Poetry – Page 4 – Novus Literary and Arts Journal

Night to Her Birds

Written by Sujash Purna. Posted in Poetry.

on a black piece of paper

more shades of black

gliding, a stream on a map

the doodles, shapes of dreams

in quiet words

float, my traveling birds,

this February canvas

is yours, say the formidable

clouds

eyes of stars, blind

as dyed red hair, a veil

behind a grotto of gloom-

illuminate as I walk

a friend’s house calling

a studio apartment above

a Cape Air office,

eight college kids, a stray cat,

I notice north-south spanning

as if a flag bleached

underneath

as dark red and gray red

conflict for a muse

the birds in unison in a strange voice

call for a hope of a home

they will chase all their life,

with a night running after them,

the mother pleads: stay

I walk inside an aroma down

a stairway, late night curry,

my ears still ringing of that

strange call. A night to her

birds, hope you find what

you’re leaving me for

Canal

Written by Jesse Graves. Posted in Poetry.

Clouds hover low after rain,

steady enough to soften the arrival

of full dark, late spring night.

Children on the Hale Avenue corner

have gone inside, their dog quiet,

curled by the front porch door.

The listening is best early dusk,

with quiet company chosen long ago.

Old sounds return in the settle-down,

loosely-rolled cigarette crackling as I recall

how her voice shivered when first she spoke

her street address those many years back.

Time’s elision, time’s frenetic parade,

nothing suppresses the longing

to live in the pulse of that moment,

freshness filling the canal of the body,

my own heart surging with blood.

The oldest sound is made of breath.

Reverdie

Written by W. F. Lantry. Posted in Poetry.

It snowed today: at last, I understood

they were not joking when they said mid-May

would still be ice. My tender waterplants

brought up with loss of blood from Tennessee

unrooted, drape the new pond’s depth, and fish

seek what they can beneath the drowning leaves.

And so in Houston: in that summer, I

could not anticipate November frost

and planted tropicals around the ponds.

There’s sadness in a burning leaf, when ice

has broken down cell walls, and loss reveals

deficiencies of structure and design

hidden before by blossoms. I should know

to listen to the voices of a place,

to listen to her voice. But I go on:

tomorrow, miscanthus will line the edge

and give a place to rest, until what sun

this slope can promise quickens my new blood.

Aglio e Olio

Written by Alyssa Ross. Posted in Poetry.

Remember those late buttered

parmesan noodles mother made

when you were young and sick

and needed something simple?

Wednesday’s leftover cold

spaghetti reheated, worried wet

with starched water, sliced garlic,

adding an herbal handful, fever breaker.

Your mother is gone,

I am with you now.

But the bug on the page

crosses my words

with tiny feet, tearing my focus

from your desert past.

I’ll make it today –

just call me Jon Favreau.

Air bubbles surround

browning garlic, aromatic

in your small straw nest.

Sliced so dangerously thin

I clipped my talon

and felt the puncture

as I tossed bits of red pepper

in the hot, black iron.

I swirl the pasta

in your sauce. Minced

parsley, added last.

My tense hand stings again

squeezing summer lemon,

turning everything thick.

I watch your scarlet mouth

waiting on my bed.

Oil coats the corner of your open lip,

dropping your fork

to ask for more.

Moorcroft

Written by Anders Carlson-Wee. Posted in Poetry.

You gave me a ride when I was lost

in Wyoming. Took me to your home.

Showed me your gun collection

you had to go shoulder-deep through

the clothes in the closet to reach.

They were old and unloaded, you told me,

and you didn’t shoot them anymore,

just oiled them and kept them perfectly

clean. I was careful not to flinch

as I watched the double-barrel raise

and train on my face. The tooth hole

you flashed in the grin after.

The spasm in your hands as you swung

the gun and pointed it at yourself

to show evenness. You told me

about doing five years for murder,

asked if I would’ve done anything

different, finding a grown man

raping my six-year-old niece.

I wouldn’t change it, you said.

I wouldn’t take it back. You patted

your heart with your hand.

Family is family, you whispered,

as you brought me clean sheets for my bed.

Movement

Written by W. F. Lantry. Posted in Poetry.

There are no orchids here, and no long shore

teeming with raucous life, no salted wings

rising above the multicolored boats,

no overwhelming breezes, and no tides

rising, impelling everything that floats

to shore or seaward where no warbler sings,

and no palm trees, waving their endless fronds.

Instead there’s only heat: the algaed ponds

cannot reflect the sky or even trees,

birches grown bare above them, whose bare limbs

are falling constantly to riversides,

and floating downstream where a viper swims

in wait, for me or you, and all of these

impressions have combined to replicate

the feeling of an ever closing gate.

I want to leap it, get away, become

something completely other, changed somehow

just by the landscape, as my life divides

between the endless blossom and the bough,

walking in rhythm to a restless drum

to Panama, Maldive, or Singapore.