Three More Poets On A Page
Where are Grandma and Grandpa?
by Douglas Wayne Fowler
A lukewarm cup of tea,
transmits distorted images of a half-finished sweater.
Muffin aroma,
overcomes the thousand-scented air.
Saw teeth, like linear daisy petals,
yearn for one more morsel.
Pine and petroleum,
battle endlessly in opaque spaces between tools in the workshop.
Where are Grandma and Grandpa?
Could they be the silver children that I saw,
so eagerly gaining aluminum sustenance from the park?
No, couldn't be.
Grandmas don't need money because they are rich.
Rich with the smell of warm bread on Tuesday morning.
Rich with God's flowers in a treasure-full garden.
Rich with knitted creativity, given from the soul.
Rich with giving, infinite Love.
No, couldn't be.
Grandpas don't need money because they are rich.
Rich with the memories of a long-forgotten conflict.
Rich with the calluses of a commended breadwinner.
Rich with sanded joy, given from the soul.
Rich with giving, infinite Love.
No,
that couldn't have been them,
on their way to the next life-giving can of shame.
No,
not in America.
Copyright © Douglas Wayne Fowler 2003
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Douglas Wayne Fowler lived the first 26 years of his life in
the Chicago area, where, among odd jobs, he played drums for various rock bands. He currently
resides in Missouri, with his wife Holly, where he works as a computer programmer.
Doug has always considered himself a poet, even though he has only recently begun to share his work.
Contact the author at: dfowler0@mchsi.com
Too Much With Me
by Billy Dean
We drove out here from the city
To get back to nature
And write poetry.
But you are still too much with me.
You and your metabolic processes,
Symbiotic relationships,
And semantic cages for rats who hop like kangaroos.
If you were not here,
I would see the puzzled look on the face of those rocks
Towering over me in that steel-blue sky.
But your tectonic plates
And molten, geologic theories
Blind me to the suffering that compelled these boulders
To shoulder their way to the surface—
Worlds ago.
I drove out here from the city
To meet the yucca and its moth
To shake hands with the cactus who jumps.
To make friends with the lizard
Who dreams on lichen-carpeted stones.
But you are still too much with me.
If I had come alone,
I would know why the green snake sleeps in the shade
And what lizards dream of
In their blue-bellied shadows.
The wind singing to the pinyon pine?
The bright, blue voice of the jay?
Both are buried in the noise of your reason
Under a pile of paper and study.
Without you,
This old juniper would have told me
Why she stands alone with only her needles
To face a hot sun, an empty sky,
A cold, dry wind.
We drove out here
—You and I—
One bimetallic strip
With two very dissimilar
Coefficients of expansion and contraction.
You, full of your map and its lines,
Me, empty of my pen and its power.
If I had left you home,
We both would have discovered
Where the wind is going,
What it will say to the next canyon,
And why the buckwheat are nodding
Their red-haired heads in the wake of its breath.
My eyes are hungry
For those hawks circling overhead.
And my skin aches to touch
That wild grass swaying at my feet.
But you are still too much with me
To hear the smile dancing
In those yellow little flowers.
Or see the desert trumpet
Call her wasp home for the night.
Or smell the green swords of the Mojave
Cut the air with silence.
I drove out here to be alone with my heart.
To play with my imagination.
To hear with my eyes, and see a sound.
To taste a touch, and feel a scent—
To cross over
But you are still too much with me. ...
Copyright © Billy Dean 2003
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Billy Dean says: "Poetry has been a good friend of mine since early
childhood. But my career as a technical writer prevented it from being anything more than a casual interest.
"Now, retired in the high desert of southern California, writing poetry
helps me stay in touch with those things which have heart and meaning.
"When I began taking poetry more seriously (about five years ago), it
felt as if the technical writer in me was more hindrance than help. It is now
clear, however, that writing a poem is both work and play. First, something
(the muse?) begins to "play" with my imagination. Perhaps this is the
right brain people talk so much about. Then my left brain (that technical writer in me?)
begins to "work" with those first lines.
"Eventually, I have something I
can call a finished poem. But perhaps no poem is ever really finished until it
finds completion in the hearts and minds of somebody besides its author.
Perhaps this is why I continue to seek a wider audience for my poetry than my own
eyes and ears."
Contact the author at: billydee@inreach.com
Rose
by Drew Ferrara
Red satin petals, green stiff stem
Sweet smelling rose, dew drops on you
You sway and rock in the wind
Standing in a field
You are very pretty and lady like
Looking here at me
I sometimes wonder, why are you so beautiful?
Who is your creator? Who sat down and made you,
As pretty as you are?
You're very sweet and soft to touch
when I touch your flower
But you do have thorns that prevent me
from holding you, even though I want to.
Copyright © Drew Ferrara 2003
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Gatekeeper?
by Drew Ferrara
There is a gate to my heart
That protects me from the world.
This gate is only opened for a few people
But I will open it up for you.
For you, I will unlock my gate forever
And throw away the key.
I will give you my heart if you give me yours.
We will rejoice in the garden
With each other's hearts.
But until you give me your heart
My gate will be locked forever.
Copyright © Drew Ferrara 2003
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Contact the author at: ferrarat@jmu.edu
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