Poetry of the People with Bentz Kirby

This week's Poet of the People is local arts activist and icon, Bentz Kirby. His poetry utilizes self-examination with a dose of grace and humility and we are better for it.  Unafraid to grow, he will soon add MFA to his long list of accomplishments.

Bio: Bentz Kirby lives in the Rosewood area of Columbia, South Carolina. Educated first as a social worker and later a lawyer, he has been writing poetry since around 1969.  A survivor of a Sudden Cardiac Arrest, he is a big fan of Automated External Defibrillators. Other than enjoying life with his wife, May, their children and a brood of pets, he writes and performs music with his friends.

Failures

Failures from the past should
hold no sway in the
arena where missteps accrue.
Imagining us seated on a pew
with worshipers at Mass
or in a strict teacher’s class.
Chalise contains toxic brew,
without a promised breakthrough.
Behavior clings, bound fast
to patterns and fate cast by trauma.
Days of queued rolling rocks.
Absurd hero, false faces,
ingrained strife, prevents
pursuit of life.
These failures slice like the dull knife, or
live birth without midwife.

Infrastructure

Trauma creates defensive strategies to
Escape pain, unwelcome memories.
Strategies create mechanisms to layer
Protection on the frightened child
By forgetting unwelcome memories.
Eventually, coping mechanisms construct
An infrastructure to protect this child,
And for a while,
It works.

Eventually the child matures, but not
Beyond the fear.
This infrastructure becomes a jail,
Protection becomes an impediment
To the adult.

Yesterday resides within internal infrastructure,
Prohibiting today’s garden from growing
Unless the child can dismantle coping devices
Creating space for all desires — to blossom.

Ritual for Submission

I submit the following,
this mechanical world consumes all to
ensure your capitulation.
 
Stop, pause, listen to the magic,
whether you believe or not. Give thanks — grass, flower,
bee, hummingbird observe your response.
 
Faeries dance among stones on hillsides while you
believe in Santa Claus, but disbelieve in faeries.
Mushrooms, birds, dogs, and cats who
 
speak in the forgotten language.
Pretending you are not blind and
accommodating the unholy
 
calling you to obscure this one true language
we should hear. Religion assimilates imprinted rituals,
leaving you forever forgetting all you know.
 
until we no longer listen to the trees and
mushrooms who speak the one true language.

Theia
 
Sounds welled above labyrinth, breaking glass
Startled us, awaiting in the womb
Secured by fairies, like us, once chained,
By stunted hollow disbelief, a construct
Of Gaia, Uranus, twelve Titians and magic --
Dawn, sun, moon, gold, shining glass reveal Theia.
 
Blue-sky, wide-shining, fails to dim Theia,
She who reigns over silver, gems and glass.
Giving sight to those who seek her magic.
Eos, Helios, Selene from her womb
Reveal Titans blueprints for their construct
Obscured by disbelief and those in chains,
 
Blinded from birth and accepting our chains
Denying the glowing face of Theia.
Men attempt to create their doomed construct,
Science built to shatter myths into glass.
Umbilical torn, scattered from the womb
Blasphemers scoffing, denying real magic.
 
We obscure life, magicians lack alchemical magic,
Crafting spells while the abyss creates our chains.
Expunging knowledge existing before the womb.
We forget the Titans and gifts born by Theia,
Appropriating mirror images, breaking glass
Allowing illusions to replace the construct.
 
Illusion births illusion, we create false constructs,
Deluded generations deny unerring magic
Creating sight through a murky glass.
Leaden mental deception, conceals our chains
Restraining our eyes from perceiving Theia’s
Previous prophecies embedded within her womb.
 
Dawn, Sun, moon, children sprung forth from womb,
Light beams reveal destiny and unavoidable constructs.
Radiant intrinsic value issues forth from Theia.
Mortal men observe such light as magic

Believing removes obstructions, we are unchained,
Heroes see face to face beyond dark glass.
 
From this womb proceeds what we call magic,
From beyond this construct we are in fact unchained,
From Goddess Theia all light illuminates through glass.

Poetry of the People: Miho Kinnas

This week's Poet of the People is my friend, the poet, Miho Kinnas. Miho's poetry makes distant lands feel familiar… just around the corner, up the street and within reach.

Wildflowers

                        Northern Ireland

From the stone pier
young men jump
feet first
into the Irish Sea
white skin turning pink.
They weren’t around when 
the crescent moon rose in red.

Mackerels jump 
beyond the outer jetty.
The clouds
wispy and broken.
Wind directions shift.
Scales reflect the weak sun.
An old weather saying:
They make tall ships carry low sails.

Bouquets of wildflowers 
protect boundaries 
from evil fairies.
Bright yellow ones are marsh marigold.
Pale ones primrose.
However, says ancient folklore:
the night scent of buttercup
may cause madness.

