From within or from behind,
a
light shines through us upon things
and makes us aware that we are
nothing,
but the light is all. ~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
The Light in
Ordinary
Things
SARI FRIEDMAN &
D.PATRICK MILLER, Editors
FEARLESS POETRY SERIES
VOLUME 1
FEARLESS BOOKS
BERKELEY, CA
FIRST EDITION
September 2009
Copyright © 2009 Fearless Books.
Exclusive electronic edition by Smashwords.
Individual poem rights are retained by the authors.
No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner without
written permission of the publisher except
in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles
and reviews. Inquiries
should be addressed to
Fearless Books, PO Box 1292,
Berkeley CA
94701.
Design, Photography, & Typography
by
D. Patrick Miller
REPRINT CREDITS • bruce bawer: “the view from an airplane at night, over california” originally appeared in the anthology of magazine verse and yearbook of american poetry. “saxophone” originally appeared in pequod. Both “the view from an airplane at night, over california” and “saxophone” have also appeared in coast to coast, story line press, brownsville, or. • maril crabtree: “on fire” first appeared in downgo sun; “clutch” first appeared in potpourri literary magazine. • peggy douglas: “where i come from” originally appeared in the maypop online literary journal of the tennessee writers alliance. • melissa guillet: “the memory garden” first appeared in appleseeds, or, how we got here (sacred fools press, 2008).• charles hansmann: “the recycling center” first appeared in contemporary haibun online. • arthur winfield knight: “hard cider” appeared in the august 2009 issue of poetry now (sacramento, ca). • christina lovin: “a small universe” first appeared in presence. “creature comforts” originally appeared in crab creek review. “bucket man,” “creature comforts,” and “a small universe” all appeared in little fires, finishing line press, georgetown, ky. • elisavietta ritchie: “just before sunset” appeared in lalithamba, 2007. • myra sklarew: “in the trail of the slug” originally appeared in lithuania: new & selected poems, azul editions, washington, d.c. • sheila mullen twyman: “nothing lasts, nothing is lost” and “burnt offerings” appeared in nothing lasts, nothing is lost. “burnt offerings” first appeared in city lights, beachcomber press, scituate, ma. • jeff walt: “smokers on break” appeared in alehouse review, 2006; “best man” appeared in poetic voices without borders (gival press, 2005).
Introduction …. D. Patrick Miller
Stay
…. Sylvia
Merrill Beaupré
Where I Come From …. Peggy Douglas
We Turn as One …. Connie Cronin
The View from an Airplane at Night, Over California
…. Bruce Bawer
Shelters …. Nancy Powell
Delivery …. Aidan Baker
In
the Trail of the Slug …. Myra Sklarew
Smokers on Break …. Jeff Walt
What Ants Know …. Claudia B. Van Gerven
Creature Comforts …. Christina Lovin
Folding Sheets …. Jessica Heriot
Nothing Lasts; Nothing is Lost …. Sheila Mullen Twyman
Dog Park …. P.A. Flaherty Pagan
To My Coffee …. Sari Friedman
In Retrospect …. Marjorie Bruhmuller
The Knob …. Judith Bader Jones
Crossword Puzzles …. Nancy Powell
Practicality …. Sarah Green
The Koan …. P.D. Casteel
Visitation …. Pamela Malone
Switchboard …. Linda Casebeer
Tennesseans …. Peggy Douglas
Old Man’s Bones Blooms …. Claudia B. Van Gerven
Post-It Note …. P. D. Casteel
Best Man …. Jeff Walt
The Fence Around the Public
Garden …. Martha Miller
Nature Moret Au Panier …. Joan Gelfand
No Repair …. Wendy Patrice Williams
Pea Soup …. Connie Cronin
Saxophone …. Bruce Bawer
Saturday …. Elaine Shea
Eating Leftovers …. Kathleen Galvin Grimaldi
Queens
Vision, 1983 …. Max Reif
The Dirty Truth About Toast …. Stan Friedman
Tool Chanting …. Peggy Douglas
Goldfish …. Linda Casebeer
Blessed City …. Rowan Hagen
The People I Meet …. Max Reif
Walking on Apples …. Jeffery Beam
I am …. Susan Dugan
The Recycling Center …. Charles Hansmann
First Snow …. Vanessa Gabb
Pastime …. Stan Friedman
Bucket Man …. Christina Lovin
Childhood …. Vanessa Gabb
Just Before Sunset …. Elisavietta Ritchie
Gift
…. Wally Swist
Pine Island Reveille …. Karla Linn Merrifield
The Memory Garden …. Melissa Guillet
A Small Universe …. Christina Lovin
On
Fire …. Maril Crabtree
Burnt Offerings …. Sheila Mullen Twyman
The Window Shade …. Nancy Powell
Clutch …. Maril Crabtree
Rainbow
…. Jen Kindbom
The Broken Flower …. Jeffery Beam
Seeds
…. K. Biadaszkiewicz
Denouement …. Lucy Fuchs
Railway
Platform …. Laura Smyth
Hard Cider …. Arthur
Winfield Knight
Coda …. Sari Friedman
Notes on the Poets
Information about Fearless Books and the Poetry Series
INTRODUCTION
I HAVE always been intrigued by the fact that when light enters the human eye, it forms an upside-down image on the retina. Fortunately, the brain automatically flips this image so we can all agree that the road is not the sky, and vice versa.
