"Grandfather’s Place." by Mike Burke

"There was a kind of plenary indulgence to be gained 

in the distant viewing of it's familiar presence." 

© Mark W. Ó Brien 2016

Grandfather built this place back in the 20s barehanded, after he returned from the Great War. After being in the terrible, muddy, deadly trenches he said he need a lot of open space with a grand view. His father had willed him a piece of property that met his needs. His two brothers helped him hauling the materials in the farm wagons with the work horses Duke, Nipper Otis and Shelby.

As he got older he would sit in his lawn chair every chance he got, transfixed, gazing over the fields to the tall silent mountains in the distance. He didn’t want to be disturbed.

When grandfather died he was buried in the field behind the shed along the stone wall facing the mountains he loved, next to his faithful workhorses Duke, Nipper Otis and Shelby.

The mountains hover

Watching all that passes by

They will outlast all.

~

© Mike Burke 2017

~

Mike Burke, a blue-collar poet who winters in the nation’s oldest city and summers in a compound nestled in the Helderbergs.

"Thermodynamics." by Carolee Bennett

"...you may pass to the golden world..."

-William Blake

© Mark W. Ó Brien 2015

It doesn’t matter what the lovers question. The answers from night are the same: hoot owl, tree frog, twig-snap. A neighbor calls to her dog. A fire siren summons the men. Old songs drift out from a speaker on the porch. The lovers at their fire study each flame as inquiry: what next? what next? Too stubborn to accept they can’t see beyond. Any given ring of light narrow. The boundary quivers. Twelve miles away and three hundred sixty miles away, dystopia suggests itself to officials in the capitals. Signs of it all the way out here. On the lawns, surnames of those staking claim. But no trace of authority on the hill. And what little the creek says on the matter it mumbles. Van Morrison, the one clear voice: We were born before the wind.

His arm around her

shoulder. Her hand on his thigh.

Light on both faces.

~

© Carolee Bennett 2017

~

Carolee Bennett is an artist and poet living in Upstate New York, where – after a local, annual poetry competition – she has fun saying she has been the “almost” poet laureate of Smitty’s Tavern. 

link to my blog: https://gooduniversenextdoor.com/

plus, i rage against the man (often) & talk poetry (sometimes) on twitter: https://twitter.com/caroleebennett

Editors Note: Bennett Hill is not named after Carolee but there are those of us who would like to perpetuate that myth. ;););)

WASHTUB SPRING by Alan Casline.

In his later years and right before the cross-country trip he made, “destination” changed meaning so no longer were the mileposts counted off but instead “circle” replaced all the steps one in front of another in the way he used to carry maps and had to constantly check his pockets for the tickets he knew somewhere ahead he would need, not fresh and unfolded but crumbled and stuck with pocket debris, new dirt and fuzz of old laundry why he might be johnny appleseeding it with collected and broken flowerheads as old as just after the last time his jacket had been washed and time on from that, which he casually let fly from the pocket, he hoped held his ticket these seeds which as he plucked from where they were held in his palm pausing with a pinch between thumb and index finger and then brushing his hands together cleaning off all that were left and then taking the same two fingers and displaying to his eyes the ticket he was once again worried about missing his connection and it became time to speak about the silence even though to speak of silence was to end the silence he felt that yes it was time here at the beginning of the old path to a named spring to cycle the voice of his own silence to nature breathing as warm animals hid and his words were gone though you could say hid also and perhaps because there was no destination even his inner voice was silent and language in words was gone but there was the weak feeling of absence remembering words and unable to find even one just a nothing mind gone animal carcass dancing till he was there at the spring but couldn’t form his being just the black dark of silence which stirred a longing, a need which retrieved him except then his eyes blinked out and he could barely feel the wind as he fell into the mystery of time uncharted and so his hands reached out and moved in time indeterminate no longer were the breaths counted out how long unknown even the memory of movement had no word and he drank water from his cupped hands at that he again touched the world as if it were real.

He woke to the path which answered his riddle, saw middle clouds and heard Cloudpeople thrill-ride their soapbox derby cars made of tiny suspended water droplets straight into the green hillface, which called wind to wipe them off the hill’s forest chin like Shepard’s pie for lunch or vanilla ice cream on a hot day. Sheets, wisps & patches, rolls, ripples, heaps and tuffs, towers. Loggerhead came back with a new protest sign and the same hairy feet. Lumbering up and down a little switchback excuse me slipping by his rumble tale. What is the difference between memories and ghosts?  Everyone I knew walking with me on the trail again when I’m alone and want them all to shut-up. In a deep hole in the ground there is still snow, a last place to melt.

guess you don’t think the

world will end

  when you die

the little world

the perfect world

   with your life in it

~

© Alan Casline 2017

~

Alan Casline is the editor of Rootdrinker,  a long standing magazine of watershed poetics, art and nonfiction. He lives with his wife, Jennifer Pearce, in a suburban neighborhood outside of Albany, New York. 