Two girls on the pavement
along the shuttered shops
learn to roller-skate
and not to hate
but to ask, why.

---

Helsinki

The engine hummed all night
like a 3-D printer 
building the city.

In the darkest hour
of the white night
the ship jerked once.

Men in blue and yellow 
uniforms hooked 
the anchoring ropes.

On the pier a few workers 
dragged the covered cargo
on wheels slowly across.

The container trucks 
that had gone first 
in Stockholm filed out.

The ferry continues
the Baltic voyage 
the thick fog is lifting.

Seagulls reappear 
in the leftover sunrise
suddenly.

The maritime fortress
built in the eighteenth-century
Suomenlinna 

punctuates the history 
obscures the earlier times
and reminds of the present war.

Nearing the harbor
more gulls circle.
I approach Helsinki from the sea.

---

The Pitch

Five mornings in a row, my mother tells me about her dreams.
She keeps dreaming about her childhood in Manchuria.

Like the silhouette on the revolving lantern.
Kaleidoscopic.
The sun was stunning dipping into the horizon!
How thick the ice was on the lake in the forest!
Did I tell you about the stolen skates we found 
at the thieves’ market in the morning?

In one of the last dreams I heard
she was a thirteen-year-old entrepreneur.
She and her friends sold cigarettes to passersby
near the Harbin bridge.

Our sales pitch was in Chinese and Russian!
Choyan ma? Su-kirt?
Choyan ma? Su-kirt?

I may die soon.
If you leave now I won’t see you again. 

I didn’t believe her. 
I still hear her voice repeating the pitch
with a chuckle in between.

---

Yokohama

I am drawing a map  
to my parents’ house on the hill.
The scale is confused.
There are many inaccuracies.

A little corner fruit shop is now a pet store.
Time may be psychological.
My boyfriend was always late. 

Older taxi drivers know the tomb-stone cutter.
Young ones know it like a ghost story.
The road zips through the fire station.

The big chestnut tree
no longer there where all summer
cicadas spent their one week on earth.

They were so loud —we often gave up talking, listened 
to them rolling our eyes to each other and broke into a big laughter. 
That shut them up!  

One day coming home from school a concrete pole blocked 
our view of the hill. My mother complained to the electric company.
It is still there.

A boy threw a pebble at my window. I was on the phone 
with another boy. I draw a little heart.
All three hearts were broken.

My mother served bowls of ramen noodle for my friends
complete with pork, eggs, sesame seeds, scallions
seaweed and spinach.

My mother began taking rests
on the way up the hill
the way my father did in his late years. 

The day I saw my mother for the last time 
she staggered out of the house without a cane.
I am fine, I am fine, don’t worry, I ‘m fine. I draw a stick figure.

With her open sky smile she held onto the edge of the fence with her right 
hand, her left hand sparkled a little. I draw her waving hand.

She watched my brother drive me away.

---

The Difficulties of Open Water Swimming　

It was more turbulent 
than it appeared. But that 
was not the only difficulty.

Pelicans glide by
one after another
sometimes low.

She blends in, assimilates 
appears as an image
in someone else’s success.

Moon straight up.
Eastern horizon deep.
Red of a rose garden.
She discarded garlands.

Change of heart.
Nothing stays still.
The sky abandons every color.

Someone stepped
into the ocean as
she made up her mind.

It’s in the genes, we say 
as if she is a bag of tricks.
Did she think he was
a trick of light?

---

Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Miho Kinnas is a poet, writer, and translator. Her poems, translations, essays and book reviews appeared in various journals and anthologies including Best American Poetry 2023. She leads creative writing workshops at various locations including writers.com, New York Writers Workshop, and local schools. Her third book of poetry Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias will be published by Free Verse Press this year. 

Poetry of the People: Elizabeth Robin

This week's Poet of the People is Elizabeth Robin. She speaks the past into the future with descriptive poems that engage the reader's memory and senses: there is a kindness that engages and you ask for more.

STEPHANIE ELLEN SILER MEMORIAL PRIZE

Omens

           The Alarm
The earth shakes me awake.
The fifth tremor in five days.

            Foul Warning
rain hastens the de-camp
and a knee-knock in the rush
replacement time

              lunch
coconut should feel exotic
aromatic and tropical, the grit-grain
slivers chew like shredded wood

              the commute
i follow the chicken truck
miles down I-26, baffled
jammed ten-high, box-huddled
feathers fly, shit sprinkles
behind the ride to slaughter
windshields grow snow-spots

              house call
cookie cutter cottages clutter
acres cleared for golfing clusters
club joiners locked into homogenized cells
white milk

               bland custard
down time
noodling a poem in the rain
a roofer’s nail-gun ruins the rhythm

               Tequila!
lick salt from the rim
slurp salsa from the chip
slam that shot

down

half moon dents riddle the bar

---

The Wedding Tree

after “Heaven and Earth” by Patricia Sabree

melding heaven and earth under
a Grandmother Tree, a family expands

in Sunday bests, not broom-jumping
but a rite recast with tree as witness, backlit

by spirits She captures in hanging blue
bottles among the moss: ghosts fire the sky
gold-orange to shock-pink, their dance
slow, save one livened ring-shouter, arms
raised in splayed finger joy, hands outstretched

wide hats shade the facelessness of their story
What do they mask? asks Mr. Dunbar. What
magnet draws them together, knotted
in a seedling branch, to a faceless love?

