January 2016 | poetry
Trying out for the Senior Class Play’s
romantic lead opposite my girl but coming in second
to the ever-popular handsome hunky Everett
then having to watch him romancing her
on-stage from backstage for weeks.
Waiting for my wife in this busy hair salon
with all the clipping, combing, coiffing
and fussing with hair length, color, body . . .
with the incessant small talk all these people wasting
so much time it’s hair for crying out loud!
As a youngster he was an altar boy
carrying the cross or The Holy Book
to the altar, his face stern with religiosity.
Today he’s in the ICU waiting for the doctors
to decide if he should stay there or go to hospice.
by Michael Estabrook
Retired now working around the yard and writing more poems or trying to anyhow. Noticed 2 Cooper’s hawks staked out in our yard or above it I should say explains the disappearing chipmunks.
January 2016 | poetry
They give me no peace,
constantly flying over
at all hours.
Right on schedule,
with the precision
of a quartz timepiece.
The drone unmistakable,
they buzz by,
far too small
and too low
for commercial aircraft,
yet unassuming enough
for covert military intelligence.
Manned or unmanned, it
makes no difference, as
my house sits outside
any published flight plans.
This much I know.
That leaves me
as their sole purpose
for being HERE,
their target.
It leaves me,
also, the only one bothered.
Hell, the only one
to even acknowledge
the strangeness of
their presence.
But like everything else,
what can I do?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
So as always,
I grit my teeth,
force a smile,
and pretend I
don’t notice.
It’s harder than it looks.
by Matthew Armagost
January 2016 | poetry
You said
I could be anything
So I became “Me”
But then
You said
That “Me” was too
Cliché
Predictable
Counterfeit
So I became
A sunflower
stretching with every fiber
of my being
toward the sky
toward the light
But you didn’t like that
You said
I set my sights too high
So I became a tortoise
stagnant
relying on my complacency and
not my accountability
But you quickly grew bored of me
You said
That I took things too slow
So I became a feather
bending and waning
vulnerable to impurities
and
emotional cacophony
lilting.
But then
You said
I was too soft
I traded hats with a thousand strangers
and nothing seemed to fit
your rules
So I became a cardboard box
With my edges fraying
And a sticker marked FRAGILE
Slapped on my left side
You put me in storage
And let me become
Worn
Weathered
Broken
And when you took me out again
My sticker had fallen off
And I wasn’t FRAGILE anymore.
The edges of me started to disintegrate
Until
I was just matter
Even though
all this time I felt like
I Didn’t.
by Piper Wood
