July 2016 | poetry
In lieu of a better plan
I have decided
to be a tree
that grows down
instead of up.
It makes a kind of sense to me.
I will bury myself alive
in a lovely secret way—
only to bloom below the earth
and flower in the cool dark soil;
not for display,
but for the feel of it alone.
I will not bear fruit
or shed myself for fall
or trace the line of a sky that comes and goes as it pleases.
But, instead, reach out my branching fingers into the mineral oblivion
and find the keys from the beginning of time.
Ancient laughter has been known to serve as rain that way.
by Emily Trask
Emily M. Trask is a poet and theatre artist originally from Wisconsin. Her poetry was most recently featured in Summerset Review, and her essays, blogs, scholarly commentary and award winning play adaptations have been published by the Folger Library and Simon and Schuster among others. Emily received her BA in literature and theatre from Grinnell College, where she studied under poet George Barlow, among others. She received her MFA in acting from Yale University School of Drama. As an actress, she has appeared on stage and screen across the country, from the Lincoln Center Theater in New York City to the Tony Award-winning Alley Theatre in Texas, where she is currently a resident company member. Emily plays the cello, sings, rides horseback, and lives with her cat, Ramona Salami, in Houston, Texas.
July 2016 | poetry
To My Son, Home from College
You’re home complaining how crowded
our house feels with the new baby,
question the noise, her crying.
These rooms used to be yours.
Then you speak of going to live with your dad.
The dad who wanted to show you the alternatives.
I always asked him, alternatives to what?
I walk down Sixth Street alone,
big black umbrella carried in front,
tears falling faster than the rain.
I could come home and sit with you,
but what could I say?
I love to see you;
that could be enough.
Though you ask nothing about me.
You belong to your father now;
your little finger lifts off the cup
the way his does.
You rub your face hard on both cheeks,
rub your chin several times
when you feel something important.
Like how you can’t stand it here any more.
You laugh, when you really laugh,
with his guttural growls.
Offer up unexpected belches and animal sounds
while other people just talk.
He pours you a whiskey.
Knowing your history and his,
I wonder what else.
I don’t need to know the rest.
What I know is that
he’s showing the other choices
that may change you as they did him.
Six Maple Trees
lined the edge of the farm
we called Ye Dascomb Aerie.
We could not reach into the first two.
They limbed up too high.
We climbed the last one
near the raspberry patch.
The one with the rope swing Cecil made.
That strong limb just above our heads
made for us to swing up on,
into branches high above the ground.
We carved our initials there, the taller cousins
toward the top, the shorter ones
near the bottom. I loved cutting
into the bark with my green Girl Scout knife.
It made the tree ours.
Cousin Alan and I would climb as high as
we could, then Alan went
higher. We could talk up there
about Fats Domino and Elvis.
When we were alone, Jerry Lee Lewis.
He married his thirteen- year- old cousin.
The maple branches strong
enough to hold twelve cousins each summer.
Fat green leaves in summer, red in fall,
they held our secrets, then dropped
them without ceremony to the ground.
Everyone who visited had to pass
the test of our maple tree. Could they
climb it and how high? Could they
hang upside down from the high
branch, then jump all the way down?
Ending War
The Liberian women made a last stand in the market.
They took off their clothes and stood before the guerrillas.
The young men stepped back. The war was over.
In a time when sexual assault prevails
as often as we hear of young boys killing villages
of men and women in Syria, in Afghanistan, in parts
of Africa, some policemen on American streets,
what will end mindless cruelty and revenge?
Will taking off our clothes work more than once?
We are your sisters, sons, your daughters not yet born,
your mothers and grandmothers.
We stand in the place where you find comfort.
You kill yourselves.
by Donna Emerson
Some of Donna Emerson’s publications include Alembic, CQ (California Quarterly), CALYX, The Chaffin, Dos Passos Review, Eclipse, Edison Literary Review, Fourth River, Fox Cry Review, The Griffin, The Los Angeles Review, LUX, New Ohio Review, Paterson Literary Review, Passager, Persimmon Tree, Praxis: Gender & Cultural Critiques (formerly Phoebe), Quiddity, Sanskrit, Slipstream, Soundings East, So To Speak, The South Carolina Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Spillway, Stone Canoe, and Weber—The Contemporary West. Donna’s work has received numerous prizes and awards including honorable mention in the 2015 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, nominations for the Pushcart Prize (2013), and Best of the Net (2012). Her second chapbook, Body Rhymes (2009), nominated for a California Book Award, and third and fourth chapbooks, Wild Mercy (2011) and Following Hay (2013), have been published by Finishing Line Press. Donna’s work can also be seen in anthologies such as Echoes (2012), Keeping Time: 150 Years of Journal Writing (Passager Press), Chopin with Cherries, A Tribute in Verse (Moonrise Press), Music In The Air (Outrider Press), and The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers).
July 2016 | poetry
Stone wall covered with lichen and moss;
along an old country lane within the briers.
Mushrooms, wild raspberries mark the time;
food for the animals and birds found there.
This place has seen war and strife so harsh
also witnessed good times of plentiful harvest.
The old white farm is gone from across the way,
t’was a fine spot for me to dig a hallowed grave.
Her breathing appeared shallow late in November,
t’was obvious she would not make it to the Spring.
I spent two days with my shovel near the old wall;
giving her a valley view where song birds still sing.
Her stone, a piece of granite with a carved cross;
she’s happy, as she was, with simple things in life.
I visit her each Sunday and put a rose on the rock;
Mother’s Day, an Orchid Pot, I sit with her and talk.
by Ken Allan Dronsfield
Ken Allan Dronsfield is a Published Poet and Author originally from New Hampshire, now residing in Oklahoma. He enjoys the outdoors, playing guitar and spending time with his cats Merlin and Willa. He is the Co-Editor of the new Poetry Anthology titled, “Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze” available at Amazon.com. His published work can be found in Journals, Magazines and Blogs throughout the Web including: Indiana Voice Journal, Belle Reve Journal, Peeking Cat Magazine, Dead Snakes, Bewildering Stories and many others.