---

A Lesson in Sea Glass

tumbled in sea, salt, sand
random rubbish recycles

smoothed and pitted bits
transform noxema jars and skye
vodka, beer bottles, dead crystal
and french wines into shore search
and discovery, gleaning the beach
for the ocean’s spilled-out trophies

blue: slightly unique
well-worn, hard to find
and easy to treasure

everyday whites and greens and browns:
a rare vestige of print or rim or logo

proof some things, spent
old and odd-shaped
attract the discerning collector

---

The Nose Knows

On July 15, 2022 KRCC reports: Colorado Springs Man Becomes
Fourth Person to Push a Peanut up Pikes Peak with his Nose

if my quest seems silly, why, then, all the tourista
photo-ops? why the headlines: NPR, NBC

Colorado public radio, even? i did it, set a record
seven days up Barr Trail—thirteen miles, mind you—

don’t call me crazy. i planned it out, went through two
dozen peanuts and fought dehydration: life on the edge

how rugged pioneers and champions power-push
peanuts by the nose uphill, to fourteen-thousand one-

hundred fifteen feet: HA! ask me if i’m insane, or bored
or a cheater, pushing not really with my nose, but

a plastic spatula duct-taped to my face, used a CPAP
mask to affix—i am American ingenuity at work—no nut

here, just a man, Bob Salem, proving why i was born
not to solve a pandemic. or close ozone holes. not

to worry over fires floods famine
S U P E R B U G S

nitpick away, pass judgment, “the poster boy for human absurdity”
frivolous goals, you say? but i’m a headline now: who are you?

---

Elizabeth Robin, an award-winning poet, has three books: To My Dreamcatcher (2022), Where Green Meets Blue (2018),  Silk Purses and Lemonade (2017). In 2023 Robin established the 24-stop Hilton Head Poetry Trail and appeared at Piccolo Spoleto as a Sundown Poet. See her website.

Join Us Under the Jasper Literary Arts Tent at Rosewood Art & Music Festival – October 7th

You’re invited to join the Jasper Project and some of your favorite local writers of poetry and prose under the Jasper Literary Arts Tent at the 2023 Rosewood Art & Music Festival on Saturday, October 7th from noon – 5 pm.*

You’ll get to hear some of your favorite Columbia-based writers read from a selection of their works, purchase their books, and then meet the authors and have your books signed.

*Authors will read during the first half of each hour and then sign and greet friends during the second half of each hour.

901 S Holly St, Columbia, SC 29205

 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Noon – 1 pm

Carla Damron

Jane Zenger

Sandra Johnson

 

1 – 2 pm

Evelyn Berry

Debbie Daniel

Susan Craig

 

2 - 3 pm

Terri McCord

Ann Chadwell Humphries

Robert (Bo) Petersen

 

3 – 4 pm

Jo Angela Edwins

Randy Spencer

Kristine Hartvigsen

4 – 5 pm

Al Black

Ed Madden

Cassie Premo Steele

For more information about the performing and visual artists you’ll see at the Rosewood Art & Music Festival, check out the festival website!

Poetry of the People: Jo Angela Edwins

My seventh Poet of the People is Jo Angela Edwins. What impresses me the most about Jo Angela is her humor and ability to find the divine in unexpected places. 

Jo Angela Edwins is the poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina and a professor of English at Francis Marion University. Her collection A Dangerous Heaven appears in 2023 from Gnashing Teeth Publishing.

Parts of Speech

Verbs do the heavy lifting:
shoot, explode, weep, scream.

Adverbs tell us, mostly, how:
often, swiftly, wildly.

Adjectives describe:
fearful, mad, thunderous.

Conjunctions link:
armed and dangerous, dead or alive.

Articles define:
an ally, the enemy.

Prepositions direct:
over the wall, through the tunnel, across the killing field.

Interjections exclaim:
Stop! No! Help!

Nouns remind us
that earth is filled with places
where people turn persons
into things.

