Archives for October 2021

Got It!

October 19, 2021 By admin

Dear LouAnn

I received the poem you emailed me this morning, and while I have never before responded to what some would call spam mail, the power of your words has compelled me to react.

Of course, the title blew me away and is responsible for me opening your message in the first place.

steam execrate munificent knifelike perturbation

It’s almost erotic in its jangled phonetic alliteration and who uses pertubation these days? Fantastic, just spellbinding.

And then with no preamble, you catapult into the cavity of your cathartic calvacade of free verse:

catheter execrate capacity catheter
consultative particular perdition fixate vulcan sara
propos installation steam ann
fixate declamatory particular celery propos bracken particular nakayama celery bracken
vulcan celery hawkins swedish
tennessee rockbound va bracken abstain particular makeup mckay
gustav papery letitia uproot va bellicose va celery rockbound

I’ll admit that the back and forth emphasis on assonance and consonance was a bit off-putting at first, but then it just grows on you. The allegorical references to sara, ann, hawkins, mckay, gustav and letitia were inspired. As symbols of repressed ids, it conveys perfectly the pent up sexual desire they feel for one another.

The reference to nakayama was a little bit obscure for me, but upon Googling the word, I learned that they are Japanese wheels and that helped the whole celery metaphor to fall into place.

Unfortunately, bracken remains a mystery. I know that it’s a type of fern, but it seems so antithetical to the importance of the celery and it’s rarely found in Sweden, so I could use some help in understanding this element.

The repetition of rockbound did not go unnoticed either. It seemed to me to be an ideal way to anchor the verse to the hard, unyielding firmament, and the emotional cold shoulder given to the poem by those who do not understand it.

Once again, I compliment you on your work and look forward to reading more of your poems in the very near future.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept . His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here .

What Is It Near?

October 19, 2021 By admin

woodland The college town where my husband and I lived was never dark at night. People were always coming and going. When we moved north to New Hampshire, there were adjustments to make. The supermarket was half an hour away. The town had three streetlights, and went quiet after dark.

In time, we found our own fun. The neighborhood families played kick the can until it was too dark to see, and in the winter card games next to the wood cook stove in someone’s kitchen passed snowy nights.

We eventually bought a house where a young forest was all we saw from windows on any side. If a car passed by after nine at night, we sat up and looked at each other. This was what we wanted. But a guest from the college town questioned our choice. Standing at the top of our driveway, she looked around asking, “But, what is it near?”

That was decades ago. When the pandemic shut down life’s usual activities, many people discovered what we already knew. Our home is near a richness of life in its many forms, and we have only to look outside, or walk the trails near the house to appreciate it. In the gardens outside our house, butterflies and hummingbirds enjoy our flowers as much as we do. Flying traffic makes the bird feeder a busy avian airport, and we mark the seasons by the species that flutter in and out. Then there are the chipmunks, who scurry away with dropped seeds and chatter at our cat.

Down the road, geese land in a marsh where they can feed and rest on their migratory journey. They arrive as the dense canopy of oak, birch, poplar and maple leaves turns color and floats earthward. Then the snows arrive. The teeming life so nearby has gone dormant or disappeared underground. Before the snow is deep enough for snowshoes, it reveals the tracks of visitors who don’t want to be seen. Raccoon, fox and deer live not far away. We even hear an occasional owl.

As years accumulate, I know we are closer to the time when the luxury of immersion in a wild environment will no longer be safe or convenient. We can only hope our final home will be near at least a fraction of such a rich, engaging habitat.

Chris Hague’s poems and stories have been published in various literary magazines. She has written an arts column for the Weare Free Press and other weekly newspapers.

An Open Window

October 19, 2021 By admin

Loud music filled the room, making it hard to hear anything else. But then again since I am deaf in my left ear, hearing anything has its challenges. Also, I had the volume full up to drown out another loud sound, the curse of the neighbors barking dogs.

Even with my semi handicap, I find that symphonic music sooths the troubled soul. Today I was hoping a Mozart’s Symphony would bring a bit of peace to me.

The cacophony of barking dogs in my neighborhood recently has me worked up into a murderous rage. I am looking for Wolfgang to unrage me. I am wasting too much time googling how to put poison into raw meat, fanaticizing about shooting despicable dogs with an arrow from a passing car (borrowed from a Wal-Mart parking lot with fake plates). Enjoyable to think about but non- productive as even my most ingenious plans for canine demise is handicapped by lack of follow through on my part. One thing I did look up on the magic computer: “mafia hitmen for animals’’. The search came up almost empty, there was one entry for a guy with an office next to the city dump in Des Moines, but his name Vermin Smith. He sounded like someone I definitely did not want to meet.

The deeper theological question is why did our good Lord put them there to terrorize me in my old age. Was it to punish me for some unforgivable sin from my youth? I am pretty sure I never had the pleasure of an unforgivable sin in my youth, but with my memory the way it is at the moment, who knows? Was it to punish me for the unkind things that I have said abut my various neighbors and their families over the years? Ouch.

Those barking beasts keep destroying my naps and my supposedly quiet times on the back patio in the morning, an integral part of my mind set for the day as I prepare for it with coffee and the paper.

My wife says that the fact that barking dogs bother me is my problem. I disagree.

The other day poetic justice rang out. I received a call from the neighbor who harbors the howling dogs complaining about the volume of my CD player featuring my man, Mozart.

Kenan Bresnan likes Mozart more than barking dogs.