Backbone > Poetica

Eited by Phil Levine

Blatant self-promotion: “Poetica at Ariel”: Friday, April 30, 7pm. Ariel Booksellers, 3 Plattekill Ave., New Paltz. (845) 255-8041.

Join Chronogram’s poetry editor Phillip Levine for an evening of inspired verse straight from the pages of Chronogram. Four of the Hudson Valley’s finest poets-Celia Bland, Janice King, Will Nixon, and Philip Pardi-will give a free reading in celebration of April is National Poetry Month.

Hunting for The Great Blue Whale

No one can say when a whale will come
blow a stream—
only old fishermen
bone in their coats
black on froze railing
days out to sea
wet and shiny arms
say they can feel
a school brood
underneath the ship.

I never have felt but one
and that one left me
only a mouthful of sand
in my drying hand
wet and some light on the salt
and the drying burns.

Not every whale you can find
will take well to paint.
Some are blank white and the light
rolls right off of them
leaving a point in your hand
wet and dripping fat
but no skin dragged back to land
full of food for dawns
cold in the seasons to come
dawns undreamed of yet.

Sometimes you just sneak for song
to the close whale’s side
want to hear something belong
on that lost ocean
and clutch with deck moving on
underneath your slicks
clutch to the side of the song
what you hear of it
off of the disappeared loom
of the mamma whale—

sometimes there’s no song for days
only wide ocean
and white rocks loom dry on the bay
waiting failed fishermen.

—Atar Hadari

There once was a mayor named West
Who thought that it would be best
To wed gays like all
Within the town hall
And in doing, secured an arrest!

—Polly Kalbouss

Mimic Waltz

High heels fall
with wind below
Red mess bakes
White chalk circles
window Large
drapes dance with moon
In my room
Plath’s words mingle
waltzing me
to my oven.

—John Sipowicz

Alms at Jaffa

remember their hands
outstretched among vendors
among tourists and hard-eyed young men
no cleaner than the street
no softer
awaiting coins
kindnesses known by their feel
lira shillings dollars yen
united alms international
the phlegmy-eyed beggars of old Jerusalem
crouched against ancient stones
like low gargoyles carved from the city
by some prehistoric pilgrim
“Get a picture, Ethel. This would go great in the den.”

—David F. Van Develder

Hoboken Rising, In Memoriam

One Sunday morning,
I dumped my typed pages & White-Out,
my handwritten notes & plot summary cards,
my Bic pens, Cross pens, red pens,
Post-It pads, paper clips, manuscript binder,
candle & shot glass...
everything contaminated by frustration
dumped in a Hefty bag
propped by the parking meter
for Monday’s curbside trash.
My novel was dead.

Now I could write about jazz.

—Will Nixon