New Writer's Showcase at Poet's Ink

Poet's Ink Review

February 2008

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Haiku #673B

Mourning Doves' soft calls
echo across the still lake
this winter morning

Christine Bruness,

Christine Bruness is an author, artist, and teacher. She knows that peace must begin within and has embraced and attained this wonderful state of being.

The Sea

The tormented, stormy sea
Throwing up foamy waves
Fluorescent for an instant
Along the battered coastline
Swirling, heaving, spraying
Emptying itself into the night
Swallowing the rain with force
Only to throw it back again
Lightning, thunder add distress
As the wind skips across the sea
The sky and sea are in unison
Suffering together in noisy torment
The currents cramping undertow
Unseen murky, retching turmoil
Constantly swaying back and forth
Has bad weather made the sea sick

Delia J. Fry

Delia lives in O'Fallon, Missouri. She is an artist, musician and writer. Her artwork has been featured as Christmas cards for the American Diabetes Association. Her poetry has been featured in various magazines and internet sites. "The Sea” was published in the November 2007 issue of Poetic Hours magazine.

Life with a Candle

I want to marry this field
Truly and simply
With its wings curving the corners
And its smoothness stunning my knees
My heart is here far around me
And it’s humming and leaning -
Even the trifling breeze

I want this field for my living
To vow to its edges
That nothing comes true
Without greening
Nothing seems as bold as my longings
Except sloping
Nothing wakes on my shoulder
But rustling
I hope the strangest hopes in this field
Ever bending

From here
I know that this much of my all is clear -
Before there were hills
Or even eyes to up over
There was a distance beyond us
A long far away that can never come near
There was wishing

I want to carry this field
In my arms
By its being and dust
To a maybe that’s certain
So our future flickers on grasses
And our children will wave from the clouds.

Hiram Larew

Previously published in Innisfree. All rights retained by author.
“Life with a Candle” was previous published in Innisfree. Hiram’s work has appeared in several poetry journals and books. His most recent collection, More than Anything, was published in 2007 (www.vrzhu.com). He lives in Maryland and directs international farming programs for the government.

Drying

At seven o'clock the morning
begins its quiet attempt to nourish
our parched affection.
The birds are set singing in Brooklyn,
flying on wispy wings.

I can't help but search the reds
of your eyes while a lemon
sits drying, dark
and mapped with black and shrunken pores,
the still air flecked with rind.

A dog cries, its mouth full of footsteps
on the bottleglass as the shards
fall from your eyes.
I say
I can't beg you to be kind.

Mary Block

Mary is originally from Miami, Florida. She is a recent graduate of Boston College, where her poetry was published in several student publications, including Stylus, Naked Singularity, and The Laughing Medusa. Her work has recently been featured in the journal Down in the Dirt.

Praying for Rain

The sun began its incessant monologue
Just after your grandma
Tried to over-correct the car as it veered
Toward the passing lane.
Three rotations later you slept so deeply
That even the fact your arm
Parted company from your body
Did not disturb your dreams of rain.
Across the state we all prayed for a sudden miracle
As the sun bleached the grass
Into shades of death.
Yet the sky retained its azure composure
And you sleptB
Your twin sister watched the skyB
The changing mystery of gentian
Much like her eyes and yours.
Inside your ICU cubicle,
The monitor proclaimed your continued heartbeat
As though the sun could not bleach the blueness
From your eyes
Despite the way the heat had discolored the
Dying landscape.
Inside your home, your mother
Watered your memory with tears,
Struggling to save the withering green
Of who you once were.
She spoke your name as though you could hear
And watched the sky
Until rain finally came
From a cobalt heaven you had dreamed about
Before consciousness peeled away the paper-thin living
Of your coma
And beneath the sounds of your parents happy tears
You heard the gentle tapping of raindrops
Upon glass.

Maria Rachel Hooley

Maria’s my poetry has been published in magazines such as HazMat, Westview, and Kimera.

These Hands

have done what yours have not.

When barely four years old
these hands gripped with unnatural strength
the warm handle of a machete,
and for that year I would scream
whenever my parents tried to pry away the blade.
These hands

have done what yours have not.

These, in 1994, in an animal shelter in New Mexico
held puppies and feral kittens
every Wednesday for 4 months
as they shook their last, euthanized.

These in Utrecht outside Amsterdam
drew rainwater into the silver
of a syringe, quivering
like silverfish dying
for the ocean;
for the womb.

In a desert outside Tucson , Arizona
while waiting for the border patrol to pass,
hidden in a cowl of nightshade, these
touched in between the mean spikes of a barrel cactus.

These hands slit a sheep’s white throat;
held the blade and understood how it is
to be the white whorl of an ear.

These stole and handed
tiger lillys to a small dark girl named Celia
who was so short the crown of her skull
came only to my sternum.

These same smoothed cocoa butter
around the burl of Tamar’s almond shoulders;
in California touched and burst the hot tear
on the lip of an elfin woman when she lost our child.

Eyes on every tip like the pavanii
of peacock feathers, these drew back from touch
though they needed so badly…so women ran
like sand through the fingers
of these hands.

These hands cut ginger.
The left broke on a man’s face
and later again on the steel of a penitentiary bed.

Memories begin to bleed away now like crayons
melting down the landscape of my survivor’s face.
I look down and see
these hands are mine.

These frail hands have lost hold of god,
yet are strong enough to hold you.

James Anderson

In april 2001 James was arrested for transportation of marijuana and sentenced to 6.5 years in a state prison. He was released on january 10th 2008. Much of James’ work deals with the difficulties of staying human in an inhuman environment-a subject not limited to prison-and to the essential loneliness of awareness. His work has been published in a number of literary journals including Antipodes and Walking Rain Review.

An Isolated Incident on a Random Street Corner

Christ
Was nailed to the same spot
In the kitchen for as
Long as I care to remember.
On the morning of the day after,
The gas range was burning blue
Shadows of the crucifixion
Along the cold, faded walls.
He understood pain better than most
And I truly believe
The departure of Daniel was not
In vain for I have come to
Understand that the lessons of redemption
Sometimes are in need of
A visual aid.

Brian Mayer

This poem previously appeared in Transcendent Visions.