Our “Poem of the Week” features an experimental poem by Pigpen Madigan. You can read the poem in the conventional way or read two poems, one in parentheses, the other not, separately. We have paired it with a photograph by Rana Williams. Both are from the Winter issue of Third Wednesday.
Our poem of the week comes from Louisiana poet, M. Rush. It’s from the winter issue, just released.
Our Poem of the Week is a piece by one of our favorite poets, Jack Ridl, who is from Michigan. It’s a great poem with an even greater title.
Chamber Musicians Also Wash the Dishes, Check the Mail
But now the chamber musicians are
just past halfway in Glazunov’s Elegy,
the part where in rehearsal they stopped.
“It feels as if I’m behind.”
“I don’t think so. I think I’m ahead.”
When I listened all I heard was a whole note held
in the third movement of a symphony
by Tinnitus, all I felt was the wax waning
onto the timpani of my ear drum.
Next comes another elegy, this by Suk,
Suk who was fifteen when he wrote its
sorrow-filled walk through what he did
not yet know. The chamber musicians
know. They carry elegy in their fingers.
They open the world on the other side
of every note and let us breathe
within the haunting space between each
touch of key and pull of bow. They believe
heaven is between the stars, music
in the empty sleeve of the one-armed man.
-Jack Ridl
Douglas, Michigan
Our poem of the week is titled “Haiku”, but it obviously is not one. It comes to us from Kathleen Chartrand, who lives very near the Land of Oz in Wichita, Kansas.
Haiku:
can
you swallow rocks
rolled in the mouth of rivers
or tasted by
fish? do
scales whisper truth
flaking from slippery seers
diving into
night? water
reflection gives
mercy to past transgressions
lingering from
guiltis
sea salty foam
from endless tears? seaweed grabs,
twisting
apart lieswhat
of the mermaid
song illuminating night,
crafting oyster
pearls?
Kathleen Chartrand
Wichita, Kansas
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Ten lines. That’s all you need. Our poem of the week is by a Michigan poet who has a few words of wisdom from his Grandpa. It comes from the fall issue of Third Wednesday, which will be in the mail to our subscribers in just a few days.
Grandpa
taught me to slow dance
for
that first dance in fifth grade.
Place
your right hand,
just
firmly enough,
on
her back,
so
she can feel it,
Then
she will decide
if
she wants to move with you.
That’s
all I remember –
all
that ever mattered.
Timothy
Philippart
Holland,
Michigan
Unless you’re a birder, “kettling” may be word you’re not familiar with, an obscure word that is both title and subject of a poem by Lisa Timpf of Simcoe, Ontario. You may still want to look it up, but Lisa illustrates the meaning for us in a picture of words.
Kettling
no
vessel of heart or hand
large
enough to encompass
this
kettle of migrating raptors
riding
the updraft
coasting,
in lazy-winged spirals,
while
we, like admiring ants,
stand
clod-like and rooted to the earth
so
far below
sharp-taloned,
keen-eyed
afire
with a fierce and magnificent beauty
they
speckle the overcast sky
their
cries harsh and primal
their
gyrations an echo
of
the enigmatic circle
of
life
itself
Lisa
Timpf
Simcoe,
Ontario
Some poems seem ordinary until you come to the last line, which knocks you back on your heels. Here’s an example from Maine poet, Dave Morrison. This poem may not have made it into our summer issue without his final five words.
Wedding Matchbooks
When I was young, very
often you would attend a
wedding reception, and at
each place setting there would
be a book of matches with the
couples’ names, and the date
embossed on the cover.
It was a beautiful tradition;
weeks later you might light
a cigarette and wish Jerry and
Elaine a life of happiness, you
might throw a match on the
charcoal and remember Burt’s
funny and touching toast, you
might spark a firecracker and
wonder what the future held
for them, you might light the
pilot in the hot water heater
and wonder what went wrong.
Dave Morrison
Camden, Maine
We can’t resist those really short, pithy poems that come our way from time to time. Here are two from our Summer Issue by poets Mingzhao Xu and Gary Wadley:
The Launch
“Where are we going? I asked the rickety roller-coaster, edging upwards.
The old boards winked, “home,” then launched me into the sun.
Mingzhao Xu
San Diego, California
Cat
it is morning the first day
it is always the first day
Gary Wadley
Louisville, Kentucky
I love a surprise ending. Our poem of the week is by Spencer Smith, who lives in Utah. The narrator asks a lady on the bus what’s inside her basket. Maybe curiosity really did kill the cat. I was also struck by how Spencer had me hooked from the first three lines. This is how you keep a reader reading.
Handbasket
It is not large enough to hold hell,
though there may be some pieces inside
that have broken loose.
The woman’s fingers, crimson-nailed,
press tightly on the lid
as if caught in the throes of a Beethoven chord.
She knows I am watching her,
wondering what she is hiding;
she rotates away from me like the face of the moon.
When it is time to board the bus
I sit next to her as if by tragic accident.
but she is not deceived.
It lies clenched in her lap,
wicker lid breathing mystery.
She unwraps her scarf and tents it over the handle.
I hear no sounds of creatures inside;
no scent of zoo or decay hovers before me,
no aroma of bread or berries.
She turns to me suddenly, angrily,
lipstick red as her nails, and hisses that
it is the shrunken head of her dead husband.
I suppose it serves me right.
I smile at her. In these situations, I say,
it is good to keep our heads.
Spencer Smith
Taylorsville, Utah
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Cemeteries, oddly enough, are great places to find inspiration for some great poems. Think of Billy Collins riding his bike through a cemetery in Florida or Ted Kooser sitting on a cement bench in a cemetery in Iowa. In our poem of the week, we turn to Ken Meisel of Dearborn, Michigan for some musings about a “Small Sculpture Angel”.
– Mt. Kelly Cemetery
The small, sculpture angel,
writhing over the resting
stone, her cement hands
clasping a bouquet of someone’s
grieving funeral flowers,
seems at first to you
to be alive – her face, so
tender and flushed chaste
with afternoon sun, her eyes
occupied with insects and moss,
her small gown, dirtied
by the season’s robust
and feminine floral platter,
and her tiny toes, emergent
like rose beetles as she
freezes here in perpetuity
as you move closer to her
to find her chronicle
and her sculptural falsity,
so imminent and so still.
And, as you roam here,
where the graves are
solemn signatures of silence,
you discover that she
is not even alive here,
and she is nothing –
compared to the mother
and her young daughter,
these grievers you witness,
so alive still, and so vast,
with their own bird hands,
like raw crows, slashing
the roots and pottage out,
where the graves,
those silent tableaus
of lost hours and echoes,
wait – for living angels –
those reliquaries, to come.
Ken Meisel
Dearborn, Michigan
