April’s prompt from YCP is, “In my heart, I knew….”
Leon Petty
Fisherman
Take care USA
that your poets endure
For it’s they that hold onto
It’s they that hold onto
your myths
Rock of Ages
Rock Rock
Rock of Ages
All the Gods
all the heavens
all the worlds roil
within them
All the worlds roil
within them
I am wheeling
I am whirling
their impossible dreams
And to bare the abyss
they must perch on their whales
Perch perch on their whales
I am fishing
I am fishing
My hook going down
Down down and down
and up comes the myth
Yup up comes the myth
from the sea and its swaying
Be sure USA
that your poets endure
For the world is inflating
The world is inflating
Holly Holy
Holly Holy
Boom Boom Boom
Shaboom
Ricardo Chama
The Poem
Me pregunto y les pregunto
Cuando miles de pensamientos
nacen temprano con el alba
y miles de reflexiones
invaden mi nada…
Me pregunto
en el hoy aquí,
por qué descartamos
lo que fuimos,
por qué olvidamos
de dónde vinimos.
Lejos está el allá,
lo que dejamos años atrás,
aquel remoto, distante ayer.
Y en este adrede ignorar,
me vuelvo a preguntar:
Por qué abandonamos
la textura de lo que hicimos
el color de lo que fuimos.
Y les pregunto,
por qué ya escondemos
ese antes,
por que vivimos solamente
este ahora.
Y les vuelvo a preguntar
Qué nos vislumbra el presente
Qué esperamos de un después.
¿Por qué desterramos
aquel añejo suceder?
Si pudiéramos,
¿borraríamos lo que fuimos?
¿dejaríamos lo que nos honró
para transitar por lo que
creemos que ahora somos?
Y si pudiéramos,
¿erradicaríamos el pasado
para vernos tan blancos como
la espuma de un mar ajeno?
Preguntémonos:
¿Cambiaríamos?
por aquellos que nos miran
por aquellos que nos critican
por aquellos que nos juzgan
por aquellos que nos difaman
por aquellos que viven
de la miel de nuestras abejas.
Y si no lo hacemos:
¿Todavía tendríamos vergüenza
de la manera en qué nos
percibimos?
¿Y qué?
Ricardo Chama
The Poem
(English translation by Olivia Hernández)
I ask myself and I ask you
When thousands of thoughts
are born along with the dawn
and thousand of reflections
invade my mind from nowhere…
I ask myself
today
and now
why we rule out
who we were,
why we forget
where we came from.
Far away and far off
from what we left behind years ago,
from a remote, distant yesterday,
and what we still deliberately ignore,
I return to my question:
Why do we abandon
the texture of what made us
the very color of where we come from?
And I ask you
why do we still hide from
the past
why do we only live for today
I return to my question,
if we glimpse the present,
if we hope for tomorrow,
then we do we dismiss
our past?
If we were able,
would we erase who we were?
Would we leave behind
everything that helped us to become
who we believe we are today?
And if we were able,
would we excavate the past
in order to see ourselves
as white as the foam on a
far away coast?
I ask of us:
Should we change who we are?
For those who watch us
For those that critique us
For those that judge us
For those that hurt us
For those living in a land of milk and honey.
And if we choose not to change:
Will we still be ashamed
because of the way they see us?
And should it even matter?
Linda C. Brown
Documentary
This photo is empty
The house, too. No one home.
The refrigerator empty
no milk,
no lettuce
or tomatoes
no bread
or brisket
scraps all thrown away
a once greasy frying pan
washed, dried, put away
forgotten.
In the garage no blue Buick
with out-of-state plates
no lawn mower caked
with dried Bermuda grass,
no pruning sheers
or edging tools, rusted
abandoned they now hang
in a stranger’s storage shed.
The cement floor has been
swept clean of rainbows
stains scrubbed clean and dry.
In this photo no family
gathers around a mahogany table
no canapés sit on silver trays
no circles of wine on white tablecloths.
No lipstick smears on bone china cups.
What remains? A glossy 4×6
of nothing, faded memories
of a life that might have been.
Elaine Smith
A sneakstorm
after Maxine Kumin
is a March rain shower
comes while you’re sleeping.
You hear it, maybe, if your sleep is restless.
Or maybe not. Only, if not,
it slips into your dreams.
The sky is clear when you go to bed,
but you wake knowing it has come and gone.
It must have rattled the roof
fallen past the open window,
trees soughing
eaves dripping.
Or you know because you smell
damp earth in the air before
you’re quite awake.
Or really, you know only later,
after the morning rush
when you see
darkened earth in the flower beds,
darkened wood of the porch.
These sneak storm dreams refresh the day,
dreams of grief and loss,
a liquid change in the present moment,
sap-like,
always too little, always unremembered,
not at your bidding but never exhausted,
unstaunched as rising tree sap
greening the peach snag.