “Mushrooms 

 

are just making their case for the rootless life,  

toads their case for life on the hop. 

 

But you’re right, there is something going on. 

 

Before I can even begin to envision what it is, 

let me ask you this: 

 

have you seen mourners walking the streets? 

Are everyone’s blinds closed? 

Is water turned off in the fountain downtown? 

 

Are grasshoppers dragging themselves along?” 

 

 

 

Catamount

 

 

Rumours of mountain lions, catamounts, persist 

in our eastern hills, 

like apparitions at Lourdes—though zoologists 

 

insist: that species only lives out west. 

 

True believers there are, and will always be— 

they would part the protective veil 

over that feral scowl, show sceptics the auguries, 

 

parse credible evidence from epiphanies. 

 

Fish and Game humours them: 

“It doesn’t matter what you believe—as long 

as you’re sincere.” 

 

Yet what you believe determines who you are. 

 

Some of the faithful 

have been to the holy mountain, whose height 

is whatever their hearts make it. 

 

 

 

Not Like the Good Old Days

 

 

Those woods beyond the town 

used to be as kindly as our favourite uncle—now, 

 

people come out of them 

with rashes that won’t go away, no-name diseases. 

There are mosquitoes nowadays 

 

that can bite right through two layers of clothing: 

vampire mosquitoes. 

 

People are hearing screams, 

seeing faces among the trees, and they resolve 

never to go out there again. 

 

I asked the shaman at the blade-sharpening shop 

about this.  Entering a trance, 

 

he said in altered voice: 

“If your women are acting strange, having affairs, 

is that on them, or you?” 

 

 


I Wonder What the Crows Are Thinking

 

 

A congress of them made the lawn more black 

than green just now— 

but, once I showed at the window, flew away. 

 

They may have recognized me, standing there 

in the accountability of my kind. 

 

Crows are shrewd: they can tell 

the west wind from the north, and understand 

most of what each wind tells them. 

 

I’m sure all four winds 

have had much to say of late—if less about me 

 

in particular, than about culpability in general. 

Those must be arduous 

winds to ride—for them, and for canny ravens. 

 

They are legion.  It may not 

work forever, us buying them off with roadkill. 

 

 


Hearing a Loon in the Distance

 

 

During lunch at height-of-land in the Notch, 

our attention was caught— 

 

the warble like a grieving widow who has lost 

everything, her last two pennies— 

 

yet a loon is no woodland bird. 

Then what displacement of habitat or of time 

 

were we overhearing, and why? 

Were the phantoms of every creature, extinct 

 

or endangered, now assembling to complain? 

Dodos and carrier pigeons 

 

closing in for the kill?  Then we remembered: 

off beyond the trees there lay a pond.













Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions.  His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.




 

 

Five Poems by Wayne F. Burke

  Sun Set on the Gulf I slept from midnight to 8 a.m. uninterrupted by nature or telephone. The ocean outside the hotel window looks peacefu...