When Louis Armstrong Landed on the Moon

Quiz question: Who was the first person to set foot on the moon?
Student answer: Louis Armstrong
Picture his space helmet
specially equipped
to accommodate the trumpet.
He must have resembled
a Seussian cartoon:
that polished horn
sticking stiffly through the visor,
the aperture gasketed
tightly with polymers,
a protection against oxygen leaks,
for this man with elastic cheeks
needed all the air he could get
on that airless orb
to shatter silence across
the Sea of Tranquility.
His jaunty rendition
of “When the Saints Go Marching In”
bopped its best that day,
and those saints in their heaven
that hovered like a low ceiling
over his bobbing head
realized slowly
that their feet had gone to tapping
against narrow golden streets.
As he leapt from rock to rock
across that milky desert,
surely his heart skipped beats
in time to music. Back home,
Mission Control heard his gritty vibrato
crooning a capella
through the fuzz of the two-way
as he gazed backwards at the foggy earth:
I think to myself—
what a wonderful world.

(Originally published in Porcupine Literary, issue 2, Summer 2020)

The Lilies You Sent

were lovely for so many days,
and I cannot bring myself to throw them out.
They still offer sheen and a shadow of flair,
but the petals fall in a whoosh. Gravity
is brother to death, and all the green is blackening,
and the water that once held them firm goes brown,
and even a carpel comes tumbling down
here and there. I collect what falls,
dutiful steward to withered angel wings,
and my fingers stain with the glitter of each anther,
the pollen that would propagate what lived
had it not died for the sake of spreading kindness,
a better reason than most, I suppose, to die,
and for this killing that brightened my life, I thank you.

You're Invited to the 1st Launch Party & Reading of Ed Madden's new book of poetry -- Story of a City: poems occasional and otherwise - Saturday September 23rd, 6 pm, 1013 Duke Avenue

Please join Muddy Ford Press and friends and family of former Columbia city poet laureate Ed Madden for a launch party for his new book of poetry, Story of a City: poems occasional and otherwise, published by Muddy Ford Press.

Saturday, September 23rd

6 pm

1013 Duke Avenue

In addition to hearing Ed read from his new collection of poems written in his role as city poet laureate, Ed has invited some special guests to read as well.

And there will be cake!

Books are $20 and will be available for purchase at the event or, prior to the event at Amazon, Barnes & Noble dot com, Booktopia, and more.

Cover Artist is Steven Chesley.

1013 Duke Avenue is located up North Main Street by turning left on Arlington. Parking is available in the designated lot across the street.

Ed Madden is the author of five books and four chapbooks of poetry, most recently A pooka in Arkansas, which was selected for the Hilary Tham Capital Collection, and Ark, a book about his father’s last months in hospice care. He is a professor of English and the former director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches Irish literature, queer studies, and creative writing. Ed served as the poet laureate for the City of Columbia, SC, 2015-2022. He is recipient of an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship and artist residencies at the Hambidge Center in Georgia and the Instituto Sacatar in Itaparica, Brazil.

Poetry of the People: Dale Bailes

My sixth Poet of the People is Dale Bailes. Dale is a long-time icon in the Columbia literary community and an encouraging mentor and friend to many. His poetry is expressive, and you feel his kindness throughout his work. Read his work and become his friend.

Bio: As a poet, Bailes helped design and participated in the Poets In The Schools
Program for the South Carolina Arts Commission. He edited seven anthologies of
student poetry for that program. His poems have appeared in journals and little magazines,
including SOUTH CAROLINA REVIEW, GREAT SPECKLED BIRD, and
CREATIVE CRAFTERS JOURNAL. The poems have been gathered in the
collection CHERRY STONES and in three chapbooks.

Recent publications include poems in Columbia lit mag FALL LINES and
Texas based AMERICAN WRITERS REVIEW.

Bailes holds an MFA in Professional Writing from the University of Southern
California, He has taught college writing and creative writing classes in such
diverse backdrops as state prisons, Navy aircraft carriers, community colleges,
and both USC east and USC west.

He continues his interest as an educator as a part-time Standardized Patient
at the University of South Carolina School of Nursing in Columbia.

____

VIGIL

First sunlight in tops

Of towering green trees.

How is there no music?

THE TRICK

Thinking of you in terms

of two-over-light was easier.

That way you shared

my morning rite and left me

to the idle pleasure

of my day. Now, having

seen you trundle from

a lonely man-filled bar

your shoulders slouched

against the weight of darkness

I know you more than I care 

to; know your crumpled

single bed and barren room

know why your ten-hour-day

is comfort to you.

Now instead of leaving me

to my own tight rare existence

you take me trembling with you

into your lonely night.

(from ST. ANDREWS REVIEW)

THE GENTLEMAN CALLER

No need to keep him waiting

fifteen anxious minutes; no stately

staircase has to frame her entrance.

