April 2014 | back-issues, Bill Wunder, poetry
She hops down from the dump truck’s crusty side
and climbs up into the earth mover as graceful
as a gymnast, pony tail bouncing
behind her John Deere baseball cap.
She wields the blade
of the machine and in minutes
levels a great mound of soil
into flat-out respect.
The admiration in which I held my ex-wife
comes to mind. How
when the pipes leaked
she slid under the sink
wrench in hand, saving the day
while I just held her flashlight.
But this is about a woman
who moves the earth
with just her fingers
on the leash of a great yellow beast,
and though she’ll never know,
holds me in the palm of her hand.
—Bill Wunder
Bill Wunder’s poems have twice been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and in 2004 he was named Poet Laureate of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His poems have been a finalist in The Robert Fraser Poetry Competition, The Mad Poet’s Society Competition twice, and The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards three times. He has previously been featured in Burningword Literary Journal and was included in Burningword Ninety-Nine, A Selected Anthology of Poetry 2001-2011.
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Most things are not the end
Of the world. You know this.
But on this day
You can’t hold the world’s atoms together
Not with the muscles of your mouth
Still making the shape
Of the last thing you said to him.
Not with blood under fingernails
From hanging too long
Like a gymnast spinning a slow koan
Against gravity.
The last person you loved
Was an avalanche, dear
To you once in a way
That flattened the landscape.
Where does love go after
You press it into the ground
With a face full of blood and
vomit in its hair?
It would not be the first thing
Ever to rise from the dead.
You’ve done it yourself more than once,
Taught yourself how to die and come back
Between eye-blinks
Without anyone knowing.
—Jenny Williamson
Jenny’s work has been featured in 24Mag, Wild River Review, Poetic Voices, and in Philadelphia’s Writing Aloud series. Jenny also received recognition from the Academy of American Poets and NPR’s Young Poets Series.
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
On a Chilled Wind
Winter comes to tell us to be still,
to stand and look out windows
onto landscapes scrubbed barren
by winds that scrape away the excess,
to watch snow laid down piece by piece
on the smallest twig
as scraps of the discarded, imperfections,
are gently smoothed into graceful curves
by chills that tingle toes, crisp ears,
push us back into places
where blankets and warm drinks
invite us to sit down.
What Once Was
An old photograph,
a startling scent,
a hesitant moment
of almost recognition
draws my finger tips
to the shallow pool
of that other time,
and it’s colder
than I remember,
the liquid clutches,
pulls to stay with me
for a moment,
loses its grip and falls,
sending ripples
through the memory
of the me that once was
who knew the you
that no longer exists.
there is a place
there is a place between
awake and conscious
that is not easily torn
a place encircling
intent and movement
that clings to stillness
a place connecting
forgiving and forgetting
that slips thoughts
where we get caught
in the light of dead stars
thawing
the first sighing movements
heralding a breeze,
yielding of the night’s
warbling notes
as winter’s first tear lets go,
brush of a reach
in the womb,
sparrow caught
in an updraft,
until a waver
brings a chance
and we can, for a grasp,
feel the earth rolling
—Jamie Lynn Heller
Poetry is Jamie Lynn Heller’s caffeine. She is a mother, wife, and high school counselor who gets up before the house starts to stir to write. She has pieces published or accepted at Prairie Schooner, Tule Review, The Main Street Rag, Noctua Review, Gargoyle, Earth’s Daughters, Flint Hills Review, I-70 review, Avocet, Storyteller Magazine, Little Balkans Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Diversion Press, KC Voices Magazine, KC Parent Magazine, The Whirlybird Anthology of Kansas City Writers, and many others.
