VOLUME 2: ISSUE 2
JULY 2002

WHCpoetrybridge – poetry selections

John E. Carley, UK, Editor
Denis Garrison, US, Co-moderator
Joe Warner, UK, Co-moderator

.Stephen Clay Dearborn – Mission, Kansas, US

Blackandwhite/Fog

“absitively
posolutely”
— my father’s phrase,
or so I thought,
but today I read it
in Cummings.

He is dead;
I cannot call him
to account
for this discrepancy.

……………Stephen Clay Dearborn

Maryann Hazen-Stearns – Ellenville, NY, US

Rondedau: Creepers
Now I know this thing to be true
and the creeping purple Kudzu
has got hold of the little pear.
Thin branches that no longer bear
a flower or fruit. Meadow rue,

Bluebead Lily, and white Sundew
have gone under shadow. So few
are able to survive despair.
Now, I know this

from experience; I withdrew.
Dense creeper blocked the sun from view.
Beneath his leaves I didn’t dare
disturb his fearsome presence there.
There’s nothing more that I can do
now. I know this.

……………Maryann Hazen-Stearns
  ……………

Maryann Hazen-Stearns – Ellenville, NY, US

A Fate Worse Than Death
One woman grips a baby doll, softly coos and rocks.
Another shouts, “Get the chickens in the coop, Vern!”
Thelma trundles along in a question mark shape asking,
“Where’s Albert? Where’s Albert? Where’s Albert?”

I push the buzzer. Thirty minutes pass before
a voice asks, “What is it?” “I need a doctor,” I pant,
“and call my daughter right away.” The voice chuckles,
“Have no fear, hon, you’re not gettin’ away from us yet.”

……………Maryann Hazen-Stearns

.Maryann Hazen-Stearns – Ellenville, NY, US

Invitation

My Friend,
You know I spend
all hours without end
in contemplation of this blend
of form and line and rhyme. Do you intend,
perhaps, to follow in this trend?
Have you a poem to wend?
Something you’ve penned
to send?

……………Maryann Hazen-Stearns
  ………..

Gary Blankenship – .Bremeton, Washington, US

Spring Buzz

Under the wild cherry,
a young cock struts
……wary.

Beneath the crabapple,
an old cat slinks,
……silent.

Each watches the other –
bird at a trot,
…..stop,
………trot

cat with a crawl,
…..wait,
……….crawl.

There is green fruit on the cherry tree,
…………on the pear,
………….plum,
……………peach.

  Will rain and ripe arrive together?
Will ripe pears drop before picked?
Will limbs break from purple overload?
Will I bake a pie
….or will the raccoons?

Bees!
Bees are on my mind.
Bees swarm the rhodie,
….thick as suitors for Helen’s hand.
Bees pollinate and populate
….shrubs and wild berries,
my hands tingle in anticipation
….of blue and red stains
….the result of their labor.

I hear the buzz of bees
near the canyon’s edge,
near the China bird’s nest,
softer than a dying leaf,
…..I hear the bees.

The young bird walks and watches,
the old stray slides from tree to bush.

Each eyes the other,
the game played
another warm spring morning,
…..ignored by the bees.

……………Gary Blankenship
  …………..

Terrie Leigh Relf – San Diego, California, US

Untitled

…………….soon winter…will come
and only this comforter…to warm me

 

……………Terrie Leigh Relf
……………San Diego, California, US

Terrie Leigh Relf – San Diego, California, US

Untitled

…………hidden…between bamboo stalks
ceramic dragon…blue marble

……………Terrie Leigh Relf
……………San Diego, California, US

Terrie Leigh Relf – San Diego, California, US

Untitled

…………………poems…double
a morning constitution…that espresso

……………Terrie Leigh Relf
………….

Marjorie Buettner – Minneapolis, Minnesota, US

The Glory of Mornings

Nemerov was right about morning glories,

how they teach you,

before your eyes are accustomed

to the light and the color the sky brings,

to live.

This morning is full of glory.

A blue-white azure

pigmenting the sky and

the air I breathe.

How often and how long

do we look up into that sky

for answers (which do not

begin with questions)

that only flowers,

a trellis of morning glories,
can give.

……………Marjorie Buettner

Marjorie Buettner – Minneapolis, Minnesota, US

Suddenly

Suddenly,

caught in a dream I cannot understand,

your hand brushes my hair.

Then this desiring takes over.

The way you call out for me

before you call out for me

saves me.

These simple pleasures

of a Sunday afternoon

in spring.

The shadow

that your face carries

before I see it

is the way you reach for my hand,

and the way we belong to each other

nameless and unknown
yet found.

Marjorie Buettner

Sally Evans – Edinburg, Scotland

Hamish Henderson, Scottish songwriter d. 8 March 2002
Bob Spiess, kyosei of the world haiku community  d. 13 March 2002

Bob is now in heaven
writing heavenly haiku

and Hamish Henderson
is looking for a pub

and some of his old friends
who have already gone

where funerals don¹t matter
for an eternal natter

and back on earth, the fight
begins to hold the truth

about his life, disputed
between those who plan

to own another poet
and those who glimpsed the man

enigmas and personality
and adventurous history.

Hamish, soldier, carouser,
wanderer and Scot,

in heaven a week before
the great haikuist Bob

what is nonsense spoken
in a funeral oration

or a beautiful tribute
on the internet

to the surprises they will get
from each other,

lines of people
leaving lines of words.

……………Sally Evans

…

Sally Evans – Edinburg, Scotland

English and Japanese flower arrangements

Roses  stuffed in an extravagant bowl,
silver or porcelain, weighed down with blossoms,
paeonies deafening the pinks,
polka-dots of garden forget-me-nots
bursting with assonance and rhyme,
inflorescences of foliage, heavy late lilac,
indescribable lilies, flowing and crowded,
the tip of a stem drifting a little out of line
but all the lovelier for it; here and there
a few tall wild buttercups on grass-like stalks,
slender, adding pin-point to the ensemble,
all pastel, pink, rose, gold and bright
over loud leaf, grey-green, anemone-grey.
Pouff. Inflammable. Expressive. Nature and art
locked in battle, luscious, caught at play.
Or backcloth, on the house’s sideboard,
fully expected, never seen exactly
that way petalled, ever or again.

*

……..interviewed all day
……….three branches
…….frame the breaking bud.

……………Sally Evans
……………

Victor P. Gendrano – Carson, California, US

Setting Sun
  …For Dina E. Cox on the death of her father

remember when
the sun at its apex
exudes warmth to all
and exits with dignity
to its night’s journey

when it finally
disappears from view
linger on and bask
on its golden trail
and hoard those memories

when night sneaks on you
think always of tomorrow

……………Victor P. Gendrano

Linda Robeck – Merrimack Valley, Massachusetts, US

Untitled Sequence

in the foam
of a spent wave
rainbow

clustered beside
the new gravestone
violets

the heat
in his eyes
red dress

……………Linda Robeck
……………

.Deborah Russell – .Baltimore, Maryland, US

Urgence

unbalancing
the delicacy of your smile
and twilight of your eyes
a mottled moon hangs low
you and I so high
as we listen to soft whistles
of reeds and willows
and insomniatic birds
we curl our vision
between the misty rise
of river ripples
and the lazy swirls
of chimney smoke
a quiet urgence
wavers rhythms to my heart
you smile at the reception
and I recite your poem
word for word.

……………Deborah Russell
……….