Cordelia sits quite calmly at the table

saucered cup untouched and slowly colding

Her mind commands a sunny day, with horses

she smells the Spring and smiles

at mustached men. A storm can rage there

now, or suns go setting; white-haired

gallants still tip crisp hats and court her,

What matter if those days she lives

are twenty-five or fifty years divided?

This day alone will mean most to her heart

stout friend through all and keeper

of the great loves she has known.

Now he has come, the quietest caller

she has yet received. “Madame?” “oh yes.

I am quite ready. You are right on time.”

Cordelia, rising, bids a host of friends adieu.

Whispers gaily, “It was always you.”

(from MISSISSIPPI REVIEW)

THE JESTER

The Jester on your wall grins

at you. His hand has been, will be

poised to pluck the lute.

You pull yourself from sleep

or death, recall some sound

that scared you to the fading point

where sleep and death are one

and come or don’t come

as your left eye struggles open

and your right eye simply won’t .

He has waited while you slept

while you crept through

the other room of the dream

and out. He has grinned as

a black cat crossed the street

to avoid crossing your path,

as ladders crashed around you

that you wanted to walk under.

He will watch you tumble from

the bed, return from all that pain

awake, stumble to another room

to wet your trembling hands.

His hands will tense, prepare

to play the chord to match

the sound your pleading eyes

will make, as you watch the mirror

drop you and you shatter.

(from SANDLAPPER)

Poetry of the People Featuring Adam Houle

My fifth Poet of the People is Adam Houle. Adam's voice is nuanced and immediately relatable; he is refreshingly unpretentious in communicating what he sees.

Bio: Adam Houle is the author of Stray (Lithic Press), a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Shenandoah, The Shore, and elsewhere. He co-edits 12 Mile Review with Robert Kendrick and is an assistant professor at Francis Marion University.

Hearing About the Wreck

Now I’m off the phone and pacing while my wife,

seven states away, waits in the smashed car

to relay the incident’s specifics to a bored cop

at the intersection of two wide and busy roads.

It’s a sunbaked Texas town where, I imagine,

the woman who t-boned her sizes up

the grill guard with her pea-patch husband,

both of whom are already scum of the earth,

idiot scum of the earth. Inattentive texting

while driving scum of the earth, who were posting

driving selfies or twitter polls seeking counsel

on which fast food value meal they should shovel

down their maws, chewing with their mouths open

in the living room of what I’m sure is the saddest

half a duplex in all the republic of Texas

while SVU airs and they rubberneck a gruesome case.

In another world, my wife is dead, her body

wrecked in the wreck, and that world chaffs too close

and though she’s fine, alive, shaken but fine fine fine

I’m crying and say aloud, I’d kill them both,

and in that moment, when just moments before

I debated alone paint shades for our kitchen

and asked the dogs what would be the ecological fallout

if a barred owl fell in love with a red-tailed hawk,

I’m pretty sure I mean it, which scares me

in the way it must scare the tv star

who tilts a conversion van off a crushed friend

or rushes back for an heirloom when the foundation beams

have already burst, flames rising from the floor

like geysers, the expected feats of fear and rage,

who realizes there’s another self

that sleeps and, when it wakes, is more terrifying

and courageous and, I see, more cruel, with a drill bit heart

that turns faster and with more bite the more it hurts.

Is he a necessary self? Sometimes, love is the right spring

babbling, bubbling over moss, feeding meadow reeds.

Sometimes, it’s an errant left turn and the sun burning

down the westbound lane fracturing light through a windshield’s

sheen of dead bugs. I sat there a long time,

I made a fist, I released a fist. I breathed.

A fist. I breathed. This fist. My heart’s modeled after it.

Open, it’s to hold or offer.

Closed, oh god of the plains, and I am your vicious club.

