Breath: a poem

Breath
by Charles Deemer 

There are moments in life
so unnatural to normal breathing
that I hold my breath
for as long as possible

with the mindless faith
that when I finally inhale
I will be revived with pure
oxygen and a new wondrous
landscape filled with beauty
that takes my breath away
and all the past difficulty
of breathing will be as forgotten
as last night's nightmare.

Reading Harry Potter

For My Son, Reading Harry Potter
by Michael Blumenthal

How lovely, to be lost
as you are now
in someone else's thoughts
an imagined world
of witchcraft, wizardry and clans
that takes you in so utterly
all the ceaseless background noise
of life's insistent pull and drag soon fades
and you are left, a young boy
captured in attention's undivided daze,
as I was once
when books defined a world
no trouble could yet penetrate
or others spoil, or regret stain,
when, between covers, under covers,
all is safe and sure
and each Odysseus makes it home again
and every transformation is to bird or bush
or to a star atwinkle in some firmament of light,
or to a club that lets you, and all others, in.
Oh, how I wish for you
that life may let you turn and turn
these pages, in whose spell

time is frozen, as is pain and fright and loss
before you're destined to be lost again
in that disordered and distressing book
your life will write for you and cannot change.
"For My Son, Reading Harry Potter" by Michael Blumenthal from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012. © Etruscan Press, 2012.

Negative Space

Negative Space by Ron Koertge 

My dad taught me to pack: lay out everything. Put back half. Roll things that roll. Wrinkle-prone things on top of cotton things. Then pants, waist- to-hem. Nooks and crannies for socks. Belts around the sides like snakes. Plastic over that. Add shoes. Wear heavy stuff on the plane. We started when I was little. I'd roll up socks. Then he'd pretend to put me in the suitcase, and we'd laugh. Some guys bond with their dads shooting hoops or talking about Chevrolets. We did it over luggage. By the time I was twelve, if he was busy, I'd pack for him. Mom tried but didn't have the knack. He'd get somewhere, open his suitcase and text me—"Perfect." That one word from him meant a lot. The funeral was terrible—him laid out in that big carton and me crying and thinking, Look at all that wasted space. 

"Negative Space" by Ron Koertge, from Sex World. © Red Hen Press, 2014. Reprinted with permission. (buy now) 

Grandchildren

Grandchildren
by Olivia Stiffler

They disappear with friends
near age 11. We lose them
to baseball and tennis, garage
bands, slumber parties, stages
where they rehearse for the future,
ripen in a tangle of love knots.
With our artificial knees and hips
we move into the back seats
of their lives, obscure as dust
behind our wrinkles, and sigh
as we add the loss of them
to our growing list of the missing.

Sometimes they come back,
carting memories of sugar cookies
and sandy beaches, memories of how
we sided with them in their wars
with parents, sided with them
even as they slid out of our laps
into the arms of others.

Sometimes they come back
and hold onto our hands
as if they were the thin strings
of helium balloons
about to drift off.

"Grandchildren" by Olivia Stiffler, from Otherwise, We Are Safe. © Dos Madres Press, 2013.

Japanese Maple

Japanese Maple
By Clive James

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that. That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

Men Are Like Rivers

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that . . . Men are like rivers; the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself—while still remaining the same man.

Leo Tolstoy, "Resurrection," Book I, Chapter LIX. Nekhludoff`s Third Interview With Maslova In Prison

Where I'm From

Where I’m From

By Ryan Saulter

I am from the disc golf,

from medals and Blazer posters.

I am from fresh air

(hanging out with Dad,

it tastes like cheese burgers.)

I am from the brown owl,

the bench in the backyard
where I can watch the sky
and breathe.

I am from reading Dr. Seuss,
the Rose Garden,

from Cousin Bobby and Aunt Marilyn.

I'm from football
and movies,

from bad words, and I don't like Beaverton.

I'm from being safe

and doing the right thing.

I'm from California and McGuire Park,

 Bacon cheeseburgers and mac n cheese.

From Chicago

and my Aunt's awesome pancakes.

In the closet,

a box of baseball cards

that remind me of being young.

I am from rain showers
friends, games,
and feeling safe.