Grief Is Round

July 2020 | poetry

The cabbage knows

only one thing—to head.

The moon looks like a cabbage

or a head but it isn’t either.

Moonlight veils my window

unwelcome down the walls,

too much and in the wrong place.

Dripping sounds keep me awake.

There is no way to contain

moonlight or mop it up.

It pulls on the near skin of the earth,

stretches and makes waves.

I dream here is a huge baby,

round faced, that I have to care for.

I do, and it gets smaller. The moon

is often a metaphor–breast, eye,

fingernail, communion wafer,

scab–yet it is still just the moon.

Mary Jean Port

Mary Jean Port is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her chapbook of poems,“The Truth About Water,” was published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press. She recently had poems published on Indolent Press’ poem-a-day site, “What Rough Beast,” in “Leaping Clear,” and in “ellipsis….” She has work forthcoming from “The Halcyone.” She lives in Minneapolis, where she taught at The Loft Literary Center for twenty years.

Late Night, Hotel, HBO

July 2020 | poetry

In Iran in the rich, delicious pear region,

there sits the centrifuge for the development

of atomic bombs.

I don’t want to end up like Bukowski,

a bitter career alcoholic, Writing classes?

Classes are for asses. (can’t even look

at people or talk to them), hating other poets

Writing is all about leaving behind

as much stink as possible.

Or George Carlin who went from hippie,

dippy weatherman, The forecast for tonight

is mostly dark, but getting light toward

morning, to a working rageaholic

out of rehab and in denial.

I’ve imagined how the two of them

would have gotten along during

an all-night “drinking fest,” insulting

each other to the point of fist cuffs.

I turn on Carlin’s 3a.m. HBO special,

an endless rant, dropping numerous F-bombs.

Lynn says and I agree, Turn it off.

Bukowski, a life-long pugilist of men

and women, Carlin, a pathetic skeleton

of his former self.

Both mummified

in a dangerous atom smashing,

If you have em, smoke em,

deathly moving, indifferent universe.

John Sierpinski

John Sierpinski has published poetry in many literary magazines such as California Quarterly, North Coast Review and Spectrum Literary Journal. His work is also in eight anthologies. He is a Pushcart nominee. His poetry collection, “Sucker Hole”, was published in 2018 by Cholla Needles Press.