30 Poems in November! Blog – Fall 2022 (Nov. 14)

Welcome to our Poetry Platform.  We are sharing some of our writers’ new poems every Monday.  Thank you for reading and thank you for supporting them in their creative endeavor and Center for New Americans in our welcoming endeavor!

 

She Died of a Broken Heart

 

I was 7, eating an ice cream cone

on a hot July day the first time I heard this,

chocolate swirl rivulets painting my hand, liquifying my napkin, polka dotting my shoe

hopelessly losing the melting race

 

‘It’s not you, it’s me,” he said,

bombing the village of my heart,

which he’d spent the last six months

painstakingly building to spec,

leveled, beyond recognition in an instant

 

I knew I couldn’t outrun it,

Wouldn’t savor the last bite,

sticky gooey sweet sloppy in my mouth,

cone ripped from me, ejected into the trash

by my mother’s discerning hand

 

Instantly bereft, I was yanked by a stronger hand from the carnage in the trash,

hot, petulant rivulets painting my cheeks, open mouthed wail of chocolate devastation,

Somehow I survived.

—jannie dziadzio

 

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11/8/22

 

Orange

Full moon

total eclipse

election day

sign holding door

knocking

phone calling

fear

rising courage spreading

Wind blowing

The times they are a changing

Even so

We make soup for Adele

Get help moving furniture

Talk with a farmer about the drought

Look in the pantry

Be glad we have a pantry

It rained yesterday

Kale still grows

Election results start to come in

The cat still needs to be fed

Television charts are lighting up

Fetch wood for the stove

Pause

Look up

And there she is

Full and bright

Cold light

Tonight.

 

—Jennifer Ladd

 

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Mirror in the Dark

 

a frozen pond on a moonless night

a mirror in the dark

closed eyelids on a waking dream

 

Do I hear something

                   and strain to see it?

something?

                   anything?

 

Do I crave reflection

                  to assure my existence?

 

Or do I breathe in the dark

                 let it fill me

till the urge

                 to carve out words

                                   images

in white inkflesh

 

breaks the dark

                 and lets in the light?

 

How long before the dawn?

How long before spring?

 

Winter is this place.

 

—Isabell VanMerlin

 

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Precipice

 

Walk where the precipice meets

Sky crystal blue, layers shimmering

Black volcanic rock

with dusty ochre clay

a hard fragile world

Don’t look back

 

Walk where the precipice meets

dark grey clouds

shadows low

purple hills dotted in green

a delicate faded light

Can’t look back

 

Walk where the precipice

edge falls over

in slow motion

boulders tumbled

future is just beyond the present

 

Walk where the precipice

looks forward

mountains protect you

waterfalls power you

through smoke, thick heat

through turbulent winds

but messages ravens carry

on iridescent wings desire truth

 

—Jodie Shapiro