Enjoy these selected works submitted by local poets, featured in our most recent print edition of The Corvallis Advocate:
By Frank Babcock
The Best By Far
~ with a nod to Langston Hughes~
I wonder how it would be
if you really pressed me for my body,
satisfied your lust like a slide guitar,
limbs confused in light
“swift dying of our mingled breath,
just you by my side in a naked room?”
The Paint Your Wagon creed says,
the second and third best things in life,
a stiff drink and a good cigar,
can put a wiggle on you,
spill the beans, the best by far
is your hot breath in a naked room.
By Cynthia McCain
Origin
when, in the fog shrouded valley,
the sun has moved away from home
and the clouds are the only sky
sometimes
on those days
we go to Marys Peak
we go up the long road
around the corners
grim in the dark firs
on some of those days
near the top
where the noble firs grow,
silver and purple
sometimes near the top
all of a sudden,
yet softly,
we rise above
some days the clouds cling
to the shoulders of Marys Peak
but a different day
shines bright on the summit
the sky is the blue that unbelievers don’t deserve
and the setting sun paints the shadow of the Peak
on the top of the clouds beneath us
Once upon a time,
Marys Peak was covered in trees.
Every year, when the clouds hid the mountain top
from the valley below,
and the sun shone on the Peak,
some trees woke up,
so ecstatic that their roots danced free,
and flew into the air.
And that’s why, after all these years,
there are only flowers and grasses,
only meadows, on the top of Marys Peak.
By Frank Babcock
Xylem and Phloem
Inspired by When a Poet Dies by Alice Walker
The job of trees
is to root in the ground
looking for the bones
of dead poets,
bring them to the surface,
in this way distributing
the small molecules
across the universe.
Trees with hands held high,
branches offering
thoughts and beauty,
rising through xylem and phloem,
and in respiration
to be rained out and spread
back to larger ground.
By Cristina Luisa White
Transition
When I came to this town, I was a stranger in a strange land, always adrift, like a leaf, wind-blown, my heart full of longing for friends far away.
Gradually, Corvallis drew me in—first by its courtesy, then, its generosity. Shopkeepers and clerks who always had time for hello, how’s your day? Drivers slowing to a stop as I waited in the driveway, waving me in to take a place before them on the road, chivalrous to a fault.
I fell into step with the rhythm of the seasons: winter gray and rain forgotten in spring—a profusion of color and scent, children at play, cherry trees in bloom—their flowers floating down and around, carpeting the sidewalks in a soft pink snow, all of us easing into sunlit days and summer daze; music and games and art in the warm blue air, abundant trees offering shade from the heat, their lush green leaves surrendering, at last, to autumn’s chill, suffused by an amber fire, each leaf a gem, bright, brilliant, crimson and gold, nature’s treasure, wealth beyond reason.
As I walked in neighborhoods, my own and those further afield, I grew to love people I didn’t know, except by the gardens they tended. And then, over time, not quite knowing when I crossed the line, this was home.
By Steve Jones
An Invitation to Embrace Bittersweet
––for Katelin Rose, Yogini
Like the best imported dark chocolate,
life seldom presents only sweet
without a harsh dash of bitter.
May we learn to embrace the bitter,
and savor the sweet, while holding
trouble & sorrow in our left hand
and joy & love in our right.
This steadfast vigil nurtures whole-heartedness.
By Michelle Bouvia-Emeott
From an Elder
What do you see when you look at me?
Grey hair and wrinkles?
The unfashionable compression socks on my legs?
These legs have walked for miles toting sleeping children,
These legs have skied down mountains deep in snow,
These legs have followed the shores of three oceans,
Chasing waves as they raced along the sand.
What do you see when you look at me?
A turkey-wattle throat?
The flab that hangs down when I raise my arms?
This voice inside this throat has taught hundreds of children
To read and write and count to ten,
This voice has been part of a dozen choirs,
And jazz bands, and folk bands, and blues.
This voice has been raised in protest,
Reminding our leaders they work for us.
These arms have carried babies all night,
Back and forth across the floor.
What do you see when you look at me?
Someone who forgets things
If she doesn’t write them down?
Who tells boring stories
About beloved places, no longer there?
This brain used to photograph whole pages of data,
So that it could be used another day.
This brain has absorbed the words of many masters,
And read five thousand books.
This mind knows how to solve problems,
Has found a way for sixty-six years.
What do you see when you look at me?
The fadings? The failings?
The “can’t do that any mores”?
Why not the wisdom gained at a price?
Why not a resource like water, or trees, or gold?
From Our Staff…
By Sally K Lehman
It’s Late
The night has sprung a moon and
the moths are out to eat the beams.
The apple blossoms are nothing but petals
spreading twilight.
Listen to the stream ripple the stones,
like small teeth clenching a lip, a knuckle, a tongue.
Listen to the crickets call across the grass,
like children singing into the dark.
Memorize these sounds.
They’ll last you in the hours to come,
when things are still. When the owls and
their prey
are the only creatures allowed to unsteady
the night.
I can close my eyes and feel the spring-damp grass
on my feet,
and feel the murmur of wind float past,
and remember your lips on mine.
And it’s late, too late.
Come home.
By Stevie Beisswanger
A House Called Woman
They built me (for generations)
a house called Woman
spackled over calcium
heartbeat drumming up until
She screams,
“WHAT’S GOING ON!” she screams, we screamed
and scream
There were other houses called Woman
so many shades and sizes, harboring
bent forecasts, blood songs, and scripts
from DVDs
Woman’s walls were rosy,
packed with pictures she couldn’t face,
their smiles inducing
residual panic:
other lives, other layers of paint
She opened all her airways, just to breathe
the birds, coming and going, until
“It’s time,” she hears, from nameless
basement
Entity—to pluck
your feathers, Leave
them like breadcrumbs
and unravel
from this nest
Woman soars—
away from those other houses, with weeping
anatomical wounds and
septic survival
Old faces, strangers, try to guide her organs
“home,” but smirking, she gestures toward event
horizons, cawing “there…
Can’t you hear my name
on the wind?”
Womanshell wilts
concerned neighbors knock, hearing
hollow
hollow
They question whether all along Woman was
Mirage
Some grow accustomed to her vacant lot,
bake hopeful coded casseroles when the sale sign unstakes
Others are rattled
they board their doors and windows
from the birds, build
extensions, tunnels, bundle and coat
Some, when they watch Woman’s excavation,
will softly fold to silence, watching
polished particles, all afloat
Woman’s belongings: suspended, defiant,
lawless
She will not be able to stay put.
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