Stanzaic Stylings

FALLING  (Haiku) (c) 2013 Danielle Pierre The lip of Summer Drips hot sweat from its soft flesh As we watch it Fall http://daniellepierre.net

Sycamore Street Words and music by: Kimberlye Gold/Johnny Douglas Hey Lucy Whatcha got going on girl, talk to me Tell me Some people saw ya hangin' out down at the Mercury, was that you? Gettin' high off some funky vibe Ya know you never used to do that Are you stealin' yourself away, stealin' yourself away? CH: (She said) Can't be who I was before Can't go back there anymore Never wore it very well The girl I used o try to be Worked for everyone but me Pleasing everybody else Now they have to face the fact I'm never going back to SYCAMORE STREET Hey Lucy Ya cut off all your hair and tell me, where'd ya get those shoes Funny All these years that I've known ya and I swear I don't even know ya Wonder why I never saw this comin' Like some total transformation Are you stealin' yourself away, stealin' yourself away? CH: Cracks on my sidewalk Said don't think or talk t...

The Newspaper  The Long Island Railroad- all the  Dashing Dans fortresses of print- winged tabloids and fedoras the headlines splayed on the counter in the bar car-- "Headless man--found in topless Bar!" And the long scrolls of newspapers in the Boston Public Library felt like I was reading the Torah. The morning coffee, the slap of the rag on my table, my glasses-- four eyes are now part of the  ritual. At night I saw the New York Times flutter in the wind an ephemeral bird flapping toward a street light to come out of the dark. ***** Dashing Dan was an emblem on the Long Island railroad phased out in 1966. My work has appeared in Spoke, Toronto Quarterly, Poetry Bay, Rattle, Constellations and elsewhere. I am the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press and a lecturer of Creative Writing at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. I have run poetry groups for psychiatric patients at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. for over 30 years. I direct the Newton Free Library Poetry ...

OLD WEST DAYS Eerie wail from a harmonica. A little girl’s got her favorite bracelet on, charms of ponies, cowboy boots and branding irons, she’s jigging a hand- dance to hoedown music of her own. Don’t mind the smoke from the blacksmith stall, it isn’t coal like in the old days. Eerie wail of wind through distances, folks traveled so far to get here, across prairies, mountains. So much they left behind. The historical museum’s making room for more outmoded stuff from household, field, and mining claim – stamp-mill; crosscut saw; cast-iron stoves, tubs and troughs and wooden dollies for  4 a.m.  laundry; ploughs and harrows, lethal-looking farm tools for living back-when. Cast away, passed away. Eerie wail from a harmonica. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and serves as El Dorado County’s first poet laureate (2016-2018). She’s included in the anthologies Villanelles  (Everyman’s Library) a...

O STAR THISTLE They won’t sell you at nurseries, noxious weed. But you’re easy enough to find. Through long droughty summers no one waters you, yet you survive. You flourish along roadsides and give a soft jade tint to fields where every- thing else turns bone-brittle, dead and dry. You thrive. Sheep eradicate you. But they’re only an interruption. Now the sheep are gone. You creep through fences, on wind you fly like bees to hive. I crouch, Star Thistle, pulling you up by the roots, your bright yellow flower with a crown of spikes. Shall I call you sister? rejoice at your drive, your stubborn, invasive green? In a landscape burned gray- brown by the long summer sun, it’s you who look alive.  Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and serves as El Dorado County’s first poet laureate (2016-2018). She’s included in the anthologies Villanelles  (Everyman’s Library) and  California Poetry: From the Gold ...

THE BELL TOWER Homely, unpretentious, local color – the old Gold Rush tower is symbol of our town. It boosts the tourist trade, standing tall, four-square with one toe in the westbound lane. Almost as famous as the noosed effigy that hangs from an old façade a little farther west. Both part of the town’s history: the hanged man a reminder of what happened when lynching wasn’t on the judge’s docket; the fire-alarm bell, a warning that towns are flammable. Main Street burned three times  in one year . Three, like the girls lured away from the tower – now a high school meeting-place; all three girls found murdered in the forest. And still, the bell tower is voice and heart of our town, a rendezvous everybody knows; a stage for civic celebrations.  Tonight , let’s read our poems under its hanging bell, for those murdered girls; for the past no bronze bell can call back. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Ne...

CIRCUS IN THE SKY Looking up at the constellations, Stars descended into the sea, The time passed by and it was night. there was a circus in the sky, slipping trapeze contortionists and smoke filled stars exploding, tight rope walking elephants, and star-crossed lovers floating. waves filled with electricity. In the morning the sun fell in too. Frenetic violinists performed at shore. Siren songs could be heard for miles. A flying fish flew to the sky. The stars wiggled around like worms. One star froze and then the rest followed. I desired to be one of them, full of light and sparkling. I wanted to join that circus in the sky. In July 2016 Kendra Steiner Editions published my latest chapbook, Make the Light Mine.  The chapbook could be ordered through Kendra Steiner Editions, who also publish music as well. https://kendrasteinereditions. wordpress.com/2016/07/15/new- poetry-chapbook-from-luis- cuauhtemoc-berriozabal-make-...