(First appeared in Baltimore Review, Winter 2019)

~~~

It’s an Empty-Headed Move I Love the Most

 I swear I’ll leave your ass in Tennessee

with the trumpet vines and BarcaLoungers

slumping under carports. Maybe at a BP

near the bottom of a hill, where a state road

curves that way and a sandy one cuts back.

Maybe there next week, I’ll leave your ass.

You can throw your hands up all you want,

cinematic like, dramatic, your rage so quick

to bloom you’ll smash your phone to bits

before you’ll call me. You can be happy

in the injustice of all that balance:

a thought forms and then rejects itself, lizards grow

by eating the gray skins they have outgrown.

The dog, Caesar said, is cat. The jelly jar is cracked

and that your one good glass. Alas, I guess,

is a thing you’d say. Cross a river. Then another

or the oxbow bend of the same. It doesn’t matter.

The world reaps what the world repeats.

It’s natural as nature to always feel afraid,

to keep playing, even when you’ve been outplayed.

(First appeared in Phoebe, 52.1)

In Service

Bless this moment before the hydraulic door

sighs open. Bless the tamped heel click

on the low knap carpet. Bless the medicine

cart its quiet wheels. Bless how it feels

to watch your face attenuate as the glass

levers inward. Bless its disappearance

and the hall that takes its place. Bless this:

mylar balloons taped to temporary name plates

along the corridor. Bless late comforts. Bless night

nurses ending another shift. Bless their laughter.  

(First appeared in Chattahoochee Review, Spring 2020)

Epitaph

the sky my mind

my heart an ocean

here’s an antidote

go find the poison

Poetry of the People featuring Michal Rubin

My fourth Poet of the People is Michal Rubin. What attracts me to Michal's poetry is the unadorned integrity, honesty, and humanity of her voice.

Michal Rubin moved from Israel to Columbia, SC 32 years ago.  A psychotherapist, a Cantor, and an emerging poet, her work was published in Psychotic Education,  The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Wrath Bearing Tree journal,  Rise Up Journal, Topical Poetry,  Fall-Lines,  The Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Waxing & Waning: A Literary Journal, and South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2023.

In a secret dark spectacle

after Ada limon

I saw the twirling gust of dust

moving into the distant

world of pain I remember

and I flew there to be

with kin I have not met

come! they said

and I sat in their midst

huddled underneath their wings

they fluttered, the wings,

and the chill of history penetrated

my sheltered space

I breathed it in 

the chill

and the chains weighty

on my wrists

as I was dragged by the power 

of the dead

into the land

~~~~~

In Gaza

tomorrow’s touch

through the settling dust

will remind you of

love

unhidden in the rubble

behind the corner

forbidden moment

fused with desert breeze

salted droplets we carried

home

or what was home

~~~~~

Exploits

I write with no address

or neighborhood

letters that belong to

the smoke of burnt homes

or piles of old shoes

I try to stitch words 

so they become 

an embroidery of unwanted

stories

we live them

the stories

we spit them as hulls  

discarded shells of seeds

we feasted

I, the betrayer of dogmas spread

stained uniforms strewn on the page

I, the jailed soldier

braid sins into the chain of letters

words bathe in shame

each bullet finds a target

smoke of burnt homes fills the nostrils 

I, the one who left,

weave what you call art

with the exploits

remnants of our crimes

RIVER POETS Poetry Reading Sunday Afternoon at Stormwater Studios

The public is invited to attend a poetry reading Sunday afternoon featuring Jasper Magazine Poetry Editor Ed Madden at Stormwater Studios, 413 Pendleton Street, behind One Eared Cow Glass.

Organized by Libby Bernardin and Susan Craig, the reading will also feature Nadine Ellsworth-Moran, Ann-Chadwell Humphries, Ruth Nicholson, and (in adsentia) Mary O’Keefe Brady, as well as Bernardin and Craig themselves.

Madden, who is the former poet laureate for the city of Columbia, will be reading from his newest collection, A Pooka in Arkansas.

The event begins at 4 pm and will conclude with a Talk-Back session with the poets.

Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Tony Pichof

Because I’ve planted a seed
That sparked a thought
And made them think

I chose Tony Pichof as my next Poet of the People for his earnestness and gentle unfrilly lyric quality. He represents the everyperson in each of us.

Al Black

Poet, Tony Pichoff (pee-shawf) retired from the Army in 2006 and has been working as a civil servant since.  He has been writing since his junior year in high school when his English teacher, Mrs. Magoo (yes, really!) accused him of plagiarism.  He has been awarded and recognized in several contests over the years and has self-published twelve collections* under the pen name, Tony Garrison (to honor his stepfather).  He is an active adult scouting leader.  He enjoys spending time with his family and working on his hobby farm.

The Best I Can 

Strangers on the street
Often ask me,
“How’re you doing?”
As they are passing,
Out of some unwritten
Rule of courtesy,
Not expecting an answer
When they acknowledge me.
“The best I can”
Is my standard reply.
Then I see them smile
As I walk by
Because I’ve planted a seed
That sparked a thought
And made them think
Just how they ought-
That everything
Will be okay
If we all do our best
Every single day.
And who knows,
I may just start a new trend
As everything, somewhere,
Sometime begins.
I sure hope it catches on
And becomes part of the plan.
But even if it doesn’t…
I’ll just keep on doin’ the best that I can.

~~~

Sick to My Soul 

We’ve all been there
In those moments we’d rather not be
When in the throes of illness
We feel helpless in our vulnerability
As nausea washes over us
And we know what’s coming next
When waves of sick crash into us
And leave us feeling the opposite of blessed.
Now, take that awfulness of being
And multiply it a hundredfold.
For only then will you be believing
How it feels to be sick to my soul,
With the difference being
There is no release to let it go
And it just keeps on festering
Way down deep within.
This smoldering betrayal
Is such a scorching sin
When I can no longer trust
Someone I once called, Friend. 

