_
Ode to Andromache
Kelly Konya
Soft, flowing ringlets upon your shoulders,
Dipping into the creases of his furrowed neck;
Baby’s eyes as bleak as your poor husband’s fate,
In Troy, such love to befall such a wreck.
You choke as if your throat was too thrashed;
That cry--Oh Andromache, save those tears!
Your heart must go on, you’ll find some way;
Pray to the gods the news never reached your ears!
Curl up with Astyanax: hold him close
For pain and labor will plague all his days;
He’ll never be able to measure up to his father,
He’ll never yet learn the Trojan ways.
But now by the beaked ships: your husband,
Dead to this world and alive in another;
Stand tall, hold your own, Oh woman of Troy,
Not any longer a wife, but still a mother.
Silk robes to wipe your diluted eyes,
Heaps of plunder surrounding your bed;
You cannot go on in this misery forever,
You must avert the sorrow from your sweet head.
Recapture the memories; relive the past;
Though we dread it, love sadly comes and goes;
Some will pity him, true, but none will feel
The withering of your heart like a numb, parched rose.
Oh Andromache, how you mourn and how I feel your strain,
Your heart leaping to your throat, the ache in your veins;
All alone? How could it be? It happens to the best of us,
But a first love never dies, nor its tragedy, nor its lust.
I see it in the stars, your longing and your woe,
A loss of a spouse is one I hope to never know;
War is menacing, and for Hector you’ve yearned,
The love that lasts longest is the love never to be returned.
Kelly Konya
Soft, flowing ringlets upon your shoulders,
Dipping into the creases of his furrowed neck;
Baby’s eyes as bleak as your poor husband’s fate,
In Troy, such love to befall such a wreck.
You choke as if your throat was too thrashed;
That cry--Oh Andromache, save those tears!
Your heart must go on, you’ll find some way;
Pray to the gods the news never reached your ears!
Curl up with Astyanax: hold him close
For pain and labor will plague all his days;
He’ll never be able to measure up to his father,
He’ll never yet learn the Trojan ways.
But now by the beaked ships: your husband,
Dead to this world and alive in another;
Stand tall, hold your own, Oh woman of Troy,
Not any longer a wife, but still a mother.
Silk robes to wipe your diluted eyes,
Heaps of plunder surrounding your bed;
You cannot go on in this misery forever,
You must avert the sorrow from your sweet head.
Recapture the memories; relive the past;
Though we dread it, love sadly comes and goes;
Some will pity him, true, but none will feel
The withering of your heart like a numb, parched rose.
Oh Andromache, how you mourn and how I feel your strain,
Your heart leaping to your throat, the ache in your veins;
All alone? How could it be? It happens to the best of us,
But a first love never dies, nor its tragedy, nor its lust.
I see it in the stars, your longing and your woe,
A loss of a spouse is one I hope to never know;
War is menacing, and for Hector you’ve yearned,
The love that lasts longest is the love never to be returned.
_
Buenos
Aires
Katie Haemmerle
Welcome those fair winds and
Leave all else behind.
Set sail towards uncharted places, toss the
Telescope and map written for everyone else.
I use my own eyes to search for lamps at sea.
All will be extinguished; stars die too.
I lie upon my back, succumbing to the only
Rhythm I want to bear.
The waves continue to make their
Narrow curving mounds on the seafloor.
Rain will fall upon me in the night
And I will receive it with indifference.
I no longer feel anything. Clouds rove
Past and I search again for constellations,
The myths of Greeks, Romans, and mariners.
But tonight there are only three stars. The rest
Have been erased and it’s back to three.
Their myths do not determine anything.
I keep searching but stop because I have
Learned how delusion, that affliction of mine,
Does not hide the strangled stars that sank below
Me. The sky and I are the same, hollowed out
And empty . So much is myth covered
In a fervent shroud of fabricated truth.
Those fair winds aren’t so kind after all,
Only a mere legend circulating because of the
Burden of proof. Everything has been left behind
Or drowned, actions that stemmed from irrevocable choices.
I feared the ropes that now choke the mast, but the
Water holds me safely, for no one owns the ocean.
Katie Haemmerle
Welcome those fair winds and
Leave all else behind.
Set sail towards uncharted places, toss the
Telescope and map written for everyone else.
I use my own eyes to search for lamps at sea.
All will be extinguished; stars die too.
I lie upon my back, succumbing to the only
Rhythm I want to bear.
The waves continue to make their
Narrow curving mounds on the seafloor.
Rain will fall upon me in the night
And I will receive it with indifference.
I no longer feel anything. Clouds rove
Past and I search again for constellations,
The myths of Greeks, Romans, and mariners.
But tonight there are only three stars. The rest
Have been erased and it’s back to three.
Their myths do not determine anything.
I keep searching but stop because I have
Learned how delusion, that affliction of mine,
Does not hide the strangled stars that sank below
Me. The sky and I are the same, hollowed out
And empty . So much is myth covered
In a fervent shroud of fabricated truth.
Those fair winds aren’t so kind after all,
Only a mere legend circulating because of the
Burden of proof. Everything has been left behind
Or drowned, actions that stemmed from irrevocable choices.
I feared the ropes that now choke the mast, but the
Water holds me safely, for no one owns the ocean.
_
I Have and Have Not
Mandy Shaffer Gair
(True confessions of a middle aged woman trying to find her Zen.)