But the brain does other things
with the light that enters its
optical
portals; most significantly, it assigns meanings to everything
it
sees. If it did not, we would be paralyzed by the wealth of visual
data we received, but did not know what to do about. (Sometimes I get
that feeling anyway.) The downside of assigning meanings is that we
also do most of it automatically, generally in accordance with our
well-established expectations and prejudices. In a very real sense,
we see the world we expect to see, even if we are sometimes surprised
or shocked by it. Unless we have a discipline of learning to see
things differently, the world we behold can too easily become little
more than a series of reflections of our personal bias about what’s
worth our attention.
Poets are in the business of seeing things differently. Like photographers, they focus on a moment, a place, or an encounter which would escape most people’s attention, and assign a perspective which is personal, particular, and perhaps transcendent. Instead of a lens and Photoshop, poets use an open mind and their unique vocabulary to render a re-crafting of reality, lending a kind of immortality to a passing scene. And thus for their readers they invoke certain ideas, feelings, and meanings that we might otherwise never experience. Without fire or flashlight, a poet illuminates something unexpected within our minds; the upside-down words that our brains immediately flip become, almost as rapidly, portals to an expanded reality. When a poet is both technically proficient and genuinely inspired, he or she lights up a whole new world for you.
For the first volume in the
biannual Fearless Poetry Series, Sari Friedman and I decided to seek
poems about everyday objects, places, or beings. Whether the poets in
this volume are focusing on doorknobs,
bedsheets, apples, or garden tools, they reveal startling and
often
soulful views of everyday phenomena. Like quantum physicists who
suspect that other dimensions lie folded within the few that are
obvious to us, these poets detect layers of meaning in surfaces that
might otherwise appear flat. They do this by giving us views that are
both personal and universal; in fact, it is the challenge of the
poet
to use the fewest possible words to create the greatest
possible connection between seemingly separated minds.
We live in a time when vast
amounts of information whizz by us constantly on our computers,
cellphones, and hi-def TVs. Some of this data is stimulating and
useful, or simply necessary for the conduct of our daily lives. As a
publisher of e-books myself, I’m not inclined to a Luddite view
that views the progress of technology as an enemy of the authentic
life. But one reason I wanted to launch this poetry series is to
remind people that one of the oldest technologies known to humankind
can still enrich our lives beyond measure. The mindful technology of
poetry does not deliver vast amounts of verbiage, graphics, or video
to our eyes at a dazzling pace; instead it focuses
our attention
on one chosen subject in order to deepen and nourish our
sensibilities. As much as newer technologies can dazzle and
fascinate, they generally do not enlighten. That invaluable service
is the deepest calling of the poet, the kind of person who bothers to
pause in the rush of everyday life and take note of the light in
ordinary things.
— D. Patrick Miller
September 2009
SYLVIA MERRILL BEAUPRÉ
Stay
Stay with me,
light on the bare-limbed tree,
light on the disappearing road
beyond my window,
on the sludge of soiled snow
at the driveway’s edge.