You may order his most recent book here: http://foothillspublishing.com/2015/id96.htm

"...from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.” by Philip Good.

"...from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.”(Color.)

© Mark W. O Brian  2017

A poet takes a photograph of a mountain and the mountain wonders why. “What is all the fuss about?” said the mountain. “You make me feel closer to speaking with the angels,” replied the poet. And somewhere near the top of that mountain a lady slipper grew where no one ever saw it. One cool evening before the stars came out, a deer found that orchid and had a lovely meal. As the ridge line was defined by the glowing sky, a red tail fox ate a little rabbit.

The mountain was very proud of itself for providing a space for all this activity. Even though, the mountain wished not to be praised, it laughed with glee when the poet felt inspired to write about it. And then one day a nasty little greedy mining man came along and wanted to stick explosives in the mountain’s head. Lucky for the mountain a big black bear pawed and bit that man to death.

If a mountain touches the sky

and no one is there to see it

does it smile or scowl?

~

© Philip Good 2017

"...from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.” (Albumen print.)

© Mark W. O Brian  2017

~

Philip Good is included in Infiltration, An Anthology of Innovative Poetry from the Hudson River Valley andHelix Syntax, the 41st Summer Writing Program Magazine, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa University. You can listen to Philip Good on POET RAY'D YO —   wavefarm.org/archive/pjgxpv 

“Last Train to Clarksville” by Dan Wilcox

"Just earlier that evening."

© MarkW. Ó Brien 2015

It was a text, “Take the last train to Clarksville & I’ll meet you at the station; be there by 4:30, I’ve made your reservation.”  

Which Clarksville?  There are 22 in the U.S.  No Clarksville train station here.

I didn’t recognize the number & tried calling it.  There was a lot of noise on the other end.  I think the woman said, “I’m leaving in the morning & I must see you again.  One more night together until my train in the morning, coffee-flavored kisses, & talk.”  Then she hung up.

Perhaps I was wrong.  I got in my car & drove up into the hills to the nearest Clarksville.  I was right, no train station.  No bus station.  Just narrow, deserted country roads leading to empty fields, crumbling stone fences, old houses.  No people, except in cars on the state road.  I realized that there’s nothing you can expect to happen in any town named Clarksville.

     There is no train to

Clarksville, last or otherwise —

      Fucking lost again.

~

© Dan Wilcox 2017
~

Dan Wilcox is the host of the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center in Albany, N.Y.   

You can may read his Blog at dwlcx.blogspot.com and you can purchase his books @ apdbooks.

"Untitled." by Adam Tedesco.

"Homing" © Mark W. Ó Brien 2015

I remember something lifted from me like meaning off the morning’s dream as we entered the texture of day’s tightening loom the rub of cold wool on glass or bare wet skin the rub of time against mind through eyes staring through the field until it sees nothing.  Nothing in the mountain begs a sadness freely given. Nothing in the mountain we need to see as not to feel the difference between its life and ours. Nothing in the mountain swallows whole the thoughts of those that walk upon it as we do unto each other through the field and still we call it king this one slow moment of being outside of what we are. This is what we could have been instead of blinking our eyes.

And the language birds murmur
spits the day's end back

into the form we’re chasing  

~

© Adam Tedesco 2017

Adam Tedesco is a founder of REALITY BEACH. His poems have appeared in FENCE, Gramma and elsewhere. His new chapbook is ABLAZA.

You may also view a book release trailer for ABLAZA  Here.

"Cross Border." by Dawn Marar

"The sound and slack of it passed through me like gratitude."

-Seamus Heaney / © Mark W. Ó Brien 2016

~

Yolk of sun breaks as an incendiary inaugurates clouds of deregulated soot. Yolk of light runs energy above base overshadowed land. Fog shrouds lies. Lines ride into a black gathering storm. A million pink hats bloom: our sea of amber waves. Beloved mountain knows no boundaries of nation race gender religion; only its own: nature’s notch on the horizon. Peaking Obamaian blues. Purple majesties. Beneath roiling yolk, power lines—short the Western staff—spark a new song.

sun yolk tossed above cast iron skillet

bursting flame on

people march march

© Dawn Marar 20/Mar/17

"Theseus had his thread, I have my mountain, and it reaches out to me."

© Mark W. Ó Brien 2016

~

Dawn Marar, a Hudson Valley Writers Guild board member was the recipient of the 2016 Steven A. DiBiase Poetry Prize.