POET SPOTLIGHT: STEVIE SMITH

NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

THE WISE MAN

find strength, i was told,
in compassion; be bold

and alive, defer seeking
approval, he said:

be loved after
you're dead.

JEALOUS

wipe away that
smirk of drink
or privilege
or both --

from your mouth and your walk
and the way you are and you talk.

QUOTABLE

"There ain't no answer.
There ain't going to be an answer.
There never has been an answer.
That's the answer."

- Gertrude Stein

POET SPOTLIGHT: KATHRYN STARBUCK

A GIFT

Who is that creature
and who does he want?
Me, I trust. I do not
attempt to call out his
name for fear he will
tread on me. What do
you believe, he asks.

That we all want to be
alone, I reply, except when
we do not; that the world
was open to my sorrow
and ate most of it; that
today is a gift and I am
ready to receive you.

Source: Poetry (March 2009)

QUOTABLE

"To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float."

- Alan Watts

PRACTICING AS IF

people say what
do you think you are
doing? as if

anyone can take you
serious, what
with the short lines
and absence

of imagery.

but i am
practicing as if
my life depends on it.

QUOTABLE

"Obscure or 'difficult' poems are often neither. They are merely arbitrary. Quite often arbitrariness emitting from a quite brilliant mind, but arbitrary all the same. There’s plenty of room for strangeness, mystery, originality, wildness, etc. in poems that also invite the reader into the human and alive center about which the poem circles."

- Thomas Lux, as quoted in CERISE PRESS by Sally Molini

UNEASY FLYER

next to you
is a pilot who
today is only a passenger

but nevertheless wise
to uneasy flyers
and he tells you: think

of air like water.
they have the same properties.
imagine you are

on a boat, bouncing across
the waves. you are
not afraid of the motion.

do you worry, he muses,
you'll drop to the bottom
of an ocean?

("actually one time
when i was nine.")

well you're not
going to drop
to the bottom of the sky,
at least not today.
which is awful

nice of him to say. you
don't tell him you know
two people gone
down in crashes and so
his analogy makes you think

more of drowning
than bouncing,
more of clinging
than letting go.