Stay in slants across the kitchen counter,
the useful sink, the necessary stove;
melt last night’s spattered grease,
harden the stray kernel
that over blue-tipped flame
leapt from the pan;
trace the smudge of lips
across the rim of glass.
Stay in living room patches;
articulate the dust gathered
on windowsill, table, chair
until it speaks,
tells old stories;
track the living beams
that hold up the ceiling,
the roof and sky.
Stay with me as I stand, sit, walk
or kneel to scrub a stain;
stay as I lie
on my narrow bed
and shield my eyes.
Stay
the way the dog stays
steadfast, patient, warm
_________________________________________________________
PEGGY DOUGLAS
Where I Come From
Afternoon rains slowly released downtown
from the summer’s sweltering grip,
steam rose from damp asphalt, blanketing
roads in the syrupy scents of petroleum.
I paused at the stop sign in my Chevy Corvair,
noticed the weather-beaten woman,
face drawn and wrinkled with age,
taking communion from a casual breeze.
From the upstairs window of her faded
clapboard apartment, I could see matted hair
tipped back against the headboard,
cigarette stub squeezed between her teeth.
I imagined her blowing troubles away
in rings of clouds, one after another,
through hole after hole, until I sped away.
It meant nothing to me at the time,
only later would I call her beautiful,
as are all true reflections
where I come from.
_________________________________________________________
CONNIE CRONIN
We Turn As One
the geraniums
dying in the frost
send a fragrance
so sweet and sharp
we turn as one
two days later
our son is born
and does not breathe —
for endless frozen minutes
he hovers between worlds
today we turn again
to follow his smallest movements —
every one as precious, as intense
as the last breath of
geraniums in the cold
_________________________________________________________
BRUCE BAWER
The
View from an Airplane at Night,
over California
This is a sight that Wordsworth never knew,
whether looking down from mountain, bridge, or hill:
An endless field of lights, white, orange, and blue,
as small and bright as stars, and nearly still,
but moving slowly, many miles below,
in blackness, as stars crawl across the skies,
and ranked in rows that stars will never know,
like beads strung on a thousand latticed ties.
Would even Wordsworth, seeing what I see,
know that these lights are not well-ordered stars
that have been here a near-eternity,
but houses, streetlights, factories, and cars?
Or has this slim craft made too high a leap
above it all, and is the dark too deep?
_________________________________________________________
NANCY POWELL
Shelters
A response to the painting
“Shelters”
by Jim Dees, a Hampton, VA artist
I guess it depends on where you go
or what you do, or what makes you
take cover, or duck for cover, or hide out,
and then it becomes what you need
to cover yourself with — the boards of an
old house, the nails rusted and painted over,
the lane of long grass smelling of buttercups,
a blue tarp that doesn’t let you breathe well,
a box at the 7-Eleven, behind the dumpster,
or the memory of a place — fields,
green with spring, a sky colored gray,
fitted with orange at the end of the day,
a house, small, square, the door shut tight
against the wind in winter, the windows,
open to the breezes of Summer. The smell
of apples in a row, wild strawberries
just over the hill, close enough to walk to
without shoes, or the quilt Grandma made,
soft as old cheeks, weathered with chores
done before sunrise, or a painting with a name
the dictionary defines with words like “haven,”
and “refuge,” and it stops you, because the
air has chilled and your church is serving soup
tonight and showers tomorrow at the YMCA,
and your memory finds the shacks along
the Hudson River and the cardboard blankets
that didn’t have fine needle stitches joining
squares of blue and green colors that wash
the painting before you, and wrap you tightly
to this spot the artist sees.
As you pick up a pen, turn the heat up to write,
think about a young boy in Iraq wearing
Kevlar and a tank, and let your breath out,
trying not to remember a dictionary’s words,
and reluctantly, cover yourself
with the time you are living in.
_________________________________________________________
AIDAN BAKER
Delivery
The paving stones through leather hit
the pain upwards into the feet.
Church magazines weigh heavy on
strained arms that long to lay them down.
Sensible letter-boxes hold
roughly the same height as a hand,
lie horizontal in the door,
and open outwards into air.