Incidental poetry -- Kryptonite the Color of Money by Al Black

Kryptonite the Color of Money

by Al Black

 

What if Superman was just strong

Not super humble and brainy?

 

What if he became a bully, drunk with power

And believed he was ordained to rule?

 

What if he became a politician, a spy for Putin,

A money launderer for Russian oligarchs?

 

What if he didn’t have a cute black curl on his forehead

And wore a dead orange squirrel for a toupee?

 

What if he date raped Lois Lane

and forced himself on women, again and again and again?

 

What if he didn’t believe Truth

Justice and the American Way applied to him?

 

What if despite all this, folks still bought his comic books

And believed he was ordained to rule?

(Al Black, 08/12/23)

Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Kelley Lannigan

Where is the map when we get lost inside ourselves? — Kelley Lannigan

I chose poet, Kelley Lannigan, as this week's Poet of the People because of the wonderful narrative flow of her poetry.

Kelley Lannigan grew up in rural Richland County and studied art and journalism at Columbia College. She spent her life curating art (most recently the Georgia O'Keefe Anniversary Exhibition at Columbia College) and as an editor and journalist for magazines and newspapers. She is retired and lives in Winnsboro with her cats writing poetry, painting, and taking on an occasional writing project.

Aubade

 The sun raises the red coin of its face.

            Morning, in her gown of light

                        dances among the trees.

A Cooper’s Hawk, the one we hear

            but rarely see, screams reveille.

                        Awake! Awake! Awake!

It rained so hard last night.

            Nipper Creek, dry for months,

                        runs like a marathon.

Trucks haul gravel from the quarry. Gears shift,

            grind, strain up the road’s steep slope.

                        Sometimes a SLAM! A BANG!

Soon, blasting will shake the ground.

            Trucks pass, their angry music fades.

                        Silence deepens like a dream.

Tops of pines, slow green brooms, sweep the sky.

            Old cat snoozes on the rough steps.

                        She chases something in her sleep.

She woke me earlier, pawed my chest in the dark,

reminded me that for now,

                        I am not alone.

Terra Incognita

(In memory of Steve, lost to dementia) 

He was the kind of man we were glad to see.

The kind who leaned over the fence to talk about his goats,

his chickens. A farmer, adding his link to the long chain

of Huguenots who husbanded the land. Their sturdy houses

still stand sentinel over the Santee, the Pee Dee, the French Broad.

A family man. Husband, lover, father, teacher.

A worldly man. Soldier, navigator, pilot.

A hunter who knew what passed by its scat,

a mark on a tree, tracks in the snow.

The kind of man we called at 3 a.m.

about strange noise by the barns.

His bobbing lantern across the dark fields

made us feel safe.

Snow melts. Tracks erode. Terrain shifts.

Where is the map when we get lost inside ourselves?

He was a man who disappeared before our eyes.

Forgot our faces, his children’s names.

Left the water running. Could not remember

his phone number. How to use the phone.

What a phone was for. Forgot to eat.

Lay in bed until told to get up.

Replied “yes” to every question.

Missed the turn to his farm, piloted his old Chevy

into the next county. Then across the next.

Or simply sat for hours behind the wheel going nowhere.

Kelley Lannigan will be our poetry feature this Wednesday, 08/16 - 7 pm for Mind Gravy Poetry at Cool Beans, 1217 College Street, Columbia 

Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Jeff Bryson

Given his years of service to the poets of SC and beyond, Jasper asked board of directors member Al Black to curate a weekly addition to Jasper Online featuring some of his favorite local poetry. A Poet of the People himself, Al produces gatherings of writers and musicians both in Columbia and throughout the Southeast. He is the author of two collections of works, I Only Left For Tea, and Man With Two Shadows.

I have chosen W. Jefferson Bryson as our first Poet of the People, because of the unvarnished immediacy of his truths; no bells and whistles or other affectations; just his truths in his words.

I know Jeff as poet and sometimes musician who grew up in the upstate and spent most of his adult life in the midlands as a social worker and then twelve years as the State Ombudsman and still was able to retain his integrity and humanity.

PTSP: Post Traumatic Stress Poetry   1970

How it Was

Until it Wasn’t

Two years down

How quickly it happens

On a Wednesday

Walking a path

Crickets and comrades

Then little dark men

In black pajamas

With old AKs

As big as they are

Leap out ahead of us

And scream and fire

And their aim

So poor, so terrified

Of hulking, red-eyed

American Devils

Their shots tear apart

The jungle around us

We aim together

And render them

Red mist, mostly

Painting the foliage

And the ground

All around.

And suddenly

Wednesday, again

Tour over, discharge

A duffle-bag

Jeans and a work shirt

Commercial flight

DC-9 to San Diego

Teach Your Children

On the radio

And all I know

Is friendly

Or foe

And me, now

Without a weapon.

