“Why I Don’t Meditate”
I relish life’s blurts, the Eurekas!
of the day, free samples in bakeries,
hitting twenty-one on the first deal,
ninth inning home-runs and upsets
in big games. I crave immediacy,
everything on, myself awake
to morning, afternoon, and night.
I detest meringue, the separation
of mind from body, the inside
from the out. Let body-blow stagger me
or punch-line baffle me, my
quiet time is for reading, desire,
and for sleeping next to you,
for love and love’s cry. I
want to be near when the moon
rings the crystal bell of sky.
The infant who smiles at my funny hat,
the cat’s sudden leap and settle
in my lap, an English sonnet’s surprise
of couplet--these cannot be dreamt
cross-legged in silent starved repose.
I feast on the unexpected--sunlight
slanting through predicted rain,
the sudden passing of excruciating
pain, the sound of leaves in wind
scratching at my door, that succulent scent
when I bow to a rose.
—Joseph A. Soldati
Did we hear the blades
rattle and the old engine
bawl, or smell the rancid
exhaust? --I don’t recall.
Around the great lawn we drove--
circumference ever smaller,
as down into a vortex--
and found our green center.
—Joseph A. Soldati
First published in Pointed Circle, 2007
Joseph A. Soldati has published numerous poems in a variety of literary magazines, journals, and anthologies, including Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass (2007); Across the Long Bridge (2006); Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems (2002); and Knowing Stones: Poems of Exotic Places (2000). Flying Machines, published by Icarus International, awarded him its year 2000 poetry prize for “Moon on the Wing.” Other journals and anthologies in which his poems have appeared include Margie: The American Journal of Poetry, Clackamas Literary Review, Solo: A Journal of Poetry, Pointed Circle, Spanish Moss, Into The Teeth of the Wind, Hubbub, Fireweed, Ruah: A Journal of Spiritual Poetry, Demilitarized Zones: Veterans After Vietnam, Stafford’s Road, Carrying the Darkness: American Indochina--The Poetry of the Vietnam War, and Trains and Rain. His most recent chapbook of poems, Apocalypse Clam, was published by Finishing Line Press, in 2006. He is also the author of a scholarly book, Configurations of Faust (1980), a poetry collection. For more information, visit his Web site at josephsoldati.com.
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“The Sound of a Wooden Bell,
Port au Prince, Haiti”
“No one listens to the cries of the poor
or the sound of a wooden bell.”
—Haitian saying
It is morning
on Delmas Avenue.
The street is crowded,
noisy.
Tap-taps rumble past.
Venders hawk their wares:
bananas, nuts and cigarettes.
A mother holds out her hand,
holds out her child, “America,” she pleads,
“America.”
I shake my head.
And somewhere,
deep beneath her gaze
I hear
the sound of a wooden bell.
—Ron Talney
“Cut-Mango”
Father,
for the first time
since your death
I use your knife,
the tiny one
you always carried.
I am here,
in El Salvador,
here, in my hotel,
peeling a mango.
It is hot. Below
the streets are crowded,
noisy. Smells
from pupuserias
rise into the spaces
of the alleyway
outside my window.
I think of how
in better days
you might have been here too.
Carefully
I cut the fruit.
Carefully I clean
and fold the blade.
Here in El Salvador
at last
we are at peace.
And, Father,
here at last
cut-mango tastes
so sweet.
—Ron Talney
Ron Talney is a retired legal aid attorney. He has published four books of poems, “The Anxious Ground” from Press-22, “The Quietness That is our Name” from Bohematash Press, “A Secret Weeping of Stones, New and Selected Poems” from the Legal Studies Forum of West Virginia University, and “The Broken World” from Stone City Press, part of the William Stafford Chapbook Series. He has published in numerous literary magazines and quarterlies, including Lynx, Hubbub, Windfall, Fireweed, Oregon Times Magazine, and others.
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“LEGACY”
There is a stench in this house,
the stench of rancid oil
and corruption.
It is almost certain to
sicken the next tenant.
The walls look shiny and white
but if you put your hands to them
you feel the vibrations
of screams.
The screams of prisoners.
This room
contains the souls
of victims.
It is a room so large
the entire world
cannot contain it.
The children alone,
ghost hand in ghost hand,
would encircle the globe.
But even this
pales in comparison
to the unadulterated evil
permeating this house.
If it were smoke
the winds of history
would blow it away,
but it
is thicker than smoke,
thicker than blood.
A new tenant will dwell here.
‘Hail to the Chief’ will play again.
But the shadow on this building,
the stain on these walls,
will endure as long as memory.
—Bob Zahniser
Bob Zahniser is a frequent contributor to the Portland Alliance Poetry Page. To read more of his work, visit whyareweiniraq.com.
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