I have had an AK47 assault rifle pointed at my chest by a paranoid drug addict.
I have counted two convicted murderers among my friends (before they knew they were murderers).
I have slept in a dockworker’s shed on the bank of the Irish Sea with two strangers (both male) because we all missed the last ferry out of Larne that day.
I have slept in parks and train stations.
I have received a proposal of marriage, via a letter from Spain, from a member of the Gambino crime family.
I have been interviewed by Detective Sackett of the Rochester, Minnesota Police Department after my name flew over INTERPOL and landed on his desk.
[I would assume that] I have a file somewhere deep in the musty basement of an FBI office.
I have been mentioned in the “thanks to” notes on the back of at least a few punk rock albums.
I have, without exception, recklessly pursued lovers and changed direction in life with no regard for my own well-being.
I have loved many times, but never as fully as I should have.
I have watched too much television, I have read too few important books; I have enjoyed too much red wine and crappy food.
I have often lived my life mindlessly and without purpose.
I have nourished two tiny new humans, first of my body, then of my breast, and now of my heart and mind, and that is both the best and the worst thing I have ever done.
I have scattered random acts of kindness upon the world, but too few and far between.
I have remained devoted only to my habit of smiling at strangers often and forcefully.
And so,
And yet,
And thus,
I have not.
Mandy Shaffer Gair
(True confessions of a middle aged woman trying to find her Zen.)
I have had an AK47 assault rifle pointed at my chest by a paranoid drug addict.
I have counted two convicted murderers among my friends (before they knew they were murderers).
I have slept in a dockworker’s shed on the bank of the Irish Sea with two strangers (both male) because we all missed the last ferry out of Larne that day.
I have slept in parks and train stations.
I have received a proposal of marriage, via a letter from Spain, from a member of the Gambino crime family.
I have been interviewed by Detective Sackett of the Rochester, Minnesota Police Department after my name flew over INTERPOL and landed on his desk.
[I would assume that] I have a file somewhere deep in the musty basement of an FBI office.
I have been mentioned in the “thanks to” notes on the back of at least a few punk rock albums.
I have, without exception, recklessly pursued lovers and changed direction in life with no regard for my own well-being.
I have loved many times, but never as fully as I should have.
I have watched too much television, I have read too few important books; I have enjoyed too much red wine and crappy food.
I have often lived my life mindlessly and without purpose.
I have nourished two tiny new humans, first of my body, then of my breast, and now of my heart and mind, and that is both the best and the worst thing I have ever done.
I have scattered random acts of kindness upon the world, but too few and far between.
I have remained devoted only to my habit of smiling at strangers often and forcefully.
And so,
And yet,
And thus,
I have not.
_
Spring
Jerome L. McElroy
One April afternoon
spring winds wrestled winter down.
The sapsucker’s distant quill
almost in deep woods lost
said the deed was done.
Then dogwood blooms danced in air
washed in cherry blossom fall.
Early robins speared the earth
never doubting promises
jubilee was on.
Jerome L. McElroy
One April afternoon
spring winds wrestled winter down.
The sapsucker’s distant quill
almost in deep woods lost
said the deed was done.
Then dogwood blooms danced in air
washed in cherry blossom fall.
Early robins speared the earth
never doubting promises
jubilee was on.
_
Utopia
Katie Haemmerle
Smoke stacks and bricks rest
Upon a hill in the distance,
Always visible through an early morning
Haze hiding the sparse foliage.
A thick haze evident only
To some, a haze covering
Your many imperfections
That you fail to recognize.
You wrap yourselves in that
Misty haze of conformity,
And, settled upon a hill,
You look down upon those
Strong enough to trudge through
Torrents at the foot of your hill of
Mismatched blocks, those whose
Desires and principles threaten to
Crack and crumble the cement holding those old bricks of
Supposed harmony and absolute truth together.
Katie Haemmerle
Smoke stacks and bricks rest
Upon a hill in the distance,
Always visible through an early morning
Haze hiding the sparse foliage.
A thick haze evident only
To some, a haze covering
Your many imperfections
That you fail to recognize.
You wrap yourselves in that
Misty haze of conformity,
And, settled upon a hill,
You look down upon those
Strong enough to trudge through
Torrents at the foot of your hill of
Mismatched blocks, those whose
Desires and principles threaten to
Crack and crumble the cement holding those old bricks of
Supposed harmony and absolute truth together.
_Dad
Rosemary Franzen
This is what I remember.
What I have left of you.
You taught me to dance
When I was only five.
I would stand on your feet
And hold on for dear life
As you spun in your socks,
Sliding on the laminate floor.
You smelled of oil and sweat.
And the work shirt you wore
Chafed against my forehead
As you showed me the waltz.
But I did not care,
Even when you slipped
For want of sleep.
This is what I treasure
Long after the heart stopped
That echoed against my ear in time.
Rosemary Franzen
This is what I remember.
What I have left of you.
You taught me to dance
When I was only five.
I would stand on your feet
And hold on for dear life
As you spun in your socks,
Sliding on the laminate floor.
You smelled of oil and sweat.
And the work shirt you wore
Chafed against my forehead
As you showed me the waltz.
But I did not care,
Even when you slipped
For want of sleep.
This is what I treasure
Long after the heart stopped
That echoed against my ear in time.