Flashback, With Soundtrack  

Listening to Creedence

Reminds me of the jungle

The sound of M-16 fire

Of helicopters, of brown water

Of 50 cals, of F-4 Phantoms

The smell of rice paddies

Hot in the afternoon

Or drowning in rain

The smell of Napalm

The smells of Saigon

Viet Nam.

My Brothers

My God

Where are they

What has happened

To us all.

Zero-Dark-Thirty, One More Time 

Three-thirty in the dark. Again.

And I’m awake. Again.

And I remember. Again.

All gave some. Some gave all.

And the elephant grass

Grows tall and thick

Through my memory

And I forget

Until I dream.

And the sound of M-16 fire

Suddenly returns in the deep night

And the thump of 50 cals

I feel them in my ribs

My own heartbeat

Even now, quickens

And I remember

The smell of Napalm

And screaming death

And I will sleep no more

Tonight.

Steppenwolf  

You hear

Magic Carpet Ride

I see fire

Blossoming, rising

Red and black

Mushroom clouds

Of Napalm

In forever-green

Jungle.

Hueys

Cobra gunships

F-4 Phantoms.

Burning villages

Cluster bombs.

It won’t hurt you

It only kills plants.

Mekong catfish,

Twelve feet long.

China Beach.

Saigon.

Vietnam.

Some of us

Never went.

Some of us

Never left.

Something As Simple As a Song  

Creedence

Steppenwolf

Blood, Sweat and Tears

Da Nang

Dok To

Long Binh

My Lai

Khe Sanh

Hue

Suddenly 

How can it have come to this?

To be a sick, sad old man

Alone in a small apartment

In a raging city of angry strangers

All my comrades

Lost or gone

Ghosts of memory

Living or dead

And the greatest tragedy of all

Not a trace of senility

Or forgetfulness

Or rest

Or peace

In me.

W. Jefferson Bryson is a retired Social Worker. He has spent a lot of time with Vietnam vets and heard a lot of stories. Sometimes they come back in bits and snatches in poems like these.

A Poem by Randy Spencer

In this summer of Oppenheimer (and Barbie) mania, Chapin poet Randy Spencer was reminded of this poem, which he read in 2002 at a gathering for Richard Rhodes when he came to USC for a discussion of his "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." Jasper is pleased to share this with you 21 years later.

Georgia O'Keeffe Discusses Her Poem

                        [1945] My Ghost Ranch in New Mexico is due North

                        of Los Alamos. I have painted two canvases of the sky

                        pouring through the pelvic bones of cows, the first where

                        that light is deep blue, and the second where the sky turns

                        yellow and blood seems to pore from the circle of bone.

Pelvis III, 1944, Oil on Canvas, 48 x 40

Pelvis Series, Red and Yellow, 1945, 36 x 48

Pelvic bones, held up, are wondrous against the sky's blue

I felt would always be there, fixed, long after Man's

Destructiveness is finished. Cut sharply, they are a beauty

At the center of something unique, both horrifying and grand,

Empty, yet keenly alive. Perfect ovals, my eye captures

Them as elopements toward Infinity, absent any middle ground,

No perspective intervening between Birth and Death, treasures

I searched for among the camposantos until they were found.

Now red encircles the yellow, the acetabulum, the vinegar cup,

The foramen of blood, Batter, then, my heart,

Oppenheimer, quoting Donne, Three-personed Deity, now his Trinity,

His opening of an orifice for God to sculpt.

What colors, I would ask, could be left for the pacifist artist

Who magnifies emptiness, who paints Death against the desert sky.

- Randy Spencer

Photos courtesy of the Georgia O’Keefe Museum

Randy Spencer is a retired child psychiatrist living on the lake in Chapin. He is a published poet and short story writer, who most recently was a Pushcart Award nominee for a poem about the Ukraine war. His upcoming book from Muddy Ford Press is a series of interconnected poems taking place in Andersonville Military Prison in Georgia during the Civil War, but the themes are universal and timeless. He is currently working on a novella that reimagines Remarque's classic World War II novel, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, but is set in the current conflict in Ukraine.

Join Jasper's Al Black, Ginny Merrett, and Cindi Boiter for an Ekphrastic Poetry Event Sunday, July 9th

Al Black and his friends are generously reading their ekphrastic poetry about Ginny Merett’s Tall Women series in what Al calls “Poetry Church.” Meet us at the hallway: community art, 701 Whaley, from 2-4 July 9, 2023 for what will be a show highlight!

Artists include:

Songwriter, Alison Trotter

Songwriter , Alyssa Stewart

Poet, Janet Kozachek

Poet, Jane Zenger

Poet, Tamar Miles

Poet, Cindi Boiter

Poet, Michal Rubin

Poet, Jennifer Bartell

Poet, Kristine Hartivigsen