They’ll accept A4 whole and then
let their flaps’ weight drop shut again.
We find such boxes and rejoice,
going like post from house to house.
Others we have to kneel to, fight
aggressive metal, twist to fit.
The force of any letter-box
holds both sides of the paradox
of barriers. We see them be.
We see them open sesame.
We see their need for both of those.
We see them close. Their need to close.
_________________________________________________________
MYRA SKLAREW
In the Trail of the Slug
It’s
a patient trail, scrolling
off the stone walk
in a curve. I try to imagine
what the slug thought: Enough
on this grayblue step, the cold
pouring into my moist belly.
Let me bury my face in green.
And once down on the earth it spreads
its skirts, its beveled edges
the way the manta rays ripple their lovely
edges, their protein wings through
the sea. Or like the delicate clitoris
as it rises like sea grass from between
the labia, probing the golden
air. Like that. There is something sexual
about the nakedness of the slug.
Its skin missing. Like our clothes
fallen away beyond us. Or the way we have lost
our boundaries and driven into one another
beyond all that separates us.
Like that. That something so vulnerable, so
open could survive in the world.
_________________________________________________________
JEFF WALT
Smokers on Break
Reeking of nicotine, coatless
in the cold, we lounge
in a doorway,
a few scant minutes
of kinship and bitching.
Nooses loosen and halos dissolve—
smoke shaking its hips
from tips of cigarettes
like a genie escaping
her bottle. We wish
for tanned, tropical lives,
but get the office
carpet, frayed and stained, tired
Muzak droning down
the halls. Between puffs and sighs,
we fantasize
of sitting eight hours in bodies
that won’t weep
for codeine, scheme excuses
to call in sick, rehearse
scratchy voices
as we choke down hits
of swirling, conspiring joy.
Soon we’ll go back
to our cubicles, framed faces
of kids, lovers we seldom see;
back to glaring
computers screens and the demanding
ring of telephones where we’ll clamp down
with headsets, longing
for our discarded loves
lying on the hard pavement,
each bright eye slowly fading.
_________________________________________________________
CLAUDIA B. VAN GERVEN
What Ants Know
This is how the story gets told: The Queen drags her flaccid, fecund
belly into the larva chamber to the commotion of drones
dressed up in their best black suits and aerial brag.
The woeful, sexless workers lick pupae, or ceaselessly
rearrange the Empress’s thousand shoes,
or — depending on the regime of this particular Geographic
Special — wave upon wave of bright disciplined faces purge
the countryside. Marvels of order and efficiency, squadrons of
workers march for the glory of some cultural revolution.
But group mind is more cockamamie, more sumptuous.
It goes like this: a lone ant randomly scurrying stumbles
on something that rattles his exoskeleton — a bit
of stale bun, a dollop of fresh dog dung, the odd leg
of a dead grasshopper —
whatever stops an ant dead in its tracks. He shimmies, emitting
rhapsodic ant noises till he bumps into another ant.
He does a little dance, waving his antennae frantically
till they are both enflamed Pentecostals.
Or failing that, he scours Antland till he meets a fellow arthropod,
picks him up in two of his six legs, carries him to the site
of the stunning beauty, and drops him with a flourish,
as if to say, “See! Look at that! Isn’t it splendid?”
Now both ants squirm with raptures till ant after ant is drawn
into their field of pleasure. They walk on each other’s backs, swarm
the treasure, murmuring a hymn to which every ant knows the chorus.
Every ant understands that this is now, that chaos is
generous, that we are always alone, that we are all
in this together.
_________________________________________________________
CHRISTINA LOVIN
Creature Comforts
Because I could not feed the world
I threw crumbs and peelings to the birds
and gave my little dog the all-but-finished dinner
plate, on which I’d left a cube of meat,
a gravy smear.
Because I could not clothe all children
I tied scraps of sturdy corduroy to trees
and scattered bits of ribbon on the rising wind
from which the wrens could weave a cozy nest
for naked young.
Because I could not find a home for all
who sleep and weep beneath an arch of bridge
in boxes stuffed with rags and grief,
I piled an extra fork of straw in stalls