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Inukshuk, Tide Line
Photo by Karla Linn Merrifield
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The
gifts mentioned in the poems this month were as varied as those in the example
poems posted on November 1. There are four winning poems. In addition, there
are two honorable mentions this month: Tyson West of the state of Washington for
“Two Doves for Dorothy” and Prithvijeet Sinha of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh,
India for
“Noel’s Big Day.”
There
is a lot of word play in Karla Linn Merrifield’s poem as she tells us what she
wants for Christmas:
The Properties of
Rock
This
holiday season
I
am hoping to acquire
the
properties of rock.
I
could really use
a
stocking, maybe two,
full
of porosity.
If
Santa Claus can only deliver
something
so-not-Vogue,
this
year I’ll dress up
as
a creature of interstices.
I
wish to celebrate your simple gift
of
permeability, long to weep
right
through my own soft stone.
And
what I want for Christmas, honey,
is
chemistry. I want to be the limestone
worked
on by water for eons.
And,
should you throw in
three
or four more books
on
Great Basin paleogeology,
I’ll
be perfectly calcareous.
I’ll
be the propertied rock of love.
~
Karla Linn Merrifield
Bob
McAfee, who wrote the next poem, must have had his tongue in his cheek. He
plays with malapropisms (another kind of word-play), while maintaining the arch
of the narrative in his poem.
The Gift
For
your birthday I’m learning to pop lead balloons
with
a sugar toothpick when all you asked for
was
a flaunt-proof copy of your poetic license.
My
lips are sealed in your own self-interest.
All
you requested was a flak jacket to wear
navigating
your tone-drone when violating enemy
airspace
in the no-lie zone but I gave you a ball gown
with
a princess crown and angel wings.
The
year you asked for a basketball and
a
Buck Rogers decoder ring with a twisty dial
I
gave you my words in a chapbook as you
fought
in court the suspension of all disbelief.
Remember
the time I gave you the choice:
me
or what’s behind Door Number Three –
you
answered with a Mona Lisa simile,
pretty
as a picture, mighty like a rose.
This
is the year when I give you the world,
a
contribution to the reliquary
where
you keep your vestiges,
O
Madonna of False Preconception,
as
you wave to the homeboys singing hosannas
behind
your back, leading the twilight scramble
down
Saint Mark’s Square, crossing the Bridge of Size
to
your sell in the palace of the Doge.
We sit on a bench near the statue of
Charlemagne
in front of Notre Dame, you feeding
pigeons
to an allez-chat before we cross the love
bridge
(Pont Des Arts) where you handcuff a
homeless man
to the railing in a display of eternal
affectation.
Early in the mourning of summer poultice
we circle
the rocks at Stonehenge until the light
strikes exactly
at thirty-seven degrees refraction and
reaching
into my pocket, I disgorge a small box
containing
a gift that will last forever, something
small and shiny,
something round and golden that you wear
on a finger;
you guessed it: a Buck Rogers decoder
ring.
~
Bob McAfee
Judith
Tullis reminds us how many gifts we take for granted by focusing on an
every-day gift.
A Special Gift
Daybreak
is a special gift,
a
time to discard the tired tropes
of
yesterday along with midnight’s
wanton
dreams. I can float, unmoored
by
past mistakes, misgivings, misfortunes,
free
to absorb the buttery warmth of sunrise.
I
revel in a blank page of quiet before
the
layering of sounds begins – whispers
of
cottonwood leaves, imperative call
of
a cardinal at the feeder, rumble
of
a school bus or a spouse’s murmur
when
reaching warm arms to share
the
magic of his awakening.
Until
the last dredges of sleep have departed,
we
lie content in the other’s presence,
a
familiar habit that never disappoints,
the
condition in which each day is
celebrated
because neither of us knows
when
our morning will forget to come.
~
Judith Tullis
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Elaine Sorrentino’s Mother
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There
is an old Chinese folk tale where every good thing that happens turns out bad,
and the seeming disasters turn out to benefit the characters in the story.
Something like that happens in Elaine Sorrentino’s poem:
The Gift of Water
No
choirs sang, no trumpets blared
no
fanfare announced its arrival,
it
was neither wrapped nor ribboned
boxed
nor bowed,
no
one hid it mischievously behind their back
or
told her to close her eyes for a big surprise.
Her
gift arrived, first as drips from the ceiling,
then as a waterfall, cascading down archways and walls,
then as a waterfall, cascading down archways and walls,
this
gift of water that soaked life as she knew it,
blessedly destroying her two-story living space,
blessedly destroying her two-story living space,
precipitating
a move to more appropriate quarters
for an 86-year-old with bad knees and a failing memory.
for an 86-year-old with bad knees and a failing memory.
She
may not realize it,
but Christmas arrived early this year for my mother.
but Christmas arrived early this year for my mother.
~
Elaine Sorrentino
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The Water-Damaged Home
Photo supplied by Elaine Sorrentino
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The
poems above are the property of their authors. Please do not copy without
permission.
BIOS:
Bob McAfee is a retired
software consultant who lives with his wife near Boston. For several years he
made an hour train commute to and from Boston and developed the habit of writing in that fixed time. He continues to
try to write two hours every day. He has recently published two books of verse
and a book of limericks and nonsense rhymes. A fourth book is simmering on the
burner, due out in early 2020. His style is eclectic, but his goal is producing
poems with both fierceness and a reluctant sense of optimism.
Karla Linn Merrifield, a
nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had
700+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 14 books to
her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s
Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the newly released full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North
from Cirque Press. Her Godwit: Poems of
Canada (FootHills Publishing) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is
a frequent contributor to The Songs of
Eretz Poetry Review, and assistant editor and poetry book reviewer emerita
for The Centrifugal Eye.
Elaine Sorrentino is Communications Director at South Shore Conservatory in Hingham, MA, where she creates promotional and first-person content for press and for a blog called SSC Musings. Facilitator of the Duxbury Poetry Circle, she has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Writers' Magazine, The Writers Newsletter, Haiku Universe, and Failed Haiku.
Judith Tullis is the former
Vice President and current Treasurer of the Illinois State Poetry Society and
the current Secretary of the Poets and Patrons of Chicago. She lives in a small
house with a large garden where poetry often happens.
Come
back next month for a new challenge! In the meantime, you might like to read
this book:
© Wilda Morris
